This Monster of Mine

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Reading hadn’t been her strongest suit growing up. There’d been too much that Cretus needed done for her to learn, and when she’d once made the mistake of staring longingly at booksellers from Sal Flumen in the town square, Cretus had spread word that the tunnel rat was getting aspirations.

She’d resorted to eavesdropping behind Arsamea’s only schoolhouse, memorizing organs, blood vessels, which herbs, roots, and fungi could be used as anesthetics and which would induce pain—the town’s healer had limited that discussion to a disappointing “if you don’t recognize it, don’t eat it,” and her dreams of giving Cretus laxatives had died early. But healing had come easily to her, while her reading had been limited to Violet Snowgrape Delight, bottled in the Month of Seas , Year 548 of the Tetrarchy —Cretus’s worst wine, though no one dared say it—until Cisuré.

The first time she’d spoken with Marus’s daughter had been upon finding her crying outside the schoolhouse, clutching the ends of her newly chin-length hair.

“It looked so pretty on Instructor Flavia,” she’d wailed, tugging up her hood when other children leaving their lessons snickered.

“It looks nice,” Sarai had ventured. Her own hair kept snagging on barbs when she climbed for snowgrapes. Cisuré’s shorn locks made a good deal of sense.

She withdrew her small harvesting knife and took it to her braid. Dropping the hair, she shook her much lighter head and found Cisuré gaping at her like she’d gone mad .

“You really like it?”

Sarai thought her hair spoke for itself but nodded anyway. A few girls had halted, looking from Cisuré’s hair to Sarai’s. She fidgeted, conscious of her grimy face from pressing too close to the window to listen, and quickly left. The next day, no less than four other girls showed up with short hair, much to the dismay of their mothers.

She hadn’t thought much of it until Cisuré sat at the back of the schoolhouse. She’d wondered if the other girl had gotten in trouble. Then, Cisuré had angled her slate to show Sarai the paragraph she was copying down as their instructor read aloud from An Accurate History of Ur Dinyé . Their eyes had met with identical grins. And at the age of ten, she’d acquired three great gifts: Cisuré’s friendship, every book the other girl had, and literacy.

She’d never been more thankful for it than now.

Sarai reached down to massage a cramp in her legs and immediately adjusted herself at Kadra’s searching look.

“Tired?” Behind his desk, he sat across from her without a hair out of place, as though reading a hundred petitions took no more energy than pouring a glass of wine. Meanwhile, her head was swimming, and she could feel the hollows under her eyes growing deeper.

“No.” She forced her sagging back to impeccable posture. His faint huff of laughter proved that she wasn’t fooling anyone. Damned man.

She hadn’t had a lick of time to visit the Hall of Records. Departing the morgue, they had returned to Aoran Tower, much to her bewilderment.

“Shouldn’t I be helping adjudicate cases?” she’d asked upon entering his tablinum.

He’d sat at his desk, and she’d prepared to firmly inform him that she wouldn’t be frozen out of the job simply because he hadn’t wanted a Petitor. Then, he’d shifted half the scrolls on his desk toward her. And he had a large desk.

“Start with those.” He’d tilted his head expectantly at the pile.

She’d been swimming in ink and parchment since .

Petitions were preludes to a trial, setting down the parties, grievances, and witnesses, and infrequently accompanied by statements given by the defendants. Scribes across Ur Dinyé recorded both and referred them to iudices, the closest town’s judges, for trial. Where matters involved complex issues of law or where the iudex saw no reasonable path to resolution, the petitions were brought to a Tetrarch. From every corner of the country.

She rested her head in one hand, dazed after hours of going over homicidium , calumnia —malicious prosecution—and crimes that just kept coming. No wonder the Tetrarchy didn’t decide the outcome of every case together. They’d never get anything done.

