Aignéis's hand suddenly snaked out and grabbed the wrist of the lesser soldier, even though she could feel the burning pain that his iron gave her. Her eyes had become as sharp and hard as flints.

“There is no way for you in the back,” she said sharply, lowering her voice to a dangerous hiss. “My associate has already told you that the girl in question was dismissed and cast out onto the streets. It is time for you to take your search elsewhere.”

She pushed a sense of certainty into her words so that they would be influenced to think of her words as truth, although the iron against her skin was lessening the force of her power. Her other hand was slowly creeping closer and closer to one of her knives just in case. Aignéis did not like violence, but she was no stranger to it.

This was not the first time that she had encountered humans who were angry and vengeful at the female workers for causing them harm, and on previous occasions she had done everything within her power to sway their vengeance. She had begged, and seduced, and on one occasion killed, but none of those past customers had been iron police. Aignéis worried that there was no way for her to save the girl from the iron police, and she worried that she would have to hand Isi over to them to save the lives of every other girl in the place.

The options were either that or killing the police. At this point she could not say which was the easier task.