Kingdom of Scourge and Shadow (The Sightstone Series #1)

Chapter Thirty-Four: Zoya

"Rijkelund is the economic hub of the Northern Lands. The wealthiest country on the continent, it is also one of the smallest. Its prosperity has made it a shipping center and a colonial power, and most foreign loans come from its banks, which in turn has given it significant diplomatic clout."

-Gerard Van Daal, historian, Allerstad: Disease and Trade on the Winter Sea, Vol. 2

***

 The embassy was strangely silent. Zoya had expected the building to be a hub of energy, like Allerstad's Trade Exchange, or its Port Authority, or the City Hall. Instead, it had that muted, stifling silence of a museum or a library. Or a graveyard.

It set her teeth on edge.

Zoya slipped through the halls like a ghost. The rubber soles of her custom-made boots made no sound on the carpeted floor, and she darted from shadow to shadow, letting the murky half-light in the halls surround her, hide her.

As they'd suspected, guards were stationed along regular intervals in the corridors of the lower floors, so Zoya had entered from the roof, and now she found herself gliding through what could only be the servants' quarters on the top floor. She'd picked her point of entry deliberately. There was a banquet in progress, and the Saroviyan ambassador and his wife were entertaining Rijkean officials and the Rajani ambassador, so the servants were all occupied waiting on them, leaving the upper floor deserted, or close enough that there was no one likely to notice Zoya skulking about.

Clutched tightly in her hand was a syringe filled with a dose of a powerful sedative. She didn't want to leave a trail of bodies in her wake, not tonight. Nothing would signpost the arrival of an intruder any more clearly.

But guards asleep on duty, or an official passed out drunk... Well, it might earn them a reprimand, but the worst that would happen was that they'd lose their job, and Zoya would be in the clear. Far tidier than killing people, and Zoya preferred jobs when they were tidier.

Zoya drifted on silent feet down the staircase. The third floor housed the ambassador's residence and his staff's suites. With everyone who wasn't at the banquet still at work, it was as deserted as the servants' quarters.

Down here, everything radiated luxury. Where the servants' quarters were spartan and too clean, the air reeking of lye and lemon, a favorite cleaning solution among Rijkeans, here the air smelled of fresh-cut flowers and beeswax and cedar. The walls were papered with the finest damask, and the floor was polished wood, not carpet.

There were a handful of guards up here, most stationed in front of what could only be the ambassador's quarters, but none of them even looked up as Zoya slipped from shadow to shadow, moving as gracefully as the dancer she'd once been.

She took a few minutes to peer into the empty rooms, trying to identify which ones belonged to low-level clerks, and which to higher-ranking officials. On the day of the heist, the easiest way for her to get in and out of the building would be through the third-floor windows. The rooms belonging to lower-level officials would be more likely to be empty during the workday than those belonging to their bosses. If Zoya wanted to slip in and out unseen, she'd have to make sure to pick an empty room.

When she'd confirmed multiple breach points and ruled out even more, Zoya slipped back down to the staircase and drifted downstairs. According to the plans Natalie had nicked–almost as expertly as Zoya would have done–the embassy laundry was located in the basement, directly beneath the service entrance, so, before risking running into people on the busier levels, Zoya hurried down, down, down into the gloomy depths of the basement.