Page 43 of This Monster of Mine

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 wasright. 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 thetaut 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.

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