Page 188 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Emmeline sprang to her feet, gathering a dozen different vials from the shelf and setting up various oil wells around the floor, the star maps she was most interested in at the center of them.

Desmond watched her curiously, but he leaned against the counter, arms crossed and lips sealed. Emmeline poured a bit of oil into each glass holder. She pulled over the rewritten records of everything the Storytellers had revealed, all the evidence they’d gathered on Lyra, and Nico’s notes to cross-reference the myths of the Fates. She opened everything to the pages she needed.

Then, she settled at the heart of the circle.

“Light them all,” she instructed Desmond.

He followed without complaint, interest piqued. “What’s your plan?”

“To use everything at my disposal,” she said, jaw setting.

And with all the information spread before her, she loosened the tap on her magic. For the first time in eighteen years, Emmeline fully dove into the pressure that had been thrumming between her veins, more insistent that ever. More desperate. More wild.

Voices exploded around her, begging and pleading. Some warning, others humming taunting songs.

The words Anphrosia had recently spoken to her played on haunting repeat. Be prepared to lose yourself along the way.

Reign and Ruin, a booming voice echoed.

Fall and bleed…

Two hearts staked…

The melodies overlapped, each one coming from a different direction. She tried to pry them apart, to organize each voice so she could categorize what the warnings might mean, but they were a maelstrom beating her down, the pressure of so many fortunes overwhelming.

A pair of wings expanded, twelve stars circling them. Faster and faster, they spun until they morphed into one. The solid white orb rose into the exploding sky, cracking open at its peak.

Feathers poured from within, drifting to her feet and sinking into the ground.

One name drifted on the roaring wind: Selene.

The longer Emmeline sat there, the hotter starfire flared around her. Her breathing turned ragged as she thought she heard someone calling her name, but she was stuck on this plane. Stuck as constellations ignited and extinguished above, over and over again, cracking and sealing.

For Roremar, she swore repeatedly as she dove deeper into that cataclysmic force awaiting her.

She reached out to where she knew Skies of the Fates and the dark mythology books were propped open, the notes on the Lair spread before her, and pressed her palm to the cool parchment on her realm.

Stars rippled through the violet sky, shattering. Instead of white fire, a shower of crimson exploded from them. Blood, she thought at first, horrified as it clung to her skin.

She couldn’t run. Couldn’t dodge it.

But a drop landed on her lips, much lighter than she expected, and when she flicked her tongue over it…

“Wine?” she asked.

Magic burned within her, anticipation bubbling in her chest, begging her to understand.

Hazy memories took shape in the wall of white fire before her. Roremar and her at the reflecting pool. The caves beneath his home with Cirre, walls glimmering with veins of minerals. The Storytellers’ Lair, the messengers of Aevollon, Anphrosia, and Arenothos no more than brief glimpses, a shadowed figure looming behind them.

“Oh, my Angels,” Emmeline gasped. The wine poured down on her, soaking her dress and hair until everything clung to her skin. The rich, fruity notes drowning her.

The reading imploded in a burst of fire, and she collapsed forward in the basement, clean of wine but panting as every flame winked out and smoke filled the air.

“What is it?” Desmond asked, dropping to a knee. “Emmeline? What did you read?”

She swallowed, throat dry and stinging. “It is so much worse than we thought.”

Chapter Sixty-Three