This Monster of Mine

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Red was one of the few colors that hadn’t vanished from her vision. It ran from her pulverized limbs to form puddles with the rain and coated her throat when she tried to speak.

The man who’d argued with the owner of the beautiful voice was still retching. He stopped when footsteps drew near. Apparently having recovered his composure, he then began yelling instructions at the newcomers that made no sense.

“I want every limb mended!” he roared. “Put her back together.”

A chorus of gasps rose as the others reached her, but no one questioned his directive. Hands gingerly slid under her, lifting portions of her body.

“Tetrarch Othus?” someone called through the rain. “We need a name for the records.”

“Mark her as dead,” the man ordered.

“But—”

“She is dead.” This time his voice rang like steel. “Do you understand?”

But why? Sarai wondered as people pulled her onto what felt like a clothbound frame. Why did she have to be dead and nameless? Agony spiked when someone gripped the back of her broken scalp. The world went dark before she could find an answer.

Sarai jolted awake, clapping a hand over her mouth before the scream building in her throat could come free. Breathing hard, she hunched over her writing desk .

This flash of memory was new, unmarred by repetitive terror as the others were. She parted the curtain and closed it just as quickly at the sight of Sidran Tower’s spire in the distance. You’re bringing it all back, aren’t you? She wanted to remember. But the place made her seize in a way that went beyond whispers of a faintly remembered terror. Something shifted in the ravines of her mind whenever she dug too deep, and part of her feared she already knew. After all, her clothing had been torn that night.

She dragged her mind away from that path. Tetrarch Othus . She’d been right about the other man’s identity. But why did I have to be dead, Othus? Why were you killed when you covered for Kadra?

Stumped, she rolled up the pile of petitions she’d finally finished reading before bed. A few sported annotations in Kadra’s sharp script—clearly for her benefit as they detailed Guild customs and business practices.

She sent an accusing glance at the Elsar, wherever they were. Wisdom and Wrath, make him make sense. Everything pointed to Kadra’s involvement in the Fall from the Petitor deaths beginning around the time of his election to the fact that he was an unapologetic madman. And said madman had left her helpful notes on Edessa’s Guilds. Gods, why can’t evil be simple?

Groaning, she jumped at the sound of a door close to hers unlocking. Speak of the Wretched, he’s awake. Footsteps rang on the slim stretch of tile between their rooms, and she sprang into motion. Clothes. Decency! She’d barely gotten nihumb active when he knocked.

Giving up on putting on a robe, she undid the bolt. “Good morning, Tetrarch Kadra. Will we—” She froze.

Kadra’s bare chest was less than a foot away, unmissable even in the dark. Her head shot to the left fast enough to pull a neck muscle, but the sight of water dripping from his hair, sluicing through the light trail on his muscled abdomen, had already carved itself into her brain.

She stared at a point beyond his shoulder. “Will we be heading out?” she asked icily .

His eyes dropped to the sweat-soaked neckline of her tunic and returned to her face. He raised a finger. The candle stump on her desk sputtered to life, illuminating the stack of petitions.

“You’ve been busy.”

“I said I wouldn’t slow you down.” She crossed her arms, horribly aware of how close his bathrobe was to slipping off his shoulder. “I gather we’re heading out a little early?”

“Jovian’s brother, Decimus, has agreed to meet with us. Will half an hour be enough for you to get ready?”

“Less. I’ll meet you downstairs.” She watched his gaze almost imperceptibly return to the sweat trailing from her temples. The lines in his brow deepened for a second before he nodded and left.

Closing the door, she exhaled. It’s just a chest. She could name every blood vessel weaving through it, could fracture his sternum with a touch.

Stripping off her tunic, she dropped the illusion and regarded the mess of scars circling her ribcage, bisecting her breasts. No one would lust over this. He’d robbed her of even that.

Dressed, she went downstairs and found Cato lounging on a couch in Kadra’s tablinum. She didn’t understand him either. Why would Othus’s husband share walls with the man suspected of killing him? A thought shook her. Were they in on it together?

She’d barely begun considering the horrifying possibility that she lived with not one but two murderers when Cato raised his cup of tea.

“Drenevan’s outside. Watch your step, Petitor Sarai. Stormfall hit us a few hours ago.”

