Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Desmond
Desmond had tried really fucking hard not to come here.
He’d taken himself to four different taverns and two incense dens and couldn’t even get himself to have a drink or smoke at any of them.
The first had been too loud with warriors overflowing from the chariot races, the second the chairs were too stiff, and he couldn’t even remember what was wrong with the rest.
Fucking Fates, nothing was wrong with any of them, he scolded himself. The entire time he was there, there was only one place he could imagine being.
One place he’d wanted to be all fucking week but kept fighting himself on.
And while he knew it was the worst starsdamned idea to ever grace the realms, he stood in the foyer of the Chancellor’s manor now, his boots leaving mud stains on the finely patterned rug thanks to the sporadic storms. Some staff member in a perfectly pressed dress with the eleven-starred Starsearcher sigil stitched into it ran off to find whom he needed, and he was left to listen to the old clock ticking away, second guessing all his decisions as he watched the rain plink onto the stone path outside the windows.
“Desmond?”
That voice. It rolled down his spine and reached into parts of his spirit he’d locked away.
It had been way too long since he heard her say his name—too many years of having to live with the memory of it all on her tongue. His name, her laugh, his secrets. It all came crashing back to him now as he turned and lifted his gaze to the second story landing.
“Hey, Lola.”
Her fingers tightened around the polished wooden rail. Angels, he remembered those hands, too. Never got to experience as much of them as he would have liked, but he knew them. The shape, the curve when she painted, the ghost of her nails across his skin as she passed a brush.
He didn’t remember that wisteria tattoo on her wrist. Each time he saw it, it was a punch to his gut to know someone else had inked it.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, looking around. Probably for that fucking guard. Was he on duty outside her bedchamber? Or even worse…inside?
Arenothos’s fucking forge, he couldn’t let himself think about that.
Why is she still standing up there? So far away.
“You’re really asking that, Lols?” Saying her name in a room where no one else was watching felt like he was coming out of a haze. Like he’d been shackled and freed and could finally drop the act.
But Lola didn’t move. She still stood up there—still gripped the railing. “Yes, I am,” she breathed. It was a breath he wanted to feel against his bare skin.
“You know why I’m here, sweetheart.”
At that word, Lola looked around. Then, she finally moved. Flew down the stairs, tugging her black silk robe tighter around her. “You’re supposed to be with Emmeline, Des.”
“That took care of itself.”
“What does that mean?” She stepped closer, checking the adjacent corridor again.
As she whipped her head back around, her silky hair fanned between them, and Desmond pinched a strand.
It didn’t quite match the onyx shade of her robe as it used to.
Now it had a different sheen to it—blue, he knew, despite the dim foyer light.
He’d spent every minute of this past week memorizing it.
“Desmond,” Lola snapped.
He tucked her hair behind her ear and met her gaze. “It means Emmeline isn’t alone, and she’s taken care of, so I’m not risking anything by coming here.”
“What—” Her eyes widened briefly, head shaking. “Oh, he didn’t. That fool.”
“Funny, I told him the same. But you know him, Lols. Dedicated to a fault.”
“That fault will be his damn death if anyone finds them together,” she muttered, eyes closing. “How did he even get out?”
“Your guard friend likes me.”
“You’re both idiots.” She sighed. “That doesn’t answer why you’re here.”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Even being this starsdamned close to her feels like the broken cracks inside me are sealed over.
“You can’t be here,” Lola whispered. Her voice was somewhere between breathy and harsh, and he knew exactly what it meant. Restraint.
“Well, too bad, sweetheart. I am.”
“But—” Somewhere down the hall, footsteps echoed. “Oh, Fate’s tits. Come on.”
Her fingers locked around his bare wrist and tugged him up the stairs. Desmond had never been so grateful he’d gotten overheated in one of the poor excuses for an incense den earlier and needed to roll his sleeves up.
He tried to memorize every turn, but this manor seemed as large as the Academy back on Lyra. He did his best, though. He needed to know where Lola was living. Fuck, where she had been living.
It had been years since he’d spoken to her; that was their rule. And now, he did everything in his power not to get distracted by how her silk robe draped her waist and ass so perfectly, her long legs stretching beneath it despite the cold night.
