Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Emmeline
Aldryn Falliare was Roremar’s uncle.
The Temple Master was Roremar’s uncle.
After Roremar had emphasized being honest with each other surrounding this investigation, he’d hidden an incredibly pertinent piece of information.
It wasn’t that he’d kept a secret from her, it was the nature of that secret.
That the Fatesdamned man who had recruited them to solve this case was his blood relative.
And he had come to tell them of another woman found dead.
“Where was she?” Roremar asked once the younger kids were upstairs and they gathered in the kitchen with his mother, Nico, and Falliare. His Fatesdamned uncle.
Roremar’s attention burrowed into Emmeline as if he sensed her annoyance over this new revelation, but she kept her stare trained on the Temple Master.
“Right on the Promenade, near the Mezzanine. Found this morning.”
“Near the Mezzanine?” Nico repeated, eyeing Roremar and Emmeline.
“She was a dancer.” Falliare slapped a leather file on the worktable, the legs wobbling with the force. Emmeline immediately dove on it, needing somewhere to look other than Roremar. He braced a hand on the wood beside her, his proximity burning into her side as he read over her shoulder.
The body wasn’t far from Fated Ink. If she’d stayed there today, they would have known sooner, could have observed the scene themselves. Guilt crowded her throat.
The woman also had two Fate ties. Anphrosia and Serchus. It shook the foundations of her Arenothos and Aevollon theories. As far as she knew, those two Fates didn’t have anything against Serchus, Fate of Secrets and Greed.
She wouldn’t rule it out completely, though.
“Darcy wrote to me this morning. You, too, but I believe you’d already left to come here,” Falliare explained. “Wounds and tattoos align with what we’ve seen so far.”
“Right on the fucking Promenade,” Roremar said, voice tight. It was obvious he shared her guilt. Though, his was likely two-fold, torn between his sister’s birthday and this case. “The killer isn’t even trying to hide it anymore.”
Every word from Roremar’s lips rumbled against Emmeline’s skin. Aggravation prickled her spine more and more, making it hard to concentrate.
Taking a deep breath, she set the papers on the counter and stepped away, trying to focus on the woman who lost her life. It was the fourth body, not counting disappearances.
“The deaths are getting closer to us,” Emmeline said. “First Liana, now someone from the Mezzanine just hours after we were there. This feels like something’s building.”
“A final act.” Roremar’s response chilled her, three words sitting heavily on the air.
Chrysta’s face paled, Nico’s jaw ticked, and Emmeline still couldn’t get herself to look Roremar in the eye.
A final act. What would the killer’s grand finale be?
“I don’t need to impress upon either of you how important it is to solve this before the Revels,” Falliare reminded them.
As if she could forget. Her transfer to Valyn was on the line, let alone how vulnerable people would be during the celebrations.
“We’re increasing on-duty guards and earlier curfews, but the isle needs this festival. ”
“Yes, sir,” Emmeline muttered.
Roremar’s response was more of a growl. “We’re taking care of it.”
No wonder he didn’t engage with Falliare with the same level of respect as instructors at the Academy. He knew him personally.
How hadn’t she put it together? They didn’t look similar, but there was a familiarity between them. Roremar carried himself like Falliare, as if he’d learned from him.
And stars be damned, he’d been sitting at his uncle’s desk the first time they met. She’d been so preoccupied by the fact that she’d been assigned to work with someone with his reputation, she hadn’t given a second thought to how comfortable he must have been in that office to do that.
Why hadn’t he told her?
“One other thing,” Falliare said, turning to her. “Emmeline, I’d like you to resume staying at the Academy tonight. With the midterm exams before the Revels, I think it will be best.”
Roremar immediately opened his mouth to argue, but Emmeline said, “Of course, sir.”
The Reckless’s jaw snapped shut at her compliance, steel eyes burning into her as he coldly said, “We can grab your things from the apartment, then I’ll escort you back myself.”
Nico’s parting words to Roremar replayed in Emmeline’s head as she climbed the stairs to the apartment. “Told you you shouldn’t hide it.”
“Damn well right,” she muttered.
Roremar froze, peeking over his shoulder. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Reluctantly, he continued up, holding the door then following her inside, the lock closing with a gentle click.
Roremar paced before the chaise his nest of blankets was still piled upon.