She returned her last scroll to Kadra’s desk and fought the urge to collapse onto it. Beyond his windows, Edessa’s rosy dawn had given way to noon. Nihumb and zosta blazed scarlet on her armilla, warning that she’d be out of magic in a couple hours. So this is the infamous workload of a Tetrarch’s Petitor. But she hadn’t expected for Kadra to work just as hard.

Cretus had been a lazy taskmaster, but Kadra seemed to demand as much of himself as he did of her. In the few hours of their reading, he’d worked his way through his half of the pile of scrolls and then started on hers, focus unwavering for so much as a second.

Sarai risked a glance at him in the sunlight. Faint lines hardened his temples and bracketed the grim set of his jaw. Yet there was a grace to his features, unyielding in the way of a sculpture. As she stared, one of his brows rose.

“Yes?”

She cleared her throat. “Do the other Tetrarchs get this many petitions?”

“Every day.” He set down the one he’d finished. “Not what you expected the job to be?”

“I expected more writing than reading.”

“That’ll come in two days.” He rolled up the scroll, large hands securing the tie around it. “We’ll be adjudicating these over the week. ”

“This week,” she echoed weakly. A hundred cases in a week, and she was the poor sod who’d be determining who was lying. She turned to the remaining half of the petitions with the painful realization that she was going to have to read them, too.

As if he’d read her mind, Kadra indicated the small mountain of parchment. “When you can,” he said pleasantly. “Is five hours enough?”

Now you’re just mocking me. “Plenty.” She ignored the fact that it was going to take her at least eight. “I won’t slow you down.”

Kadra looked as though he were fighting a laugh. “Of course.” He made a notation in the margins of a scroll.

She watched the sharp strokes of his pen with a sinking feeling. Might as well get it over with. He’d notice the second she started writing.

“Do you require good penmanship?” she asked in a rush.

“Why?”

Taking a scrap of parchment, she dipped her pen in the inkwell and, with a deep breath, wrote her name, acutely aware of him tracking the wobble of the letters, how some sat slightly higher than the rest. Every flaw, magnified.

She set the pen down and splayed her fingers on the desk, which quivered even worse under the attention. “It’s a … condition I can’t control,” she reluctantly admitted. “I know judgments need to be legible. If this is unacceptable, I’ll train myself to do better.”

He rounded the desk to extend a hand into the tense space between them. After a moment’s hesitation, she gave him the parchment.

“I don’t see a problem.” His scrutiny went from the letters to her. “Your writing suits you.”

The swell of pride that had foolishly rushed into her chest at the first half of his pronouncement immediately disappeared.

“Because it’s irregular and imprecise?” It came out grimmer than she intended, and his face turned thoughtful. He flipped the scrap to reveal dark wounds on the back where she’d dug the pen too deep in an effort to steady her hand. Embarrassed, she winced, but he looked unsurprised .

“I only see determination.” His voice was a low rumble, surely calculated with the effect of undoing her because every word sank into her bloodstream, potent as wine.

She would have let herself be swept off to a world where men like him were kind without reason, if it weren’t for the way his gaze tracked her, studying her response. Manipulator . He’d say anything to make her choose him over the Tetrarchy. And yet, her body didn’t panic despite the scant inches separating them. Her shortness of breath seemed less a product of anxiety than … anticipation.

Absolutely not. Crumpling the parchment, she stood just as he leaned down and collided into his shoulder. She instinctively gripped him to steady herself. The second her fingers clutched the front of his robes, she knew it was a mistake. She stilled. Whatever she’d been about to say died in her throat. And for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

Why you? she wondered bitterly. She’d resigned herself to the fact that a normal life wasn’t possible, that no man would want her when she flinched away all the time. So what cruel joke of the gods was it that only he didn’t trigger the panic?

After a breath, the indifference on Kadra’s face gave way to faint surprise. His stern jaw tightened, guard visibly going up. Sarai couldn’t tell if she was relieved that he was taken aback as she was. She released her grip, palms up to convey that she hadn’t meant to touch him and hid her embarrassment by brandishing the long-forgotten bit of parchment with her writing.

