Page 86 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Myrella eyed her warily. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, meeting each of their eyes as her magic stirred wildly. “I have one more reading in me.”

“Me, too,” Desmond said. He kicked off the wall and took a seat in front of the low table, rearranging the vials he’d need. He splashed orange blossom into a well and dropped crushed laurel leaf in it.

“I’ll try Aevollon.” Emmeline reached for the lily of the valley incense, another of Aevollon’s favored scents.

“You sure?” Desmond asked, eyeing her from behind the blond strands that slipped from the knot at the back of his neck.

Emmeline nodded. The haunting notes of his music wafted through her memory. “He’s involved in all of this.”

His Storyteller had been one of the three—four if she counted Dryvius—who appeared to her and Roremar when they visited the Lair on Alvan during their investigation. That had to mean something.

“Let’s try,” she asserted. She took another sip of water. Then, with Myrella hovering over them, clearly biting her tongue, she and Desmond lit their incense.

Emmeline closed her eyes, and shortly after her last visit, she returned to the place between realms.

This time, it was the wavering white starfire and purple skies she was used to, stars drifting lazily overhead. No shattered glass, no rolling hills or graves, only the flickering buzz of white fire gently warming her skin. One foot in each realm fully, and⁠—

“Desmond?” She jumped as he appeared beside her. “I—I shouldn’t be able to see you here.”

“Thinking the same,” he muttered, looking around, hands flexing at his sides. “Did our readings merge?”

“But joint readings typically show two Starsearchers the same fortune, they don’t show them each other in real time.”

For all the ways she felt like she traveled elsewhere during a reading, it was a mental magic, everything communicated along their internal Fate ties. Even with the joint readings performed during bonding ceremonies, you weren’t together on another plane like this. You were simply shown the same images.

This felt intentional.

“Can you still feel the Archives?” Emmeline asked.

Desmond was silent for a moment, clearly less easily able to access his Ambrisk-bound body than she was. “Everything feels normal.”

So, the Fates wanted them here together. Aevollon wanted to show them something together. Goosebumps rose along her arms at the realization.

Joint readings were a key step in any bonding ceremony. After the Starsearchers said their vows, a medley of incense was lit to ask the Fates to bless their future and show hints of what it may hold.

“Lemon verbena,” Emmeline breathed.

“What?” Desmond asked as he looked around them, as if an explanation would appear.

“We need to light lemon verbena. It’s for unity—it strengthens joint readings, and that’s clearly what the Fates want.”

The fact that the Fates swept her into a reading like this—one that surpassed even a normal bonding ceremony’s joint reading—days after she was told she was being forced to bond to a stranger hadn’t escaped her notice, like they wanted to point her toward the importance of it.

“We need lemon verbena to strengthen the joint reading,” Emmeline reiterated.

“Fates,” Desmond said. “I can’t light anything while we’re here.”

“I can.” Back in the Archives, Emmeline reached out, fumbling before her until she found the lemon verbena incense. A steady hand met hers, a match struck, and though she was only half present, she thanked Lola as she lit it.

The scent wrapped her and Desmond, the starfire flaring around them, making his form more solid and rooting them both in the joint reading.

“It’s eerie that you have that much control over it,” Desmond commented.

“Eleven Fate ties, Desmond. Eleven.” And her mother had ensured she knew how to control them all from a young age. At least, until she’d gone into the seeing chamber.

Aevollon’s star-woven form appeared before her and Desmond in his usual celestial glory, his face a void.