Chapter 16

Sixteen

A knock pounded at her door, and Quinn awoke from the nightmare that dripped with blood—she watched as her father was murdered on repeat. Oh, how she hated the Looking Glass—the Mirror of Nightmares—and its stupid deal. She hated waking up every morning in cold sweats.

Quinn rubbed the hilt of her palms into her eyes, groaning. She had a massive headache snaking up the back of her skull. Drinking last night had been a terrible mistake.

Her head pounded again, louder, and more irritating this time.

"Ginger, open your door. We have a murder to solve," a male said with a voice like liquid magic. Smooth and intoxicating. And she knew that voice, but her muddled mind couldn't quite connect the dots.

Quinn groaned and smashed a pillow into her face. "No."

"Little ballerina, I would like to speak with you, and I would prefer if you didn't run away from me this time," the man said again, his tone as dark as shadows. A tone that dripped with arrogance and power. The tone only royalty could muster.

Emrys Avalon .

Quinn groaned again and pulled the covers over her head, mumbling, "No. Go away."

"I'd rather not."

"Go away." She mumbled into her pillow for a third time.

"You know I can pick a lock, right?" Of course, he could. Quinn couldn't see the prince's face, but she imagined he looked rather proud of himself—a preening peacock.

"Uh, fine." She rolled out of bed and stumbled to the door. "How may I help you, your grand, glorious majesty?" she asked sarcastically as she opened the door to the impeccably dressed prince.

Thank God her uncle was already in the morgue. She had no idea how she'd explain this to him.

Emrys's eyes raked over her, and he laughed. "You're hungover."

"I am not."

"So, you're hungover and a liar."

"I'm pretty sure you are the liar and murderer."

"I very well may be a liar, but I am certainly not a murderer." The corner of his mouth lifted into a roguish smirk that could compete with any hero in a silent picture show, which was fitting considering that he escorted beautiful actresses to one of the Pleasure District's clubs every night.

"Why are you here"—Quinn glanced at her grandfather clock—"at six in the morning?"

Quinn finally got a day to sleep in because ballet auditions were canceled for the next three days to honor Jane's death, but this irritating prince had to ruin that.

"Can I come in?" he asked, his hand on the door as he peered in.

Quinn crossed her arms and shot him a glare so hot it could melt the Arctic. "Absolutely not. It would be utterly indecent."

A lazy smile laced his tawny cheeks. "Fine, we can have this conversation in the hallway then." He leaned against the door jam .

"What do you want?" Quinn crossed her arms in sad resistance. "What is so important that you must wake me up early in the morning, banging on my door?"

He glowered. "I want your help to solve the murder."

Quinn forced her head high and stood up to him even though he was far, far taller, and stronger than her. To anyone watching, it must have looked like a cat cornered by a mouse. But if she were a mouse, she'd be a fearsome one to behold. "I'll help you if you tell me why you were spending so much time with Jane."

"I can't tell you that."

"Then I can't help you."

Emrys folded his arms in response to her stubbornness. "If I could tell you, I would. But I cannot. I am bound—" He cut his words off, and a flicker of something akin to pain thundered in his eyes. "I cannot tell you what Jane and I were discussing. However, I can say that the murder may be connected to secrets that Castle Hill and the Royalle House must protect at all costs."

"Including the cost of murder?" Quinn asked.

Emrys shifted a hint of desperation in his stance. "Do you know the Graham Knight novels?" he asked, switching the subject.

"With the detective who is always wearing a deerstalking hat?" Quinn ran a finger down the doorframe, hoping that the sensory stimulation would cause his change in subject to make sense.

"Yes. Have you read The Knight and the State Secret ?"

"Of course not." If he thought she read for fun, he was far stupider than she ever imagined.

"Right, well, the story is about—"

"—I said I didn't read it, not that I didn't know the story."

"Right, so then you know that the murder in that book has to do with state secrets and national security, and if Knight and his medical examiner partner Briggs don't solve the murder in time, hundreds of people will die?"

"Yes. . ." she said slowly. "Are you saying that hundreds of people will die if you don't find the murderer?" Confusion burned a hole in her stomach as Emrys nodded and leaned in slightly.

If Jane's death was linked to a larger conspiracy that Castle Hill and the queen knew about, then Emrys might know about the Blood Mirrors. And if he did, it would speed up the investigation.

"Would this national conspiracy have something to do with the Blood Mirror?" Quinn asked, curling her fingers around the door.

