“Cat, I’m saying nobody knows what happened to her. She just vanished.” He shifts against the wood. “The magister claimed she went back to be with her family. Maybe she did. But the fact is no one ever saw her again.”
My heart pounds so loudly in my ears I can hear nothing else. “No.” I reject the possibility outright. “I refuse to believe it’s him.”
Remi sighs. “I’m not going to argue with you because I honestly don’t know. What matters now is that Magister Thomas asked me to carry on at the Sanctum and to care for you and my mother.”
I jump down from the bed. “When did he say that?”
“Last night, while you were too wrapped up in your own agony and guilt to notice.” Remi stands straight. “I never understood why, but you’ve always trusted Simon to find this killer, so trust him now. And if you want to honor the faith the magister has in me, then you’ll do your job.” He turns away from the door. “It’s all I can do.”
His footsteps move down the passage to the stairs, and I stand in the middle of my room, thinking.
It pains me to admit it, but Remi is right. I’m no good to the architect if I neglect what was most important to him. Yet I can’t live with myself if I don’t do everything in my power to save him. I look out the window. Only a handful of stars are still visible with the approaching dawn. The moon rises and sets later every day as it grows in fullness, giving me more hours and stronger magick.
I’ll go back to work like Remi asked. I’ll spend my days answering to him as I answered to Magister Thomas. The three of us were always a team, and now Remi is the leader.
My days belong to Remi and the Sanctum.
But the nights belong to me.