This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara

Author:Shalini Abeysekara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Union Square & Co.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sarai had joined hands with one of the Wretched.

Helvus hadn’t come knocking in the five days since she’d Probed him, either because he didn’t want her talking about what she’d seen, or because Kadra was looming over her shoulder more than ever.

Temples throbbing under the noonday sun, she transcribed their last case of the day: two street rats accused of stealing bread. In a test of their bargain that he’d shield her, she’d lied to the irate baker’s face that the girls hadn’t taken the bread and witnessed Kadra’s rare smile once again as he’d sided with her, breaking his thus-far ironclad rule of not lying as if their bargain mattered more.

As the bazaar emptied, she snuck glances at him smoothly offering the baker an aurei’s recompense for his lost loaves. Walking past the young bread-thieves, something fell from his hands with a pickpocket’s stealth. The younger one examined the pouch of aurei that had materialized in her hands with bafflement. The other gaped as Kadra angled his head toward the bazaar’s exit. Her grip on her pen slackened, ink blotting the verdict at the realization that Kadra had just slipped the children enough aurei to buy bread for years with no one else the wiser.

Rumor says he was a street rat, found in an alley as an adolescent. Her heart twisted at the memory of Cisuré’s comments. Tetrarch. Murderer. Street rat. None of the titles fit.

The urge to clear her mind was so strong that upon Cisuré’s invitation to grab a drink while their Tetrarchs conferred—without any broken noses this time, she’d specified—Sarai accepted.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.