Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Emmeline
“Good job tonight, Aviana,” Emmeline told her final student as they finished reviewing the last exam she’d taken today, and she tucked the notes on her second Fate tie into her satchel.
“And thank you for staying late. I’m sorry our recent sessions had to be adjusted, but at least Miss Corvus was able to step in. ”
Emmeline nodded at Myrella who’d sat in on this private session with her and Aviana since she’d been assisting the girl with her practice while Emmeline was consumed with the murder case.
“That’s okay, Miss DeLeoste,” Aviana assured her as she crossed to the door, her bag nearly the size of her torso dragging her down. “Miss Corvus and I worked on different oil blends instead.”
“She’s taking to the oakroot and olive,” Myrella added.
It made sense that she liked that combination, given their grounding properties when Aviana’s readings were feeling so uncontrollable.
“That’s wonderful. You’ll have to show me after the Revels.” Emmeline smiled at them both, though her throat tightened at the reminder of the festival.
“I will.” Aviana paused at the door, gaze catching on the window overlooking the serene gardens of the Academy grounds, a star-speckled sky quiet above the weeping cypher trees.
A few voices rolled across the stone pathways, stragglers almost late for curfew.
Though, they should be safe within the walls given the extra guards.
“Something wrong?” Emmeline asked.
“I was only wondering…” Aviana tilted her head, looking back at her instructors. “Every Fate has a constellation, right?”
“They do,” Emmeline answered. “Most Fates have many. Legends say there have been endless debates over which constellation belongs to which celestial being, but every Fate has their major constellation at the very least. Why?”
“You were talking about them in class the other day. When Brynn asked.” Emmeline recalled the boy dragging them off track once again, as he tried to nearly every lecture.
“And that night my magic felt a lot stronger. When I looked at the charts for the day, I realized that Zorrahn’s constellation was brightest in the sky. Is that why?”
“Has anyone ever told you how astute you are?” Myrella asked, and the girl beamed.
Emmeline laughed, explaining, “Yes, Fate ties will flourish when their particular constellation is nearest. If it was recent, it was likely the Eagle calling to you, which can be found adjacent to Zorrahn’s patron constellation on certain nights. It’s said when eagle meets man they flourish as one.
“There are entire courses you’ll take on the stars and maps and how they affect your magic as you get closer to your Fatorum Revelus.
You can go on to study them at Byron after, if you’d like.
” She thought of her mother, and her rapt interest in star maps and constellation studies.
“If it interests you, I could suggest some reference books from the library.”
Aviana’s eyes glowed. “Yes, please.”
Emmeline pulled a piece of parchment from her desk, scraps drifting to the floor.
Quickly, she scrawled out a few titles. “Tell Miss Rigol that I’ve given you permission to request these,” she said of the librarian known for being very strict with borrowing books and passed her the list. Aviana quickly tucked it away.
“In the meantime, pay attention to the way your power ebbs and flows with the natural movements of the realm. All magic comes from the earth on Ambrisk, so it will be increasingly helpful as you grow to understand it innately.”
“Pay attention. Got it,” she echoed, scanning the titles and bouncing on her toes. “Thank you, Miss DeLeoste!”
“Of course. Now hurry off back to your dormitory before curfew,” Emmeline told her.
She didn’t let the smile fall from her face until well after the door had shut. Then, she slumped in her chair, her bones tired.
“You all right?” Myrella asked hesitantly.
Emmeline almost lied, but she bit back that instinct, saying, “Tomorrow, Myrella. The Revels start tomorrow. I’ve been reading and researching for hours every night, but with midterm exams, I haven’t been able to get out of the Academy in the past week to do anything productive.”
Her progress in this case had been cut off at the knees. And she’d barely seen Roremar to work out theories together. They were better as a pair.
Letting her eyes slip closed, she contemplated the heavy weight of it all.
Her magic was an incessant hum in her chest. She needed to read tonight, but the cliffs were out of the question on her own.
She willed the power within her to settle, the ripples of dizzying white fire behind her eyelids to still.
A thunk sounded, and she cracked her eyes open. Myrella was standing in front of her desk, a leather file splayed across the wood. “Come on,” her friend said.
“What?”
“I’m helping. I’m not Roremar, but I can see it all with fresh eyes.”
