The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(61)

Yet, Ash—her Ash—was dead.

Hadn’t the Rook said it a thousand times by now?

She couldn’t imagine all the emotions he must be battling. All the questions building upon themselves ready to erupt like a volcano. She could see it in the set of his bones. In his restless breath.

Suddenly she just yearned to be home. Back in his little room tucked near the attic stairs at Southbourne Grove. The bed swallowing their innocent idle hours. Back when her touch had soothed him, and his had made her feel safe.

How unbearable it was, to look into the face of the man you once loved, and to be told by his own lips that he’s nothing but a ghost. To recognize him sometimes, looking out through achingly familiar eyes, only to lose him in the void of darkness.

“Who else knows of this?” The hesitant beat of silence greeted the Rook’s question. He’d startled them all. “I’m acquainted with your half brothers, the Demon Highlander and the Earl of Thorne. They mentioned you were related, though they didn’t refer to you as Dougan Mackenzie.”

“My natural-born brothers and I keep each other’s sins and secrets, and we all have many.” The Blackheart of Ben More took a tentative step toward the shadows in which the Rook still stood. “If I’m honest, in my heart you were more my brother than they ever were. We protected each other, you and I. Fought and bled and ruled together. I never had that with them. I’ve never truly been a Mackenzie.” His brows rose with a dawning idea. “There were others to whom you were close as Dorian. Christopher Argent, a boy born in captivity to a criminal mother. He resides in London with his wife. And Murdoch here, along with his man, Gregory Tallow. And Walters … though his wife took him on holiday, if you’d believe it. Some brigands in my employ will remember you. They’ve been loyal since Newgate. If you need any more proof of your identity—”

“It won’t matter.” The Rook finally pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as though in a great deal of pain. “I won’t remember them,” he said tightly.

“Considering what those guards did to you … I’m not at all surprised.” Blackwell—at least, Lorelai still considered him to be Blackwell—strode to the opposite library wall and selected an ancient volume. The Histories of Roman Invasions of Britannia. He split the spine open almost reverently.

Murdoch snorted. “I hardly think this is the time for a lesson in ancient hist—”

One look from his master silenced the valet.

“As I said, the guards made us clean the carnage from the cell the day after the attack. You and I had a place in that cell where we hid things. A stone behind a stone. When I checked it … I found this.”

Blackwell lowered his long frame into one of the chairs, and laid the open book on the coffee table.

This time, it was Moncrieff who made a choked sound of utter disbelief. Seized with excitement, he expelled a victorious laugh and clapped his stunned captain on the shoulder. “Captain. Can you believe our bloody luck?” He put his hand on his forehead, as though checking his own temperature. “I’ll be goddamned.”

Unfolded in the carved-out pages of the tome was a thin, rusted sigil. The figure of a serpentine dragon, with four claws and a tongue snaking between fearsome teeth, snarled beneath the etching of two words. NIGRAE AQUAE.

“Your tattoo.” Lorelai gasped.

The Rook collapsed into the other chair, wrenching up his sleeve. Only the dragon’s head and front claws crawled from beneath the web of scars surrounded by additional tattoos. The first time Lorelai had seen this, it had been the only ink on his body.

The letters remained the same, if somewhat faded with time. RAE. UAE.

The NI and the AQ had been burned away by the lye along with half of the dragon’s body.

“What about the lines behind it?” Lorelai asked, reaching across the table to trace the ink breaking from the dragon like the branches of a dead tree. “Did you ever figure out what they are?”

He gazed down at the tip of her finger as it stroked across the tattoo, his eyes closing for the softest of moments, as though savoring her touch. “Yes,” he finally answered. “It’s a map.”

“It’s this map.” Blackwell untucked an ancient leather scrap from a separate fold in the book and stretched it flat.

Lorelai reeled, stunned so profoundly, she couldn’t find words.

“This is the Scythian Dragon,” Blackwell said. “The night you were … attacked, you had Walters ink this to your body.” He grinned up at the Rook, and Lorelai could see how they must have been as boys. Their dark heads together dreaming of treasure and adventure. “Are you still looking for the Claudius Cache?”

“Captain.” A note of warning lanced through Moncrieff’s usual good humor.

“There’s no use denying it.” The Rook flexed his forearm, and the veins beneath his skin rolled over the taut muscles beneath his scars. “Once I figured out what the Scythian Dragon meant, my crew and I began searching Britain, but it’s not easy working from half a map with no marker.”

“Nigrae Aquae.” Veronica finally broke her silence, leaning in with the rest of them. “It’s Latin.”

“For what?” Murdoch asked.

“Black Water,” Veronica and Moncrieff revealed in tandem, blinking at each other in surprise.