So that’s why Kadra was wet . “ Tibi gratias ago. ”

At the stilted response, Cato looked uncomfortable. “I hear that you know I’m no coachman. It was a precautionary measure, for Kadra’s safety. Nothing personal.”

It never is . At best, she was currently a tool to both sides of the Tetrarchy. Neither saw her as a person .

“I understand.” She mustered a smile. “I keep hearing that it’s no small thing that I get to see this tower.”

“It isn’t,” he said cryptically. She left him to his tea.

Muggy air hit her when she stepped outside, the slippery mud making walking difficult. Worse was the hint of smoke in the oppressive damp, uncomfortably like the stench of Ennius’s pyre. She trod carefully to where the source of all her problems waited by their horses.

Kadra lazily wiped a finger over his armilla, setting the few runes that weren’t lit aglow. Silhouetted against the indigo heavens, he seemed otherworldly. How odd that Aelius was so close to formalization as a Saint, and she felt nothing in his presence. Yet, she could easily believe that the monster before her was one of the Wretched.

They journeyed down the citadel in silence. It was still hours away from sunrise, the sky vast and clear. There was a softness after stormfall, the same quiet that had warmed her three nights ago in a garden folly with this man. Wind teased her cheeks and brushed through Kadra’s damp hair. She’d never hated him or herself more.

“The night before the Robing, why didn’t you get rid of me?”

He shot her a sidelong glance. “You already know.”

You’re going to have to choose . She would have rolled her eyes if she weren’t painfully aware that he was probably keeping her alive because of that ridiculous question.

She dropped the subject. “What happens now that Jovian’s death has been noted as a murder?”

“His brother was notified after we left the morgue. The investigation is kept from the public until we have definitive proof and a suspect.”

The more secretive, the better it is for you . Meanwhile, Jovian’s brother had believed that his death was a suicide for months. He would likely have blamed himself for not somehow preventing it. She couldn’t imagine having to grieve again, knowing that it was murder and that the investigative trail was at least four months old .

“Why let his brother believe a lie for so long?” she bit out. “If you’d always suspected that Jovian fell to his death, why not announce the truth from the start?”

He inclined his head. “A commendable idea, but tell me, then or now, what do you think would happen if I did?”

“The job would cease to exist.” Not only would Candidates studying at the Academiae flee, but unassessed potential Candidates like her would eschew assessment. Her anger burgeoned. “So you’d rather pretend nothing’s wrong and have more victims offer themselves up. When you’re the only one who knows there’s a killer.”

“What makes you think I’m the only one?”

Her retort collapsed into a sharp inhale, because he was right . Aelius, Tullus, Harion, Cisuré, and even Cassandane had seemed to suspect Kadra yesterday. Only the public had bought into the tales of supposed suicide.

He gave her a half-smile. “As heartwarming as it is that you consider my intellect head and shoulders above the rest of the Tetrarchy, I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

Then I can’t trust the other Tetrarchs either . One of their own could be a murderer, and despite their suspicion, they’d been covering for him for years, bringing more unwary Petitors to their deaths. Ice solidified through her. Everyone here had an agenda.

Kadra veered off onto a side street, venturing into the northern edge of his Quarter, toward the border that divided it from Aelius’s. The paved road vanished after several miles, their mounts kicking up clods of mud as the houses around them grew dilapidated. An hour later, they dismounted outside a single-storey dwelling. The cracked stone exterior had seen better days, as had the soot-blackened roof tiles clinging desperately to the eaves.

She wiped a layer of dust from the iron nameplate over the door while Kadra secured their mounts to a post. “Decimus of Edessa.”

Jovian’s name had been etched below his, but a line ran through it now. She glanced at the unsmiling man beside her. Moonlight glanced off the taut peaks of his cheekbones, and she swallowed a ball of rage. I’ll find out what he did to both of us, Jovian.

“Something on your mind?” Kadra reached past her to knock.

Her face went blank. “No.”

His chuckle told her that he knew she was lying. Gods, how? Was he a Petitor himself? Was that how he’d gone so long without one?

“Lies have non-magical tells,” he informed her, still somehow reading her mind. “People have patterns, conditions under which they reach for a lie.”

Truth. She cocked her head to one side. “Then what are mine?”

“Whenever you’re angry.” A strange tension crossed his face. “Whenever I find you watching me.”

