Page 82 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

“Those are the Alvan Fates,” Emmeline whispered. Jumping around to face Roremar, she blurted, “We need to go back to the Academy.”

She was out the door before either man could comment.

Charisse’s dormitory was warm, cloying with the scents of frankincense and myrrh burned for mourning—a superstition some Starsearchers believed in to say goodbye to loved ones—and what Emmeline suspected was chamomile, to help Charisse calm and sleep tonight. Violet scarves were draped across the mystlights, casing the chamber in a soft glow fit for her pain.

Myrella and Regina were curled on the bed beside Charisse, the latter’s head in Regina’s lap as she recounted a story of the time Liana snuck them all onto a ship for the evening with a group of Starsearchers from Della.

Sorrow twisted behind Emmeline’s ribs as she watched them, not quite sure what to say. She knew death intimately, had walked side by side with it, had inflicted it, but this was different. She hadn’t ever shared in anyone else’s grief.

What would it have been like, to have someone else there when her mother died? To have stories to exchange, memories to keep aflame rather than solitude snuffing them out? Perhaps she would have liked that. Perhaps she wouldn’t have this constant hole in her chest if it had been patched over with company and understanding. With sharing the agony of loss rather than burying herself beneath it.

That wasn’t something she knew how to do, though.

So when Myrella patted the bed next to her and the edges of that hole in Emmeline’s chest tried to pull together, instead of quivering beneath the aching loneliness, Emmeline shook her head. Roremar’s eyes burned into the side of her face, but she kept her attention on the women and spun her opal ring around her finger.

When there was a lull in the conversation and Charisse was ready for questions, Emmeline asked, “Where was Liana from?”

And her heart pounded as Charisse answered, “Alvan.”

Neither she nor Roremar reacted, though internally her spirit was lifting. Was it possible they were finally putting together the correct pieces?

“One more question.” She waited for Charisse to nod. “Did she ever mention a group by the name the Warders of Selene?”

“No. No, never.”

Emmeline’s confidence withered. But just because Liana didn’t know of the group didn’t mean they hadn’t known of her—for whatever reason.

“Thank you, Charisse,” Emmeline said, turning back toward the door. “We’ll leave you⁠—”

“One more.” Roremar placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Charisse. We’ll go in a moment. But Emmeline mentioned Liana frequented an apothecary across the Scholar’s Quarter. Do you know the name of it?”

Emmeline glanced at him. Where was he going with this?

Charisse considered for a moment. “Probably Viperous Vices. It’s on the edge of the quarter near the jungle.”

“Thank you, Charisse,” Roremar said, clearly having whatever information he needed.

“Please, if there’s anything I can do, let me know,” Emmeline said softly, reaching for the door handle behind her.

Charisse’s gaze flicked between her and Roremar, and Emmeline felt like they were being assessed as one. The attention choked her. “I don’t know what you two are doing, but promise me, whatever it is, you’ll find out who did this.”

“I swear it on my life,” Emmeline vowed.

“Mine, too,” Roremar added.

Charisse nodded, her lips trembling.

Roremar closed the door quietly behind Emmeline, and she immediately spun toward him. “The apothecary?”

“It’s the same place one of the missing women worked at. And I’d bet anything it’s the one the other missing woman visited, but her daughter didn’t tell me the name.” He swore, dragging his fingers through his hair. “It was such an insignificant and routine thing she did a few days before her death, I didn’t even think to press the lead further.”

“We will now,” Emmeline said. Roremar’s distress bled into the air, but she placed a hand on his arm. “I think we have a more imperative lead to follow.” His grey eyes flashed to where she touched him, that look molten and burning through her entire body. Stuffing it down, she removed her hand. “We need to go to Alvan. Liana and the first victim were both from there.”

“Not just them,” Roremar said. “That’s one of the things Darcy uncovered about the second victim. She was originally from Alvan, too. It was something I was going to talk to you about tonight.”

“And whoever broke into Fated Ink took a book with designs about Arenothos and Aevollon, the two Fates most prominently revered on the isle.” Emmeline’s heart was pounding, her anticipation mirrored in Roremar’s flushed cheeks.

Finally, they had a tangible theory on how these women were all connected.