Page 213 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

“Odd indeed,” Emmeline said as his gaze drooped over her. She tilted her head, chestnut waves slipping down her back as she watched the sky. “But isn’t so much of what’s occurring right now unnatural?”

Rocarri’s answering laugh bit against her skin like pointed fangs. “Yes, but I feel this one might be useful to us all.”

Useful for a ritual? she asked herself. She didn’t see how the movement of the stars aided his goal to create a Fate with the tournament.

“Be careful with that sharp tongue, Miss DeLeoste. You don’t hide as well as you think you do.”

He pushed back from the table. Before he went, his gaze lingered on her body.

Not on her dress.

But on the necklace displayed over the silver fabric, and the dark steel ring proudly adorning it.

Emmeline waited for him to meet her eye, a silent proclamation made.

The game had begun.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Roremar

Roremar knew even the most confident competitors were getting nervous. With their families here, it pulled them out of the bubble of the tournament’s adoring public and cast the possibility of their deaths into a starker reality.

Unlike the rest of them, he was more alive than he’d been previously.

Hearing his sisters laugh as he swung them around the dance floor, seeing the light return to Vivienne’s eyes after he’d caught her crying about Nico earlier, healed him. Knowing they’d feel the loss forever but still had glimmers of happiness reminded him he could, too.

He wasn’t caged tonight, thank the Fates. He would have asked his mother not to bring his siblings otherwise. But he hadn’t questioned the Chancellor on the decision. There was obviously an ulterior motive to unleashing him, and Roremar was still trying to figure him out.

Desmond was escorting Lola—all of them agreeing it was safest to have someone who knew about Dryvius watching over her—and they would arrive any minute.

It took monumental effort to stay away from Emmeline. If his family hadn’t been here, he didn’t think he would have been able to, but that was the game she’d proposed before he snuck out of her suite, and he loved a challenge. One more night away from one another—one night sneaking their Fatesworn bond beneath everyone’s noses, and then tomorrow, he’d fight for her. For them.

Huntress, he pushed the word down the bond and waited for Emmeline to stiffen across the room. It was so subtle, he would have missed it if he wasn’t so attuned to her.

You look divine, he tried again.

Emmeline’s cheeks flushed. An effect of the wine in her hand, surely. Not his voice in her mind.

He didn’t understand how the bond worked, but Fates, it was fun to make her squirm in this crowd without any of them knowing why.

Emmeline had more control than he did. Not once had she answered no matter how often he teased her.

It only made him want to try harder.

Roremar laughed as the song he was twirling Vivienne and Siena to came to a close. “Come on, let’s take a break.”

“Aw, one more?” Siena asked, blinking blue eyes up at him through her mask, utilizing an adorably pleading expression he could rarely say no to.

“We’ll dance some more, but there’s cakes over there.” Roremar gestured to the banquet table lining one wall. “Why don’t you go grab us some?”

Vivienne, dessert aficionado that she was, was already prancing to the selection, and Siena raced after her.

Good. There was one person he still had to speak to, and while he loved his little sisters, it needed to be private. As he approached his mother and Leo, the former kissed him on the cheek, then disappeared. Fates bless her intuition.

Roremar stood beside his fourteen-year-old brother, and they looked out over the ballroom together.

“Have you gotten to visit Museum Row?” Roremar asked.