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My smile probably looks a bit rigid, but surely I’m allowed to show a little of my emotions even if I’m pretending it’s a less permanent loss. “It seems as though people come and go pretty often here. But it has been a bit lonely without her.”
And with most of the men I’d counted on before eyeing me with varying degrees of suspicion.
Petra gives my hand a light pat. “You should join us for another hunt sometime. That’ll give you an excuse to ride.”
She gets up to carry her plate to the counter. I chew the last of my bacon, but my stomach stays clenched tight.
She definitely had some other agenda. Now I’ve got to make sure I’m playing this game right to keep out of trouble with her too.
If Esmae taught me anything, it’s that I can’t underestimate just how much damage one student might do.
As I drop off my own plate, I notice Casimir and the ringleted woman heading out. When I reach the doorway, they’re ambling toward the main staircase, her hand grazing his shoulder while she lets out a bell-like laugh.
Julita stirs in the back of my head.The patrons don’t matter all that much to him, Ivy.
Maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t mean I want to watch them canoodling the whole way up to my room.
I veer in the other direction and just keep walking—past the games rooms and other leisure venues I haven’t investigated, all the way around to the narrow hall at the back of the Domi’s first floor.
The sight of the stone columns along the walls makes my lungs constrict. It was farther down this hallway, at the other end near the row of tapestries, where Esmae stabbed a knife into my back.
I stride on into the dank, cramped stairwell barely anyone bothers to use back here. No need to worry about running into prying eyes on my way to the fourth floor.
I emerge amid the staff quarters a few minutes’ walk from Stavros’s rooms. A couple of other teaching assistants are just wandering around the corner ahead of me.
Ducking my head and itching for the anonymity of my cloak, I meander slowly after them so I won’t catch up and have to navigate either sneers or awkward small talk. My gaze slides along the rug that runs the length of the hall—and snags on a small, gray-furred body that’s just wiggling out of a crack between the stones at the base of the wall.
A rat. It freezes against the wall, maybe noting my presence.
There’s nothing so strange about a creature like that scurrying through a building like this. Even nobles have to fend off vermin from time to time, especially when there’s food around.
But as I come up on the animal, a quiver of magic jitters through my nerves.
It’s not just a rat. Someone’s used their gift on it, somehow or other.
And then left it to sneak around on the staff floor. I can’t think of many good reasons to do that.
In my hesitation, the creature darts forward along the wall. I don’t think, just leap after it.
My fingers snatch at the rat’s tail, firm enough to stop it in its tracks.
I expected it to squeal or freeze in terror. Instead, it whips around with its teeth bared to chomp at my thumb.
“Shit,” I hiss, smacking the rat’s head away with my other hand.
It only flails more wildly, its jaws and tiny claws raking at every bit of my flesh it thinks it might be able to reach. I fumble to try to get a grip on it that would restrain its body, and it sinks its teeth into the base of my palm.
My hand jerks instinctively, slamming the rodent into the wall. It hits the plaster surface headfirst with a crunch of its skull.
Before I can even curse that I couldn’t capture it alive, the creature’s limp form turns hard and heavier in my grasp. I’m so startled by the sudden change that I drop it.
The thing that was once a living rat hits the floor and cracks into a few jagged pieces. Jagged pieces of what looks like fired clay.
What in the world is that?Julita demands.
I don’t know. Totally bewildered, I hunch down to take a careful look.
The chunks of clay would form a sculpture of a rat if I nudged them back together. Fine lines of fur are even carved into the reddish-brown surface.
