She started preparations the next day. When Flick took Lettie for a walk, Kyra locked the door behind them. She tore a few strips of cloth from an old tunic, placed them on the table, and drew her dagger. Then she hesitated. The Makvani thought nothing of spilling a few drops of their own blood, but Kyra still found it difficult. After a few false starts, she sliced a shallow cut across the top of her arm. It wasn’t deep, but it stung, and Kyra drew a sharp breath through her teeth as the blood welled out. She sopped up her blood with the cloth strips, rolled them into balls, and tucked them into her belt pouch.
The next day, she dutifully reported to the Palace to discuss the rash of new Demon Rider attacks in the countryside. The Defense Minister had no further news on Lord Agan’s sons, and Kyra didn’t press him. Instead of leaving the Palace afterward, she took a back path that led to the prison building. She was somewhat familiar with the layout. The building itself was built solidly of stone, with barred windows in the aboveground floors. Since her series of break-ins to the Palace, Malikel had gone through and made sure that none of the windows were vulnerable. Not that it mattered much. The most dangerous and valuable criminals were imprisoned in holding cells two floors belowground.
The building was thoroughly guarded, with Red Shields patrolling the corridors at all hours. The locks were well crafted and impossible to pick—she’d tried a few times out of curiosity. The only keys were kept by the head warden in the guardhouse in front of the building. He knew Kyra—had guarded her when she was a prisoner there—and probably wasn’t keen to trust her. The warden was supposed to keep his keys on his person at all times, but Kyra, who still paid attention to things like guards and keys, knew that he often removed his key ring from his belt and placed it on his desk while he worked.
Now she approached the guardhouse from the back, out of view from passersby. The window was open. The warden was at his desk, and his keys were next to him. Perfect.
The holding cells also had dog patrols—usually a deterrent to intruders, but in this case, Kyra would make them work for her. She pulled out the strips of cloth, stiff with her blood. Looking around one more time to make sure nobody was watching, she tied the cloth pieces to some bushes in front of the guardhouse, low enough so they wouldn’t be easily seen. Then she backed some distance away and waited.
The dog patrol came by half an hour later, a Red Shield with a mean-looking wolfhound on a leash. Kyra watched the dog carefully as its handler brought him closer. A low growl came from its throat as he neared the place where Kyra had secured the cloth strips. The Red Shield pulled on the dog’s leash and looked around, but urged the animal forward when he found nothing awry. The dog’s growling continued, and as it came closer to Kyra’s dried blood, the growls turned into full-on panic. The Red Shield cursed and struggled to get the animal under control as it tried to bolt.
“What’s going on?” The prison warden came out of the guardhouse, voice sharp.
Kyra made her move, creeping closer to the guardhouse as quickly as she could. There was a slight wind, and she could hear the dog’s panic increase as it caught a whiff of Kyra herself. She needed to be fast. The back window to the guardhouse was open, thankfully, and she lifted herself easily through it. She could still hear the warden yelling at the Red Shield outside as the dog continued to bark and growl. His keys were still on the table.
She made a mental note of the key ring’s position before she lifted it up, holding it carefully to keep the keys from clanging. They were arranged by floor, and she wanted the farthest cell in the lowest level. When she found it, she took a piece of clay from her belt and pressed the key into it—once on each side. She also copied the key to the main prison itself. The dog was still barking madly when she climbed back out.