Page 83 of This Monster of Mine

“So you’ll save him to doom him.” A glimmer of amusement crossed his face. “As you wish. He lives four streets north. But”—he had never looked grimmer—“you’re on your own.”

“I know.”

There was a tension in him, the same hesitation she’d seen that morning. She fidgeted, knowing he was about to ignite Admia’s home and contain the explosions while the iron dust burnt itself out.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “Be careful.”

For a moment, Kadra looked as though he’d say what seemed to be pressing on his tongue. Then, he nodded tightly. Sarai got on Caelum and, with a look at the dispersing vigiles and the madman standing before a house of death, rode north as if all ten hells were chasing her.

She counted the streets.Please let me be in time.A woman’s bloodcurdling shriek reached her right as she turned onto the fourth. She didn’t have to guess at Helvus’s home. The domus rivaled Aelius’s tower for size, and Helvus had seen fit to gilt-edge everything down to the doors, turning it into an overlarge gold brick.

Kadra’s vigiles were already at the locked gates, slamming axes into the bars.How’d they arrive so quickly?The question became immaterialwhen another scream sounded, male this time, along with what sounded like an explosion. The gate parted after several blows. She raced inside the home, and froze when a familiar stench burned its way up her nostrils.Blood.

Helvus lay in a corner of the atrium, a pool of scarlet widening around him. Whatever had pierced him had obliterated the left half of his torso, remnants of his innards spilling out. She grew cold. A healer could repair crushed organs, but they couldn’t regrow obliterated ones. Admia had gotten her revenge.

She turned her head at another scream. A soot-covered woman, burns lacing half her torso, struggled against Kadra’s vigiles as they restrained her. Sarai’s heart sank.Admia.

“Petitor Sarai.” A gray-cloaked healer motioned her over. “She’s somewhat conscious if you’re ready to Probe her for the events leading to this. I can’t guarantee that she’ll stay awake once I start.”

“Of course, I …” She trailed off, with a glance at Helvus’s body.

Admia had committedhomicidiumtoday. And Helvus, for all his crimes, was a victim. Yet, if he’d known that Admia’s scuta were faulty, or worse, if her scuta weren’t the only faulty ones, then others could be in danger.

Sweat trailed down Sarai’s temples. This was a terrible idea. She’d already Probed him once and barely gotten away with it.But if he dies, then no one will know the truth.

Wisdom help me. She knelt beside Helvus. “Is he conscious?”

The healer looked taken aback. “Well … yes, but he won’t hold on for long.”

She drew a deep breath. The scent of warm iron was everywhere, tugging at memories only too eager to intrude. Helvus’s eyes flickered open, glazed with pain.

He glowered weakly at her. “Will … I … die?” he gurgled, blood leaking from his chest.

Swallowing, she wiped a bleeding thumb overherar. “I’m really am sorry,” she whispered, gripping his head. And plunged in.

The world went crimson. The library of Helvus’s mind was in chaos. Books and pages hung in the air, fragmenting images that trembled at her touch. She searched through the tangle until she saw an image of a scutum. All dissolved when she touched it.

“The rod will have two parts. A steel sleeve and core.” Helvus announced to the hundreds of Metals Guildspeople assembled before him. “You’ll produce the sleeve, and for the Elsar’s sakes, etch the runes right. I’ve a different group producing the core in Kirtule.”

A wiry man raised a hand. “Begging pardon, Guildmaster, but wouldn’t it be faster if we make and assemble both parts here?”

He crossed the floor toward the fellow. “I pay you to work, not think.” Readying to slap him, he thought better of it—damned man was too tall— and he punched him in the gut. The man doubled over with a satisfying squeak, and the others shifted nervously.

Iron dust was so much cheaper than steel. His Guild would do as told. Everyone in the south would buy his scuta without knowing about the dust core, and those two would take care of the rest.

Sarai wrenched herself out of Helvus’s mind with a gasp. His breath rattled, blood spurting from the hole in his side. She didn’t care.

How could you?She swallowed the scream, her shock melting into a single, terrible realization. The iron dust had transformed every lightning shield into a lightning rod. And Helvus had profited for it.

Thiswas what Jovian and Livia, and likely even Othus and his Petitor, had died for. They’d found the truth and must have tried to warn consumers of the danger. And now, Helvus was going to take everything to the grave.

Anguish swamped her. When a Petitor Probed, only they saw the memories in question. That left the door open for people to argue that she was lying if she spoke out. The south was too eager to cite the gods for everything, and she still didn’t know who Helvus’s clients were. Materialization was a power reserved only for trial, but surely procedure was beyond the point here. Everyone had to know.

Removing her sweat-sodden robes, she moved on trembling legs to where Kadra’s vigiles held a still-screaming Admia down. She knelt, seized by the knowledge that she was on the precipice she’d sensed during Helvus’s raid at Decimus’s, and, this time, she was about to irreversibly go over. Her blood sank intoastomand. She gripped Admia’s head, where the most recent page of a ledger of memories was only too easy to grasp. Sarai pulled it into the open.

Smoky figures formed in Helvus’s atrium. The vigiles started, as a transparent Admia strode toward an equally see-through Helvus.

“Admia, what a surprise.” Helvus sounded annoyed. “Any reason you look dreadful?”

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