Page 134 of This Monster of Mine

“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.

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