Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sarai woke to a note from Kadra asking her to meet him in his office at the vigile station and to Gaius waiting outside Aoran Tower’s wards to accompany her.
Dismounting at the station, she ignored the vigiles’ whispers, everyone apparently aware of the bounty. Rather than have the grace to look abashed, a group in her path took her dour glare as an invitation to swarm her. Most were familiar faces that had ignored her for a month and a half, that had watched Tullus strangle her as though it were a spectacle.
Sarai crossed her arms. “Yes?”
Gaius looked nervous at the scowl in her voice. “Let me take you to—”
“Not bad yesterday,” a woman said. “I thought you’d be corrupt.”
“A month and a half of trials wasn’t enough to prove the opposite?”
She shrugged. “We had to see what you were made of. Plenty have tried to get into Tetrarch Kadra’s good graces to spy on him.”
Sarai didn’t mention that she’d agreed to do the same. “So watching Tullus strangle me was the best way of determining if I was a spy?”
The woman looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.
“My apologies.” Gaius gave Sarai a pacifying smile. “We should head to Tetrarch—”
“Still, Tetrarch Kadra must trust you now to install you here permanently,” another vigile interjected.
Her eyes narrowed. “Permanently? ”
“To work in his office on occasion, as he does. We were wondering why he kept trotting you out to marketplaces every day.”
A muscle worked in Sarai’s jaw. “Trotting me out,” she repeated evenly.
“You’ve gone through six months of cases in six weeks,” the vigile blithely continued. “It’s quite something.”
The smile Sarai gave Gaius was all teeth. “That certo is.”
Gaius hurriedly steered her into the station. Leading her down a marble-tiled hallway bordering a courtyard, he indicated the door at the very end.
“That’s Tetrarch’s Kadra’s office. We’ll need to knock down a few walls to build yours. Until you’re safe, you’ll be working mostly in there.”
“How did he work before me?”
“After trials, he’d sequester himself to record judgments into the evening. He barely slept.” Gaius shook his head. “I don’t know how he did it.”
She didn’t either. His work ethic was inhuman. She tipped her head to one side. “You’ve known Kadra eight years?”
“More or less. Why?”
“Good. You can clear this up. How many more throttlings lie in my future?”
He blanched. “Petitor Sarai, Tetrarch Kadra would not have intended for Tetrarch T—”
“Tullus aside, I haven’t forgotten Ennius,” she cut in, and he quieted. “When I became a Petitor, it wasn’t with the understanding that I’d be burning a man alive. Or that I’d be completing six months of trials in six weeks. Is there a reason Kadra’s trying to kill me?”
“I’m sure he’s ensuring that you gain experience in a variety of—”
“Throttlings? Tutorials on how to torture a man?”
Gaius wisely refrained from saying anything else. He drew her through a network of corridors, pointing out the bunks the vigiles used between shifts, a well-stocked pantry, and casks of wine that looked like they saw regular use. Slicing a few strips of smoked meat, he kept up a dizzying stream of chatter on everything from the state of affairs in Kadra’s Quarter—generally calm—to more of Helvus’s misdeeds.
“You’ve done a lot of good,” he assured her. “We tried to put Helvus away for years, but Tetrarch Tullus kept springing him out. His reputation’s finally gotten a hit because you Materialized that memory.” He gave her an approving look. “Even Tetrarch Tullus can’t waive a charge of homicidium after that.”
She accepted a slice of meat. “Tullus waives homicidium charges?”
“Oh yes. Manufactures some extenuating circumstance and the wealthy scion’s free to go. There isn’t anyone with coin who doesn’t aspire to his patronage.” He frowned. “Didn’t Tetrarch Kadra tell you?”
“He didn’t,” she said slowly. “Does Kadra have his favorites?”
“Never. Bit of a closed book, except perhaps where you’re concerned.”
She paused mid-bite. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gaius widened his eyes. “You live in Aoran Tower.”
“There’s nothing exciting about my being privy to the interior of his tower.”
“The forbidden has always held an allure,” he insisted. “None of us ever imagined the Tetrarch would show interest in—”
“I’m honestly sick of how much you all gossip.” She fixed him with a glare. “Six months’ worth of trials in six weeks, and you think I’ve the time to fuck him.”
Sheepish, he raised his hands in surrender. “We assumed—”
“You assumed wrong.” None of it meant anything. Kadra had proven it yesterday.
Gaius turned the corner into a familiar hallway, and she realized they were back where they had started. The water clock by the pillars dripped slow. Dawn was still an afterthought in the inkblot sky.
A frisson of unease snaked through her. The door to Kadra’s office loomed large at the end of the hallway, the shuttered jaws of a wolf. She swallowed, recalling the less-than-flattering epithets she’d flung at him at Helvus’s. Gods, she’d called him a hav?d sadist.
Wholly unaware of her turmoil, Gaius grinned. “So are we forgiven for yesterday?”
It took a moment for his question to penetrate, but when it did, she shot Gaius a glower that had him stumbling back. Tugging down her collar, she presented the mottled violet lines circling her neck from Tullus’s grip.
