Page 5 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)
The back room was elaborately decorated with Ambrose paraphernalia. The artist ducked out to get her things and Nore took it all in. Framed clippings from Debs Daily commissioning this location. Another with a ribbon cutting. A poster for an upcoming Audior concert.
Beside the shop owner in one picture was someone Nore recognized, with cropped bangs, a severe expression, and gray hair. Mother, decades younger. Nore’s jaw locked.
Dublin set his satchel in a chair before walking the length of the room with hands clasped behind his back.
“Reliving the glory days?” she asked him.
“Just observing. I meant what I said about the weather.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Truly, I’m not lying. I have nothing to hide.”
Her chest squeezed. A life I dream of. “Surely you’ve found some discoveries satisfying. The Immortality Scroll is quite impressive as far as magical accomplishments go.” Her heart hammered.
“Eh.”
She slid to the edge of her chair. “Is that indifference?”
“Ambrosers have tried to find that Scroll for generations. I looked, too. Learned all kinds of things about the places where it’s hidden. But death is what makes living life so thrilling. I don’t need an endless one.”
His satchel with the journal inside still sat on a nearby chair. “What brought you here today?”
“I just returned from Croatia. I get a new tattoo to commemorate a trip. Call it a tradition from my House that stuck, I suppose.”
He might live on his own terms, but he was Ambrose-bred. How is such a thing even possible? Their world couldn’t give him the fame he craved. So he found it elsewhere. Loyal to himself, like everyone else in the Order.
“Ready?” the tattoo artist asked when she returned.
“Oh!” Nore hadn’t actually planned to get a tattoo. “Dublin, why don’t you go?”
“Ladies first. I insist.”
Nore hesitated. Dublin’s brow furrowed.
She climbed into the chair.
“Tally mark? How many?”
If she was going to get a permanent mark, it wasn’t going to be anything her House made her. She agreed with Dublin on that. Instead it would be something that meant a lot to her.
“Can you do hemlock flowers in the shape of a heart?”
The tattooist nodded, and Nore adjusted her clothes to expose her hip. She didn’t want to answer questions about what it meant. Dublin jotted something in his journal before setting it back on the chair.
“Why poison?” he asked.
Her heart pounded in its cage as a flood of frustration reddened her cheeks. “You defy possibilities. But in my experience some are finite. For me, love is an impossibility. And this is a reminder of that.”
“You only grow more intriguing,” Dublin said, as the artist started the drawing. “You’re very brilliant. A deep thinker.”
“I’m aware.”
He took more notes.
“You’ve been writing in that thing since you arrived.”
“Not writing. Revising, tweaking, making minor adjustments.”
“Still, it’s rude.” She held out her hand and her pulse thrummed.
He handed the journal to her. She looked at what he was sketching.
He’d crammed a drawing of her in a tiny space between all kinds of dated notes.
Several were about travel. Her grip on the journal tightened.
Next to the sketch he’d written then erased a word.
He took the journal back and thumbed through the well-worn pages before returning it to his satchel. “Not much room left these days.”
He said a few more things but something struck her.
Had he said places when he was talking about looking for the Scroll?
As in, not one.
“I take it everywhere. There are certain first impressions I don’t want to forget. You’re a rare find,” he said, just as the tattooist finished.
She stared at the sprawling buds carving red lines through her irritated pale skin.
Her heart twinged. She let the tattooist bandage it before readjusting her clothes.
Dublin moved into the chair. He took off his shirt, and the artist began a drawing on his clavicle.
As he stared at the ceiling, Nore moved closer to his satchel.
“Your Unmarked accolades are endless,” she said. “How well rounded are you in the Marked world?”
“Try me.”
To keep him distracted as she snooped, Nore questioned him about every manner of magical anatomy that she could think of.
When she ran out of those questions, she asked him to name every discovered enhancer stone in alphabetical order.
Only once did the tattoo artist glance at her as she traded the journal in his satchel for a book she’d brought with her.
The tattooist finished. A small pair of dragon wings ornamented his clavicle like a pendant. He sat up, adjusting his clothes.
“Oh, look at the time,” he said, grabbing his bag strap and roping it over his shoulder. “I’m only visiting for a few days. But I’d like to see you again. Are you free tonight?”
“I might be,” she lied. Anything to keep him from growing suspicious as she hooked her own bag, with his journal hidden inside, onto her arm.
“Meet me at Le Blanc on East Third at seven.” He stood, dusted off his clothes, and moved toward the door.
Nore smiled, willing herself to blush.
“Hope to see you then, miss?” He scrubbed a palm down his face. “I can’t believe I don’t know your name.”
She froze. She told herself she wasn’t hiding anymore.
“Delia. Which reminds me, did you do all of your traveling alone?” Who else knows what he discovered about the Scrolls? A friend? A lover?
“I have instant friends everywhere I go.” He grabbed the knob. “I’m never alone.”
“Funny, to me that sounds very lonely.”
He laughed as he pulled the door open. “Well, perhaps you could be the first one. See you tonight, Delia.” He tipped his head and left. Nore collapsed against the wall.
The tattooist exhaled, too. “I never want to do that again.” She held out her hand, and Nore filled it with a few gems she’d brought from Dlaminaugh.
“Thank you, seriously, so much.”
“Sure. Give my love to your brother.”
There was that sick feeling again. Everyone loved her brother, Ellery. The brother who wanted to kill her to take Headship of their House. The brother who was out there somewhere, plotting to find her.
“Sure thing.” Nore dashed out the shop’s back-alley door toward a waiting Yagrin.