Page 241 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

“Left ahead.”

“Take the second right.”

“The furthest offshoot.”

She periodically felt for the Fatesworn bond in her chest, Roremar’s life still beating along it, but she wasn’t able to send any thoughts down with the tar-like sensation blocking it. Whatever they’d done to him for the trial was still impacting him.

She didn’t know where Roremar was or what he was facing, but she had to trust that he’d take care of himself while she focused on his sister.

Eston was quiet the entire time they walked, but tension rolled off him. Emmeline realized, aside from his entanglement with Lola and the fact that he had a twin brother, she didn’t know much about him or what he’d be risking to be here tonight.

She scanned the tunnels carefully with every turn, noting the different indentations in the stretches of stone, the way the colors fluctuated or how different cross-sections looked as if they’d once been decorated.

In the tunnel they’d started in, everything was dim, the stone a dark-purple hue. In the next, tiny, withered petals had been scattered, from night-blooming flowers if she was correct, and the entire tunnel where Myrella claimed to first hear that sound had that iridescent sheen, some walls almost seeming carved with scales.

In the one Desmond now led them down, jagged scratches marred the stone walls between mossy curtains, almost like⁠—

“Lightning bolts,” Emmeline breathed.

“What?” Desmond called over his shoulder.

Wisteria Falls flashed through her memory, the similar marks carved beneath the first waterfall. The districts were each dedicated to a Fate, as the falls were. Was it possible the tunnels were, too? What purpose did that serve, though?

“I’m not sure,” Emmeline answered. “Keep walking.”

She tried to map out every discerning detail she’d tracked down here and build the map, but it was a maze in her memory, and Fate voices trickled through her mind, blurring the images further.

A fortune spun by Fated hands,

A choice taken from forsaken bands.

An image of her and Roremar in the seeing chamber earlier, utterly lost in each other as they claimed their Fatesworn bond.

Light flashed, and it was two other bodies writhing, in an entirely different room, but she couldn’t tell who or where.

Two hearts staked through with malice,

A sacrifice proclaimed by the Balance.

She’d been told all these fortunes before, but she hadn’t been able to figure out what they meant then. Hadn’t lived the pieces. Now, as she kept an eye on the Fates leading her down this tunnel, her mind raced.

Two hearts, a fortune spun by Fated hands.

Urgency bubbled through her veins, like the Fates were screaming it was time⁠—

All eleven threads tugging violently, and Emmeline gasped as readings poured down on her, a barrage of phrases like the tap had been dripping, and now it was uncapped.

A fortune spun by Fated hands,

A choice taken from forsaken bands.

Two hearts staked through with malice,

A sacrifice proclaimed by the Balance.

For Him to fall, and Her to bleed,

A future that we all must heed.