Page 6 of This Monster of Mine

“One moment!” she called, crouching behind the counter and fishing in her pockets for her armilla.

Engraved with the user’s runes of choice, the white-gold bracelets were a magus’s preferred way to access dormant magic—much tidier than the alternative, bloodletting and drawing runes with the blood. She prized out the pin slotted into the bracelet’s bulky hinge, pricked a fingertip, and smeared the blood overnihumb, the rune for “concealment.” Silver flashed in the rune’s deep grooves, a corresponding lurch tugging within her chest. The deep brown scars wrapping her blurred, then faded into her skin. An illusion discernible by touch, a secret she’d kept from the townsfolk, and a skill she’d nurtured in the event she ever saved up enough for tuition. She’d never used it in public before. Contrary to Cretus’s certainty that her face was bad for business, the assessors were usually too deep in their cups to care about how mangled the barmaid was. But he was early, and she was alone, and despite her features having been altered during reconstruction, her scars were a rarity, evidence that even multiple healers had been unable to fully restore her. They made her recognizable. And there was always the risk that one of these assessors could behim.

Unlocking the door, she bowed. “Welcome to Arsamea. I’m Sarai. A pleasure to serve you, Magus …?”

“Telmar.” He swept past her in a whirl of violet robes and collapsed into a chair, snow sliding off his shoulders. “Icewine. And shut the godsdamned door before I freeze to death.”

Judging by the magus’s bloodshot eyes, he was more in danger of pickling himself in drink. Nevertheless, Telmar seemed lucid enough to survey her as she brought out an amphora of Cretus’s best icewine.

“Sit.” He imperiously gestured at the chair beside him once she’d filled his cup.

“Apologies, Magus Telmar, but my place is behind the counter.”

He gave her a disdainful look. “By the Elsar, you hicks bore me to tears. Off to your counter then. Like there’s anyone else for you to serve. They’re all busy listening to the same speech year after year.” He affected a sonorous voice. “Every year, our courts accumulate defendants requiring a Petitor’s aid. Some need to be Examined, their truths distinguished from falsehoods, and—”

“Others must be Probed and their memories Materialized in public for assessment,” Sarai finished, and the magus snapped his fingers.

“See? You should deliver it next year. I’m tired of shaking hands and being praised like I’m one of the Elsar. You lotreek.”

He doesn’t seem out for lechery.She sat across from him. “How’s the search for Candidates going?”

Telmar gave her a look that could have been appraising. His eyes merely twitched in his skull. “What do you think? Like Petitors offing themselves in every godsforsaken way for the past few years wouldn’t dampen things.”

“What about borrowing some from other cities?”

He snorted. “No chance. No Praetor or Tribune will relinquish them, and Petitors who would’ve killed to serve a Tetrarch won’t go near one now. They’d rather be bound to a no-name town official than turn corpse in Edessa. Only three Candidates from this year’s graduating class haven’t scarpered, and they’re being watched in case they try.”

“Cisuré’s one of the three, isn’t she?” At Telmar’s confused squint, Sarai elaborated. “Pale hair, dark eyes. Memory like a bear trap.”

“Oh yes. Taught her to handle a sword last year.” He chuckled at her unamused stare. “Mind out of the gutter, barmaid. I meant that literally. She was terrible with a blade. Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the first to die.”

“Don’t say that,” she grit out.

Telmar flapped a hand in dismissal. “Well, she’s graduating. Time for her to be bound to an official, and there are no vacancies anywhere but the Tetrarchy. Her father sounds right proud.”

And Sarai had nearly taken refuge in Marus’s certainty. But here was an assessor, an instructor at the Academiae, musing that Cisuré was poised todie.

The wall enclosing her scant memories ofthat nightshuddered. She drew slow lungfuls of air, but it wasn’t enough. Every breath brought back a sound, a sliver of memory from her journey to Edessa four years ago. Squeezing into a fruit seller’s wagon with only two goals: to follow Cisuré to Edessa and become a healer so renowned that no one could look down on her. Jumping off the wagon, ready to forge forward, and …blood. Rain. A wet crack as her body hit the cobblestones. Splinters of her ribs shoving through her lungs—

Her fist hit the table. Telmar gave her a wary look. “Do all the Petitors die every year?”

“Depends. When one dies, the rest get spooked and flee. But last year, they all died.” He laughed into his cup. “And we still trundle to every corner of Ur Dinyé, seeking more victims.”

“But other officials’ Petitors are alive and well! Why are only the Tetrarchy’s ones killing themselves?”

Telmar’s glazed eyes shuttered. “There’s nothing we can do.” Dipping a finger in his wine, he stirred it and flicked the excess all over the table. “You serve wine, and I hunt for souls to throw into the job. It’s on them to survive.”

Wait. Her head jerked up. “Throw into the job? What happened to four years of training?”

He scratched his short beard. “By Wisdom, I knew that word came slow up here, but you didn’t know that the Tetrarchy waived that requirement? Better an untrained Petitor than none at all.”

She stared. “You’re joking. The Tetrarchy can’t be that desperate.”

“They are.” He shrugged at her dropped jaw. “Telling truth from lie is the only standard that matters on the job, and every untrained Candidate can do that much. The Academiae teaches refinement and theory, but if a Candidate lasts long enough, the job’ll whip them into shape better than schooling could. Take me.” He jabbed a finger at his face, nearly poking out an eye. “Six years of study and all I learned was some tosh on the Borderland Wars. Nearly died during my first stormfall, because I hadn’t been taught how to handle …”

Sarai stopped listening. A foreign weightlessness expanded in her chest. It took her a moment to place the emotion; it had been so long since she’d last known it. Hope.

She wrapped trembling fingers around her coin pouch.Three aurei, four denarii.Not enough for tuition. But it would get her to Edessa.

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