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For technical knowledge, I must thank Karl Horlitz, a wonderful friend, Eagle Scout, excellent researcher, and fountain of arcane knowledge. If I need anything, from caring support to a new skill, I can turn to him. Thank you for the Boy Scout handbook, thank you for all you taught me, and thank you for one a.m.

My most profound thanks and eternity of worship must go to Valerie and Irene Schmidt, who, in addition to being two of my best friends and Jaguar’s two greatest fans, are also two of the most amazing editors I know. Their suggestions helped shape this from the bulky, rambling stack of papers it was at first to the novel you are reading now.

I send sincere gratitude and love to everyone else who contributed to this work, including raVyn, Kelly Henry, Haley Ulyrus, Jesse Sullivan, and Kyle Bladow. I never could have done this without your support. Thank you all.

She made a little shadow-hidden grave,

The day Faith died;

Therein she laid it, heard the clod’s sick fall,

And smiled aside —

“If less I ask,” tear-blind, she mocked, “I may

Be less denied.”

She set a rose to blossom in her hair,

The day Faith died —

“Now glad,” she said, “and free at last, I go,

And life is wide.”

But through long nights she stared into the dark,

And knew she lied.

The Dead Faith

Fannie Heaslip Lea

CHAPTER 1

SOME PEOPLE USE THINGS; they destroy. You’re a creator, a builder. The words came unbidden to her mind, completely inappropriate at the moment.

Distracted by the memory Turquoise missed a block. She hissed in pain as the knife cut deep into the meaty underside of her arm. She caught her attacker’s wrist and twisted, sending the young woman attached sprawling to the ground, as her father’s words faded from her mind. Once, they might have been right, but now, they could not have been further from the truth.

The woman Turquoise was fighting wasn’t clumsy for long. In a near-blur of burgundy hair and black leather, Ravyn Aniketos sprang to her feet.

Turquoise rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks in them, and blinked quickly to clear her tired eyes. This match had been going on for too long. She was bleeding from where Ravyn’s knife had sliced through her arm, and she could feel the warm, sticky drip of blood down her back from a second wound on her left shoulder. Ravyn’s black leather pants had been slit open in the thigh, and she had a shallow wound low on her jaw, which would probably heal without scarring.

Earlier, there had been other combatants; most slunk out the back door, defeated, within the first few minutes.

The fight was a competition of stealth and hunting ability. In near darkness, the competitors found and marked one another — a quick knife slice, just enough to draw blood. If a hunter was marked three times, he or she was out of the running. Turquoise was pleased to have lasted so long, but only victory would satisfy her pride. Ravyn likely felt the same. The next one of them to land a blow would win, becoming the leader of Crimson, the most elite unit of the Bruja guilds.

Somewhere in the building, a clock struck, once, twice …

Turquoise lost track of the clock’s tones as she struck again. Ravyn cursed as the blade narrowly missed her stomach, and Turquoise barely managed to evade an answering strike to her cheek.

They were both getting tired, and tired quickly became clumsy. Only the fact that they had both been fighting for hours kept them evenly matched.

The clock finished its song, and left the room in eerie silence, broken only by the ragged, heavy breathing as the two fought.

“Ravyn. Turquoise.”

Turquoise slid a fraction of her attention to the voice but did not allow her gaze to leave Ravyn.

“Sheathe your weapons,” Brujas leader, Sarta, instructed. Someone flipped the switch and both fighters blinked against the sudden light. “I have a feeling that this competition could go on for days if I let it,” she announced, “but Bruja law does call for a limit.”

Ravyn licked the blade of her knife clean, her cranberry-colored