The shutters were closed and secured from the inside. Caim took a thin steel bar from his belt and slid the hooked end between the wooden doors. After a moment of searching, he snagged the latch and lifted it out of the catch. The hinges swung open without protest. The window was closed, but not locked. Caim pushed the misted panes open far enough to slip inside.

He paused as his soles touched down on the floor of a hallway, one hand under his cloak to grip the hilt of a knife. This was the most precarious moment. Had his entrance been heard? He listened for sounds of movement, for the sharp intake before a cry was given. Even an old man could raise a hue, and in this neighborhood the tinmen would come running. Fortune favored him tonight. All was quiet.

The hallway ran the width of the top floor and joined with a staircase winding down to the levels below. The target's room was the third door on the right. Caim crept across the hardwood floor and paused at the first door to listen. According to the packet, the target's daughter was a child of five. She should be sound asleep at this hour, but children could be unpredictable. The crack under the door was dark and no sounds issued through the wooden panels, but Caim stood at the door for several moments. He didn't like the idea of harming innocents, especially children. Yet by his actions tonight he would be making an orphan of this girl.

I'm serving the greater good. The target was a vicious man who had earned death a hundred times over. The daughter would be better off without him. Sure. That worked out well for Duke Reinards son, right? Caim put the thoughts out of his head as he continued to the third door, the master suite.

He drew his right-hand knife, turned the knob, and eased the door open. By the orange glow that emanated from the stone hearth, he could make out the details of the long room, which was larger than his entire apartment. A four-poster bed against the far wall dominated the floor space, but there was room enough for a large desk and chair, a sideboard, and rosewood cabinets. The bed was empty, its blankets flat against the tall mattress.

Caim turned his head very slowly until he located his target, slouched in a chair beside an antique desk. Wisps of white hair rose above the seat back.

Caim glided across the bedchamber floor and yanked the head upright by the hairs with his free hand. The suete knife came up. Its point hovered as Caim stared down at his victim.

He could not believe his eyes.

"Can we go now? Please?"

Kit sat on the desk and regarded the old man's body. She'd appeared moments after Calm's discovery. Upon hearing that it hadn't been him who put the victim's lights out for good, she had lost her zest for sticking around, but he wasn't ready to go, not until he made sense of this.

Was another contractor working the same job? This was a good score and there were plenty of knives looking for work. Throat-slitting had been a time-honored tradition in Othir since the days of the emperors, long before Caim had set foot within the city limits. The viciousness of Nimean politics was legendary throughout the world, and it hadn't lost any of its ferocity with the rise of the Church. But Mathias usually made sure he had exclusive rights before farming out an assignment. In fact, he was obsessive about such things. It was just good business.

Caim leaned against the victim's desk. Curled sheets of parchment were stacked on the cherry surface, held down by brass equestrian paperweights. The inside of a glass tumbler was smeared with a glazy film. He smelled it. Ground fennel root, a tonic for headaches. A ceramic frame rested on the shelf above the desktop with the portrait of a young girl with striking green eyes. She sat in an elegant pose, black tresses curled around her heart-shaped face, gloved hands folded upon her lap.

Caim looked back at the old man. He didn't look much like a fabled general. He more resembled a scholar with his long, somber features and aquiline nose. The loose folds of his nightgown showed where his chest had been hacked open. Hacked was the operative word. The cuts looked like they had been made with a meat cleaver.

He bent down closer. Some blood was pooled in the old man's lap, but not nearly enough for such a traumatic injury. And the carpet beneath the seat was dry except for a few coin-sized dots of blood. The victim's eyes were open wide, the muscles in his face tensed. Both hands hung straight down at his sides. No signs of rope burns, but rings glittered on both hands, one gold band set with a large beryl. Caim frowned. A Gutter-bred thug wouldn't have missed those pieces, which would bring a good price at any fence in the city. There were no other signs of distress, so either the old man had been taken unawares, or he had let his killer do the bloody work without a struggle.

Or he had been dead before he was cut open.

Caim searched for other means of death. A quick inspection ruled out strangulation, poison, and blunt force. He knew of a few poisons that left their victims paralyzed, but they were expensive and difficult to procure. In any case, why use poison when you intended to carve up your victim afterward? The only reason was to send a message. But to whom?

"Caim?" Kit said.

He walked around to peer over the victim's shoulder. The angle was poor. The killer must have worked from the front, or he had an accomplice. Possible scenarios played through Calm's head as he came back around to the front. He squatted beside the corpse and reached out with a gloved finger. The flesh around the wound was discolored, turned almost tar black, and the hole was deeper than he first thought. The victim's breastbone had been shattered by the impact. Forget about a meat cleaver. The killer must have used something heavier. Like what? An axe? It seemed to Caim as if he had seen something like this before, but he couldn't remember where. He slid his fingers deeper into the wound, ignoring Kit's ewww of disgust, and made another discovery.

The old man's heart was gone.

Kit twirled a piece of silver hair in her fingers. "Okay. The job is done. Let's just get out of here before someone finds us with this old relic."

"No one's going to-"

The door opened. Caim had a knife out before he was fully turned. He checked his movement as a girl entered. No child, but a lady in the first bloom of womanhood. Her delicate frame was wrapped in a high-necked nightgown; its diaphanous panels glowed bright in the wan light of the bedchamber. Wavy midnight hair curled about her ivory shoulders to frame aristocratic features. Her eyes, twin gimlets of emerald, pierced the darkness like jewels of green fire.

"Father, I want you to reconsider-" She froze as she saw Caim.

Then, her gaze fell to the old man in the chair. She lifted a hand to her abdomen as she swallowed a sob and opened her lips.

Caim leapt.