On the third floor, he pulled her through a door and into one of the antechambers that served as a waiting room. Art covered the walls and continued to a painted ceiling, gold embossed into the image. It was empty, just as the connected offices would be.
The connected offices, which led to the…
Servants’ tunnels.
Her magic bit at her gut, instinct roaring to life. Vaasa followed him through the door into the council chamber and burst through another hallway that led to the offices on this floor. She spotted a door that led to one of the servants’ passageways built into the Sanctum. A piece of iron could be slid across it when the council wanted privacy, sealing the tunnel, the only exit out the other side of the building. She sprinted toward it, her handjustbrushing the knob, when Roman wrapped his hands around her wrist and pulled. She spun, and he hooked an arm around her waist, hauling her against him.
“If you go in there, you’ll burn,” he told her. “The building is going to come down. I don’t think we have another option; we have to go out the front.”
To do that meant to bring him right to Reid, and that was a risk she would never take. Vaasa stared up at Roman, and she tried. She tried to find any of the love she had once held for him, tried to latch onto the younger version of her that would have done almost anything for him. But even that part of her cried out in resistance.
He had betrayed her, like everyone else in this worthless city.
She made up her mind.
“Roman,” she whispered with a false reverence.
He looked down at her like she held the world in her hands, as if he believed that all his past sins could justify these very means, as if his name from her lips was vindication enough.
She held his gaze with such severity and confessed, “Reid of Mireh is in the city, and he’s waiting for me downstairs.”
Roman’s brows slammed together. “What?”
“He orchestrated this attack. He’s the one who murdered Lord Vlacik. I thought he was the only way to get rid of Lord Karev, and he promised to help Amalie escape. I didn’t think you would do it.”
“Vaasa—”
“If I go out the front of this building, he’s going to force me to leave with him.”
Frustration contorted Roman’s face, his thick brows pressing together and his jaw so tight he could have bent iron with his teeth.
“I can’t go with him. I can’t go with Reid of Mireh.”
“Why?” Roman demanded, tightening his grip on her. “Why tell me this now?”
Vaasa parted her lips. And then she put a hand at the nape of Roman’s neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Roman froze, then hauled her close. Vaasa’s heart slammed against her chest. Every muscle she had begged her to stop. She didn’t want him, didn’t want to kiss anyone but the man waiting outside in the square.
Liar. Manipulator.
Serpent.
She thrust her hands into Roman’s hair and kissed him as if she meant it. Her hands slid down his shoulders and to his waistline, pulling herself to him, hands seeking as she bit hislower lip. He groaned, his tongue snaking into her mouth, and she fought the urge to gag. She guided herself back against the wall, letting him press her to it while her other hand caught the knob of the door. She twisted.
And then she threw her entire body against Roman’s, shoving him as hard as she could as she opened the door.
She threw him inside, their mouths parting, and he stumbled backward into the servants’ tunnel.
Without hesitating, she slammed the door closed and hauled the iron bar down, locking it.
His fists pounded against the door, a bloodcurdling scream emanating through it, but Vaasa looked down at her hands.
At the set of keys she’d taken from his belt as she kissed him.
She shoved those keys into her pocket next to her mother’s necklace and ran for her life, leaving her past—and her guilt—locked behind that door.
CHAPTER