His reaction was physical. Every muscle in his body tensed, and his face slightly paled. "I can neither confirm nor deny—"

"Of course, you can't." She scoffed, but then she narrowed her eyes because that was a physical reaction, not just a verbal one.

"But let's speak hypothetically for a moment. If there were Bloo—" His words broke off as the vein in his neck budged. Quinn cocked her head, watching him. "I'm sorry, I can't."

Something, probably magic—there wasn't much else that would do it—was keeping him from being truthful. So, how could Quinn get around it? Have him tell her without him saying it.

"So you can't tell me anything." Quinn sighed. "That's going to make solving a murder difficult. It's like asking me to fight a duel with my hands tied behind my back."

"I know." He visibly swallowed.

"I presume you can't tell me why you can't tell me as well?

He nodded. "If there was something, let's say, that I couldn't speak about, perhaps you might be able to find the answers without me telling you."

"And how would you suggest I do that?"

"Either the Grand Library or a mirror."

"You want to take a girl who cannot even read to a library?"

Emrys shrugged. "Eh, so you can't read. Big deal. I can't sing, and I am still considered a gentleman . . . mostly." His lips rose in a silky smirk. "Reading might be hard, but I know you can do it. You are quite brilliant. "

A library . He must really hate her.

She glowered; her arms crossed protectively in front of her chest. Eventually, she rolled her shoulders back and decided to humor his metaphor. "If you were Knight in this scenario, would that mean you would wear the stupid hat?"

Emrys moved closer to her. She stepped back in rhythm with him, but her back hit the doorframe. He was so close that the warmth of his breath caressed her neck.

"Would you enjoy that? Maybe I can wear only the hat . . . and nothing else." He winked. "I do believe you still need lessons in passion."

Butterfly wings tickled her stomach, and her foolish heart sped. She had forbidden the lessons in passion to continue, but a horrible piece of her wanted his hands all over her again—wanted him to teach her everything. She swallowed. No. Strength, Quinn. Finding Jane's murder was all that mattered. No foolish, indecently handsome, and charming princes.

Quinn measured her voice and made it sound clinical and uninterested so that her lust wouldn't show. "You did not need to say, ‘and nothing else.' The ‘ only ' implied that you planned to be naked."

He chuckled.

"Besides, I already told you there would be no lessons in passion anymore." Her eyes tracked for a mortifying moment down to his cock and then back up to his chestnut eyes.

His chuckle deepened. "It's interesting your mouth is forming words, but your eyes are not agreeing with them. If you truly don't want to use me for passion, then try telling your eyes to stop caressing me." He stepped closer, his proximity indecent. "Your eyes feel a little bit like this." He trailed his thumb down the column of her neck. His jaw was set tight as if the act pained him.

Shivers radiated through her entire body, and she inhaled sharply, wishing he would do it again . . . that and so, so much more. But he didn't. Instead, he stepped back, freeing her. And it was the one instance where she longed to be confined again .

"But you forbid me from teaching you passion," he said, "for no discernable reason."

Quinn gritted her teeth from frustration and anger. The anger that emerged every time she remembered why Jane was dead. "Perhaps you should deploy your charms on someone who might want to spend time with you." Quinn dug a verbal knife into his arrogance.

It caused the opposite reaction than she intended. Emrys's arrogance grew.

"But they will work on me," Giselle said, stepping up next to them and causing Quinn to nearly jump out of her skin. "Come on, princey. The Grand Library sounds like a great idea, and I don't mind you tagging along."

"You are not serious," Quinn whirled on Giselle.

"Yes, I am. If the prince insists on being a part of the investigation, it only wastes our time and energy resisting him."

Giselle was an abnormally good judge of character. Maybe Quinn should trust her friend. "Fine." Quinn sighed, knowing that she had lost this round.

He chuckled and grasped Quinn's left wrist, rubbing a thumb over her tattoo as a wince prickled on his features. "I am bound from telling you the truth," he whispered. "But I won't prevent you from discovering it yourself."

Thirty minutes later, Quinn stared at the Grand Library's turrets, which climbed to the sky like claws piercing the heavens. Nerves rattled in her stomach. She'd never been in the opulent building before because she avoided reading like the plague. And she never particularly wanted to meet the Looking Glass.

The Looking Glass was the most famous mirror in the Art Sector, the part of the city filled with bohemian treasures, galleries, artists, writers, musicians, and actors—people living on the fringe. But it also housed the Mirror of Untamed Talent, known for bestowing artistic talents on those brave enough to challenge it.

