Chapter 24 #2
“What are we doing here, Huntress?” Maybe he should have asked before breaking and entering, but he wanted to see what she had in store.
And Emmeline was smart. This move may seem out of character based on her taunts about his reputation, but Roremar had learned that Emmeline wasn’t without her own reckless streak.
“When I read after we met with Gideon, Metrina showed me a room here, and us inside it,” Emmeline whispered as they neared the last door at the end of the hall, chains looped through the handles.
They’d visited the log keeper before coming here, as they’d planned, but they’d agreed his information felt flat, only verifying which ship the women came on and that they had left again not forty-eight hours after their friend died. Emmeline had insisted on asking her Fate tie afterward.
Knowing she was following Metrina right now didn’t set Roremar at ease.
Gently, he grabbed Emmeline’s hand, spinning her toward him. Tingles spread up his arm at the contact. “Why couldn’t we come during the day? Sneaking into the Trade House is a one-way ticket to life imprisonment if you’re caught.”
“Because,” she responded.
“Because?” He had patience. He was as stubborn as her, for Fates’ sake. He could wait her out.
Emmeline sighed. “I prefer to work like this.”
“Why, though?” The question was loaded. Why was she like this? What scars made her so? Truthfully, he’d take anything she would offer at this point.
He hadn’t expected her to say, “Because I don’t know whom to trust. And the more people we speak to, the more people of power we incorporate into our research, the messier it gets. I like keeping things close.”
Roremar hadn’t considered that. It was hard enough for her to let him in the small amount she already had. No wonder she didn’t want to let those walls down any further.
And really, he didn’t mind sneaking around with her.
“To answer your question,” he said, gesturing ahead, “I’m feeling pretty reckless tonight.”
Emmeline grinned at him, and the sight hit him right in the chest.
They ducked into the stairwell at the end of the corridor, their steps quiet down the circular stone tower. Emmeline floated, as if this wasn’t her first time sneaking through Lyra’s most important financial establishment.
“You’ve obviously done this before,” he whispered as they snuck inside and the lock latched behind them. Above, a mystlight ignited, glowing white and eerie.
“You haven’t?” Emmeline teased.
“Reckless, not death wish.” He’d certainly executed his fair share of lethal schemes while at war, but not since returning to Lyra—not with his family relying on him. Guilt tightened his lungs at being here now.
Emmeline shrugged. “If you’re careful and stake it out long enough, you can get in anywhere.”
The confidence in her voice woke a creature within him that he’d long put to rest. Spirits, what he’d do to taste that freedom again.
One wall of this corridor was lined with dramatic abstract paintings that represented each isle’s main work.
The opposite wall was all windows, thick velvet curtains pulled tight.
Roremar followed Emmeline with increasing ease, based solely on the sound of her heartbeat and low breaths.
She led him to a records archive with a cracked telescope carved into the door, a dying star pouring out of it.
“This is it,” Emmeline said as she led him in.
“You’re not what I expected, Huntress,” he commented offhandedly. “What room is this?”
Emmeline scanned the shelves. “It looks like records between Lyra and the Isle of Byron.”
“Byron?” Roremar asked as he followed Emmeline down the rows. Plucking a mystlight lantern from the wall, he scanned the tidy scrawl labeling the sides of each file. What did the isle known for its star maps and astrological studies have to do with anything?
Emmeline nodded, stopping before a stack and pulling a file halfway down—trade records. She removed Gideon’s log from her pack, too, propping the notes on the shelf. “This is the ship number the friends of the first victim left on. It wasn’t returning to Alvan, though.”
“They went to Byron, not Alvan?” Roremar stepped closer. Out of instinct, he placed a hand on Emmeline’s hip as he lifted the lantern higher to read over her shoulder. “If they were from Alvan initially, you’d think they’d return for a funeral.”
“Exactly.” She flipped through another page, and he pretended not to notice the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip.
“Here. The trade reports of what their initial ship brought to Lyra.” Emmeline scanned the trade records.
“The transport contained crates of artwork, brushes, ink, the like.” She flipped through, reciting the details quickly, and Roremar absorbed every one.
“Nothing glaringly unusual, but it doesn’t explain why they went on to Byron. ”
“Maybe there was something else on that ship. Something the women saw that made them targets. It would explain why they fled so promptly, if they were afraid.”
“Could be. I want to find out more about what was on that ship and see if we can find anyone else unaccounted for that could be our second victim.” Emmeline pulled the next file and slapped it against Roremar’s chest. “We have about an hour until a guard patrols the halls. Get reading, Reckless.”
He pretended the sharp command in her voice didn’t bolt through his blood like a shooting star. “Yes, Miss DeLeoste.”
She muttered something unintelligible under her breath, but for the next half hour, they read in silence, only speaking up to comment on goods going to and from Lyra.
Paints and canvases, ink and parchment, a medley of incense and herbs that piqued Emmeline’s interest as she tried to connect them to the Warders of Selene.
As far as they could tell, not a single other passenger was unaccounted for.
Scribbling down their own notes, they fled the records rooms before the next guard patrol sounded.
When they were back on the roof, Emmeline said, “It doesn’t seem like the second victim was a traveler like the first.”
“No, and she hasn’t been identified yet last I heard from Darcy.
” He toiled through all the information they’d gathered so far, picking piece by piece through the interviews with the families of the two missing women.
“We should check the gambling and incense dens again. Maybe someone saw her before she went missing. I’ll talk to Aldryn about it tomorrow”
Emmeline laughed, wandering to the edge of the building. “I still can’t believe you call the Temple Master by his first name. Where are your manners?”
“My manners?” he mocked. “You call him by his last name. That’s awfully familiar, wouldn’t you say?”
But she didn’t answer.
“Emmeline?” Roremar asked.
He crossed to her side. Lights reflected in her hazel eyes, the glowing orbs strung out front of…
The Mezzanine.
He still didn’t know what her problem was with the establishment that satisfied vices, but Emmeline’s stare was locked on it. The lines of her neck tensed as she swallowed.
Pressure mounted between them—pressure for him to alleviate whatever doused her features with a slick fear.
“Come on.” He braced a hand on her back, needing that expression wiped clean off her face. “Let’s get visible for that trap you so desperately wanted to set.”
He knew they weren’t going to, but he’d hoped the mention of her earlier lie would be enough to get her moving.
She hesitated, reluctantly worrying her lip. Eventually, she clenched her eyes tight and turned her back on the Mezzanine. Roremar couldn’t help but feel like it took monumental effort for her to do so.
“Not that way,” he said, dragging her to the wider alley at the back of the building. “Let’s make it a challenge, shall we?”
With reckless abandon, he leaped. And grinning, Emmeline pulled her mask up and followed.