“I don’t need pity,” she muttered.

“I have none.” His voice held no softness. “But I won’t hold you to the standards you hold yourself. I will ask many things of you, Petitor Sarai, but I will not ask for perfection.”

Damn you . For an awful second, she felt utterly exposed before him. Before she could snap that not everyone could flout the world’s unwritten rules the way he did, the tablinum door swung open.

“Tetrarch Kadra, there’s a—” Cato halted in the doorway. “Visitor. ”

Breathing fast, she stepped away from Kadra, searching for something to occupy her hands. She’d barely begun gathering the remaining petitions when Cato cleared his throat.

“The visitor’s for you, Petitor Sarai. It’s Petitor Cisuré.”

Juggling an armful of parchment, she turned in time to see Kadra’s face harden. She raced upstairs and dumped the scrolls on her bed before joining him outside.

Beyond the gate, Cisuré waited in ivory and silver robes. Evidently unable to see them through Kadra’s wards, she squinted at Aoran Tower, then jumped at the sound of him unlocking the gate.

Her face lit up with relief upon sighting Sarai. “There you are—” Cisuré’s eyes went flat as Kadra emerged. “Tetrarch Kadra,” she spat. “May I borrow Petitor Sarai if she’s done for the day?”

What in hav?d? Sarai stared. She’d never seen the other girl so furious.

“What business do you have with my Petitor?” Kadra asked softly.

Her mouth fell open at his emphasis. As thunderclouds gathered on Cisuré’s face, Sarai had the strangest feeling of being the rope in a tug-of-war contest.

“Tetrarch Aelius would like to meet her. With your consent.” Cisuré sounded as though the bit of politesse had cost her a limb.

“Of course.” Kadra barely acknowledged her, eyes still on Sarai. Her pulse jumped when he dipped his head toward her. “Come back in one piece.”

“Naturally,” she muttered, turning to Cisuré. She halted.

All color had drained from the other girl at Kadra’s parting comment. Face pinched and pale, an ugly light roiled in her eyes, looking unnervingly like hatred. Without a word, she gripped Sarai’s wrist and stalked away, pulling her along.

Sarai struggled to keep up. “What, by all the High Elsar, was that about?”

“What do you mean?” Cisuré walked faster .

“You! Spitting at Kadra like he was your sworn enemy. I thought you were terrified of him— Oof!”

Cisuré seized her in a tight hug. “By Temperance, I was so worried! Did he try anything last night? They say he’s ice, but he’s a man …”

Memory returned unbidden of the brush of Kadra’s fingers across her neck when he’d removed her birrus. An uncomfortable heat crawled up Sarai’s cheeks.

“I’m fine. Kadra has no interest in me.”

“It’s just odd.” Cisuré took a cobblestone path going east. “Tetrarch Aelius only asked me this morning to move into the domus by his tower. I’m close by and retain my privacy. Why did Kadra rush you into living with him? It’s not like he wanted a Petitor.”

True. In her determination to enter his stronghold, she hadn’t thought about why he’d invited her there. What part of him tearing down the Tetrarchy required her to stay at Aoran Tower?

She couldn’t ask Cisuré. One mention of Kadra demolishing the Tetrarchy and the other girl would likely have an aneurysm.

Sarai shrugged . “Who can tell what goes through his head?”

“Ugh, who wants to? … So, what’s Aoran Tower like?”

An image flashed in her head of Kadra’s half-open robe, of firm muscles rising and falling with each breath. “It’s nothing special,” she bit out without thinking. “It’s just been a while since …” I’ve felt anything substantial beyond anger. Since—

“Since you’ve seen anything outside Cretus’s tavern, yes?” Cisuré drew her through a series of corridors. Students parted for them, nervously eyeing their robes. “So he doesn’t have any heads on pikes? Hasn’t imposed a curfew?”

