Page 52 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
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 andviscerally. “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.
