Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Emmeline
Her heart splintered as she flicked Roremar a quick glance, and understanding crackled across his grey eyes. It felt like a goodbye.
A distant part of her screamed.
“Des?” Roremar asked, looking between Emmeline and his friend, and she realized he was talking to her, not Desmond. “He’s your suspect?” He shook his head vehemently. “No. No way.”
“He’s not just a suspect, Roremar. I know it,” Emmeline spat.
“You better watch that violent tongue, darling,” Desmond growled, voice as low and lethal as she’d ever heard it. Even Roremar’s spine straightened.
With every passing second, the warmth in Desmond’s amber eyes faded further, replaced by a fury she’d only ever sensed beneath the surface. The one that had mounted on the ship back from Alvan—when she’d been narrowing in on a connection to Arenothos and Aevollon.
“What in a Fate’s starry-eyed fuck is happening?” Roremar asked. There was such a blindsided confusion twisting his words, it pierced Emmeline’s chest. Despite all his hyper observance, for once, the Reckless was dumbfounded, denial slowing his upkeep.
She opened her mouth to lay out the mountain of evidence she’d gathered, but Desmond sliced through her accusations.
“We can’t do this here.” He checked over his shoulder.
The mystlights in the windows were still out, not a soul moving behind the curtain.
Fixing that sharp stare on Emmeline, he clipped, “Beach. Now.”
“After you,” Emmeline purred, squinting at him. If he ran, she’d take to the roofs. She was faster in the skies than the alleys, with their winding turns and clutter. She wouldn’t let Desmond get away again.
Ignoring Roremar’s questioning looks, Emmeline waited for Desmond to pass her, Roremar a step behind. In silence as brittle as blown glass, they traipsed down the winding path to the beach, her triple blade clenched between her fingers the entire time.
Her magic had been suffocating her for hours, and she feared it was ready to burst. The ever-present press beneath her skin was a vice, constricting and squeezing her lungs. Begging to dominate—to control—but she contained it.
They exited onto an empty cove at the base of the Peddler’s District.
The waves washed ashore, their gentle roar discordant with the fury burning through Emmeline and the magic pushing for release.
All night she’d been fretting over how to tell Roremar of her suspicions.
She’d tried to lay out the details for him to follow as they waited, but it was like there was a brick wall in his mind, refusing to see this obvious treachery.
So she’d ripped open the wound.
And now, as they stopped within a crescent outcrop of cliffs, he’d have to bleed beneath the evidence.
It tore her open, but infected wounds couldn’t heal unless the poisons were dug out, and that excruciating process had to begin somewhere.
“Spell it out, Miss DeLeoste,” Desmond seethed.
Muscled arms crossed, playful light gone from his eyes, he looked ready to charge a battlefield. Emmeline had never seen this brutish side of him, but she’d always suspected it was lurking there.
“I know it’s been you,” she began. The hissed accusation rang through the night, the dark waves and empty shores gobbling it up, the stars above their savage witnesses.
“Tell me how you truly think I’m the murderer,” Desmond barked in disbelief.
“That’s why you wouldn’t tell me what we were doing out here tonight.
” The betrayal layering Roremar’s voice sliced through her, snapping all the strings of trust they’d so delicately tethered to each other.
But she didn’t allow herself to feel that severing pain.
She couldn’t, or she’d never get through this.
“You better have a damn good reason for this, Huntress.”
She dared a glance at him. The gentle sea breeze lifted his dark waves, but his expression was impassable. It didn’t surprise her; she’d known he wouldn’t have believed her simply with the accusation. She only hoped he would listen to the evidence.
Right now, the treachery in his eyes was her own fatal undoing. Lacing up that tempting hurt, she turned back to Desmond.
“I followed you the night of the first murder.”
“Des was the guy you followed?” Roremar asked, angling toward his friend as if searching for an explanation. “That’s not possible—he was with me. We were at the Mezzanine.”
Desmond ignored him, severe stare holding Emmeline’s. “Followed me where?”
“I was out on the cliffs beyond the vineyards, and two men came through the jungle. I couldn’t see their faces, but I recognized you the second time we met.”
“Why not the first?” Desmond tilted his head, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t deny it.