Emmeline nearly grinned despite the seriousness of the topic. She squeezed the arms of her chair, pushing upright. “Let’s find a murderer.”
Emmeline flipped open the leather file so pages spilled across her desk.
Discreetly, she tucked away her notes on the Averian.
She’d been scouring recent history for the name, not brave enough to go back to the Snake Charmer yet, no matter what information he might have.
She was determined to figure it out without the serpent’s help.
“Maybe we should attack this from a different angle,” she muttered as she reorganized the various segments of information.
She had notes on the methods of killing—all slit throats that did them in—as well as the other evidence found on the bodies themselves and information from the victims’ families. The tattoos, shoddily sketched, all with that one uneven point of the star.
“I’ve been thinking since Alvan that maybe the tattoo is pointing toward Anphrosia,” Emmeline said.
“For revenge?” Myrella asked.
“That, or maybe the ritual is supposed to reach her. Roremar and I guessed maybe it was to forge some kind of connection.” Emmeline scribbled down the theories as she spoke and pinned them to her wall beside the rendition of the tattoo.
Myrella followed suit, hanging up notes on the ash circles around the bodies and the remnants sprinkled about.
Most were withered, so they hadn’t been able to determine what exactly had been burned, but they created a list of herbs and flowers associated with Anphrosia, noting down those for Arenothos and Aevollon beneath it, and pinned them to the wall, too.
With an arrow stretching away from those, Emmeline wrote in large letters SEEDS. Over it all, she scrawled the title Viperous Vices.
Next, Emmeline tacked up the vague, unhelpful hints the Storytellers had given them as well as everything Myrella could remember from the Mourning Gardens. There were the notes on imports from the docks, and the records of ink both brought in by and stolen from Desmond.
Finally, there was the overabundance of information on cults, including their known practices and rituals.
“Nothing new about the Warders of Selene?” Myrella asked as she took in the large blank sheet of parchment headed with the cult name.
“No, but Regina and Harttorn found two other groups who used to be prevalent on Lyra.” Emmeline pinned the first next to the Warders. “The Celestial Children.”
The cult had five known rituals that she’d been able to uncover so far.
Four were seasonal, performed to honor the Fates at each equinox and solstice.
They involved blood willingly given from each participant and prayers muttered over dying candles.
The fifth was their induction ceremony, where each member received a tattoo of a wreath of twelve stars on their back, one broken to symbolize the Dead Fate.
Just as Emmeline and Myrella were comparing notes on that cult to present day murders, Lyra’s bell rang out.
“Fates,” Myrella swore. “I have to go.”
“Off to see Nico?” Emmeline forced a modicum of teasing into her voice.
Myrella tutted, rolling her eyes. “No, it’s my turn to patrol the corridors.”
Emmeline nodded. “How are things with Nico? Have you let him off the hook with the flowers, yet?”
“He’s getting there.” Myrella’s telltale blush tinged her cheeks. “I know it’s not fair of me to test him like this.”
“You’re allowed to take time to feel comfortable,” Emmeline reminded her.
“I’m never uncomfortable around Nico,” Myrella corrected. “That’s the point. He feels like more…like home. That’s what’s scary.”
Emmeline’s heart jumped into her throat, the words landing too close to a wound beginning to unravel within her. “I understand,” she whispered. Avoiding Myrella’s gaze, her eyes dragged back to the cult notes pinned to the wall.
“I can come back to help more after my patrol if you’d like.”
“It’s okay,” Emmeline said. “Get some sleep. I’m going to try reading again soon.”
She’d likely be up all night, until she had any kind of answer for Falliare. The pressure of the Revels approaching clogged her throat as she bid Myrella good night.
Once she was gone, Emmeline finished pinning up her cult notes. The final group Regina had found, the Realmspinners, were as poorly represented in history as the Warders.
With it all laid out before her, she stepped back, crossing her arms.
So much of this evidence had implicated Desmond. She knew it was wrong now, but he had been a viable suspect. What she needed to do was flip it all over. Take those facts that had pointed toward him and realign them to highlight someone who looked like him but wasn’t.
Someone with a motive to avenge the Fates or a grudge against Anphrosia. Revenge, as the Snake Charmer had implied.
“Maybe we’re thinking too small,” she whispered to herself.
