Page 180 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Her heart was pounding when she opened her eyes beneath Fated Ink, gasping. The mystlight flared and the scent of rose drowned her, the vial in her sweaty palm cracked.

“Well?” Desmond asked. Charcoal smeared his fingers as the stick clattered to the table.

“It wasn’t him.” And she grinned as she explained what Anphrosia had implied. “At this rate, if we do nothing, the killings are going to keep happening, so it can’t be Roremar. There’s no possible way. Not with him in a cell.”

“So we just wait until another one occurs and hope his sentence gets dragged out?” Desmond asked doubtfully.

Emmeline blinked at him. “No, Desmond, we are not going to wait for an innocent person to be killed in order to prove Roremar is innocent.”

She swore Desmond almost laughed. “Then what are you suggesting?”

“They won’t sentence him until the end of the festival. Darcy told me as much. The proceedings are complicated with him being related to Falliare, so that buys us a sliver of time.” Emmeline scanned the star maps spread before her. Intoxicated yells echoing from the Promenade above sparked an idea. “How drunk do you think everyone is from the first night of the Revels?”

“Most are probably passed out or on their way to it. Why?”

Emmeline drummed her fingers on the table, eyes locked on the recreations of the tattoo parlor insignias they’d begun this entire hunt with. “Because I think we need to talk to him.”

Chapter Sixty

Emmeline

“I’ll wait up here,” Desmond whispered at the top of the stairs.

Emmeline’s head whipped around, both of their faces shadowed by their hoods. “You don’t want to see him?”

“If I go down there I’ll break those damn bars to get him out, and that’ll end worse for all of us but especially him.” Desmond glanced over his shoulder. “Besides, who knows when a sober guard will show up. We probably have time given that it’s the first night of the Revels, but just in case.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line. “Thank you.”

“It’s for him,” Desmond reminded her. His tattooed hands fisted at his sides, and Emmeline nodded.

Her heart thundered as she descended the stairs. At the base, she pried a lantern from the wall, the mystlight illuminating a small circumference for her to see by.

The iron from Nico’s blood still clung to the air, each step pricking up her nerves more. Her magic beaded beneath her skin, as if it wanted a physical release, but she suppressed it. All the different strands, everything Anphrosia had said to her tonight, she stuffed it deep into that endless well that slumbered within her.

The cells barely seemed familiar from this morning. She’d been following instinct then. Now, the air was clouded with grief and death. She wondered what Fates watched this space tonight, which would tell tales surrounding it.

The first hall was nothing but empty cages, doors hanging open. There were scattered bits of cloth and overturned buckets in some of them, rodents scurrying through others. No prisoners were here tonight besides the one she sought. She ventured deeper, her heart beating through her entire body, down to her toes. Every breath was a crescendo in the silence.

When she finally rounded the last corner—the depths reserved for the criminals deemed most vial—she found the only locked cell and the man slumped against the wall within, hands chained, chin drooped to his chest.

Her ribs splintered, something within her crying out.

“Roremar,” Emmeline whispered as she sank to her knees. Sliding her hood back, she wrapped a shaky hand around one bar.

The eyes he lifted to her were lifeless. Solid, cloudy grey. No hint of remorse or desperation. No hint of anything at all.

He averted his attention quickly and leaned against the back wall. The cage was so small his outstretched leg nearly grazed the bars. She could reach out and touch him if she dared.

“Roremar, are you okay? Have they done anything to you?”

“What are you doing here?” he spat. The cutting words pulled at the part of her that cared for him—that had dared to hope she may belong with him.

“I’m here for you,” she said, swallowing that pain as every soft and heated moment with him flashed through her memory. The vulnerable and the broken, the sweet and tender, they all choked her. “I needed to speak with you.”

“Why?” he sneered.

The tone was a slap to the face. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t her Roremar.