How many pounds of flesh will this world demand of me before I’ve earned my peace?
“I’ll consider it,” I say finally.
“You’llconsiderit?” He clearly expected immediate agreement.
“I’m sorry I’m not jumping at the idea of rearranging my face.” I sink deeper into the hot water, letting it wash away the chill of our conversation. “Call me sentimental,” I mutter.
He doesn’t push, but I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes. He’s already planning, calculating exactly how to remake me into someone else entirely, as if he already knows it’s merely a matter of time until I acquiesce.
The thought should terrify me more than it does.
As Kaelis stands to get a towel, I emerge from the tub feeling more human than I have in days, my skin pink from the heat and finally clean.
“Stay the night,” he says as I move toward the clothes he’s laid out.
I pause and almost say yes. Almost let myself fall back into the comfort of his bed, his arms, the illusion of safety. But then I think of Arina, hollow-eyed and broken, waiting for me in that cold room.
“I can’t,” I say, and the disappointment that flickers across his face fills my chest with a sweet ache. “Not tonight.”
He nods, stepping back to give me space to dress. “Tomorrow, then?”
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” I say, but I make no promises about staying. I consume a sandwich in a few large bites, shoving the rest of the food into the pockets of my clothing.
“Where are you going?” he asks as I move for the secret door.
I glance over my shoulder. “You really think I’ll tell you?”
A soft laugh. “Not in the slightest.”
I descend into the tunnel and wait. I hear him murmuring something under his breath. I’m too far away to make out the words, but the tone is tender. The light shifts from under the crack of the door. I hold my breath, wondering if he’s about to follow.
But he doesn’t.
I wait long enough that the lamps are turned low when I crack the door open again and listen for any signs of movement. I doubt he’s gone to bed, seeing as the man’s a night owl, so I suspect he’s retreated into his office.
With Kaelis none the wiser, I retrieve the card I stashed earlier and make my way back through the academy’s winding passages. Arina and Gregor are both sleeping—occupying one bed each. Quietly, I place the food on the table in the middle of the room. The lack of dust makes me smile. Gregor tidied up while I was gone.
Then I leave again.
There’s something else that’s been weighing on my mind. The drawing Silas had made, the one with the oddly detailed rendering of that abandoned office I’d used to train in. The careful way he’d inked that envelope calls to me.
Muscle memory guides me through familiar corridors. Toppled statues remain on the floor from when I was lifting them—over and over—to rebuild my strength. The desk is still where I’d pushed it underneath the window so I could pull myself up on a well-wrought curtain rod.
And there, on that desk in this abandoned office, exactly as Silas had drawn it, is an envelope I’ve never seen before.
Chapter 21
I approach warily, as though the envelope is a trap. It’s the same exact shade and type of paper as the drawing in my pocket. Undeniably Silas.
Sucking in a breath and leaving the rest to fate and luck, I open it. In the center of the paper is a string of letters and numbers written in Silas’s script:
23X.4B.5S.10081.
It’s a book in the library. I recognize the numbering system instantly. I’d spent enough time there last year studying and researching.
Why would he dare risk putting something so overt where, theoretically, anyone could find it? Even if this room has been abandoned for the entire time I’ve been in the academy and I’ve never seen signs of anyone else entering, it’s not as if someone couldn’t stumble upon it.
Then there’s the vague notion that this could be a trap. But the only person who could’ve laid it would be Ravin—probably the sameperson who ransacked Silas’s room. He could’ve altered one of Silas’s drawings. The letter crumples in my fist as I halt.
