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If you want to find out more about the people behind that note, then there’s one place we should definitely explore,Memnon says down our bond.The persecution tunnels.

CHAPTER 11

“This is nothow I planned to spend my evening,” I say as the two of us enter the Ritual Room.

The windowless room, with its walls and ceiling painted black, was where coven sisters gathered for certain ceremonies. Currently, a circle of partially burned white candles sits at the center of the room, the box they came in pushed off to the side.

“Yes, well, mine didn’t quite look like this either.”

“Howdidyour plans look?” I ask Memnon curiously.

“I expected to be enjoying the fruits of my vengeance. Namely, I thought I’d be married to you and well on my way to eating your pussy out.”

I make a face as I step up to the spelled wall, shivering a little at the thought. I’d like to say the shiver comes from a deep-rooted fear, but that’s not true. Mostly, I’m remembering what being married to the sorcerer was like, which mainly involved lots of love and good sex.

“I see you’re still deluded,” I say.

“Am I now?” he says behind me, and the mocking tone of his voice sets my teeth on edge. He and I both know I have a weakness for his mouth when it’s on certain unmentionable parts of me.

“I still cannot believe you proposed to me by threatening the lives of my friends. Talk about the least romantic proclamation of love.”

Memnon comes around to my front. “Yesterday, I sought revenge,” he says slowly, walking backward toward the far wall. “Today and for the rest of my life, I will seek to make you happy. If it’s romance you want from me,” he says, his eyes too bright, “then that’s what I will give you.”

I scowl. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” he says. “You want a soul mate who can love you as you mean to be loved.”

I raise my eyebrows, trying to ignore the tug of those words. “This might come as a huge shock to you,” I say, “but I am actually fine not being in a relationship with anyone. Especially you.”

“Mmm,” he says noncommittally.

I can tell he’s disregarded my words as soon as he hears them.

Memnon turns to the wall and places a hand against it. “Ifakavek.”

Reveal.

The doorway fades away, exposing a hidden room and a spiral staircase that descends down from it. The two of us set that spell what feels like lifetimes ago. Good to know it still works.

The sorcerer steps through the opening, then glances back at me. “Coming, Empress?”

I cross the room and step into the small antechamber where the spiral staircase waits.

I turn to face the exposed wall.

“Buvekatapis,” I murmur.

Conceal.

And I seal us inside.

Unlike the last time I visited the persecution tunnels, I’m no longer afraid of what’s down here. Perhaps it’s because then, I was interested in running from those who had hurt me. Now I’m interested in finding them.

My gaze sweeps over the subterranean room where the spell circle was held only two weeks ago. It appears just as it had the last time we visited.

“What are we looking for down here?” I ask.

“Anything at all. We can start with figuring out where the witches entered from,” Memnon says. “The night of that circle, did you notice anyone in your house going to that room above us?”