Page 90 of Fallen Court

Roark cursed under his breath.

Cate tipped her head to the body on the ground. “Her wound is cleaner, no sign of tissue reaction. The blood didn’t clot. The murderer did this after she was dead.” She leaned against me—the only sign that the murder scene had affected her. “Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”

But it felt like something.

“Why drag her out here?” Roark scanned the graveyard like the answer was hidden somewhere among the tombs.

“Convenience?” Cate suggested without a hint of humor. “Maybe they planned to bury the body and got interrupted.”

“It is a public cemetery.” Roark nodded.

“But Holt Cemetery would have been a better choice,” I said. No one would have blinked at a fresh grave in the former potter’s field, not even the resident gravedigger.

“We need to find out who she is. Maybe that will tell us something,” Roark said.

I doubted it. “Or it’s just another message.”

“Wasn’t killing Thalia message enough?” he asked.

“No one’s safe,” Cate whispered, lifting troubled eyes to find mine as she voiced what I was thinking. “Whoever did this chose a human on purpose. Are we sure it isn’t Oberon?”

I hadn’t thought so before, but two bodies warranted some reconsideration on my end. “Anything’s possible, but if he had a spy in my city, why risk them for something like this?”

“Because he’s mentally unstable,” Roark muttered.

He had a point. I stared at the victim. When word got out, people would panic. “We need to keep this quiet.”

Two deaths in New Orleans—even murders—were hardly noteworthy, but the memento mori changed things. I might not have killed the women myself, but I was responsible for their deaths.

“Ask around, but make sure no one else finds out.” I hesitated, glancing to where my brother loitered with his old friend. “And have Dante compel our guys.”

Roark blinked. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”

Cate’s fingers wove through mine, and she squeezed my hand. A silent question. I bobbed my head. “He knows,” I said under my breath, but while Roark knew I suspected a rat, he didn’t seem convinced it was true. “The fewer people who know about this, the easier it will be to contain. If we have to use magic, so be it.”

“Our men can be trusted,” Roark said, and I wished I had his confidence. He glanced to where Dante stood in the distance. “But how will you keep him from blabbing to Baptiste?”

That was easy. “Do you know what Baptiste will do to him if she finds out he’s feeding a fae his venom recreationally? Or that that fae is my brother? It won’t be good.”

“Wonderful. We’re blackmailing people now,” Cate said flatly.

I pinned her with a stare. “It’s better than killing him to keep him quiet.”

She paled in the moonlight. “He’s your brother’s friend.”

“And that’s keeping him alive.” For now. “You wanted to be part of this. Those are the kind of choices I have to make.”

But something moved on the edge of my mind—a darkness even I couldn’t see through. I’d blackmailed people before. Manipulated before. Chosen war. Chosen to kill the few to save the many. Hell, I’d chosen not to save at all.

I didn’t have to look inside myself to know what length I might go to in order to save my court, my family—and especially my mate. It was any length. It had been that way for so long that I could no longer remember when it wasn’t the case. Nothing would change that, not even the memento mori burning on my neck.

At that conviction, the mark quenched itself like a red-hot brand dipped in cool water.

But for how long?

Chapter Twenty-One

Cate