Page 33 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

One was a life—a person with loved ones, dreams, and emotions.

The other was cold, cruel facts and clues he could collect to build the truth of what happened.

He’d always compartmentalized on a battlefield, separating the lives lost from the strategies and goals. Seeking out answers comforted him, the solutions providing a sense of achievement. Look at the bodies, the means, and the motives as separate from the lives being lost.

It worked for most deaths, anyway. His lungs constricted at the memory of the one it hadn’t worked for, but he rolled his shoulders back and grounded himself in the evidence like they were pieces of a puzzle.

The crowd around them murmured, crying, and another person vomited in the alley, but Roremar crouched down and observed the body.

Blood spilled through the fatal wound, down over the woman’s chest. Her neck and limbs were all bent at odd angles, almost as if she’d been dropped here. A silver medallion was wrapped around her wrist, like a necklace she’d twined there instead of hanging it on her slender neck, and her elegant features bore barely any cosmetics. Across her sternum, a twelve-pointed star was inked. Typically used as a symbol of the Fates.

“You ever see that tattoo before?” he asked Desmond.

Des brushed a hand over his jaw as he leaned forward. In a whisper, he mused, “Not done by me. The work is shoddy, the lines uneven.” Roremar nodded, having noticed that, too. He counted the points on the star again to be sure. Twelve. “It looks like a partial rendition of the Lyra sigil, no?”

“Why isn’t it complete, though?” Roremar asked.

And why was it blatantly in the center of her chest, so on display in that low-cut dress, when she had no other visible tattoos? It wasn’t a spot he saw often.

Why would someone who didn’t seem to boast any other art receive one there of all places?

And judging by how dark the ink was, the edges of the design red, the piece was fresh.

“You know anyone else on the isle that could have done the tattoo?” Roremar murmured.

“Sure, three or four competitors,” Desmond offered. “A couple might still be open, though I’m sure they closed up with the commotion.”

“Can you get me a list?”

“Yeah, but I can’t say which would have that rough of a hand.”

Roremar stood, dragging a palm down his face and squeezing his eyes tight. Desmond was right. No professional would have drawn that messy work. Unless they weren’t entirely sober while doing it, which, if they’d already closed and were persuaded to reopen, was possible.

“Better start somewhere,” Roremar said on a grudging sigh.

When he blinked his eyes open, his gaze was pulled to a lithe figure in the alley opposite them.

What the fuck is she doing here?

And what was she wearing?

The all-black leathers had her blending into the shadows, the crowd obscuring her and a mask covering the lower half of her face, but those hazel eyes were imprinted into Roremar’s memory, as much as he wished it was otherwise. And when they snapped to his, an invisible string of starfire ignited between them, the commotion of the streets fading beneath it.

An unspoken, reluctant solidarity.

Roremar was certain they both knew this was connected to the case. How? He couldn’t say yet. Until now, they had only been dealing with disappearances. But with a victim dead before them, they’d be cruel to turn away when—for whatever reason—his uncle thought they were the only two that could solve this.

Neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to.

Emmeline gave the body one last lingering glance, snapped her gaze back to Roremar’s, and nodded at him. He dipped his chin once in response, and in that motion, understanding was sealed. An alliance forged. A fate written.

Emmeline didn’t wait for anything else. With Roremar’s eyes still locked on her, she sank back into the shadows and slipped away.

And while they had an unstated agreement now, there were certainly things he was going to ask her.

It seemed Miss DeLeoste was more than just a magically gifted tutor after all. She was a huntress in the night. His stare dropped back to the body, her throat slashed open above the beacon of a tattoo.

And he wondered, who was Emmeline’s prey?