Page 177 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Relief unspooled within her, magic rushing through her veins, to her fingertips. “Thank you,” she whispered, clenching her fists.

He jerked his head inside. “Get in here. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“You were reading?” she asked as she slipped off her boots. She’d never been in Desmond’s apartment, but its dark walls were covered in hand-painted murals. The mismatched wooden furniture was warm and homey. She settled herself on the worn russet sofa, toying with a tiny, fingertip-sized hole in the arm, likely from someone smoking.

Desmond sighed, dragging a hand down his face and falling onto the opposite end of the sofa. “I’ve been trying.”

With the door closed, the noise of the festivities was smothered. Without all those people celebrating Roremar’s arrest amid the revel commemorating the Twelfth Fate’s death, she could think a little more clearly.

Emmeline inhaled the citrus scent, the underlying laurel leaf burning beside it. “Aevollon?”

“Tried Arenothos earlier.” Desmond picked up a sketch pad and charcoal, tilting the drawing so she couldn’t see it. “He wasn’t very helpful. No redemption, I guess.”

“Have you tried speaking with both at once?” Emmeline chewed her lip, scanning his supplies.

Desmond’s lips quirked as he drew, the scratch of the charcoal against paper a welcome rhythm. “Never thought a threesome with the Fates would be your style.”

She ignored the innuendo. “What do you mean?”

“Your very laced up, Emmeline. The type to follow all the rules. Stick to one Fate per session,” he mimicked in a high voice, “so on and so forth.”

“Sometimes we have to break the rules. I’ve always found that one a bit restrictive.”

“That we do.” He gave an impressed nod, still watching his sketch. “You read from both your ties at the same time?”

Emmeline fidgeted with her ring. “I have. My mother taught me how before she died. She wanted me to have full mastery over my magic.”

The conversation took her back to the Trade House, when she and Roremar had broken in. He’d told her she wasn’t what he expected.

If only they knew the half of it. She broke rules just by existing. Remaining discreet was the only way she survived.

Careful consideration, just as Roremar conducted. Spirits, she had completely misjudged him originally. Her throat tightened.

Desmond had said she’d been good for Roremar, but it was the other way around. Roremar had been good for her. Had shown her true care, taught her how to let others in. They may both be tightly wound, but together, they’d been learning to challenge their rigid boundaries.

She let him breathe. He let her fall.

They’d been good for one another.

That notion hardened her resolve. Emmeline cleared her throat. “Try reading both Fates at once,” she instructed Desmond as if he was one of her students. “It will feel overwhelming, but sometimes they discuss with each other more than you, and you can pick up on what lies between their words.”

Desmond shrugged, cracking open a jar labeled amber and musk. With the mingling scents of two Fates burning, Desmond leaned back in his chair and began his vigil of the Fates.

Emmeline’s own magic begged to give into the pressing reading, but she fought it back. Instead, she pulled out the various notes she’d brought from the Academy and carried them to the dining table taking up the center of the room.

Mystlight ignited in the orbs hanging over the space. Beneath their glow, she laid sheets of parchment and journals across the pristine wood. She organized them into piles. Things that felt so detached from Roremar, they had to prove his innocence, and those she was still puzzling out. She set the various star maps and charts she’d drawn over recent weeks in their own pile off to the side. Later she’d go through what constellations had been brightest to see if there were any hints as to celestial movements that impacted Ambrisk. She began picking through the notes on the victims, turning the facts on their heads to find any connections that could have been misconstrued.

Roremar’s ring that she’d found in the cells lay heavily on a chain around her neck, tucked beneath her dress. A solace and a reminder.

After an extended silence, Desmond groaned, pushing up from his chair.

“Nothing?” Emmeline asked.

“No,” he clipped, grabbing a bottle of ale from the table and striding across the room, charcoal and sketch pad in his other hand. “The two just bickered about Anphrosia some more and all the grief she caused them.”

“Like the Storytellers,” she mused. “You’d think the Narratres Fatorum would have something better to discuss.”

“Apparently, even in eternity it always comes down to scorned lovers.” He took a swig, waving a hand across the table. “What’s all this?”