Most of the mirrors were legends in the city, but the Looking Glass was probably the most iconic for its sheer size and the rumor that it was the first mirror discovered.

The Grand Library was designed to house the four-story-high mirror and was itself a grand masterpiece of architecture. Flying buttresses lined the walls with twisted, intricate designs and supported the towers, allowing them to pierce the sky. This feat of engineering was like no other.

The library rivaled the gods in technology and decor. Colonnades lined the perimeter, and sculptures of the old vampire gods were etched into each column.

Above the entrance, a sign read: With Every Death We Grow Stronger, a slogan of the old vampire gods.

Emrys cleared his throat. "Are you planning on gazing upon the building all day, or would you like to see what lies beyond?"

"I—" Quinn absentmindedly patted her skirts.

She clenched her fists and forced herself to focus on meeting the Looking Glass. An evil, vindictive mirror that killed her nightly in her sleep.

Every night, covered in blood and surrounded by screams. Every night, a different version of her parents' murders or hers. All because the Royalle House bound every citizen with their terrible deal to get electricity.

Her palms grew clammy as she stepped up to the gilded entrance. Emrys turned the handle and held open the door.

"Just don't look at it," Constance said, sensing Quinn's worry. There was something almost magical about Constance's ability to gauge when Quinn was worried, upset, or even happy, almost like she was an empath.

"You'll be okay." Giselle squeezed Quinn's shoulder .

Quinn nodded and hesitantly stepped through the door, followed by her friends.

The outside of the Grand Library was nothing compared to the opulent interior. Sparkling augmented light shined patterns into the marble floor. Massive murals of the stars and the vampire gods were painted across the ceiling. Some original vampire paintings were coated over, but others remained, causing a disjointed tableau.

But the light emanating from the mirror forced her eyes toward it, despite Constance's warning. Quinn's jaw dropped, and her stomach grew sick with dread. The mirror's presence pulsated energy—thick and sticky. As the jeweled centerpiece of the room, it was rimmed with gilded gold embroidery, and its molten silver surface swirled with the warm hues of dripping watercolor paint.

It was transfixing and impossible to look away from.

Quinn's breathing turned ragged as she felt her limbs go heavy. Her heart rattled in her chest like a beast trying to escape a cage. Stuck and unable to remove her gaze. Frozen in both fear and awe. Enthralled.

In an instant, or maybe an age, Emrys appeared before her and blocked her view, his hands on her face. It took an eternity for her to blink and gain functioning over her body again.

"You looked," he said softly with his glistening eyes that twinkled like brown sapphires at midnight.

"I—"

Fire twirled in her core. Or maybe it was butterflies. Or poison.

It was hard to tell with Emrys.

She sucked in a breath and stepped back and out of his hold. He was nearly as mesmerizing as the stupid mirror. Both made her blood boil. Averting her gaze, she noticed the statues surrounding the room of people with their heads turned up to the mirror.

"Does it turn people to stone?" Her voice shook .

"It can't turn people into statues," Giselle said, also eying the stone people.

"No, not people." Emrys visibly swallowed and turned to Constance. "Shall we move on?"

Constance's face twisted in horror as she tried not to look at the mirror. "Yes, please." A vein in her neck pulsed.

All of them struggled against the mirror's magnetic pull except Giselle. She merely peered at the mirror with defiance and shrugged.

"I don't get it," Quinn said. "Giselle, you come here so often. Why would you risk it?" It was a stupid question. Giselle was addicted to risk. It probably colored her soul.

"Its power no longer works on me." Giselle's smile played on her lips like she knew the secret to the universe. "The trick is, once you know what the mirror wants to do to you—that it wants to entrance you and keep you frozen forever locked in nightmares—its power fades."

Once in a separate room, Giselle and Emrys ran off to find books. Emrys didn't say what he looked for, but Giselle found books relating to tattoos and anything that might relate to the Blood Mirrors. She came back with a pile stacked up to her chin.

Jevon grabbed a stack of recent newspapers covering the last few years and began reading the murder reports while tapping his fingers on the desk.

Giselle opened a small book with a leather cover, and Emrys plopped a tome before Quinn.

She jolted out of a daze and turned her eyes to the massive book in front of her. "What in the dirty mirror's name is that?"

Emrys flashed an arrogant smile. "New Swansea history of the royal family." He patted her on the back in the most condescending way. "Have fun!"

"Why in the world would I need to read about the history of your family?" she asked him incredulously.

"Trust me. It is relevant."

"Because you're a narcissist?"

He slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "Possibly. But even so. Let's say there was a secret involving Castle Hill and the coun—" He gulped. "A secret that I was unable to tell you myself, but you needed to know to solve Jane's murder."

Constance eyed him warily. And Giselle muffled her giggle and pulled a book to cover her face.

"And it is in this book?" Quinn asked.

"Possibly."

Quinn narrowed her eyes, her heart quickening in her chest. "You have got to be kidding me. That thing . . . " She emphasized the word thing and pointed at the tome. ". . . Could eat twenty New Swansea history books. I am not reading it. I can't read it."

Quinn's blood bubbled with anxiety. It would take her twenty years to read that book. Emrys merely shrugged, which burned her blood even more, frustration coating her soul. "You know I have reading issues, right?"

Emrys flashed a dimple, his tawny face lighting up with amusement. He certainly liked to provoke. "A lot of the newspapers have pictures. Look for something about blood. I am fairly certain you know how to spell blood. You'll do fine."

Condescending prick . Of course, she knew how to spell blood . . . maybe. That wasn't the point. The point was that he was insensitive and obnoxiously rude.

"You know what? Sometimes you're so charming that I can barely contain my knickers," Quinn said. "All the girls must find your arrogant condescension so utterly swoon-worthy."

He dared to chuckle and shrug again like every word she said was accurate. "Thank you. Now, get to work." He pointed at the book .

"And what will you do?"

"I'm going through gang records."

"And why can't I do that?"

Emrys wiped his hands together like he was removing dirt. Nonexistent dirt. "Because we need you to guard that history book."

Frustration's claws burrowed a hole in her heart. Oh, how she hated this arrogant, stupid, insolent man. She glared at the book. "Right." She rounded on her friends a little too harshly. "What are you two reading?"

"I'm looking through old murder briefing reports. It's possible Jane wasn't the first victim," Giselle said.

Constance flipped open a book. "And I'm trying to search for anything to do with your tattoo and Blood Mirrors." Since Jane shared the same tattoo on her wrist as Quinn, it made sense for one of the friends to investigate that while they were here.

Turning a few pages, Quinn grunted. This was a torture designed specifically for her. Her eyes clouded over as she turned the pages in the book. Not only was this task utterly dull, but it was also strenuous. The words jumped from page to page and danced a tango. None of the letters wanted to behave. It felt like a ballerina jumping grand jetés in her brain. Her temples throbbed, and her overall mood could only be described as a tornado mingling with a forest fire.

Quinn's legs stung, and she tried to stretch her toes and did relevés with her feet to relieve the pain, but numbness curled up her legs like the talons of a vicious tiger. The exhaustion from drinking, ballet auditions, and all the stress of the murder lingered in her body. A rotten apple soured in her core as she carelessly flipped over another page.

Hours into the search, she gave up and rested her head in the tome.

"Eyes on the book, Ginger," Emrys said as he leaned against the wall four tables away.

"Stop calling me that. It's not accurate. My hair is reddish- brown." It was just indecent to continue to repeat the same inaccuracy over and over again.

His signature, devilish smirk crossed his lips. "As you wish, little ballerina."

Quinn sighed. At least that nickname was accurate.

Eventually, she focused back on the book and pretended to be very involved just to prove him wrong. Moving quickly, she took his advice and only looked for the pictures, which was how she stumbled upon something spectacularly strange.

A photographed painting of Emrys, but it couldn't be the Emrys standing across the room. It was too old. In the painting, the king held a staff, and on his middle finger, he had a strange freckle. It was on the inside of the finger where it shouldn't have been visible to the sun. It was odd and unique.

Quinn bit the inside of her cheek and examined him as intently as a dead body. The portrait was identical but painted at least seven centuries before. She squinted and tried to read the information. It was a handwritten news sheet for a wedding announcement.

Emerson Avalon married Elody Wittfield in the year 50AV. The new princess who was chosen at the Suitor Ball is enjoying life at the palac—

Quinn stopped reading because the rest of the article was about the ceremony. She turned the page and found another marriage announcement .

Ezekiel Avalon married Charlotte Davies in the year 75AV.

It must have been Emerson's son. The next page similarly was another announcement .

Edmund Avalon married Yasmin Perez in the year 100AV.

She flipped the page.

Page after page, Quinn turned to marriage announcements for the royal family. The articles changed from written news sheets to printed newspapers, but they were all similar. Quinn caught the pattern almost immediately. All the weddings took place twenty-five years apart. All of the married couples had a son, and each of their sons had a name that began with E.

