Chapter Thirty
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sarai woke to hands in her hair and a stubbled jaw nuzzling a path down her neck. Her cheeks heated as Kadra gave her a wicked smile.
Gods . How did one usually handle this sort of thing?
“Good morning,” she tried, and his smile widened.
His eyes were soft as he kissed her, the hard planes of his face relaxed. For a man who exuded murder most hours of the day, he was luminous.
Pulling her on top of him, he searched her face. “Regrets?”
She swatted him with a pillow. “Of course not.”
“Good girl.”
She flushed at the reminder of the last time he’d said that. Sunset streamed through the window, dappling their bodies as she drew up on her elbows to survey his room.
He eyed her, raising an amused eyebrow. “I thought you’d seen your fill when you searched it.”
She hadn’t thought it possible to blush even more. “How did you know?”
“You tucked my bedspread in.”
She dropped her head to his chest. “ Hav?d .”
“What did you tell Aelius afterward?”
“That you’re all oranges and wine.” She ran a hand through his hair, reveling in the fact that she’d made the immaculate Tetrarch Kadra so disheveled. “And an absolutely stunning voice.”
The knowing look he gave her was a reminder of how easily she had succumbed to what that voice had whispered in the night. Grinning when she went red, he rose, reaching an arm to pull her up just as there were several frantic knocks on his bedroom door.
“Drenevan, she’s missing! Sarai’s gone!” Cato yelled outside the door. “Aelius might have her! By all the Elsar, this is my fault. I should have noticed she wasn’t in her room.”
The missing woman in question groaned, head in her hands, as Kadra laughed.
There was silence on the other side of the door.
“Drenevan,” Cato said evenly. “She isn’t missing, is she?”
“She isn’t,” Kadra pronounced gravely.
“In that case, I’m leaving. Take all the time you need.”
She buried her face in the sheets as Cato’s footsteps faded. Slipping on his robe, Kadra smiled at her.
“The day awaits. Come, Petitor,” he ordered imperiously, and she laughed.
“I’ve done a great deal of that.”
“Evidently not enough.” Sweeping her up, he carried her to the bathing room, where she was immediately and immensely thankful that Cato had left the tower.
By the time they reached the vigile station, midnight had long since become dawn, and Gaius was impatiently pacing by Kadra’s office. Spotting them, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank the Elsar, I thought you’d been kidnapped after that trial, or—” He broke off, turning from her flushed cheeks to Kadra’s too-even features. A broad grin split his features. He rubbed his hands with glee. “Three hundred aurei to me. Betting’s finally over!”
“Betting?” Sarai asked as Gaius shoved the day’s worth of cases into their hands.
“On when he’d do the deed.” Gaius winked and stiffened as Kadra’s gaze turned deadly. “Congratulations!” he squeaked before fleeing, possibly to collect his winnings.
Sarai and Kadra turned to each other with matching scowls .
“Nothing better to do,” she pronounced.
“Far too much time on their hands,” he agreed.
But a smile played on their lips for the rest of the evening.
If she’d thought that becoming Kadra’s lover would somehow affect their work, those worries vanished quickly. They settled back into their rhythm, and as morning came, the scrolls before them dwindled: Kadra heading out on occasion to interview witnesses where a case’s particulars were lacking.
She’d darted glances at him while he worked, and grown fascinated by a particular muscle ticking in his jaw that she’d come to realize meant that he was inches from fucking her. She realized it when he pinned her to the wall of his office and ordered her to keep quiet, then dropped to his knees and tongued her before taking her once more.
Only Gaius had eyed them suspiciously when they emerged.
Afternoon became evening. Rolling up an account of a particularly grisly murder, Sarai paused as her armilla slid out from under her sleeve at the motion. Nihumb glowed a dull scarlet, an unwelcome reminder of the secret she was still keeping from Kadra. The Sidran Tower Girl.
Perhaps the time for asking should have been much earlier, before she’d allowed him into her heart. But, as it had been that night she’d healed him, part of her still didn’t want to know.
I’m being foolish. He wasn’t involved. She only had to ask. Perhaps she’d do it when he returned—Sarai jumped when Gaius burst into the room.
