Page 99 of Drawn in Blood
“Do you know what I said?”
Theo’s eyes widened, panicking. He sat straight up, like he was ready to bolt, and then Ember laughed.
“You can read lips, can’t you?” She grinned.
Theo nodded sheepishly, crimson staining his cheeks.
What a cheeky little boy.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ember asked.
Theo shrugged as he bit his lip.“No one ever bothered to learn for me,”he signed, and Ember frowned.
No one had ever bothered to learn sign language. Gaelen is the one who taught him, and their mother had certainly neverput in much effort. He had never been important enough for anyone—never felt important enough for anyone. Ember’s heart sank as she climbed off her bed and onto the floor, wrapping him in a hug. She lifted his chin and sat back.
“I will always bother,”she promised.
She didn’t know what the future had in store for her—didn’t know how they were going to escape this nightmare, but she would never regret any of it if she could save him too.
Chapter 32
An Ominous Round of Mimosas and Tiny Finger Sandwiches
Theo slept soundly beside her as her lamp lit up the pages of her father’s journal. She ran her fingers along the aged paper, tracing the places his pen had been, desperately trying to feel him there, to feel him anywhere. She had spent six years with him, and there were so many things she needed to ask him, so many questions that would likely never be answered—not fully anyway.
“I’ve missed you more than I knew you,” she mumbled, sighing as she flipped the page. She had read this journal cover to cover, had seen every word and picture and indentation from his pen. Her brow furrowed as she carefully peeled two pages apart that seemed to have been stuck together for years, pages she had never noticed before.
There was a list on the left page, a list of names that seemed vaguely familiar. She racked her brain for several minutes, reading them over and over, and then it clicked.
They were shop names from Torsvik, and the people had to be people in the town. But why were they in his journal? Why was that relevant? A drawing of a crow was scratched next to them with a circle around it. It wasn’t detailed, not heavily illustrated with any sort of shading, more like an ancientinsignia. Her eyes traveled to the next page, and she shot up in bed, eyes wide and jaw slack.
It was a drawing of Eldfjall.
But not just a drawing—it was a rough floor plan. Secret passages and hidden rooms, things only someone very intimate with the inner workings of the palace could know about. There was a detailed plan of the dungeon she had been in just a few nights prior, the locked door and spiral stairs leading to the cells, the hall where Aesira and the kids were locked up, and then it continued, down several more sets of stairs to a…
But there was nothing. Whoever drew this plan, or gave it to her father, either didn’t want anyone to know what was past those stairs or never got that far. A chill ran down her spine. She had to find out what this meant.
She looked down at Theo, sleeping soundly, and all she could think about was how both he and Maeve deserve the childhood she never had. They deserved peace and a family that loved them to come find them when they were lost or to learn sign language for them. She bit her lip as she swallowed the lump steadily building in her throat.
The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
She felt a fire ignite deep inside her—just a flicker. But she knew if she let it, it would burn this entire city to the ground.
Ember wanderedthrough town with Theo in tow as the little boy desperately searched for an ice cream shop. She had found him rummaging through the kitchen in the chateau looking forsomething sweet and then promptly begged Ember to take him into town for ice cream. Ember was happy to be out of the house, to stop dodging her mother and looking over her shoulder every moment for a new threat. She stuffed her father’s journal into a bag she found in the closet—her bag from the Kitts conveniently left at the manor in Sigurvik—and was content to read through the entries while Theo finished his treat.
Theo got a chocolate cone with sprinkles and quickly ran off to climb on a rickety looking ledge on the other side of the street. Ember laughed—the first time she had laughed in days—and breathed in the fresh air that whipped around her. They walked down the street further, peering into windows and listening to conversations, when Ember noticed they were in front of Monkshood & Wolfsbane, the apothecary she had visited her first time in the city. She lingered at the door, her eye catching something carved into the wooden frame. She squinted, studying it, and then her jaw fell open.
She dug through the bag at her side and pulled her father’s journal out, hastily flipping it to the page she had been on the night before. She read through the list of names, Monkshood & Wolfsbane being one of them, as well as Catriona Fitz, the owner of the shop. Her heartbeat quickened as she looked at the picture of the crow next to it, then back to the doorframe, the same roughly drawn bird scratched into the wood, something you wouldn’t even notice unless you were looking.
Theo walked over to her, giving her a perplexed look as he tilted his head. She nodded toward the door.
Do you want to go in?
An unspoken question. Theo nodded with a grin, chocolate covering his freckled face. They walked through the door, a little bell jingling as they entered, and Ember didn’t have to look long for Catriona. She was on a stool, very carefully placing filled vials in a cabinet behind the counter. She smiled with a wave as thetwo walked in, and Ember headed to the counter as Theo went to explore a vaguely dangerous looking plant by the window.
“Welcome back, Ember.” Catriona smiled. “Anything I can help you with today?”
Ember bit her lip. “I’m not sure,” she replied, gripping the journal in her hand a little tighter. She didn’t have any way of knowing what these names meant—why her father had a list scratched in the back of his journal. They could be people he was watching, people he didn’t trust—people who were dangerous. She sucked in a breath to steady herself. Trusting her gut was the only thing she had right now.