He dragged his hands through his hair, ruffling the waves curling along the nape of his neck over and over as he thought, and with each passing second—with the stress rolling off him thickening—Emmeline’s initial flippant hurt dulled.
There was obviously more to this than she knew.
“Come here,” she said, pulling out two seats at the kitchen table.
Roremar assessed her from beneath his still-damp waves. Finally, he sighed and fell into the chair. Emmeline took the one opposite him.
“Tell me what’s going through your head, Reckless.”
She wanted to demand answers about Falliare—whose idea was it to hide it?
Why?—but she could tell Roremar needed to go through this revelation piece by piece.
He’d let her take her time last night. Had waited what felt like hours while she sat in that bathing tub and found her voice again.
His deceit stung, but she could offer the same for him now.
Roremar rubbed the back of his neck. “I think you’ve gathered my father died.” That hadn’t been what she expected. It shocked her enough to keep her silent as he went on. “But he didn’t just die ten years ago, Emmeline. He died in my fucking arms.”
“Oh, Roremar,” she whispered, taking his hand across the table.
“It was the first time he and I were stationed together in the army. I’d been to the continent a few times, always for small missions.
Learned my first time out that I had a knack for reconnaissance.
I was quiet, clever, and moved easily through the trees, thanks to all the climbing I did when I was little.
” His lips curled ever so slightly at the memory.
“My father wasn’t a fighter,” he went on.
“He was a competent one, but that wasn’t the path he chose, so he wasn’t normally there when I was on a stint.
One time, the Lyra troops were meant to be negotiating a trade with private weapons dealers on the continent.
Falliare sent my father to help broker the arrangement.
That’s what he was best at. Negotiating.
He was damn good at reading people, keeping allies happy. ”
Each fact about his father was layered with such adoration, it pricked at Emmeline’s heart. Squeezing his hand, she urged him silently to continue.
Roremar cleared his throat. “I still don’t know the details, but one morning, I found him.”
He was quiet for a long stretch, and Emmeline waited, fingers slipping between his.
“Behind the camp. Far enough away that no one heard him. He was…he wasn’t dead yet.
” He said those words slowly, and Emmeline filled in the pain between them.
He had been there for a while, suffering whatever wounds killed him, when Roremar found him.
She didn’t need him to relive that gruesome scene to understand how traumatizing it must have been.
“I screamed,” Roremar said, head dropping into his free hand, the other clinging to her. “Fates, Emmeline, I screamed. Don’t think I’ve ever screamed more. But it was too late.” His voice was thick, slow tears rolling down his cheeks.
Down hers, too, she realized.
“Last thing he told me was to take care of the family.” He swiped away his tears. “He loved us so damn much, everything he did—every business he got involved in—was to fuel his need for adventure, sure, but it was also for our family. We were his greatest adventure, he used to say.”
And now, every decision Roremar made was to protect those same people.
Her conversation with Nico replayed in her memory. From the way his brother explained it, Roremar had framed his entire existence around that last wish.
Perhaps she didn’t understand because she didn’t have a family, but how was that fair to him?
“Roremar,” she whispered, and his sorrowful grey eyes met hers.
She shifted her chair around the table so they were knee to knee and brushed a stray wave from his face.
“You’ve done a phenomenal job honoring that.
They’re all so happy and safe. And they love you. But are you living for yourself, too?”
“They’re my life, Em.” His voice cracked.
“I’ve taken over every business venture, taught myself all the pieces and balanced budgets month over month, done things I promised I never would just to ensure they have everything they need.
My mother helped, but she’s been sick most of her life and the grief only made it worse.
I’d sell my damn spirit to do everything for them. ”
She wasn’t about to argue with that, especially not with the hurt blooming across his features, so she redirected. “What does this have to do with Falliare?”
Roremar’s eyes flashed with steel. “He and my father didn’t always get along—Aldryn thought my father was reckless with how he cared for my mother and the rest of us.
Constantly starting new ventures rather than having something stable.
When he died, I didn’t want it to seem like I was replacing him by asking for help.
” Roremar sighed, watching their entwined hands.
“Not that Falliare was offering, anyway. He doesn’t do handouts.
There’s always a catch. I tried to avoid it, but we needed the money, so I sucked up my pride. ”