“Petitor Cisuré to see you.” Looking uneasy, he indicated the figure wringing her hands behind him.
Sarai set aside her the scroll. “I’ll see her.”
She indicated a chair as Cisuré shuffled in, eyes red rimmed and swollen.
“Please,” the other girl whispered. “Just hear me out first.”
“Sit.” Sarai massaged her temples. “You look exhausted.”
Cisuré eyed the chair but made no move toward it. “You were right,” she blurted out. “About Aelius, the scuta , all of it.” Her face crumpled .
Pity swelled in her. “I know he means a great deal to you—”
“No, there’s—” Cisuré’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Sarai, they have Anek.”
The lazy warmth of the past few hours shattered. Sarai bolted upright. “What do you mean?”
“The Metals Guild has a bounty on Anek, and … I—I noticed it kept defending you so I mentioned it to Tetrarch Aelius, and now, Anek’s gone! Cassandane’s frantic! Her vigiles are here now to ask for help.”
The floor-to-ceiling window on one side of Kadra’s office revealed a group of crimson-robed vigiles speaking to Gaius.
Sarai slumped against the desk. “Damn it, Cisuré.”
“Please, you have to help me.” Cisuré wiped her eyes. “I have to set this right! I can’t do this alone!”
“I will. I promise. Do you know where they took Anek?”
“I think so.” More tears leaked past Cisuré’s fingers. “Will you come with me?”
Sarai hesitated, glancing at Kadra’s empty chair.
Catching her glance, Cisuré shook her head. “We don’t have time! It’s already been hours since they went missing. Gods, I don’t even know if they’re dead!”
She swallowed. If another Petitor died after everything she and Kadra had tried to do, then everything had been for nothing. Making her decision, she rummaged about Kadra’s desk for a bit of parchment.
“I’ll come. Where are we headed?”
“Anek was in Edessa, then they just vanished. There’s a path I just learned about that leads into the Academiae from Edessa. Bypasses the vigiles and Tower Gates. I think that’s what Aelius might have used to abduct them and bring them back to Sidran Tower.”
Sarai paused in the process of leaving Kadra a note, black ink forming a drop at the tip of her pen.
“We’re going to Sidran Tower?” she asked hoarsely .
“Will you be alright?”
She set her jaw even as her fingers shook worse than ever. “I have to be.” She wouldn’t let Anek die.
Finishing the note to Kadra, she followed Cisuré out of the station and saddled Caelum, Cisuré mounting her own dapple-gray mare. Resolve mingled with fear in her chest as she turned toward the Academiae.
“Lead the way.”
Night reigned supreme over Edessa, clouds veiling the moons as Sarai wound through the narrow streets behind Cisuré. A few raedae clattered mournfully about them, coachmen half-asleep while the horses plodded on.
She followed Cisuré down a ribbon-thin dirt road until they turned into an alley, barely wide enough for them to stand side by side. A silver ring was set into one of the paving stones, practically undetectable.
Cisuré pulled and the stone rose, part of a trapdoor set into the alley. Steps yawned before them, leading into a pitch-black passage. Sarai swallowed, breath flaring out in a pale cloud.
“This way.” Cisuré ducked her head in. “There’re seventeen steps.”
There are seventeen steps to the bottom.
A flash of white-hot pain nearly blinded Sarai and she reeled, clutching her head— sunshine, a handwritten note.
The sliver of recollection dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, leaving her frozen.
What was that?
The trapdoor grated shut, plunging them into darkness. She stumbled, would have fallen down the stairs had Cisuré not gripped her hand.
“Watch out.” The other girl’s whisper echoed about them.
Taking a deep gulp of the passage’s musty air, Sarai carefully descended step by step. Pressure built in her head, memories winking into and out of her mind.
Cold. Tired. Clutching her satchel as she gingerly counted each step .
A sick, clammy fear gripped her. Jovian was right. This was how she’d gotten into the Academiae four years ago.
Following the sound of Cisuré’s footsteps, she wished she had Kadra’s talent with lightning to illuminate the path ahead. But her body seemed to know precisely where they were going, treading sure-footedly despite her mounting panic. They trekked in silence, until the tunnel sloped up, and Cisuré stubbed her toe on the first of the seventeen steps that would take them back to the surface.