Her mouth opened. Closed. She nearly collapsed against the door. He opted to watch as she struggled with a retort. She’d nearly come up with something when they heard footsteps inside the house.

The door cracked open and a maid poked her head out. Mousy, unkempt hair framed a worn face that squinted at them in irritation. “It’s three in the hav?d morning. What do you want—” Her eyes widened.

“Is your master home?” Kadra asked pleasantly.

“Y-yes. My apologies. Please come in, Tetrarch Kadra.”

Wood squeaked as she flung the door open and waved them in. Or Kadra, rather. Sarai nearly walked into the door when the maid tried to slam it shut after him.

“Pardon me, Petitor Sarai.” The maid’s hand jumped to her mouth. “I didn’t see you. You’re so much shorter than you looked at the Robing.”

Lovely. At this rate, it didn’t matter if Kadra was behind the Petitor murders. His devotees would kill her themselves.

Following the maid inside, she took in a cozy atrium, fabric-draped armchairs and cushions stuffed to bursting. At one corner was a door with the largest lock she’d ever seen.

“I’ll fetch Master Decimus right away,” the woman stammered, already halfway up the stairs .

“ Tibi gratias ago ,” Sarai said politely, examining the overlarge lock. A shadow fell over her shoulder.

“You use the ancient tongue often,” Kadra noted.

She shrugged. “I was told that Petitors must avoid the common tongue where possible.”

“Don’t we serve those commoners?” His voice brushed the back of her neck.

She swallowed. Wrath take him . “Be that as it may, Tetrarch Kadra, the world is quick to indulge a man who flouts convention, but it isn’t as kind to the rest of us.”

“Doesn’t convention demand flouting if it uses language to elevate some above others?”

“Then it’s the Tetrarchy’s duty to correct that,” she shot back. “In the meantime, us beggars have no choice. Take me. I’d rather not have our every conversation turn into a moral or political debate, and yet, here we are.”

An unholy sound broke into their battleground. Part shriek, part death rattle, it had her swiveling to search for a weapon. A balding man fell at Kadra’s feet.

“Tetrarch Kadra! You honor my humble home!” he wailed, clutching Kadra’s hem.

Sarai sighed. Yes, yes. Why don’t you just formalize him at this point? Aelius could become a Saint, and Kadra could take his place among the Wretched. Granted, the latter did have better titles. Take Perfidia, Wretched Countess of Conspiracy. Her eyebrows rose as Kadra reached for the man’s hands, a stern god before a member of his flock. Kadra, Wretched Prince of Punishment . She smirked. It had a ring to it.

“Forgive me. It’s been a trying day.” Decimus wiped his eyes, tugging the flaps of a dressing gown close. “How can I help find the killer?”

“We’d like to examine Jovian’s belongings,” Kadra said smoothly.

“ Certo, yes! They’re in his study.” Indicating the locked room, Decimus fished for the key .

“Why did Jovian live in Tetrarch Kadra’s Quarter?” she broke in. “Doesn’t Tetrarch Aelius give his Petitors a domus?”

“Petitor Sarai, a pleasure to meet you.” Decimus sketched a bow. “Truthfully, my brother didn’t care much for fancy domii. His true home was the Hall of Records. Practically lived there until about two weeks before his death. That’s when he suddenly insisted on staying with me. Never said why. Even procured a scutum for us when it’s so much coin.” He indicated the steel rod outside. “But he kept acting furtive, like he knew something bad was coming.” Decimus’s voice choked. “I thought he was stressed.”

He reached for the lock. Metal snapped loose, and the door parted. Motes of dust greeted them, forming lazy spirals in the air.

“Tetrarch Aelius’s vigiles searched it brick by brick, but didn’t find anything,” Decimus said sadly.

Taking the study in, Sarai winced.

Books lay in pieces, their innards spilling out. An oak desk was overturned on one side, long fingers of dried ink spreading from a pulverized inkwell. The fireplace sat lifeless, chair legs jutting from it. The rest of the chair, scrolls, and cushions were strewn about in varying states of ruin. But what struck her most was the rune painted repeatedly across the walls. Sharp lines met and diverged at perpendicular angles, dribbles of hardened ink running from them.

Sarai blanched. There was a manic freneticism to the runes, the fingerprint ridges indicating that Jovian had daubed it.

“ Modrai .” Kadra’s expression darkened.

She went very still. “The rune for ‘death’?”

