Page 174 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

“Serchus,” she greeted as the Fate swung upside down from his tree branch, silver leaves swaying in the breeze and his mask tight to his face. She wondered briefly if he ever removed it. “Why is it you? I assumed it would be Anphrosia.”

“Alas.” Serchus sighed, feet wiggling as he swung. “She is otherwise engaged. You are stuck with me, Reignarria. But have no concern, for I am as wound in this web as the fated pair you seek. We all are.”

Emmeline centered herself, trying to unpack those words. The Fates had a reason for everything, even when it didn’t seem like it. If Serchus was here now, answering this call, he was specifically selected.

And Serchus was connected to this somehow. His reading had been the clearest recently. He’d been the one to tell her of the lock and key.

“The tale you spoke of last time. Was it about Roremar and Dryvius?”

The Fate shook his head. “Give me a secret, and I shall give you your answer.”

And this time, it was so easy to voice her deepest secret. “I love him, and I want to keep him, even though I promised I wouldn’t.”

Still hanging from his branch, Serchus tutted. “That is perhaps the most dangerous secret of all.”

“And I have shared it,” Emmeline said. “Now, give me my answer.”

“Go back to the boy who lost his life.”

Emmeline inhaled sharply. “Nico?”

Serchus nodded.

“Why was he killed?”

“Wrong question. You already know that answer.”

Emmeline searched her mind for any reason she’d theorized before. “Dryvius needed a Serchus Fate tie for his ritual.”

“One heart of greed entrenched in kin,” Serchus repeated the words Emmeline had been told weeks ago as he swung all the way around the tree branch, landing on his feet on its narrow edge. He braced his hands on his hips, light-purple starlight gilding his frame as he nodded down at her. “I am wound into this prophetic future as many others are. The boy was the consequence. His death was not to do with him, but with a promise I made to the stars long ago.”

Emmeline gasped as she understood. “The key. Someone who held secrets and schemes. It wasn’t about Dryvius and Roremar. That’s not how Dryvius is meddling.” No, it had nothing to do with the tournament at all. “It was you?”

A boyish smile.

Serchus created the lock and key prophecy, and Nico’s death fulfilled it.

Emmeline’s heart clenched. That’s why Dryvius targeted him.

Not because of something Nico suspected. Not because he completed a ritual.

Because of Serchus.

“Why, though?” she asked, voice hoarse. “What did it do?”

“In killing my representative and fulfilling that fortune, the Fate of Chaos and Revelry won something he’d been long working toward. Something his tied and those who came before him took precautions against.” A small laugh. “Though, they never knew the whole story.”

“What did Dryvius win?” Emmeline asked, not daring to breathe.

And when Serchus said, “Freedom from his tie,” she thought her heart would stop beating all together.

Freedom.

“But Roremar can feel him,” she said. “He didn’t sever their Fate tie. Roremar said he’s felt him. He read him tonight even—spoke to him.”

Although, Roremar had told them all on the ride out here that something was wrong with his tie. It had been since Dryvius killed Nico.

“There is more than one way to be free.” Serchus crossed his arms, leaning a shoulder against the tree trunk. The silver leaves shimmered with the motion, iridescence sprinkling the Fate and the earth beneath his feet.