Wood creaked as the trapdoor slid open, revealing a broom closet, dimly lit by sconce-light filtering in from the keyhole. The same one Helvus had taken Jovian into, smuggling him out the other way. Sarai twisted the handle and peered into the hallway. Nothing stirred in the shadows.
“Students only live on the first three floors.” Cisuré stepped out of the closet. “Everything above it is … Aelius’s domain.”
Sarai cast her a sidelong glance, relieved that she’d already dispensed with Aelius’s title.
Cisuré motioned to the tower’s wide spiral staircase. “I think they’re at the top.”
“Probably. That’s where Tullus and Aelius took me when they were holding that warrant over my head.”
Sarai’s skin crawled as they ascended past each landing, stopping at the last. An eerie familiarity shook her as memory merged with reality for the briefest of seconds, the fifth floor of Sidran Tower stretching before her past and present selves. A lengthy row of paintings extended in both directions down the corridor.
Without thinking, she found herself walking toward the portrait of a red-haired woman, posed imperiously.
“Magus Supreme Caelina. She headed the Academiae before Tetrarch Aelius,” a familiar voice whispered in the recesses of her head. Cisuré’s voice.
Sarai stilled, hearing her past self laugh in response. Turning from the portrait, she found Cisuré watching her with an inscrutable look.
“How did you know it was this one?” the other girl asked carefully .
Why do I remember you telling me it was this one? Sarai’s breath came fast, every fiber of her being screaming at her to race out of the tower and examine each new piece of information before proceeding further.
She tamped down her fear. Anek was in danger. They could be— No, don’t think that.
“Looks recent,” she muttered.
Cisuré bit her lip before removing the painting from its nail, revealing a shallow depression. The wall parted when she pushed it, displaying a massive room that could easily have been its own domus . Squinting in the inky darkness, Sarai vaguely made out a staircase leading to a second level. Cisuré paused with a hand to her lips, listening carefully before deflating.
“No one’s here,” she whispered.
“Check upstairs,” Sarai strove to keep her tone hopeful. “When they had me here, they tossed me in an alcove afterward. We might spot them from above.”
“This way.” Cisuré maneuvered across the room with ease, beckoning to Sarai, who picked her away past opulent hangings, furniture, and sculptures.
The staircase opened up to an eerily familiar ballroom. Every bone in her body turned to stone at the memory of Tullus burning her here.
“Sarai?” Cisuré’s voice broke in.
She hadn’t realized that she was gasping. Clutching her chest, she propped herself against the wall. “Give me a moment,” she croaked. “It’s the proximity—”
“It’s coming back to you, isn’t it?” At the other end of the room, Cisuré’s eyes were stark.
“Just look around for anything that’ll help us find them.” Clutching her chest, Sarai peered about the ballroom, finding only chairs and the vague outlines of other sconces. Was it her imagination or had she heard a door closing?
She cast a wary glance at the stairs. With only one way up and one way out, they were sitting ducks here. “We can’t stay here for long. ”
“Actually, we will.” Cisuré swallowed, turning to face her.
Sarai struggled to inhale. “Did you find something?”
“I’m sorry, Sarai. But you left me no choice.”
The hairs on the back of her neck barely had time to stand before footsteps sounded, coming up the stairs, slow and measured.
Her blood chilled. “What have you done?” she gasped. Staggering across the room, she fisted Cisuré’s robes, shaking her. “What the fuck have you done?”
“What I had to do. For your sake,” Cisuré spat. “So don’t worry. You’ll be safe.”
Anek’s and Cassandane’s warnings returned to her. I’ve never seen him show any hint of partiality. Not until you. He just announced his weakness to all of Ur Dinyé.
Not pausing to think, she wrenched Cisuré’s dagger from its sheath and cut her hand, dripping the blood over every rune in her armilla. Her magic flared hot and fast as she turned to face the man who’d reached the landing.
Tullus. Her heart plummeted.
“Look at that. You’re here again, Petitor Sarai,” he sneered.
