Page 125 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Any hint of playfulness was gone from her tone, and she didn’t elaborate as she led him inside. Sleazy stares swept over her, sharp-eyed and a bit too keen on the sheer lace leaving very little of her figure to the imagination.

A figure they had no damn right to look at.

Silently, Roremar met one man’s eye as they crossed so closely their shoulders brushed. He paused for a moment, scowling down at him with a look akin to pure death.

The man gave Roremar a once over, and he saw the recognition dawn. He swallowed and kept walking, his steps a bit quicker than they had been before. At least his damn reputation was worth something.

Emmeline led him to a table in the middle of the gambling hall, sapphire velvet centered below a silver chandelier strung with eleven equivalent constellations and one dark one. Light glinted as they swayed daintily overhead, splaying spotlights on the crowd below.

She took her seat, Roremar claiming one beside her.

He still hadn’t put together all the pieces of why they were here, but the budding theories Emmeline had explained on the walk from Fated Ink had shredded him. With each step, she’d visibly shut down further, yet she proceeded to this place that haunted her because her reading from Anphrosia had shown her a Storyteller, and that Storyteller had directed her here, to meet with some man Roremar didn’t know for a reason she had yet to fully explain.

Anphrosia hadn’t given her much to go on, and agitation rolled through Roremar at the fact.

“Fucking Fates,” he muttered as the dealer gave them their first round of cards. The deck was modeled after the celestial beings, each suit bearing twelve different symbols with numerical values.

“Bad hand?” Emmeline asked, chestnut waves swaying over her shoulder when she looked at him.

“Yeah,” Roremar deflected, folding his cards though it actually was a decent hand. “Not a good start.”

Emmeline’s entire frame was stiff as she turned back to the table, and it drove a knife into Roremar’s gut. Quietly, keeping his eyes on the next set of cards he was dealt, he asked, “Have you uncovered anything else new the last few days?”

“Nothing particularly helpful,” she responded, tapping the table to ask for another card. Roremar did the same. “I went to Viperous Vices the other night and asked about clientele beyond the victims. Thought maybe our suspicion of the place being watched was right, but they get all matter of interesting patrons there, so there wasn’t anything unusual.” They both handed their cards to the dealer, and the next hand began. “They’re cooperative at least. I asked about specifics of the Fates, comparing different myths with their darker books. Did you know they have a whole shelf on depraved legends?”

It was the most consecutive words she’d spoken since she told him they had to come here, and Roremar relaxed with each.

He shook his head. “Did anything stand out?”

Emmeline shrugged, nimble fingers twirling her cards between them. “I purchased a book and have been comparing it with one Nico found in the Academy library. So far nothing, but there are a lot of references to how the constellations and star maps may have different interpretations than is commonly accepted.”

While her demeanor didn’t loosen, her voice became more enthralled the longer she spoke, and Roremar fought the urge to stare at her.

Partners, he reprimanded himself.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“Nothing concrete either,” he began. “Isle Guard is still watching Viperous Vices, though. They haven’t seen anyone suspicious hanging around.”

Emmeline scoffed. “Useless without me.”

Roremar smirked, handing his losing cards to the dealer as Emmeline won a stack of coins. “Apparently,” he joked. “I looked through everything the War Master sent you and went back to the Trade House. There are some inconsistencies in the shipping logs.”

He didn’t mention that Desmond had helped him realize that through his own records of ink shipments, and Emmeline, so distracted by whatever sent them here, didn’t ask.

They played a few more hands, swapping stories mindlessly to keep her talking. Emmeline was winning her eighth in a row when the back of Roremar’s neck prickled. He scanned the balcony wrapping the second story of the entire Mezzanine, his eyes landing on a shadowed form directly behind them. He couldn’t make out his face, but every instinct told him they were being watched.

Placing a hand on Emmeline’s back where the fabric dipped to the base of her spine, Roremar said, “You’re having good luck, Huntress.”

She flashed him a very forced smile. “The Fates are on my side.”

Roremar leaned in, hand drifting further around her waist. He relished in the forbidden feel of her, fingers curling against her hip as he whispered, “Balcony, directly behind.”

He could hear her breath quicken with his proximity despite how distracted she was. His lips drifted over her skin before he leaned back, resisting the urge to linger closer, and he smirked like the cockiest fucker in the world. As if he’d just said something salacious to earn her answering blush.

Emmeline’s eyes flicked up, then back to him, and in a move that nearly had Roremar abandoning this entire plan, she grazed her palm up his thigh and squeezed once.

Almost time, the touch said, but fuck did he wish it meant something entirely different.