_Rowena’s POV_
I went back at two in the morning.
Velvet wanted to come. I told her no, which she accepted, thankfully. Kasper was a harder conversation, he wanted to come, had reasons that were tactically sound, and was not the kind of man who accepted no without a counteroffer.
“If I’m not back by four,” I said, “then you come. With people.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Three-thirty,” he said.
“Fine.”
So I went alone.
The southern quarter was quieter at this hour, not empty, cities were never empty, but reduced to its skeleton. Delivery vehicles and the occasional late workers,. I parked two streets over and went the rest of the way on foot, moving along the building’s eastern wall where the security camera coverage had a gap I had identified that afternoon.