Following the announcements were articles announcing the death of the princes.

Prince Emerson Avalon died on the fifth day of Summer 66AV.

Prince Ezekiel Avalon died on the fifth day of Summer 91 AV.

Prince Edmund Avalon died on the fifth day of Summer 116AV.

The princes died precisely sixteen years after their wedding on the same day. Every. Single. Time.

The hairs on her arms rose.

Was the royal family cursed? Cursed to repeat the same marriage and death cycle over and over again? Could a mirror cause that?

Was this what Emrys wanted her to find? And if it was, how could it possibly have anything to do with Jane's murder?

It was an impossible pattern. How had someone not noticed before? Unless they had . . . and a mirror erased their memories. As soon as the thought hit her, it vanished, as did everything she'd just read .

Quinn shivered, fear dancing in her stomach, turning it hollow. She shook out her arms and tried to relax. Something was missing from her mind . . . but what?

"Is the book that horrifying?" Constance asked, noticing the discomfort.

"It's a book."

Giselle chuckled, her nose still in her own book. "I have something else you could look at. I found these from the night of the murder."

Giselle passed Quinn a pile of pictures, and Constance returned to her task.

One picture captured a tableau of passion and delight. A crowd of twenty people danced, partied, and swayed to the music. Illusions floated above and painted a watercolor of magic and a sea of excess. Everyone glittered and shone under the light of a thousand peacock eyes.

The Viridian.

The most noticeable thing about the picture was the people who weren't moving—who weren't shining in their joy. With a frown on her face, Jane talked to Emrys, who held her arm like he was about to pull her away. His expression shadowed with danger like he was threatening her. It was not a scene of friendship or alliance.

This picture painted a different idea altogether. One of danger and possibly murder.

Squinting her eyes to get a closer look, she noticed purple feathers on his pocket square. Purple feathers like the fragments she had found on the body. He was the last person Quinn saw with Jane before she died. And he had mud caked on his dress pants the morning after the murder. All the clues led to Emrys, and she gulped.

But if he were the murderer, why did he bring her to the library and point her to . . . what had she learned?

Nothing added up, and she was far more confused than before .

Anxiety crawled over Quinn's skin like a thousand tiny ants. Sliding the important photo into her skirt pocket for safekeeping, she turned her eyes to another shot.

Jane's glamorous crimson hair stood out. She was alone in a crowd, searching for something. Nearby was Constance in her silver sequined dress, talking to a blond man with his back to the camera. It could be Jevon possibly. He had the same yellow curls as this man, plus it made the most sense.

Constance's eyes weren't on the man in question. They seemed to be on Jane.

A strange coincidence.

And she wasn't the only one. There were three other people in the crowd staring at the former ballerina. The prince. Francois. And Hadleigh.

Also strange. All the photos seemed focused on Jane, as if the photographer were following her.

Odd.

Why would Giselle be so pinpoint focused on Jane?

It didn't make sense.

But the photos spoke a thousand words, and it would seem that one of the people in these pictures—or many—was a liar.

"I found something." Giselle poked her head up from behind her book.

"What?" A chorus of voices sang at once, all four hovering around Giselle.

"It's a murder briefing from nineteen years ago. All the victims were drained completely of blood, and all of them had the same tattoo as Jane."

"What?" Quinn said as Emrys nodded as if something clicked and came together in his mind.

"And all five of the bodies were found in front of a dead—red—mirror stain." Giselle poked her head out of her book, and a big smile was on her face. "It has to be a Blood Mirror. Why else would it be red?"

A jolt of memory hit Quinn in the chest. Physically and viscerally. "My necklace is named Blood. Wasn't that what Nightshade and Jane had said?"

Her necklace was a Blood Mirror.

"Oh shit." Giselle paused, reading, her eyes trailing up to Quinn. Her normally tawny olive skin turned polar white.

"What?" Quinn tilted her head, her fingers curling tightly around her book.

"I don't think—" Giselle's voice cracked, and a tear leaked from her eyes.

"What?" Quinn asked again, more insistent.

Giselle shook her head as more tears gathered with the first. "I don't think you should see it."

Quinn gulped. "I need to see it, Giselle. It will be fine no matter what it is."

Pushing the book in Quinn's direction, Giselle looked like the haunted in Soul Mirror Row—devastated and tortured. Turning the book toward her, Quinn peered down at the words. The letters were loopy and hard to read, but eventually, she saw what caused Giselle's reaction.

The names of the victims included Quinn's parents.