Page 113 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

“What?” Emmeline’s gaze followed his. “Oh, yes. But I’m fine. I needed something to do while you took so damn long with Falliare, and I tracked some of my original targets through the Peddler’s District.”

Though he should have been mad at the risk she’d taken, Roremar had to fight a smirk at her flippancy. “What did you do there?”

“I only threatened someone. I don’t think he knew anything about…anything. I didn’t kill him, though.” She waved the explanation aside as if it was the least important piece of information of the evening.

Emmeline’s hands settled on his forearms, the contact seeming to ground her. Anticipation bubbled around her, roiling into him. Like they were twining together, finding resilience within one another.

“I got a letter from the War Master of Alvan,” Emmeline revealed.

“What?”

She nodded, explaining how she’d written a final plea not expecting anything in return. The words were spilling so quickly from her, if Roremar hadn’t become so attune to Emmeline in recent weeks, he’d probably be lost. When she finished explaining the records—now spread across the bed in orderly stacks—her chest was heaving. He squeezed her arms.

“You have an idea.” He didn’t ask it. He knew. In his gut, he knew Emmeline had an answer, or at the very least another piece of this puzzle.

He reached for the first stack of papers—the ones listing the Fate ties of Alvan Starsearchers—but Emmeline gripped his wrist.

She bit her lip in the way that was quickly becoming his undoing. “I need you to trust me.”

“I trust you,” Roremar responded without a thought. It was strange for him, to give someone that answer wholeheartedly. But it wasn’t a lie. Call him Reckless, but Roremar willingly handed his trust over to her.

“Get changed,” Emmeline said. “We need to go.”

Roremar followed Emmeline without question, was beginning to think she was the moon and he the tide the way something in his chest pulled him after her—and that maybe, for one damn night, he could stop trying to stifle that instinct. After Alvan and the way his body had craved hers, after finding out that she was slated as a victim for this murderer, perhaps he could indulge.

For himself, for once, he could allow a moment to give in.

Over rooftops and across alleys, they jumped, Roremar’s footsteps landing precisely in Emmeline’s, the only sound in the midnight air their breathing.

“What else was in the notes?” Roremar asked when they stopped on a nondescript roof. She’d whisked him out of the apartment before he’d gotten a chance to look at any of the specifics.

The alley below was painted with a variety of colors, a mural along the stone wall across from them. They were at the edge of the Peddler’s District not far from the Scholar’s Quarter and Cursed Markets, but he didn’t recognize the street.

“Mainly names. Some preliminary research on cult factions they’ve either uncovered or have historic record of on Alvan and the sacrifices, myths, and rituals tied to them.” She paused, eyes locked on a building across the way. Light poured out the small window, lace curtains framing the other side. Shadowed forms wavered beyond, a family maybe. The elongated rectangle of buttery yellow fell over a house cat’s slinking form as it ventured down the alley. “Some records of shipments to Lyra, too.”

“Shipments?” Roremar asked, his skin tingling, but he mimicked Emmeline and kept his attention on the door, one arm braced against the ledge that dropped into the street below.

“It’s mainly art supplies. They haven’t sent a big weapons import recently—hasn’t been needed, I suppose.” She shifted along the wall, her body moving as effortlessly as a viper’s against the cool stone. “It was things like paint, ink…”

Emmeline trailed off, and Roremar finally looked at her. Her mask covered the lower half of her face, but her eyes—a different sort of boundary had risen there. He didn’t recognize the harshness after so many weeks together. And she wouldn’t meet his stare.

“What aren’t you telling me, Huntress?” His heartbeat pounded loud in the night, sword a heavy weight across his back.

“One transport in particular was flagged by the War Master. Ink with imbued properties.”

“Like for rituals?” Roremar guessed.

Emmeline nodded firmly. “There were multiple crates. Some with Mystique ink from the continent. Some for binding tattoos. Others for unclassified purposes.”

Roremar directed his attention back at the nameless door. At the silhouettes moving within. “And why has that brought us here?”

“This is one of the addresses of the recipients.” Emmeline seemed to consider her next words carefully, her fingers drumming silently against the tile. “And it’s the house the person I followed went into on the night of the first murder.”

Roremar stood, hand flying toward his sword. “What are we waiting for, then?”

The person who had attacked Emmeline was possibly inside that building. The person who had killed multiple innocent women.

But Emmeline placed a hand on his arm. “We can’t charge in there.” Her eyes twinkled slightly, and his chest eased with the sight. “No matter how much you prefer the reckless alternative, we need to see them first. Figure out what we’re facing. There could be a dozen of them in there.”