“And more.” He turned to Decimus. “This study wasn’t searched after Jovian’s death. When did Aelius’s vigiles really come here?”

She was about to ask how he’d come to that conclusion when Decimus crumpled.

“They came the day before he died. But my brother was no criminal. I swear it! ”

“Was Jovian being accused of something?” she asked, surprised.

Decimus’s lip quivered. “They never gave me the details. Just that Jovian had done something awful and to alert them when he returned. I thought I heard something at night, but the lock was intact, so I shrugged it off. Next morning, the walls were covered in modrai and I found him under all that wood—” The tears that had been gathering in his eyes spilled. “I still see it every time I come here.”

Sarai winced, wondering if it had been as hard for Cisuré to pass Sidran Tower for four years. She thought back to the promise the other girl had begged from her before the Robing, and a fissure of guilt cracked her chest.

“Once he passed, Tetrarch Aelius sealed the records. Said nothing good comes from speaking ill of the dead. But all I can think of now is that I doubted him to the end. And he was murdered!” He fell to his knees again, sobs wracking his body. “Please give him justice, Tetrarch Kadra. I need to know what happened!”

Her eyes burned. You could be begging your brother’s killer.

“You won’t find justice in the courts. Not when coin trumps everything.” She stiffened as Kadra repeated her words from their first meeting. “But I’ll find those responsible, and I promise you this: They’ll pay in kind.”

“ Certo .” Decimus nodded fiercely. “ Certo! Kill them all.”

Sarai’s jaw tightened. So this was how Kadra indoctrinated everyone to his brand of violence. He took their broken hearts and reshaped the fragments into daggers. Yet, despite the picture of solicitude he made, Kadra’s eyes were empty. When Decimus’s sniffling subsided, he dropped the consoling hand. “We’ll need the room to ourselves while we search.”

And just like that, the compassion’s gone. How no one saw it was beyond her.

“ Certo .” Decimus paused. “If I may ask, Tetrarch Kadra, why are you reinvestigating this? I imagine Ur Dinyé doesn’t lack for cases.”

“But it lacks Petitors.” Black eyes found hers. “And I’ve one of my own to watch out for now. ”

Damn him to every one of the ten hells. Sarai shot Kadra a look of pure disgust while Decimus and his maid gaped as if he’d proposed marriage. Before they could start writing hymns to Kadra, she ushered them out of the tablinum and shut the door.

Back against the wood, her lips pressed in a thin line. “Kindly leave me out of your games. Those two would do anything you ask. You don’t need to use me to get a few seconds of goodwill.”

He looked curious. “Was that what I was doing?”

“We’re investigating a murder. None of this is because you—” Care for my safety. Breaking off, she picked her way around the room, stopping at Jovian’s fallen desk. “Is there anything I should be looking for? Correspondence with the killer?”

A wall sconce flickered to life with the barest motion of Kadra’s hand. “Correspondence,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Do you have a suspect in mind?”

“I didn’t say that,” she muttered quickly. Too quickly. Avoiding his narrow-eyed look, she wedged her fingers under a corner of Jovian’s desk and tilted it up.

“Interesting.” His voice sank low. “Is there someone you think pushed Jovian to his death?”

Turning, she froze at Kadra’s dark smile. “No.”

He stepped closer. “He would have bled out. Unable to beg for help. Lying in the ruins of his body.”

Stop . Chest tight, she struggled to breathe evenly.

He crouched at the opposite end of the desk she still held. “Is your suspect in this room?”

Her hands went nerveless. The desk crashed down, splinters breaking off at the impact. She held herself still, breath coming in short bursts.

Gripping an unfragmented corner, Kadra righted it in a swift motion. “And you said you weren’t afraid of me.”

“I’m not,” she snapped.

“Hmm.” There was a wealth of disbelief in the syllable .

Don’t lose your temper. “If that was a test of my”—she couldn’t bring herself to say loyalty —“intelligence, it was in poor taste.”

“A Petitor must consider all avenues.”

Sarai clenched her fists to keep from strangling him. “By all means, then. If there’s something here that implicates you, do let me know.”

