Page 110 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Though she knew she shouldn’t be allowing them to nurture the need for one another, she cupped Roremar’s cheek. He dropped his forehead to hers, their eyes closing, and for a moment, she thought they were both pretending the outside realm didn’t exist. The Fates, the Angel, the tournament…none of it mattered.

All there was was them.

“You’re good, Roremar. He doesn’t get to change that.”

“Good, but not good for you,” Roremar whispered, and it broke Emmeline’s heart.

“No, I⁠—”

“It’s okay, Huntress,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead and stepping back. Taking half of her with him. “I understand.”

Spell broken, Emmeline retreated, too, trying to figure out how she could explain it to him without revealing that Rocarri was holding his safety over her head. It was her magic that made her so valuable after all, that made everyone want her. That made them all hate him even more.

“Just so you know,” Emmeline whispered, needing to say something to wipe that sorrow from his eyes. “I meant it’s me that’s not good for you.”

Roremar’s mouth opened as if to argue, but Emmeline backed away, needing distance before she did something truly reckless.

As she retreated, the heel of her boot sank into the stone.

The ground rumbled, and the floor beneath Valyrie’s portrait parted.

“A trip step,” Roremar said.

Emmeline looked from the gap looming in the floor to the spot where it had been triggered. Before the fresco of the masked Fate.

“Serchus,” she breathed.

Roremar grabbed a lantern from the wall, holding it over Emmeline’s head as she crouched beside the descent.

“Is it a crypt?” he asked.

“No,” Emmeline said as she leaned over it, no coffin or urn inside. Instead, there were— “It’s a staircase. Like the tunnels I found in the Ninth District when I thought I was following clues about my sister.”

That invisible presence buzzed fiercer along her skin, the drop below summoning her like hands of ancient magic.

“A staircase hidden beneath a mausoleum,” Roremar said.

“Feels very safe,” Emmeline agreed.

Roremar hummed. “Who first, then?”

Emmeline shared a grin with him. “Me.”

And she scampered down the stairs.

Magic hummed louder in her veins the lower she descended, Fates whirling to the surface, pushing her forward. Emmeline kept one eye on them, and with every step they took down the damp tunnel, their enthusiasm mounted.

She could taste their excitement, sweet and addictive on her tongue. Invisible hands plucked at each of her Fate ties as if they were strings on a harp, pulling and testing and encouraging them to sing haunted melodies in the stone maze work of tunnels.

“Do you feel that?” Emmeline asked as her Fates pressed against her skin.

“No?” Roremar asked, assessing her in his familiar way. “What is it?”

“It feels like my magic is being pulled to the surface. Almost like…” She didn’t want to say it, didn’t dare admit it, but there had only been one other time she’d felt this cascade of power.

“The seeing chamber,” Roremar guessed.

She met his eyes, the horror from that night flashing in the silvers. “I’m okay,” she insisted. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s…euphoric.” Like her magic had been begging her to come here for so long and was finally getting the release it needed.