TWENTY-ONE
"Leave me," Maram commanded her attendants, and they did, leaving her alone in the bathhouse.
Except...she wasn't really alone.
"You may approach," she said softly.
A dark-clad figure melted out of the shadows. "I was informed you might have a job for me."
Maram turned a seductive smile on the hooded man. She did not need to see his face as long as he could see hers. "There is no might about it. If you are indeed the best assassin in the city, then I have a job for you."
"There is no assassin better than me," the man said.
Maram knew it was a lie, but this man probably did not. The best assassin she knew was out of the city, with no definite return date, so second best must do.
"Then tell me. If someone paid you to assassinate the Sultan, how would you do it?" she a