“If either of you touch me, you’ll regret it.” Sarai gripped the dagger, maneuvering to keep both Tullus and Cisuré in sight, while trying to gauge the distance to the stairs.
“I’ve kept my word.” Cisuré addressed Tullus. “Don’t hurt her. Keep her restrained until Kadra comes.”
Sarai dashed toward the stairs when Tullus blocked her path.
“Let’s stop being difficult , yes?” he said lazily.
Her heart hammered in her chest. She knew little of Tullus’s magical strengths beyond fire and had almost nothing in the way of offensive magic.
She tried not to betray her burgeoning terror. “Quite upstanding of you, resorting to kidnap to bring down a political rival. I’m sure the gods are delighted . ”
“Sarai, you’re brainwashed,” Cisuré pleaded. “But you’ll see clearly once Kadra’s gone.”
“Says the woman who’s been seeing out of Aelius’s ass for the past four years!” Sarai roared, still unable to believe what the other girl had done. “How could you deliver me to them ?”
“Not you! Just him !” Cisuré shot back, and Sarai laughed scornfully.
“Gods, I almost hope they kill me, just so you can see how wrong you were.” She darted behind Cisuré, going for the stairs again.
Tullus smiled and raised a hand. Ropes of fire burst to life, wrapping her wrists and ankles to pin her spread-eagled to the wall. Blinding pain seared her, wrenching a scream from her throat as the restraints burnt through skin. Air fled her lungs, smoke taking its place as she thrashed in agony.
“You were saying?” Tullus called over her shrieks.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!” Cisuré screamed. “Stop!”
Looking bored, Tullus backhanded her with enough force to throw her to the ground.
Gasping, Cisuré clutched her cheek. “Tetrarch Aelius will hear of this!”
Tullus laughed. “Yes, I’m sure. But until he arrives, try not to test my patience.”
Walking to where Sarai fruitlessly struggled, he traced a line down her jaw. “Gods only know what Kadra sees in this. Has he had you yet?”
She spat in his face.
His eyes turned ugly. “So be it.”
He fastened a hand around her throat. Terror emptied her mind, the scent of her burning flesh tunneling up her nostrils as her bonds scorched deeper. She twisted from side to side, searching for a weapon, for anything—
“Don’t you dare!”
Tullus’s weight vanished as Cisuré grappled him to the ground. Gripping her hair, he slammed her face-first into the ground. Bone cracked, and she wailed, clutching her nose.
Sarai recoiled as Tullus turned to her .
As he approached, she used the only weapon she had left. She dropped the illusion.
One second. Two. The scars winding across her face were reflected in Tullus’s dark pupils. He tottered back. The fiery ropes holding her vanished for the briefest of seconds.
And Sarai sprung into action.
Shoving the agony of her wounds to one corner of her mind, she sidestepped him to pick up Cisuré’s dagger, and immediately sliced through his left hamstring from her crouched vantage point. He crumpled with a scream. Stretching out a hand, he ground his teeth, attempting the fiery ropes once more.
“Like hell you will,” she spat.
Matching her palm to his, it took her less than a second to reach beneath his skin, to tunnel into the intricate mass of capillaries beneath. And to shred every one of them.
Tullus screamed as Sarai did the same to his other hand.
Panting, she forced the magic through her exhausted limbs. Just a little farther.
Hands locked around her shoulders, dragging her from Tullus to shove her across the room. Sarai couldn’t halt a scream when Cisuré purposefully slammed a heel into her injured ankles.
“You can’t leave.” Blood dripped from Cisuré’s broken nose. “Hate me if you must, but this is for your own good.”
Footsteps sounded hard and fast up the staircase, a familiar roar of rage vibrating through the ballroom. Cisuré shoved Sarai’s face into a curtain, suffocating her with the fabric. She flailed wildly, vision going multicolored and hazy. Elbowing her face, she grappled with Cisuré, colliding with a door.
It burst open, throwing them onto the balcony. She barely had time to register the horribly familiar view before Cisuré gripped her head.
“I’m keeping you safe,” she pronounced. And slammed Sarai’s skull into unconsciousness.