“No, and no.” Sarai tossed out the unnecessarily detailed portrait of Kadra’s chest her brain had chosen to capture. For a notoriously private man, he hadn’t laid down any ground rules for how their cohabitation was to work. “What do you know about Kadra? People seem to love him, but you and Harion act like he’ll kill us all. ”

Cisuré cast a glance around them before pulling her behind a pillar. “Everyone knows Kadra’s history. They just don’t talk about it openly.”

“Why not?”

“Kadra’s adopted. Rumor says he was a street rat, found in an alley as an adolescent. Probably why he’s always been barbaric.” Her lips formed a moue of distaste. “That tower of his used to belong to Tetrarch Othus, his foster father. The relationship was reportedly quite poor, what with Kadra being Kadra.”

Cato must be Othus’s husband , she realized . No wonder he’d been taking Kadra to task that morning.

Sarai snorted. “So Kadra became Tetrarch via his father pulling strings.”

“If only. Kadra’s a … talented magus,” Cisuré admitted with distaste. “Everyone at the Academiae thought he was slated to be the next Magus Supreme. Instead, he graduated early and began working as an iudex. At fifteen. At first, he followed the letter of the law and rose rapidly through the judiciary. Then it began. The spectacles of violence, the bloodshed.”

“Why would people vote for him?”

“His devotees are as rabid as he is,” Cisuré said darkly. “And here’s something very few know about why that election was called. Four years ago, Tetrarch Othus was found butchered in an alley in his own Quarter—what’s now Kadra’s Quarter. Who do you think got his wealth, his tower, and his seat as Tetrarch?”

Four years ago. Sarai froze. “When did Othus die?”

Cisuré’s eyes widened, following Sarai’s train of thought. “It has nothing to do with the Fall,” she insisted.

“When?”

“Three days later.” She averted her gaze. “But he was a Tetrarch. There’s no connection.”

Isn’t there? Could Othus have been the other man with Kadra that night, who’d been reluctant to cover for him? Was that why he’d been killed ?

Cisuré sighed. “You worry me, you know?” She pulled back Sarai’s sleeve to display nihumb and zosta ’s crimson glow on her armilla. “A rune used to alter appearances is suspect as is, and you’re using it in his tower.” Her eyes took on a familiar dullness, some splinter of memory resurfacing. “He has more blood on his hands than Marus. One slip and he’ll kill you. I wouldn’t even know how to retrieve your body.”

Sarai slung an arm around Cisuré’s shoulders. “I’ll be careful. He won’t see it.”

“You need to get out of there. I’ll help.”

Not yet. Not until she got the answers she’d entered it for. Pricking her finger, she wiped the blood over zosta, turning it dark to conserve magic. “Well, I’ll need some of this four-thousand-aureus salary if I’m to purchase a domus. The journey here emptied my purse.”

“Oh, that won’t be difficult.” Cisuré launched into an explanation, which slipped past Sarai’s ears as her mind wandered back to Aoran Tower’s enigmatic master.

Vicious. Sadistic. Cold eyes cutting into whomever was fool enough to meet them. A man who’d apparently killed his foster father and pushed her off Sidran Tower.

Yet the pieces didn’t fit. The humor that wove in and out of his face was empty, like he’d long ceased to find the world interesting. Harion would’ve delighted in her shoddy writing, but Kadra hadn’t mocked her, or made any reference to her being a northern barmaid. And he’d wanted her opinion on Jovian’s corpse. Why? Does my opinion actually matter to him?

She swallowed a laugh at that thought. Like a man who lounged about elbow-deep in blood and wine and poorly knotted robes had any interest in what she thought. His chest resurfaced in her head and she bit back a curse. Gods, if that appears again, I’m jumping off Sidran Tower on purpose this time .