Red painted Gaius’s cheekbones. He stared at the courtyard, then at the tiled floor, as though either could tell him what to say.
“Games, tests, your Tetrarch might think highly of them, but I don’t.” Her voice was icy. “Human life, human dignity , shouldn’t be toyed with.”
She left him there, the beginnings of something apologetic on his lips. Dread filled her as she closed the distance to Kadra’s office. Her knock sounded too loud in the hallway’s silence.
“Enter.” His voice sliced across her brittle confidence.
Boots clicking on the tiles, she closed the door behind her. Behind the desk, Kadra raised his head. His office was even simpler than his study in Aoran Tower. Rolls of parchment nestled in cramped shelves along the walls. Light filtered in from a floor-to-ceiling window, occupying the left side of his room. She glimpsed the mouth of the hallway from it and realized he’d seen her conversation with Gaius.
She avoided his eyes. “I know about the bounty. I gather I’m to hide here until Admia’s trial and the trial on the scuta are heard?”
He inclined his head. “If you’d like.”
“I wouldn’t.” She couldn’t work in this cramped space with him, where he could see too deep and hurt her more. “I’d prefer to work in the Hall of Records.”
His cavernous gaze sought hers. She examined the floor with single-minded determination.
“Why?” he finally asked.
“Decimus and the archivist at the Hall of Records kept saying that Jovian spent almost every night in there. He was searching for something, and seeing as he was killed for knowing about the scuta being defective, he must have found out through less-illegal methods than I did.”
“And his evidence would prove your case at trial.” Kadra looked thoughtful. “Unless it’s gone.”
“Unlikely. Jovian knew he was going to die. He took the trouble to return home just to paint modrai over the walls, and wrote letters in Urdish when barely anyone in the south can still speak it let alone read it. He would have secreted his evidence away. I’ll find it.”
“Good work,” Kadra said approvingly, and she stamped out a spark of pleasure. “But you still haven’t told me why.”
“Why I don’t want to work here with you?” She pretended to think. “I’d like to keep my neck on my shoulders.”
A faint tightening of his temples. “Is this about my being a ‘ hav?d sadist’?”
Her breath caught at the way he elevated the filthy curse into something dark and elegant.
“Can I work out of the Hall of Records or not?” She leaned forward, hands on his desk, before realizing her mistake. Too close.
Kadra’s eyes narrowed, fastening on a point below her jaw and she realized she hadn’t tugged her collar back up. A vein in his temple rose to prominence as he studied the bruises.
“I’ll charge him with assault.” Every word was a chip of granite.
Truth. She snorted. “Why? You called Tullus there. You—” She broke off before she cursed him again. “You knew he was violent.”
Kadra’s shoulders tensed. “He wasn’t supposed to touch you.”
“And does everything always go as you plan, Tetrarch Kadra?” Satisfaction filled her when his jaw clenched. “So don’t bother when this wouldn’t have happened if you’d—”
“I won’t always be here.” Kadra’s features were remote. “In this job, you’ll encounter hundreds like Tullus, down to diplomatic officials who’ll expect you to service them to keep the peace. I can shield you from the very worst, but I won’t be there every time. ”
“I’m aware, damn it! I know you caused the strike yesterday. You’ve more than kept your end of our bargain. I’m not angry because you didn’t rescue me from Tullus!”
“Then?”
Damn him, he wasn’t even denying that he’d just engineered the deaths of two Guildmasters. “How am I to work with you when you give me nothing ?”
The tautness of his face slackened like she’d said something bewildering.
“Yesterday, if you’d told me that Aelius and Tullus were on their way, I’d have done the same thing, but I’d have been faster or better prepared with a scutum from Admia’s home as proof. You hide, and you obfuscate, and you play everyone like puppets and you don’t understand why I can’t work with you? Kadra, you only see me as a tool.”
“Never,” he grit out, and she stilled. The icy intensity of the word told her that he’d tried to relegate her to that role. That he’d failed.
“Not once,” he repeated.
Truth . She suddenly felt buoyant. “I see,” she stammered. She didn’t. She’d never been more confused.
Kadra’s eyes dropped to her neck. Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a curse, he took the material of her collar and gently drew it over the bruises.
“Work at the Hall of Records if you must, but see that a healer looks at that.” His voice lowered to a rough growl. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and he nodded, fingertips brushing across her jaw.
Hunger unfurled her in with the speed of a striking snake, nearly clawing out of her skin. Flushing, she gripped the door handle for balance. His hand dropped to the desk, a disturbing intensity in his eyes as they searched her features.
She looked away. “I’ll be off. There’s no need for an assault charge. Try not to ignite a civil war in the Tetrarchy while I’m gone. ”
“Very well,” he said quietly.
Twisting the handle, she ran out of his office, halting at the station’s stables to drag slow, calming breaths. Yearning rippled through her at the echo of his fingertips grazing her jaw and his visible anger at her bruises. He’d killed two Guildmasters to protect her.
Gods help me. Perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t care. Perhaps, just perhaps, in their equally closed-off ways, they both cared too much.