Chapter 59
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Emmeline
“What are you doing here?” Desmond Alvanti growled as he opened the door to his basement apartment.
“I think you already know the answer to that,” Emmeline responded, crossing her arms.
Shouts and cheers drifted down from the Promenade as the opening ceremony dissolved into dancing and music. Lyra was free again. Nausea swooped through Emmeline, and she pulled her hood tighter around her face as she stepped closer to the door, a singular mystlight orb swinging overhead.
Desmond’s knuckles went white on the wooden frame.
His face was etched with deeper lines than usual, as if the weight of the past day had aged him tremendously.
Over his shoulder, the room was nearly dark, only a few candles lining the table like he’d been hiding in here and didn’t want anyone from the revels banging on his door.
Incense clouded the air, a soft citrus scent reaching out to Emmeline, tampering with the magic pulsing through her.
Desmond’s eyes dropped over her, his lips tilting into a smirk at the tight black leathers and blades that adorned her body beneath her midnight cloak. “You came prepared for a fight.”
“I came prepared to work,” she retorted. Tension budded between them, pressing down on Emmeline’s already exhausted frame. She dropped her arms, whispering, “He didn’t do this, Desmond.”
Her heart shattered over those words. It was the first time she’d said them aloud, yet she knew in her heart they were true. She’d known it all day.
“Evidence says otherwise, Emmeline,” he bit out, eyes narrowed.
Disbelief had her jaw dropping. “Are you kidding me? Fuck the evidence!” A wave of Starsearchers ran down the street, and she forced her voice to lower.
“You know as well as I do that Roremar would never harm his brother. He’d never harm any of the victims. He may have earned a reckless reputation, but he’s so much more than that.
He cares about other people, Desmond.” She groaned.
How did Desmond Alvanti of all people not see this?
“I don’t even think he believes in the Fates from how little he reveres them, so why would he be conducting some Spiritsdamned ritual in their honor?
Nico aside, none of it lines up, and he’s too fucking good to have done something like this.
So please, I need you to help me prove it. ”
She wasn’t above begging for his assistance. Not when it came to Roremar. But she didn’t have words to explain just how deep the man’s devotion ran or how she knew he may be willing to go to any lengths to protect those he loves—would kill for them—but he would never hurt them.
Desmond was silent for a minute that stretched on. The power beating in her veins heightened, impatient and desperate.
“You seriously think he’s guilty?” she spat when Desmond didn’t answer.
“Not in a Fate’s flying fuck,” he responded immediately. “I just wanted to see how much you believe in him.”
Her heart clenched at the comment, but warmth spread through her chest. Roremar had such a loyal friend in Desmond. He deserved that. Deserved people to fight for him when he fought for everyone but himself.
“How did I do?” she asked.
“Remember, Emmeline,” Desmond said, crossing his arms and widening his stance in the doorway, “I don’t know if I trust you personally.
” The words didn’t sting. She’d earned them, and she kept her expression impassive as he continued, “But I trust that man—my brother—with my damn life. And he trusts you. He’s fucking different around you, in a way I think he’s needed for a long time.
It’s like he’s lighter. Living for himself again rather than the rest of us.
” His temper was rising, voice pitching up.
“And those kids—they’ve lost too much. They need him, especially now that Nico is gone. Fuck, I need him.”
She needed him, too, but that wasn’t why she was here.
“So while I don’t trust you”—Desmond stepped aside—“I’ll work with you to prove to the rest of this Fate forsaken isle what you and I both already know.”
Relief unspooled within her, magic rushing through her veins, to her fingertips. “Thank you,” she whispered, clenching her fists.
He jerked his head inside. “Get in here. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“You were reading?” she asked as she slipped off her boots.
She’d never been in Desmond’s apartment, but its dark walls were covered in hand-painted murals.
The mismatched wooden furniture was warm and homey.
She settled herself on the worn russet sofa, toying with a tiny, fingertip-sized hole in the arm, likely from someone smoking.
Desmond sighed, dragging a hand down his face and falling onto the opposite end of the sofa. “I’ve been trying.”
With the door closed, the noise of the festivities was smothered. Without all those people celebrating Roremar’s arrest amid the revel commemorating the Twelfth Fate’s death, she could think a little more clearly.
