Chapter 17

Seventeen

S he stopped reading and tuned into petrified wood, unmoving and unblinking. She stared down as the letters spilled together like pooling blood. She held her breath until her throat burned.

Time dripped and ticked together into a blanket woven of silence and sorrow.

It was unclear how long she sat unmoving and unwilling to process the information she'd just read. Eventually, she slammed the book shut and pounced out of her chair. She ran without knowing where she was going and without caring either. A robed librarian yelled at her, but she didn't listen. She just needed to run to physically process the pain coursing through her veins.

When she finally stopped running, she clutched at her chest and gulped for air.

Emotions bombarded and attacked like the cavalry in a medieval vampire army. Her hair rose at the base of her neck, and her heart burned with devastation.

It hurt like a thousand splinters cutting her heart. There was a reason Quinn chose to push her memories down into a bottomless dark pit, never to be seen again.

So, Quinn ran. Ran out of the library and to a place she felt at home, her lab. She needed to throw herself into science or dance. But dance reminded her too much of Jane.

When Quinn got lost in her work, she didn't have to feel. It had worked in the past, and it would now, too. Refusing to cry, Quinn pulled Jane's body from the preservation cabinet. It had been two days since her death, and unsurprisingly, the newspapers barely ran the story. A couple of lines was all she got. Gang murders happened far too often to be considered news to the city, but Jane deserved to be remembered. She deserved more.

But no, the newspapers were too enthralled with writing about Quinn insulting Emrys, which happened far too often to be news.

Trying to avoid thinking about everything she learned at the Grand Library, she decided to check if she could extract any other fingerprints. Using ink, Quinn painted each of victim's fingers black before pressing each down onto a piece of paper. Once she finished, Quinn cleaned Jane's hands and methodically transferred the bloody fingerprint onto paper. With all eleven samples, she compared the prints to see if there was a match. Every person in the world had a unique set of prints on each finger. If the print didn't match the victim, it most likely matched the killer.

Quinn's lower back ached as she refused to feel emotion. She had to be impartial and distant.

It was the only way to do this job.

She checked and cross-checked the samples four times until she concluded that the bloody fingerprint was not Jane's, which meant that Quinn held the best evidence that could identify the murderer.

Unfortunately, she needed samples of their prints to identify them.

Next, she placed the feathers' fragments next to each other and tried to extract fingerprints from them. She managed to pull a print from one of the feathers. Quinn was pretty sure it was the one found on the body. Cross-checking it with the bloody print, Quinn found a match .

The fingerprints matched.

So the purple feather came from the murderer? Maybe.

"Hello, little Ginger," Emrys glided beside her. "Did you want to talk about it?"

Of course, Emrys would be the person to find her. It was just her luck.

"What?" She swallowed, her throat tight and sore.

"Any of it." Emrys leaned against a cabinet, and his brown eyes sparked with compassion or pity. Both of which made Quinn cringe.

"No," she whispered.

As if sensing that she needed a distraction, Emrys said, "So what would you like to talk about? I can talk about anything, but I do prefer talking about myself."

A soft laugh escaped from her lips. Emrys's chestnut eyes twinkled like a kitten who discovered a roll of yarn. It was contagiously charming.

"But I gather that you would rather not like to discuss my narcissism today?"

"Come here," she said, using her head to point at the gloves. "I want to show you something."

Emrys pulled gloves on and strolled to the other side of the exam table. "As you wish."

Quinn gently pushed back Jane's hair from her face and pointed at the puncture wounds. "Jane died from blood loss, most likely from these puncture wounds. These slash marks were made postmortem." She ran her finger across the cuts. "It's all connected. Isn't it? Jane was killed because of her knowledge of the Blood Mirrors or because of the mirrors. And so were my par—"

He grasped her hand and squeezed. "Yes. It is all connected." He flinched as if in pain, as if he couldn't say any more.

The beast in her heart banged against its cage, and her hands trembled. She needed to pull herself together. She rolled her neck and cleared her throat, returning her eyes to the victim. "I think we need to read those reports."

Without another word. Quinn rolled the corpse into its storage chamber and pulled off her gloves. Swinging open the door, she called behind her, "Are you coming?"

Three minutes later, the two were piles-deep in the evidence room, sifting through autopsy reports. Quinn still didn't trust the prince, but Giselle was right. It took far too much energy to fight his presence.

When they finally found the Ashelle murder files, it was almost impossible to gain any new information from them. Most of the report was redacted, leaving only the cause of death and physical findings untouched by black ink. All of the investigation, motive, and circumstances of the murders were covered up.

There were six Ashelle murder victims, but one of the bodies was missing. The other five all had two puncture marks covered up by the lacerations—just like Jane—and their bodies were completely drained of blood. The victims also had the same tattoos as both Jane and Quinn. Under some of the retracted ink, the words guarding a Blood Mirror were shown through.

"So, a serial murderer is killing people with a connection to the Blood Mirrors." Quinn ran a finger along one of the reports as a strand of her cinnamon hair fell into her face. "But someone is covering up the facts of the crimes . . . why?"

"Not someone, something," Emrys said before clutching his head in pain.

"Something, meaning an organization, or something, meaning a monster?" Quinn asked. Emrys visible gulped, and the vein in his forehead budged. "Should we be searching for a vampire?"

Emrys watched her hand, circling the report. "It's possible." He winced again.

"Right." Quinn sucked in a breath. "Why can't you speak about any of this?"

"It's—" Pain flashed across his face again.

"Magic," she guessed. He tilted his head by a fraction and squeezed his eyes tight momentarily. "Okay, so how do I find the answers without forcing you to endure pain."

"I thought you enjoyed causing me pain." He flashed a smile and a sensual wink. At her glare, he said, "Perhaps we could start here." He pointed to a newspaper article that accompanied the reports.

On the margins of the article, someone wrote, I think you're right, St. John. It looks like vam . . . The last word was smudged, but it was definitely the word vampires.

"Who is that?" Quinn asked.

"A reporter," Emrys answered. The prince knew everyone who was important.

Quinn stilled as she stared at him, a mixture of emotions circling inside her. This reporter might have answers to who and why someone wanted people connected to Blood Mirrors dead.