Chapter 6: Burnt Toast and Truce

By the end of the first week Aria had a routine, and routines are how people survive anything. Up at four. Down the east staircase in socks, past the portrait of a Drakos grandfather with a face like a locked safe. Out through the garden door, where a silent young guard named Lenny, who had been ordered to see nothing, saw nothing with remarkable enthusiasm. Into the back of the black car, where...