Its black spire loomed ahead, as though the gods wanted her to try. The single balcony at the tower’s top taunted her. Had Jovian fallen over that railing too? Had he smashed into the same cobblestones and bled out before Kadra? Her bitterness was a nocked arrow. By Wrath, she should spend all that focus on his chest determining how best to pierce it.

Forcing her gaze toward Aoran Tower didn’t help. It couldn’t be Jovian’s place of death. In keeping with his paranoid protection of his home, Kadra’s abode had only two egresses on the upper floors: her window and his. Even then it was a short drop, barely enough to break a leg. Two out of eight towers down . And Sidran Tower remained the most likely suspect.

Cisuré pointed at something, and Sarai nodded without comprehension. Sometimes she wondered if it was for the best that she couldn’t remember what had raced through her head as she’d hurtled toward the ground. Some days, she wished she could do as Cisuré said and leave it all behind . But all it took was a flinch away from a man or pained understanding of the years she’d lost while others fell in love and saw themselves as lovable. She couldn’t. The rage was part of her now.

“Sarai, are you even listening?” Cisuré waved a hand in front of her face.

She blinked. “Yes.”

Cisuré squinted at her suspiciously. “As I was saying, that’s Tetrarch Aelius’s tower. He’s been there for nine years, since election.”

Sarai eyed the elegant structure in the east, its walls the same blinding white as Aelius’s robes. Like Aoran Tower, it had no exits higher than fifteen feet. Unlike Aoran Tower, the main doors were visible, an intricate twist of birchwood and silver. To her surprise, not one fulgur scutum was erected near the structure. Then again, Aelius could probably fend off any bolt.

Apprehension struck her. I’m meeting the Magus Supreme of Ur Dinyé. “What does Aelius want me for?”

“ Tetrarch Aelius. We may fraternize with them, but they’re our rulers.” Cisuré’s voice softened. “Don’t be nervous. He’s a humble man and, unlike Kadra, he’s done much for the country.”

Her brows rose at her friend’s pink cheeks. “Fond of him, are we?” Vengeance had become Sarai’s master, but Cisuré seemed to have chosen a worthier contender for her heart. No wonder Anek had teased her at the Robing .

“I’m not fond . He’s a decade older! I admire him.”

“Right.” Sarai grinned, remembering how Aelius had watched Cisuré at the Robing. “Did you two know each other before yesterday? He looked at you like he knew you.”

“Before?” Cisuré flushed. “No, he reads people in seconds. He was probably confirming that I was a worthy Petitor.”

Makes sense. There had been something equally familiar in Kadra’s gaze at the Robing. As though he’d seen right through her … and found it amusing. Sarai scowled.

Cisuré laughed. “You thought of Kadra, didn’t you? Cheer up, you’re meeting a proper Tetrarch now.”

“Don’t you mean Tetrarch Kadra?”

“Like he deserves the respect! What he does is ungodly.”

Ungodly? Four years had evidently introduced more than Aelius to Cisuré. She hadn’t placed much stock in the gods back in Arsamea.

At Cobhran Tower’s gates, Cisuré raised her armilla. A half-sphere of golden filaments materialized around the structure, tendrils of sizzling light racing across it in jagged patterns. Lightning . So these were Aelius’s wards. Her skin crawled. Anyone who ventured too close would be fried alive.

Cisuré pressed blood into a rune on her armilla, and the barrier split down the center, a rush of cool air filling the gap so they could enter. She knocked on the birchwood double doors.

“Ready?”

“ Hav?d ,” Sarai muttered, earning her an elbow in her side, as the doors noiselessly parted to reveal an airy, white-walled atrium.

Unlike Kadra’s midnight mansion, Aelius embraced light. It streamed through wide windows and an expansive glass roof, bouncing off the reflective tiles. At the atrium’s center rose an ethereal tree, laden with white-petaled blossoms. A breeze from an open window spread their scent across the room.