Emmeline almost laughed. “As soon as I met you, I knew you were familiar—that I’d heard your voice before—but it took twice to place it. Next time check your surroundings a little better.”
“Desmond was with me, though,” Roremar repeated, but as soon as he said it, his eyes widened.
“Fuck—no, he wasn’t. Not all night.” He turned doubtful eyes on his best friend, and a hole ripped wide through Emmeline’s chest at the hurt in his voice.
“When you disappeared with that woman—you went all the way to the lake?”
Desmond grunted. “Hell of a rush to get there and back so quickly, but you were passed out for a while.”
“It was you then?” Roremar barely breathed. He looked for all the Fates like a lost child, his normally analytical and observant brain stuttering over each fact, unable to shape a single piece. Emmeline’s eyes stung with each blindsided blink.
“Really, Rore?” Desmond asked, jaw dropping in his first show of emotion beyond anger.
“You’re going to let her pretty little lies fool you?
All for a set of pouty lips and nice tits?
” He scoffed, and that narrowed-down description of who Emmeline was stung.
“I’m your best friend. Think of all I’ve done for you—for everyone in my life—then tell me you think I’m the one whose been brutally killing all those women. ”
“No, I don’t think you’re guilty!” Roremar snapped, rubbing his eyes. “But you just admitted it was you she followed. I need an explanation, Des.” He flicked a glance at Emmeline. “I need to know why she thinks it’s you.”
She.
As if Emmeline was nothing more than a nameless stranger.
In the lengthy, burning silence that followed, the waves beat the surrounding rocks, and Emmeline couldn’t help but think back to the sight of the second victim, on that tainted beach in the morning air.
A different sort of death was occurring tonight.
A breach of trust and severance of whatever confidence she’d fostered with Roremar.
More of those threads between them snapped with each passing moment—friendship, reliance, safety.
Snip, snip, snip, the Fates cut them all.
“Go on, darling.” Desmond said the name like a slur. “Tell him the rest of your case.”
“The tattoos are the easy one,” she began.
“My work would never be so shoddy.” Desmond snorted. “I have a steady hand and pride.”
“Deranged bloodlust can change things,” Emmeline retorted.
She pulled at the Fates whirling through her blood, trying to dig up all backing for her evidence.
“You’ve been hanging around the docks, and there are questionable imports coming into Lyra.
We’ve suspected from the start they were involved in the case, and thanks to the War Master of Alvan we know many of them include imbued ink.
Running a parlor is the perfect cover for anything you receive.
And ransacking it yourself—disposing of any evidence in the process—threw off suspicion.
It’s both the means and the opportunity. ”
“None of that is incorrect,” Desmond said. Shock bolted through Emmeline, even her magic pausing to an eerie, calm hum. That was nearly a confession. “Go on. Give us the last point: Motive.”
Voice threatening to shake, Emmeline added, “Your Fate ties.”
Roremar’s attention whipped toward her, but she had to keep blocking him out. She focused instead on the impressed smile tilting Desmond’s lips.
Pride flared in her chest. “Who are you tied to Desmond?”
“Arenothos,” he said. The Fate of Wrath and Redemption.
Emmeline paused, the realm hanging on her next question. “Arenothos…and?”
That smile widened, tattooed knuckles flexing. “And Aevollon. The Fate of Artistry and Trickery.”
Triumph lifted Emmeline’s chin.
Desmond was aligned to the two patron Fates of Alvan.
The two who had sent their Storytellers to speak with her, the two who had grudges against Anphrosia.
It was the last piece she’d needed to feel confident accusing him, given to her in the letter from the War Master of Alvan.
Desmond Alvanti’s name at the top of the list of Starsearchers aligned to the Fates.
It was damning evidence.
But…Roremar didn’t react. She found his steel-grey eyes, nothing but dull anger looking back at her.
“You already knew about his ties?” she asked.
“Yes, I knew.” Roremar sighed, exasperated.
The sound crushed Emmeline, but the wall between them stood firm.
“I’ve known Desmond is tied to both Arenothos and Aevollon for years.
That he’s been blessed with two incredibly strong Fate ties when it’s so rare.
Beyond the fact that he’s one of the people I trust most in the world, it’s why I followed him unquestioningly on Alvan even though he hasn’t been there in years. ”