Emmeline inhaled the citrus scent, the underlying laurel leaf burning beside it. “Aevollon?”
“Tried Arenothos earlier.” Desmond picked up a sketch pad and charcoal, tilting the drawing so she couldn’t see it. “He wasn’t very helpful. No redemption, I guess.”
“Have you tried speaking with both at once?” Emmeline chewed her lip, scanning his supplies.
Desmond’s lips quirked as he drew, the scratch of the charcoal against paper a welcome rhythm. “Never thought a threesome with the Fates would be your style.”
She ignored the innuendo. “What do you mean?”
“Your very laced up, Emmeline. The type to follow all the rules. Stick to one Fate per session,” he mimicked in a high voice, “so on and so forth.”
“Sometimes we have to break the rules. I’ve always found that one a bit restrictive.”
“That we do.” He gave an impressed nod, still watching his sketch. “You read from both your ties at the same time?”
Emmeline fidgeted with her ring. “I have. My mother taught me how before she died. She wanted me to have full mastery over my magic.”
The conversation took her back to the Trade House, when she and Roremar had broken in. He’d told her she wasn’t what he expected.
If only they knew the half of it. She broke rules just by existing. Remaining discreet was the only way she survived.
Careful consideration, just as Roremar conducted. Spirits, she had completely misjudged him originally. Her throat tightened.
Desmond had said she’d been good for Roremar, but it was the other way around. Roremar had been good for her. Had shown her true care, taught her how to let others in. They may both be tightly wound, but together, they’d been learning to challenge their rigid boundaries.
She let him breathe. He let her fall.
They’d been good for one another.
That notion hardened her resolve. Emmeline cleared her throat. “Try reading both Fates at once,” she instructed Desmond as if he was one of her students. “It will feel overwhelming, but sometimes they discuss with each other more than you, and you can pick up on what lies between their words.”
Desmond shrugged, cracking open a jar labeled amber and musk. With the mingling scents of two Fates burning, Desmond leaned back in his chair and began his vigil of the Fates.
Emmeline’s own magic begged to give into the pressing reading, but she fought it back. Instead, she pulled out the various notes she’d brought from the Academy and carried them to the dining table taking up the center of the room.
Mystlight ignited in the orbs hanging over the space.
Beneath their glow, she laid sheets of parchment and journals across the pristine wood.
She organized them into piles. Things that felt so detached from Roremar, they had to prove his innocence, and those she was still puzzling out.
She set the various star maps and charts she’d drawn over recent weeks in their own pile off to the side.
Later she’d go through what constellations had been brightest to see if there were any hints as to celestial movements that impacted Ambrisk.
She began picking through the notes on the victims, turning the facts on their heads to find any connections that could have been misconstrued.
Roremar’s ring that she’d found in the cells lay heavily on a chain around her neck, tucked beneath her dress. A solace and a reminder.
After an extended silence, Desmond groaned, pushing up from his chair.
“Nothing?” Emmeline asked.
“No,” he clipped, grabbing a bottle of ale from the table and striding across the room, charcoal and sketch pad in his other hand. “The two just bickered about Anphrosia some more and all the grief she caused them.”
“Like the Storytellers,” she mused. “You’d think the Narratres Fatorum would have something better to discuss.”
“Apparently, even in eternity it always comes down to scorned lovers.” He took a swig, waving a hand across the table. “What’s all this?”
“This is everything.” Emmeline twirled her ring around her finger. “Every single thing Roremar and I have gathered.” She braced her palms on the table. “The answer is here. I just…don’t know what it is yet.”
“Is any of this new?” he asked.
She gestured to the information Regina had given her tonight.
“Just this stuff about the Warders of Selene and who she might be, but I don’t know how that could connect to Roremar.
” Desmond traded his ale for the papers, flicking through them as Emmeline went on, “Everything else, he’s seen.
I’ve been with Myrella all day, so I didn’t get a chance to look at anything. ”
“How is she?”
“Heartbroken,” Emmeline confessed. “She and Nico had…I don’t know what it was, but it was something special and innocent and promising. And suddenly, it was gone.”
“I can understand that. Losing someone in a blink.” He blew out a breath and dropped the Selene papers to the table. “It’s impossible to get over.”
“I know,” Emmeline whispered. She sank down into a chair, and Desmond took one opposite her. “How are you? Nico was your friend.”