“Magnolia,” Cisuré breathed. “Beautiful, isn’t it? ”

Astounded, Sarai nodded. A short hallway stretched ahead, so pristine that she felt her worn boots were committing a crime with each step. Beyond it she could make out the faint outline of a banquet table and …

“Is that a dais?” she whispered. “You’d think this was a trial.”

The other girl’s smile froze. “He’s a fair man. You’ll see.”

Sarai’s magnolia-induced daze faltered. Unease skittered across the back of her neck. “Is there something you aren’t—”

“Ah, she’s here,” a voice called.

Her stomach plummeted. They had reached the end of the hallway, which opened into a receiving room. The banquet table she’d spotted earlier rose front and center. Towering vases hugged the walls, vivid splashes of flora within, but her gaze stuck on the figure—figures—seated at one end of the table.

Aelius. Tullus. Cassandane. Three calculating gazes met her as she tottered forward, with all the grace of a deer wandering into a hunter’s gathering.

Ambush , her intuition screamed in warning. At the edge of her vision, Cisuré melted into a corner, a guilty flush across her cheeks.

Betrayal rose sharp in Sarai’s chest. Why didn’t you tell me?

Aelius’s brown eyes crinkled as he gave her a wide grin. “Welcome to Cobhran Tower.”

Unlocking her frozen knees, she bowed low. “Tetrarch Aelius, Tetrarch Tullus, Tetrarch Cassandane. I’m honored.”

“Please sit.” Aelius indicated the high back chair across from them.

It screeched as Sarai pulled it out, the seat leaving her legs dangling above the ground. Feeling ridiculous, she clasped her hands in her lap and attempted a smile. The men immediately reflected one back at her.

A frisson of tension slid down her spine. Mirroring. A social trick she had employed with many a drunk in Cretus’s tavern. But these were powerful people, busy ones, if Kadra’s workload was any indication. They wouldn’t fritter their time away with people like her unless they wanted something.

“I hear Kadra’s putting you through the wringer.” Aelius gave her a commiserating smile.

How had he heard that when she’d been reading in Kadra’s tower all day? “I expected the job to be hard work,” she said carefully.

“Of course. This must all be very new to you. But you performed extraordinarily well at the Robing.”

“I just … did my job.”

“Oh, we all saw it.” On Aelius’s right, Tullus popped a grape in his mouth, eyeing her chest with interest as he chewed. “How is Aoran Tower? Not a patch on Cobhran, I imagine.”

She cringed internally. The Robing had proved there was no love lost between Kadra and Tullus. “I’ve spent my entire life in Arsamea, Tetrarch Tullus. Compared to it, both towers look magnificent to me.”

“A born diplomat.” He seemed to be trying to see through her robes. “Wouldn’t have thought a hick town possessed any of those.”

“And yet, Arsamea has yielded two Petitors.” Cassandane broke in. She looked ill at ease. Sarai had the strange feeling that the other woman didn’t want to be at this gathering either. “You must have had a thorough schooling.”

“I taught myself. Runes, Probing, and all.” She’d be damned if Arsamea received any credit for her labor. Aelius’s eyebrows rose, but he thankfully didn’t ask for the specifics. She couldn’t very well admit to practicing on sotted tavern patrons.

Taking the grape bowl from Tullus, he peered at her over the lip. “Now, Sarai, are you gods-fearing?”

She recalled his lengthy prayer at the Robing. She wouldn’t call herself devout, but she believed in the Elsar. Despite the Fall and her miserable life.

She nodded. “I’ll be making a visit to the Grand Elsarian Temple soon.” She named the largest house of worship in Ur Dinyé .

“Good.” Aelius beamed. “We’re a humble people here. Our lives are at the gods’ mercy, so we rely on their every kindness.”

“I’ve heard much of your scuta keeping people safe as well,” she ventured.

