Page 117 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

“There are limits to how much any business is allowed to import nowadays. Restrictions the Temple Master put in place. Keeps us just at the point where we can run our businesses comfortably but no more.” Emmeline stored each fact in her mind to review later when she wasn’t tumbling through denial. “I’ve found ways around them by tapping into other contacts across multiple isles. I’ve built up a pretty wide network so I can do more business than my competitors. Also means I’m breaking some trade laws that would land me in the cells beneath the Trade House if discovered by the wrong people,” Desmond seethed as if that was the stupidest rule he’d ever heard.

Emmeline couldn’t entirely blame him. The restrictions on importing ink of all things were foolish. Why inhibit Lyra’s economy when the isle was already struggling?

But she’d been right about one thing. The unclassified ink transferred from Alvan was going to Desmond. Just not for ritualistic, cultish tattoos as the War Master’s notes implied. It was unnamed because of its source, not its capabilities.

“And what about the house?” Emmeline clarified. “The one you were in tonight. I followed you there the night of the first murder.” When she’d put the pieces together earlier, she’d guessed he’d evaded her notice somehow and snuck down to the Promenade.

Desmond sighed as if he’d been hoping she wouldn’t ask that. “My mother lives there.”

“Your mother?” Roremar blurted. “But she’s back on Alvan.”

“Hasn’t been for over a year.”

“What?” Roremar shook his head, and Emmeline almost thought he’d collapse in the sand.

She interjected, “Why are you hiding her?”

“My father has a nasty temper. And he leaves bad bruises.” Emmeline’s stomach turned, dread chilling her. “I was able to flee to Lyra when I was admitted to the Academy. My younger brother escaped to another isle. But my mother…she’d been stuck with him all this time. Until a year ago when I was finally able to get her away.”

“That trip you took last summer…” Roremar said, putting the pieces together.

“I was smuggling her off the isle and setting her up here with a new identity and new papers. Both of our names were supposed to be scrubbed from all records of transport.”

“They were,” Emmeline assured him. “I never came across anyone with your last name when going over logs or in the travel documents the War Master sent over.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Roremar asked his friend. “I could have helped.”

“How, Rore? You have so much on your plate already.”

“I don’t care!” Roremar roared. “You’re always on my ass for not allowing you to help me. It’s pretty fucking hypocritical of you now.”

What did Roremar need help with? What weren’t they saying?

Desmond stewed silently, turning back to Emmeline instead of responding to his friend. Spirits, the guilt-wracked piece of her wanted the ocean to swallow her up.

“The house you found me in tonight—that’s where my mother lives now,” he reiterated. “I don’t go there often so there’s less of a chance of drawing attention to her, but when I do, I go at night. It’s also where any illicit shipments I receive are sent, because she made me promise if I was housing her that she could do that for me in return. She didn’t want my name or my parlor’s on the deliveries.” He glowered. “Pain in my ass, but not worth the argument.”

“Importing extra ink means you can take more business to support her,” Roremar guessed.

Desmond nodded. “And it means I can do more imbued tattoo work. Soul bonds and shit that is typically closely regulated by the Temple Master. He’s onto me, though.”

“Falliare knows about this, too?”

Emmeline didn’t understand what would sway the Temple Master to allow that or why that revelation piqued Roremar’s interest so keenly.

“I haven’t figured out how much he knows, but you know how he works. It’s typically more than you think.” Desmond looked at his friend with grave apology, then went on, “I do a lot of work out of the shop nowadays so none of my competitors get suspicious by too much business. Then, I drop the extra money off with my mother.”

Fates, Desmond wasn’t killing women. He was saving one from a battered home and doing all he could to keep it a secret. Breaking laws, risking imprisonment.

A streak of envy lashed through Emmeline. What she wouldn’t do to be able to care for her mother in that way.

“I’m sorry, Desmond,” she said, though she knew it wasn’t enough for accusing him of murder. “I really thought all this evidence pointed in a different direction. I meant what I said. That I’d hoped I was wrong.”

His amber eyes took on that harsh stare again, chips she could slice her skin upon. “Next time, look at the whole picture before accusing me of being a fucking murderer. I’m done here.”

Desmond stormed back up the beach, leaving Emmeline to stand in her shame.

She’d been wrong.