Whipping out another blank page, she listed the rest of the Fates’ names. Next to each, she drew arrows on how they related to the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration. Some were rumored to dislike her for her brazen ways, others to be infatuated with her. The myths went on.
“But what’s worth killing for?”
Tension buzzed down her spine, each passing minute ticking down as if to her own execution.
Flipping through Skies of the Fates, the book Nico had borrowed from the library recently, she built out all the possibilities, the notes pinned to her wall growing.
Names of artwork that captured moments of history, tales told to children as bedtime stories, songs sung around tavern tables with liquor sticking to the floor. She wrote them all down.
All to try to find that missing piece: the purpose of the ritual.
Discouraged, Emmeline wandered to the window, looking up at the stars.
Fates, she had so much she could tell them tonight.
She sought out the Lotus Bloom of Hyllara, whispering everything that had happened recently.
Then, she poured her wishes into the Belt of Polyr, said to be worn for luck when he traversed the skies.
Finally, her fears. She gave those to Serchus’s Coin, just as her mother always taught her to do, the constellation known for granting abundance.
It wasn’t until her gaze skimmed across the brightest star of the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration’s major constellation, that singular light commonly called the Seductress, that the Snake Charmer’s parting words to Roremar came back: Remember what I said about old motives.
She’d tried to speak to the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration recently, but perhaps she needed to expand to other resources.
Scooping up a jar of poppy petals and crushed honeysuckle, Emmeline sat at her desk. Needing a more direct connection to the Fate of Prophecy and Demise, she rolled up the pressed florals and lit the end, bringing it to her lips.
She inhaled once, held the smoke, then blew it out.
The air clouded around her.
She repeated it.
The scent of poppies and honeysuckle lured her in.
And soon, she was falling through that other plane, seeking the Fate in her starfire form. The faceless body wavered before her, stars lining her frame, skin cut from galaxies.
“Metrina,” Emmeline greeted.
I wondered when you would call on me again.
“Forgive me.” She chose her words carefully, not wanting to offend the Fate. “It is difficult to connect that which falls among the bounds of prophecy with the crimes occurring on the isle.”
Did you not know that most workings on your realm are derived from prophecy?
“In a sense, yes, but not all prophecies come to life. Not every action is one foretold.” There was a difference between a prophecy written by the gods or Angels and the fortunes the Fates passed to Starsearchers. Metrina often forgot that, taking her own word as law.
In this, there is little difference. But you will learn. For now, protect the greed of illusions and heralds of secret currency.
Greed and secret currency? Emmeline tucked that idea away for later.
“I am seeking information on the murderer. Will they kill again? What is their purpose? Their end goal? If you can show me how they hope to achieve whatever it is with these rituals, perhaps I can use it to unwind their identity.”
I see all that you are destined to seek, but I am barred from relaying it.
“What? Why?” What could stop a Fate from sharing the paths carved in the future?
Because it is not yet time. Ask again, and I will be able.
“When?” She didn’t have time to spare, not if they wanted a lead before the Revels tomorrow.
You will know when. Until then, notice what you have lost, and seek it.
With a flash of what looked like crashing waves, the Fate’s form dissolved into a shining opal light, and Emmeline snapped back to her realm, seated at the desk in her office. She dumped the remains of the poppy and honeysuckle herbs in a glass ashtray, propping open the window for fresh air.
Protect the greed of illusions and heralds of secret currency.
A hint toward Serchus, the Fate of Secrets and Greed, referencing all symbols of his spectrum. Illusions, masks, merchants, and heralds. The most recent disappearance was a woman with ties to both Anphrosia and Serchus. Perhaps more clues laid with that woman.
“Notice what you have lost,” she muttered. Emmeline braced her arms on the windowsill. “Opal light…”
Her attention snapped to her hands, dread a rock in her gut.
Her ring…the slip of metal she’d developed a staunch reliance on…it was gone.
Panic flared bright in her chest, her breaths coming short.
No, it couldn’t be gone. Not that ring out of them all.
She tore her office apart looking for it, scattering the halls and her dormitory, but when she came up empty, the tears threatened to fall.
Notice what you have lost.
The tide crashing in her reading—
Curfew be damned, Emmeline tore from the Academy.