Chapter 22 #2
He jerked his chin toward the bags on the counter. With how quick Gallantian Warriors healed, the bruising would be entirely gone soon, but she’d have to wait it out if she didn’t want the children to see.
“I’m not sure if you should go back to the Academy,” Roremar added, and her attention whipped to him. He watched her warily, as if prepared for a fight. Or maybe it was anticipation, hoping for that argument to prove she wasn’t entirely gone after last night.
“I have to teach my classes.”
“I know,” he said. “But you shouldn’t stay there. At least not in your dormitory. We need to search it further, see if whoever was in there left anything behind.”
Which meant they hadn’t had a chance to clean it yet. The words would still be on her wall, crimson dripping down the mementos she’d carefully displayed. Panic tightened her chest at the thought of returning.
“Where will I go?” she asked, voice hoarse.
“Desmond said you can stay here as long as you like.”
“No,” she blurted out. Roremar’s brows rose, and she tried to reel in her denial. “I can’t put him out like that.”
“You’re not,” he promised. “Des doesn’t come up here. It’s a spare place. He owns the whole building but lives downstairs. Even gave me the lone key.” As if to prove it, he pulled a leather band out of his pocket, the key dangling before her.
She eyed the door. The lock looked sturdy. It wouldn’t be too hard to procure a weapon and barricade the door. And she had to admit, going back to the Academy—to her dormitory—terrified her.
Shame flooded her. Shame that she could face criminals in the night without blinking but was afraid of her own home now. Shame that someone did that to her.
“Trust me, Emmeline,” Roremar swore. “You’ll be safe here. Desmond is pretty torn up about this entire thing. He wants to help.”
Why would Desmond care so much?
But she had nowhere else to go, so she relented.
“By the way,” Roremar said, standing from the bed once they had a plan in place, “you should talk to your friend about my brother.”
“My friend?” She tilted her head, tugging her blanket back around her shoulders.
She was still in her clothing from yesterday, but a peek toward the bags Roremar had brought revealed bright swatches of cotton.
Her heart pattered at the thought of him getting her the things she needed to be comfortable here.
Falliare’s comments about reputations not being accurate came back to her. Perhaps she had misjudged Roremar the Reckless.
“The other instructor? She came tearing into the corridor when Des and Nico were talking to the guards. Apparently she was pretty startled to see Nico there. Young girl, sweet but real lively apparently. Dark hair, My—something?”
“Myrella?” Emmeline asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
Myrella had been there last night? The thought squeezed Emmeline’s chest in an unfamiliar way.
“What does she have to do with Nico?”
Roremar shrugged, drifting over to the kitchen corner and unloading the bags he’d dropped. Sure enough, a few skirts tumbled onto the table. She followed, folding them to give her hands something to do.
“Don’t know,” Roremar said, “but Nico seemed upset by it. Once you’re able to, maybe talk to her? He’s a good kid. I’m sure whatever he did, he didn’t mean to.”
“Why would Myrella listen to me?”
Roremar paused putting jars in the pantry, looking at her with a brow quirked. She again felt like he was seeing right through her. “She’s your friend, isn’t she?”
Emmeline didn’t respond. Was Myrella a friend? She’d considered her an acquaintance, a colleague, even someone whose presence and conversation she enjoyed, but it had been so long since she’d really had a friend, she couldn’t recognize it for what it was.
Myrella had always put in more effort to talk with her than the other instructors. Invited her on outings, asked about lessons and readings, was concerned when she found Emmeline nearly asleep in the bathing chamber the other night.
First Roremar’s care, now Myrella. The hollow of loneliness receded a bit at the consideration.
“Roremar?” she asked.
“Yes?”
She hesitated but remembered his fingers gently resting against her throat. His reassuring words whispered in her ear as he carried her from the Academy. And she dared herself to ask, “If I have to stay here today, do you think you could stay, too?”
One corner of his lips hooked into a smirk. He upended another bag, and an assortment of notes from their research, vials of incense, and what appeared to be a few wooden puzzles tumbled onto the table. “Was already planning on it, Huntress.”
By sunset, Emmeline was desperate for fresh air. When Roremar told her he never made it to Angel’s Draw last night, she insisted they go.
He agreed, only if they waited until it was dark and she both wore a hooded cloak and carried a dagger, which she’d been planning to do anyway.
The parlor was busy when they arrived, the red velvet benches in the entryway lined with patrons trying to get appointments in before curfew. Emmeline had to admit, all the pieces she saw being inked looked way more skilled than the ones on the victims.
Roremar grumbled something beneath his breath about the work not being half as good as Fated Ink, but Emmeline only rolled her eyes.
His grouchy defense of his friend was a welcome reprieve from her own thoughts.
All day, she’d been consumed by fear and fury from last night, the lingering memory of her reading about Desmond sending unease curling through her.
“What can I do for you?” the owner of Angel’s Draw, Baron, asked Roremar when he finally finished with his crowd, eyeing Emmeline’s hood suspiciously.
She nudged it back but not far enough that he could see the bruising around her neck.
“We’re here on business from the Temple Master,” Roremar began. They’d considered masquerading as customers, but after last night, they both wanted answers as quickly as possible.
Plus, neither of them really suspected Baron anymore, though Emmeline knew she was still more sold on her cult theory than Roremar was. He was quite a skeptic when it came to divine worship.
“Ah, yeah,” Baron said, wiping his hands on a rag. He wasn’t much taller than Emmeline, but his deep voice and thick arms exuded strength. “Neighbors told me you’ve been poking around. What is it the old man wants?”
Emmeline’s brows creased at the reference. Baron had to be nearly as old as Falliare, and neither could be out of their second century.
“Can you tell us how you chose the symbol of your shop?” Emmeline gestured to the glass looking out over the quiet street, the wing and rose sigil painted pristinely on the fogged surface.
Baron frowned. “My mother designed it. She was a bit of an artist herself.”
“Tell us more about her,” Roremar said, not asking but demanding in an impressive tone that had Emmeline straightening. As frustrating as she once found this commanding version of him, she had to admit it had its perks.
And after last night, when that steadiness made her feel so safe, it had warmth spreading through her body.
“She grew up on Lyra, died on Lyra. Lived and breathed for her family but didn’t have an extraordinary life beyond how much she loved us.” Baron, clearly not a talkative man, paused. He knotted his rag in his ink-stained hands, seeming reluctant to say more. “What’s this about?”
Roremar parried with, “Does that symbol have any meaning you know of beyond your shop? Where did your mother come up with it?”
“I don’t damn well know. She and I designed it together, but she said it was inspired by something she saw as a girl. Some sculpture or cave drawing or something. It was a memory she always loved, so when she got sick, we made it the face of my shop.”
“That’s a really lovely homage to her,” Emmeline said, before Roremar could push the man any further.
Baron deflated. “She was a lovely woman.”
“I’m sure she was,” Roremar agreed.
Once they were out on the street headed back toward Fated Ink, Roremar asked, “You hear something that made you end the conversation so quickly?”
Emmeline peeked up at him from beneath her hood. “You didn’t?”
His smirk was answer enough. It had her heart beating a bit quicker. “Sculptures and cave drawings.”
“Looks like we have more research to do, Reckless.”