Fates Fucks. He had to look anywhere else.
Lola led him to a bedchamber in what he thought was the west wing of the manor, and he knew immediately it was hers.
The rich violet bedding trimmed in lace, the gowns thrown over chairs indecisively, and the fluffiest rug imaginable that she currently had all the poison research spread across…
that was all her. Color and chaos, that was who Lola Silventa had always been.
But most importantly, it was the dramatic paintings adorning the walls that told him this was her haven.
Desmond wandered over, taking in the various sized canvases.
The bold lines and rich, contrasting colors.
A clouded, emerald landscape overshadowed by rolling maroon clouds, a lone figure in the center looking up at them.
A stormy sea with a capsized boat, the lighthouse in the distance dim.
A pair of silhouettes entwined and outlined by gold and teal stars that formed ropes around their limbs and waists, wrenching them apart.
“You did these?” Desmond asked.
Lola wandered to his side. “Most of them when I was working in the galleries in Oriana. A few once I moved to head liaison at a museum in Valyn.” She gestured to a small canvas in the bottom corner.
One that looked like a pair of constellations bleeding through the sky, warped pastel flower petals melting into the bottom of the canvas. “That one is the most recent.”
Desmond studied it, not sure what was so familiar about the piece. He memorized it to pick apart later.
“These are all beautiful, Lols.” He looked at that last piece again, at the way the softer colors melted but upheld the rest of the darker night. “I think that’s my favorite.”
“Why that one?” she asked, perking up.
“I don’t know. It’s haunting, but in a way that I can’t look away from.
” Her work was always evocative, deep emotions splattered across the canvas.
Lola had a way of capturing thoughts in the outlines of shapes and angles of bodies that most artists aspired to.
She saw the world differently, and it had mesmerized Desmond as long as he could remember, always making her art identifiable.
She snickered, ducking her head. “Not sure I ever considered haunting a complement before.”
“You know I love art you feel in your spirit.” You know I think about your art every day.
Lola hummed thoughtfully, meeting his eyes. Fucking finally. “That piece is my favorite, too.”
Desmond held her stare, not letting her look away this time. Not after the hell he’d been through these past few days worrying about her after the latest murder. Or the hell he’d been through the past few years not hearing a fucking word from her at all, living off the scraps her brothers shared.
Not after wondering how she was after she learned of Nico’s death and that Anphrosia Fate ties were the targets.
He wanted so badly to touch her, but he asked, “Where’s your guard tonight?”
“He’s technically Emmeline’s guard,” Lola corrected.
“He seems rather intent on following you around like a pup,” Desmond grumbled.
Lola called him out, “You really want to talk about that?” When Desmond grunted, she added, “I sent him home rather than having him stand outside my door all night in a manor where there’s a number of other guards on the grounds.”
“Good.”
Lola sighed. “Desmond, why are you here? For real this time.”
He scoffed, facing her but keeping his arms crossed. “Because, Lola, someone died a few days ago.”
She stiffened but pursed her lips. Classic Silventa stubbornness. “I don’t see a need to worry—”
“Someone was killed in this city, in the same way a Fate we all thought was dead killed women who have your fucking Fate tie.” He let out every drop of pent-up anger and concern that had been bleeding him dry these past months.
The reason he’d become such a grouchy ass, as Myrella and Roremar had both pointed out.
“We don’t know if it’s a copycat killer or what.
But yeah, Lola, I’m here because I’m worried about you.
Because the only thing that kept me from going out of my fucking mind when this all happened was that it was only on Lyra and you weren’t.
That your brothers would never let that happen to you.
But now the killer is here, and you’re here, and I’m fucking worried. ”
When Emmeline had accused him of being the murderer, he’d lost every semblance of control. And he hadn’t been able to tell anyone why. That he’d never kill anyone, but Anphrosia Fate ties? He saw Lola in every victim.
“Desmond, we aren’t…this. We aren’t people who need to worry about one another like that.”
“Trust me, sweetheart, I know precisely what we are and aren’t. You’ve been very clear about that.”