“Well, many do call me the Naaduir of invention.” He grinned, referencing the minor pantheon of humans who had achieved deification through devotion to the gods. Those Naaduir who served the High Elsar were known as Saints, while devotees of the Dark Elsar had a different appellation—the Wretched.

“The Temple has been asking Aelius to consider being formalized as a Saint.” Tullus turned to her. “What do you think? Should he take them seriously?”

What in hav?d do I say to that? She stammered, “Yes, I—”

“You really should, Tetrarch Aelius,” Cisuré piped up from her corner. “Ur Dinyé hasn’t formalized a Saint in centuries. The monarchs back then lazed in their palaces without doing half as much as you have. You deserve the honor.”

Torn between awe and bewilderment as Cisuré’s speech continued, Sarai glanced at Tullus and nearly choked to find him nodding sagely. Only Cassandane looked like she was searching for a hole to swallow her.

“You’ve made your case.” Aelius raised his hands with a smile, sleeves falling back to reveal a silver armilla blazing with lit runes like Kadra’s. “I’ll speak with the Temple.”

At Cisuré’s flush, Sarai slid her a reproving glance. What were you saying about not being fond again? Avoiding her eyes, the other girl began fanning herself.

Aelius returned to Sarai. “Pardon our distraction. You must be wondering why we invited you. And why Tetrarch Kadra did yesterday.” He steepled his fingers. “Strange, isn’t it? Calling a young woman over in the dead of night.”

Hav?d . Cato was right about the rumor mill being busy. Best to nip this in the bud .

“I’m sure he thought it necessary, seeing as I work with—for him now,” she corrected when Tullus’s eyes narrowed. He clearly didn’t consider Tetrarchs and Petitors as equals on the job.

“What’s his tower like?” Tullus demanded. “It’s been ages since I was last there.”

Why is he so focused on Aoran Tower? “It’s”—Sarai cast around for a neutral answer—“quite dark. I’m afraid I didn’t see much of it last night.”

“Really?” His brow creased in irritation. “You saw nothing ?”

“I—”

“She probably only had a few hours of rest before beginning work with him,” Cassandane interjected, sending Sarai a reassuring glance.

Tullus looked like he couldn’t care less if Sarai slept or not. “I knew Kadra’s predecessor well, Tetrarch Othus. We were in and out of each other’s homes. Then, Kadra takes the throne, and suddenly no one’s allowed in. That’s suspect, being so paranoid about visitors.”

Well, we’re in a tower with lightning around it.

“It’s like he’s hiding something dangerous there. Could be treasonous correspondence, forbidden magic, even bodies.” Tullus’s eyes finally moved up to her face. “And you’re the only person in Ur Dinyé with access to it all.”

The ensuing silence had a dangerous weight to it. Anticipation. Insistence. Her spine stiffened in understanding.

She folded her hands in her lap before daring to speak. “Are you asking me to spy on Tetrarch Kadra?” Behind her, Cisuré sucked in an audible breath.

Aelius gaped. A wide grin broke across his face. “Now, there’s an idea! You’re a bright one. We all saw it at the Robing, didn’t we?”

Tullus gnawed on a grape. “Splendid idea. Will you start tomorrow?”

Wait, what? Why were they acting like this was her idea when she’d only said what they’d kept beating about the bush at?

Sarai realized her jaw had fallen open and wrenched it shut. “I was only— ”

“You’ve seen how dangerous Kadra is.” Tullus talked to her chest, scratching his grizzled chin. Sarai itched to whack him with his grape bowl. “The man delights in gory spectacle. It’s a travesty that he was even able to ascend to the position.”

She squirmed in her too-high seat. Granted, in two days, Kadra had proven himself to have no regard for the law, no qualms with making her burn a man alive, and, even under her most benign interpretation, had hidden that Jovian and the other Petitors had been murdered. But to spy on him? She may as well ring her own death knell.

“And there’s the eerie coincidence of our Petitors vanishing in his Quarter.” A cloud passed over Aelius’s handsome features. “Poor Jovian. Such a hard worker.”

