Sami awaited her date in an old classroom in the upper levels of the Teacher’s Tower. The last flame had guttered and died quickly, and a new spark had been kindled in a woman who worked in the Palace Treasury. She was eager to meet with her, anticipation and a scattering of salacious thoughts already warming her in that peculiar way they always did when she was approaching first contact. Static surges flared across her nerves, and a heady fog had settled in her mind as she contemplated her surroundings.

  The classroom was her favored place for trysts of a less than wholesome persuasion. A heavy carpet lay on the floor, and writing desks were stacked and pushed in from the walls, so that narrow channels created the impression of a maze with her chosen spot at the center. Some time after the tower had been abandoned, someone had taken the initiative to move those desks out of the other classrooms on this floor, so that those were largely empty and this became a storage room all the brick brack that once helped them function. Bookshelves broke up the stacked desks, and those, too, were mostly empty, but she had taken several candles from a storeroom in the Servants’ Tunnels, which now populated those low shelves, the flames wavering with subtle breezes, occasionally crackling as they chewed up their wicks.

  Close quarters made for intimate encounters, and as the moment drew near, she arranged herself on the rug, tousled strawberry blonde locks to give herself that fresh out of bed look that made so many girls swoon, and unbuttoned her shirt, tossing the collar off one shoulder so that her cleavage was obvious, not hinted at but on full display.

  Her liaison would be here any moment now. She’s probably climbing the stairs by now.

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  A small basin lay behind one of those desks, a rag nestled into cold water. She had taken it from the same storeroom months ago, for the event she or her partner wanted to wipe down before they left. Sometimes, these conquests turned messy. When the clothes came off, and the fun was well under way—fingers and tongues roving over bodies, squeezing soft breasts and asses, and exploring other, warmer and wetter places—they could get messy, indeed.

  The door fell inward, a slice of harsher light cutting through the gloom in that direction, painting a bar of orange light against the floor tiles. She adjusted her pose, pulled her shirt lower onto her arm, rearranged her breasts. She pursed her lips, then, thinking better of it, tried on a different expression, something more casual. A smile alighted on her lips and then fell away. She wanted to be attainable, inviting, but not too inviting. She wanted to be seen as a sexual being, but she did not want to be perceived as a slut.

  “Laurel?” she asked. “Is that you? I’m over here.”

  No answer.

  She likes to play games.

  She liked games. She liked breaking games.

  The door warbled closed, the bar of light receding, leaving them in the room together, to play this game of hide and seek by candlelight before the main event transpired.

  “Don’t keep me waiting too long, now. I’ve been so patient waiting for you, but I don’t know how much longer I can—“

  A hand clamped over her mouth. A scream welled up in her throat and then died. The hand was soft, the palm wide and the fingers delicate. Its pair traveled over her midriff, hooked around her flank.

  Cold.

  All at once the lights were snuffed, as if a gale had blasted every flame away, leaving her in absolute darkness. The floor gave way from under her.

  Wait. This is wrong.

  A sense of vertigo stole over her as she was dragged down, and away.