Page 198 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

What do you know of the Averian? she wrote. She didn’t sign it. It wouldn’t need a signature.

Folding the note, she tossed it over the nearest mystlight before she could reconsider. Her stomach twisted with self-loathing as it swooshed away above the flame.

An answer came almost too quickly. What’s in it for me?

Emmeline considered. Too much. She’d already given up too much, what more did she even have to offer? But those five words—they implied that he knew something. That there was a potential to trade for information she needed so desperately.

Before she could second guess it, Emmeline wrote, What do you want? And she tossed it over the mystlight.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Roremar

Roremar paced the corridor, the clock at the top of the stairs counting down his demise. He only had hours before Rocarri’s event tonight. He should be using this time to try to figure out what or who or where Dryvius might be.

But ever since Valyrie had told him the truth about the ring from his father, Roremar couldn’t get this idea out of his mind, as reckless as it made him.

The silver clock at the end of the corridor ticked away. He turned on his heel as he paced the fine carpet, his cloak flaring behind him, hood shadowing his face.

There’d been no guards at his prison again today, and it unnerved him. He couldn’t figure out what Rocarri was up to. Was he trying to toy with him?

“Hello?” Aldryn Falliare asked, and Roremar froze. His head snapped up, and he took in those solid brown eyes, strength radiating from them. Strength and a flicker of uncertainty.

Good.

After everything Roremar learned, his uncle deserved to be uncertain. He was sure sewing enough of it. All without even ruining his pristine appearance.

“Roremar.”

“Uncle,” Roremar said, hiding his derision.

“What are you doing here?” Aldryn looked down the stairs but the rest of the building was silent.

It was a wealthy apartment house, not one of the overcrowded ones in less equipped parts of the city. The floorboards didn’t creak and dust didn’t linger in the corners. No, it reeked of privilege and the guarantee you wouldn’t be overheard.

Still, Aldryn said, “In my apartment. Now.”

Rolling his eyes, Roremar followed him. This was a conversation best had in private, anyway.

He took slow steps across the sitting room, leaning against the windowsill and watching birds flit around the garden outside. The street was quiet in this private neighborhood, but Roremar’s mind was loud.

“I was told you were imprisoned,” Aldryn said. Roremar couldn’t tell from the statement whether he’d known it was only a half truth or not.

“I am.”

He turned his back on the window, picking apart the neatly furnished room around them. Falliare’s spare cloak hung by the door. A set of silver brushes and combs lined the shelf beneath the mirror on one wall, and a row of crystal glasses sat on the sideboard. Aldryn poured a measure of whiskey from an artfully etched decanter.

He drained it, set the glass down, and turned to Roremar.

“What brought you here, then?”

Roremar smirked, challenging, “What brought you here?”

Aldryn flicked a brow up at his sharp tone, and Roremar felt the wall shatter with that one motion. A dance they’d been waiting to do for years, the first notes had finally played in the cells beneath the Trade House when Aldryn hinted at how much he’d suspected about Roremar’s magic.

The Temple Master sighed, his poor attempt at a doting uncle facade slipping away as if submerged beneath the truth-saying waters of Wisteria Falls. “I’m here for the interest of the isles.”

“But why now?” Roremar straightened, slipping his hands into his pockets. “You could have come to Valyn any time over the past two years since the prior Chancellor’s death if you wanted to manipulate the new appointment for trade deals. Or you could have waited until I was gone if you were truly trying to distance yourself from me. You haven’t done anything to assist me since you’ve been here, but you haven’t denounced me either. You’ve acted like I don’t exist.” Roremar took slow strides forward, stopping when they were eye to eye. “So why now? Was it simply the opportunity of the tournament? The heightened events giving you a chance to blend in seamlessly?”