Every coherent thought slipped through her fingers like water. Jovian was Aelius’s Petitor? The corpse’s crushed features returned to haunt her.

“If you do this, you’ll go down in history,” Aelius vowed. “I will ensure it.”

Her head spun. She could see it now. The tale of a daring Petitor who’d betrayed her sadistic Tetrarch.

And gotten murdered for the trouble. Oh yes, she could see it.

In the periphery, Cisuré widened her eyes, urging her to agree. There was no denying that this was an honor. So why am I hesitating?

“What must I do?” she whispered.

“You stood up to Kadra at the Robing,” Aelius said gently. “How about giving us a little more? Inform Cisuré if he’s acting suspicious. The rest of his business is his own.”

She took a deep breath. “By ‘suspicious,’ do you mean anything involving the Petitor deaths?”

“Exactly that.” Tullus snapped his fingers. “If there’s anything that ties him to the suicides, or if he seems out to get someone, you will let us know, yes?”

Fear lanced through her at the question’s knife-sharp undercurrent. She should agree. She had every intention of tearing down Kadra herself. Why not earn the favor of three Tetrarchs while she was at it ?

Cassandane looked oddly pale. “You’re the best-situated person for this task. The decision is yours.” But so are the consequences , her eyes seemed to say.

Sarai’s throat locked. This is mad. Kadra could kill her for this. But she couldn’t stop thinking of Jovian’s broken body. Of Kadra’s voice in her nightmares for four hav?d years. What did it matter to her why the Tetrarchy seemed so hellsbent on tearing each other down? Joining with Kadra’s enemies would give her vengeance faster than she could alone before a court. With three Tetrarchs behind her, there would be nowhere for him to run.

“I’ll do it.” The words reverberated in the sunlit hall. She swallowed.

Aelius’s answering smile held respect. “You’re a rare bird, Petitor Sarai. That took courage.” Rising from his seat, he came around the table to grip her hand. “Welcome to our little alliance.”

Dazed, she quickly eased away, hoping he hadn’t felt any scars in the process. Dropping Tullus’s grape-sticky palm after a few interminable seconds, she turned to Cassandane, who simply inclined her head, watching her with strangely sad eyes.

“We’ll reconvene in a month or so. If you find anything urgent sooner, let us know. But be careful,” Aelius urged.

“Ignore anything Kadra says,” Tullus added. “That man doesn’t need magic or a Petitor to tunnel into a mind.”

Believe me, I know. Bowing low upon their dismissal, she fled Cobhran Tower, Cisuré behind her. The second Aelius’s doors drew shut, the other girl seized her in a hug.

“I’m. So. Proud. Of. You!” Cisuré punctuated each word with a squeeze. “I know that wasn’t easy. You love hiding in the periphery too much to have enjoyed it.”

Sarai paused. “I don’t.” She’d done it in Arsamea because attention had invited mockery. This ordeal had been equally discomfiting. “Why didn’t you warn me that they were all there?”

Cisuré winced. “He’s my Tetrarch. I can’t usurp his authority. ”

“Usurp?” Sarai halted, utterly thrown. “I’m your friend!”

“ Always . But he’s my Tetrarch.” Cisuré searched her eyes. “You understand, don’t you? I can’t have any secrets from him.”

Sarai thought of the banners still covering the Academiae. “It really is a marriage then.”

Cisuré turned pink. “Not in that way.”

“Gods, I hope not. He’s a decade older than us, so just … don’t fall too deep.” Sarai blew out a breath. A Petitor one day and a spy the next . “It’s a lot to take in.”

“You won’t regret it,” Cisuré insisted. “Tetrarch Aelius is nothing like the monster you’re stuck with.”

True . Sarai stared at Kadra’s black tower several miles away. But as she journeyed back, she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that the rest of the Tetrarchy wasn’t quite as placid as they seemed.