How does he even know about the concept of love languages? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I need to get out of here.

I glance at the oversize black shirt I wear.

Well, change, then escape.

I head for the walk-in closet next to the bathroom. Halfway there, a scrap of lace hanging inside it catches my eye.

My stomach bottoms out as, for an instant, I’m filled with dread that some other woman has been here with Memnon.

No, that can’t be right. Can it?

I hate that I care. He and his poor life choices can rot.

Still, my pulse pounds between my ears as I hustle toward the closet, drawn by a horrified fascination at what I might find inside.

Women’s clothing? Weapons? Bodies? Who the fuck knows.

The walk-in closet is about as big as my entire room at the coven. He’s such a rich bitch. Despite the space, there’s not much inside as far as Memnon’s clothes go. I see a handful of suits hanging up as well as some folded shirts and pants on the shelves.

Not that I’m paying much attention to those.

My eyes are pinned to that single scrap of lace, which now that I’m closer looks like a slip dress. I reach for it, my stomach plummeting at the thought of someone else wearing this around Memnon until I notice it has a tag still attached.

I exhale, my breath shaky. Okay, so it’s not some mystery woman’s. What a relief. For her, of course. Best not to get within striking distance of this dude.

Letting it go, I tug out another dress. This too has a tag still attached.

All the women’s clothes seem to have tags.

They’re also all roughly my size.

These are meant for me, I realize.

That really shouldn’t stun me—Memnon intends to marry me, after all. Still, this is…a lot.

An old feeling, one that belongs to Roxilana, rises.

This would’ve won her over. Easily.

Before Memnon took her away and married her, she had little to her name. Even for me, independent though I am, being doted on is alluring.

This is blood money, Selene. And the price is letting the asshole get his way.

Dicks will sprout wings before that happens.

I stare at the clothes a moment longer. I do have to get dressed, I concede. I rifle through the women’s clothing until I find a pair of jeans and a simple white shirt.

Goddess, forgive me for taking from the devil.

On a shoe rack below, there are three different pairs of shoes in my size, one of which happens to be a set of Doc Martens.

I grab the combat boots.

Forgive me, Goddess, for taking these too. And for keeping them.

I mean, it’s not every day one gets new Doc Martens.

Grabbing the items, I head into the bathroom and quickly pull on the clothes, my agitation growing. I don’t know where Memnon is, but the time I have before he returns is limited.

When I straighten, I notice that tucked into the bathroom mirror is a photo. Of me.

In it, I’m clinking a champagne flute with a few people who are off camera. I know from memory that it was taken this last New Year’s Eve, when Sybil and I and a few of her coven sisters were all at an apartment party. It’s an action shot of me, one where I’m genuinely smiling and my eye just happened to catch the camera.

My heart does a funny thing, finding this picture in Memnon’s otherwise bare bathroom, knowing he must’ve taken it from one of my photo albums and placed it here where he’ll see it every day, alongside his own face.

I stride out of the bathroom and snatch up my phone, which rests on one of the bedside tables. It clings to a mere five percent of battery life.

I slip it into my back pocket and survey my surroundings once more.

There’s not much to see in this room, nor was there much to the bathroom and closet. For some reason, I assumed there would be. Memnon is good at playing the game of rulers, and in the modern world, so much of that is owning lots of expensive things. But so far, there’s really not that much that screams self-involved.

I guess my warlord ex is a little too rugged to bother with more creature comforts. That, or he’s still amassing his wealth, one victim at a time.

I need to go, now.

Yet my attention moves to the one place where Memnon has accumulated items: his bookshelf. Without intending to, my feet lead me over to it.

There are books from Pliny the Elder written in their original Latin, alongside the Greek versions of The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Herodotus’s writings, and some ancient poetry. There’s a biography of Nero as well as some histories of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas that span the time frame when Memnon and Roxilana lived.

My eyes move to the lower shelves, where they snag on the familiar spines of my notebooks.

I don’t breathe.

It’s not possible. Memnon burned them. I watched him burn them.

I drop to my knees, disbelief and hope—painful, awful hope—riding me, and I pull one notebook out. This one is covered in gold foil constellations. I open it up, and a little sound slips past my lips when I see my name and the date range in my handwriting. On the next page is a set of notes about how to get to the restaurant where I was working at the time. Alongside it is a spell I scribbled in for removing wrinkles from clothes.

I flip through several more pages, which are full of Polaroids, sticky notes, to-do lists, directions, spells I thought were worth remembering, and hasty sketches.

My thumb runs over one such sketch, this one of a Sarmatian griffin. I swallow down the strange rush of emotions it brings forth before moving through the rest of the notebook.

It is, without a doubt, mine. Somehow, it’s whole once more.

This is a trick. It must be. I saw these notebooks burn, and I touched their charred remains. I remember the acrid, smoky smell that clung to the room once they were nothing more than cinders.

I grab another journal and flip through it. Then another.

I pinch my eyes shut, my throat tight with emotion. Despite my efforts, a rebellious tear slips out.

I don’t know how Memnon managed to weasel these out of my room or fake their fiery demise, but they still exist. He saved them.

For one-point-five seconds, I feel a rush of tenderness toward the sorcerer. Then I remember that he still manipulated and coerced me. He still framed me for murder and forced me to lift that curse against my will.

So screw him and his small kindnesses.

Moving back over to his closet, I look for anything that might be able to hold my notebooks. Tucked away in a far corner, I find a black duffel bag that has a knife, rope, and some zip ties.

Not fucking suspicious or anything.

Emptying the bag, I haul it over to the bookcase and dump all my books into it. There are so many of them that I can’t zip the bag up. The spines of several of the journals peek out as I heft the bag onto my shoulder. I suddenly feel more like myself, having my notebooks close.

I pull out my phone and, ignoring the slew of messages and notifications waiting for me, order my familiar and me a car.

“Nero,” I call out to the panther, who’s still sprawled out on our enemy’s bed. “It’s time to go.”

I don’t wait for him to follow. My body is jittery with nerves and resolve. I’ve got my notebooks. Now I need to get back to the coven and ward the shit out of my room so that pushy sorcerers can’t approach me.

I leave the bedroom, Nero at my heels. The two of us pass by several rooms that branch off the house’s hallway as well as a sprawling living room. I lament the fact that I have to get out of here. I really am curious about the rest of Memnon’s home.

The front door is a bronze monstrosity. I reach for the handle, only when I go to open it, it doesn’t budge. It’s then that I notice the ward shimmering on both the lock and the door handle’s surface.