Storming to the other end of the room, she began sifting through the skeletons of torn books. After an unreadable glance in her direction, Kadra examined the desk, large hands pressing the surface at corners to search for hidden drawers. The sky lightened as they scoured the study, tidying where they went. She kept to the opposite end of whatever corner Kadra inhabited as chairs were righted, books recompiled, and letters sorted. Morning rose when Sarai shelved the last tome.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “There isn’t anything here that could remotely sustain a criminal charge. What was Jovian found guilty of for Tetrarch Aelius to seal in the Hall of Records?”

“Treason.”

She gaped. “How can you possibly know that?”

“The walls.” Kadra tilted his head to the rune scrawled everywhere.

“Some people worship Lord Death.”

“ Modrai is also a Summoning rune.”

Her jaw dropped. “He was trying to summon Death?”

There was a slim chance of summoning one of the Elsar, High or Dark, if one knew the proper sequence of runes and had the power to channel into them. Aside from the benefit to clerics hoping to ascend to prophets, the gods granted a wish to whomever summoned them—a life-changing prize for the desperate. But the sheer expenditure of power required killed almost all who attempted a Summoning. There hadn’t been a successful one in decades.

He set a scroll down. “What do you know of the worst punishment in the Corpus?”

“Being flogged to death, isn’t it?”

“Performing a Summoning at the Aequitas. ”

She spun toward him, agape. “You can’t be serious.”

Kadra’s grim face didn’t seem capable of joking. “Every Summoning sequence ends in modrai . A bit of irony on the gods’ part making hopefuls court death in order to see them. The rune has a notorious reputation as a traitor’s mark.”

“But that’s madness!” She examined the closest rune. What she’d thought was ink was a mottled brown, patches of it flaking off the walls. Blood. Her stomach roiled. “It’s suicide, not justice! And you passed this law?”

“Absolution for the worst crimes can only come from the Elsar. If the gods refuse to intervene, then the defendant must be guilty.” He smiled faintly at her incredulous snort. “That was the rationale Aelius provided when he created the law eight years ago. Quite a religious man, the Head Tetrarch. But”—his eyes cut to her—“you saw that for yourself yesterday.”

Her stomach twisted. She had the awful feeling that he knew what the Tetrarchy had asked of her. That he’d known even as he agreed to the meeting.

Sarai forced a neutral expression. “Aelius’s beliefs are his own.”

“Are they?” Kadra flipped through a stack of letters. “He’ll be devastated to hear it. He’s been trying to make them everyone else’s for quite some time.”

“What he does is none of my concern. At the end of the day, you’re my Tetrarch, and I answer to you,” she muttered.

At the sudden stillness behind her, she turned to find Kadra watching her as though she’d done something unaccountably strange. It struck her that she’d just said something that smacked of … loyalty. Shit . Her mouth went dry when his gaze dropped to the pounding pulse at the base of her neck.

Cursing herself for unbuttoning her collar, she fumbled to do it up. “Well … this can’t be all Jovian’s correspondence. Is the rest of it in his old domus?”

Kadra still looked perturbed. “Decimus will know.” He left the study, giving her the first blessed bit of space she’d had in hours .

Sarai threw herself into an armchair missing half its upholstery. Temperance save me, he’s nerve-wracking . She scanned the room.

“What happened to you, Jovian?”

The ugly runes on the walls called to her, something eerily hypnotic about their repetition. Jovian came back just to paint these. After Aelius’s vigiles searched the study, but before his death. But why? An admission of guilt or treason? Or did the rune mean exactly as it said. But if Jovian had been predicting his death, then who had he suspected?

A movement in the fireplace caught her eye. She peered down at the fragment of parchment swaying in the breeze leaking in. Wiggling it free, she dusted off the soot. It appeared to be the remnants of a letter written in Urdish. Odd . She hadn’t thought Petitors would learn a language now largely used by northern fishing villages. Some of the words had been obliterated by flame, but enough remained to turn her legs to cotton wool.

… were right. The answer lies with her. The Sidran Tower Girl must have seen …

The words knotted in her head. Why am I mentioned here? She read it over and over until Jovian’s cramped writing had imprinted itself behind her eyelids, barely noticing the study door grate open as Kadra returned with Decimus. His eyes narrowed at her white-knuckled grip on the fireplace’s mantelpiece. When he strode over and took the scrap of parchment, she let go without protest.

No one could accuse Kadra of being an expressive man. His features could have been carved from stone as he read, evidently proficient in Urdish. Then, she saw it. A tightening of his temples. She waited for a sardonic smile, some tell of amusement at the mention of her, at the fact that no one still knew it was him. Then he looked up.

