Page 242 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Give one heart of greed entrenched in kin,

And many dancing with sweet sin,

To remedy a past scorned daring,

And cross with bloodied footsteps faring.

A hand pulled her forward.

“Ahead!” Emmeline called as she breathed over the magic, her vision splitting between here and elsewhere, the images too fast to explain.

Desmond and Eston ran down the dim stretch of tunnel, Emmeline helping Myrella along as hurriedly as her shaking frame would let her, but even she was eager, her panting breaths stuttering with every racing step.

The tunnel curved, spitting them out into the back of a mountainous cavern, and Emmeline froze.

Twelve monuments towered around the oblong space, six on each side, stretching all the way to the high ceilings. They stood atop marble plinths lined with an abundance of candles, statues built directly into the walls like they were one with the earth—the city and the tunnels beneath it.

Some didn’t even have faces, the details carved away over time. Two wore helmets, one an elaborate mask, vines wrapped the head of another, and one bore a veil with features dull beneath.

“This is it,” Emmeline exhaled, the force of her magic whipping through her. Those fortunes pouring down. “I’ve been here before.”

Not physically, not even for long. But she’d seen it.

In her reading in Valyrie’s seeing chamber, she’d seen this place lit up with starfire. Now, it was a damp stone floor beneath her feet, walls etched with murals and ancient artwork, dripping candles lining the steep monuments, flames flickering against the cracked marble bases.

All the monuments faced a thirteenth being at the front of the room, palms open at her sides, the ceiling sloping to meet her towering wings, each feather carved in detail.

And before Valyrie was an altar⁠—

“Lola!” Emmeline gasped.

Desmond and Eston were already running to her. She was spread atop the marble, wrapped in only a thin silk dressing gown.

“Come on, Lols,” Desmond was whispering when Emmeline and Myrella stopped at the altar, Emmeline’s nails digging into the stone. Fates, Lola was so pale—too pale—her eyelids and lips tinged blue. “Come on, please, Lols, you can’t leave. One more night. Give me one more night, come on.”

Even at such a low volume, Desmond’s pleas were excruciating.

“Is she breathing?” Emmeline asked.

No, no she couldn’t lose another one of them. None of them could, and Roremar⁠—

“Yes,” Desmond said as he brushed a hand across Lola’s cheek, and Emmeline’s fear unwound slightly. “But she’s unresponsive, and she’s fucking freezing.” As if to double check, Desmond’s hand slipped back to Lola’s pulse point. His head drooped under the weight of relief, but his brow creased. “What in the forge?”

Gently, Desmond tugged aside the top of Lola’s dressing gown, and his skin turned ashen. “Fucking Fate.”

Emmeline leaned closer, Myrella’s gasp echoing in her ears.

On Lola’s chest, dark ink red at the edges, was the twelve-pointed star tattoo. One spoke stretched further than the others as it always did, pointing toward whatever direction the Isle of Byron would have been when it was inked. At least, that’s what they’d hypothesized once they learned it was Dryvius doing this. Dryvius and Anphrosia were the patron Fates of that isle, as Arenothos and Aevollon were of Alvan.

“No,” Emmeline whispered.

Bodies flashed before her eyes. All limp and pale and so strikingly similar to how Lola appeared now.

“That’s fresh,” Desmond said, not tearing his eyes away from the ink, as if his stare alone could scourge it from her body. A mark she’d always carry, even if they saved her. “Probably a few hours.”

“It’s him, right?” Eston asked, panic edging his voice. “That’s one of the things the Fate does?”

“Yes—” A piercing chime cut off Emmeline’s explanation.