"You've done this before," she says.
He wipes blood from his knuckles. "We need to move."
She hesitates, staring at the unconscious mercenaries. Then she kneels, rifling through their pockets.
"What are you doing?" Kael muttered behind her.
"Honest work," she says, pocketing a handful of shards. "Now let's go rob a bastard."
— – —
The innkeeper's safe was hidden behind a portrait of himself—a garlish oil painting that depicted the man as a benevolent patriarch rather than the cutthroat extortionist he was. Lira snorted when she saw it.
"Vanity's a louder alarm than any bell," she whispered, her breath fogging the grimy window they'd pried open to slip inside.
The inn's back office reeked of Blight-rot and cheap perfume. Moonlight filtered through moth-eaten curtains, casting skeletal shadows over the desk cluttered with ledgers and empty gin bottles.