Her breath caught. A horrible coldness filled his eyes, swallowing all emotion until the man staring out from them barely seemed human. Her grip on the mantelpiece went slack. Why aren’t you pleased? He’d walked away from her body. This doesn’t make sense . But if she’d been a more foolish woman, she’d have called the look in his eyes almost … bleak .

Taking the scrap from Kadra, Decimus stared at it, perplexed. “Is this a code, Tetrarch Kadra?”

“It’s Urdish,” Sarai said at the same time Kadra asked, “Was Jovian interested in the Sidran Tower Girl?”

Decimus’s tear-ravaged face pulled tight with misery and affection. “On Truth, he was obsessed with her. He was a first-year Candidate the night it happened, and he never got it out of his head that there was more to the story. Swore he’d be the first to crack why she died.”

“Did he have any theories?” Sarai asked hoarsely.

“Plenty, all stemming from the same premise. Everyone wondered how the girl snuck past all the magi guarding the Academiae, but he was convinced that was a misdirection.”

Her hands shook. “Why?”

“He spent so much time in the Hall of Records. Said an old plan of the Academiae detailed an ancient passageway built into the foundations for the wealthy to flee in the event of attack. He theorized that the Sidran Tower Girl must have entered that way. But the fact that she knew of the passage led him to the same premise every time.” Decimus wiped his eyes. “She didn’t sneak in. She was invited.”

A bolt of pain slammed into her, so sharp she wondered if her head had cleaved in two. Flashes of a storm and the slow build of rain threatened the weakened barriers of her mind. She tried to speak, but air just wouldn’t come. She was invited . Her lungs strained. Invited . She dimly heard Kadra asking Decimus if Jovian had shared his theories with others.

“He was thick as thieves with Tetrarch Cassandane’s former Petitor, Livia.” A pause. “Awful what happened to her. Her mother never recovered. Wanders on the outskirts of Cassandane’s Quarter last I heard.”

Another dead Petitor. Black consumed Sarai’s sight, nails cutting into her palms as she tried to stave off the panic attack. She was invited . But she hadn’t been a fool at fourteen. If Kadra had invited her anywhere, she’d have run in the opposite direction. The only person in Edessa whose invitation she’d have accepted would have been … But that’s impossible . Cisuré hadn’t known the Sidran Tower Girl’s identity until Othus’s vigiles had brought her in after Sarai kept calling for her.

“Who were his suspects?” Kadra asked, and she wanted to scream—to throw everything in the open and wrench out the truth of why he’d been there that night and what he’d done.

“I don’t know, he—” Decimus’s breath caught. “He and Livia always whispered about the Metals Guild. This letter, it would have been to her. She even helped pay for our scutum when he was short on coin. He was on that waitlist for months—” He broke off, wiping his eyes.

The Metals Guild? She couldn’t make sense of it, the locus of her being centered on oxygen. Aren’t they only known for manufacturing scuta and weapons? She could only vaguely make out Kadra’s voice as he thanked Decimus for his assistance. Drawing on every ounce of strength, she did the same as Decimus left the study, and then leaned against a wall, discreetly counting her breaths. The tightness in her chest slowly dissipated.

“What do you think?” Eyebrows drawn low and broad shoulders limned in sunlight, Kadra seemed ethereal. One of the Wretched in human form. And she simply couldn’t hold back any further.

“Why are we really investigating this?” she asked quietly. “If you want me to choose you over the Tetrarchy, I think I deserve some answers. Jovian, and now Cassandane’s former Petitor, why dig all this back up?”

“Do you want the dead to have justice?”

“Of course I do, damn it! But why wait this long? It isn’t like you needed me to start.”

He finally looked at her, and she was suddenly in the middle of stormfall, lightning striking on every side.

“I did.”

True , her magic informed her, but she already knew. Alongside the cruelty and cunning on his face was a gravity that shook her to the core. Like he saw something in her. Like she was crucial to whatever he was planning .

The room seemed to rise and spin with them as the unmoving center and then eased back down, everything sharper, harder, murkier. She understood none of it.

And as they returned to Aoran Tower for another day of petition-reading, all she could think about was what he could see in her, and what she and Jovian had witnessed to warrant death.