Chapter Text
On the rare occasion Rook couldn’t find a book on a particular subject within the Lighthouse’s expansive library, she knew she could always count on finding one in their resident necromancer’s collection.
Rook found she rather liked Professor Emmrich Volkarin and his peculiarities. She knew little about Nevarra and necromancers in general, but she certainly hadn’t expected someone as vibrant or kind as he. The juxtaposition of their chosen fields of work amused her, that she killed and he revived their respective targets as assassin and necromancer.
All in all, she was entirely grateful for Emmrich’s presence within their team. In addition to his fantastical library, both mental and physical, he brought a certain calm to the chaos of their little group. A burden she was grateful was no longer entirely on her shoulders.
A list in hand of the book subjects she searched for, Rook knocked at the door.
Emmrich opened only a few moments later, beaming. “Ah, Rook! Do come in!” His hand grazed the small of her back as she moved past him into the laboratory, scanning the new assortment of gizmos and skulls and vials she’d never fully understood, but had come to find endearing nonetheless.“I noticed you perusing the library downstairs and figured you might be by. What subject are you researching today?”
“I was curious about the Somniari, actually. Apparently, Bellara’s brother is one. She thought it might be how Anaris was able to sink his hooks into him, so I thought I’d read up on the matter.”
The many bangles Emmrich wore jingled merrily as he clasped his hands behind his back in thought. “A marvelous theory. Not a commonly studied phenomenon, but I believe I have a few books on the matter.”
“I thought you might. Mind if I take a look?”
“Rook, as I said, you are always at liberty to use whatever you need in my library. I was just on my way out to have dear Bellara translate some ancient elven texts for me, but Manfred can assist you in finding whatever you need. And I insist you help yourself to some tea.” He waved his hand at a tray laden with a steaming teapot and a plate of treats on his desk.
Rook shook her head, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’m only after a book, Professor, not your chocolate stash.”
“You are more than welcome to my chocolate stash anytime you like, my dear,” he said with a wink. “I keep it in the drawer of my desk upstairs. Feel free to raid it whenever you find yourself in need.”
“I really couldn’t-hang on, are those Rialto cordials?”
Emmrich raised a gray eyebrow. “Only you can find out.”
Rook crossed the laboratory to the desk and picked up a red rosebud-foiled chocolate, a grin spreading across her face. “You, sir, are flirting with danger with these.”
A lovely pink blush bloomed on the necromancer’s pallid cheeks. “Certainly worth the risk, I think. Let Manfred know what books you’re after, and he’ll bring them to you. Stay as long as you like.”
She settled in an armchair beside the desk, unwrapping a cordial and popping it in her mouth. The moan that emmitted from her was probably unnecessarily obscene, but the way the chocolate melted along her tongue, followed by the sticky, tart sweetness of the cherry filling, was certainly sinful enough to merit it. “Thank you, Professor. That’s very kind of you.”
Now his cheeks were very red. Rook wondered if he didn’t get thanked enough for his work down in the Necropolis. The other necromancers she had met were a rather somber bunch, with Emmrich being the bright sunshine of the subterranean city. “Think nothing of it. I shall see you at dinner, my dear.”
“See you later!”
Once alone, Rook pounded down four more cordials, the taste so reminiscent of home that she nearly teared up. She made a mental note to acquire some for Lucanis, and to restock Emmrich’s stash.
“HISSS!”
She glanced up to the spiral stairs to find Manfred, waiting patiently about midway up. The little skeleton raised his hand into a fist and bounced excited. Rook grinned and repeated the motion, bouncing it three times. Manfred clumsily followed and finished with a closed fist. Rook’s own hand finished flat. “Nice one, Manfred!” The skeleton chittered eagerly before gesturing around at the rows of bookshelves. “Oh, you’re quite right. I didn’t come here to steal Emmrich’s chocolates, now did I? I’m looking for a book on dream connections within the fade. What do you have like that?”
Manfred tilted his head for a moment, then held up a bony finger and dashed up the stairs. Rook poured herself a cup of tea while she waited. Cedar, hyssop, and rose. A perfectly soothing floral blend. She’d never admit this as a Crow and a Trevisan citizen, but she preferred tea to coffee most of the time, and this one was utter perfection. Idly, she wondered if Emmrich had picked up on that preference in their journeys together.
A few minutes later, Manfred clattered down the stairs, holding a small, leatherbound book in one hand and presenting it to her proudly. Rook set her cup aside and took it from him, scanning the title. She shook her head. “Not quite what I was looking for, I’m afraid.”
“HISSS!” He pushed the book further into her hands.
“Manfred, this says ‘Journal of Professor Emmrich Volkarin’ on the inside of the cover. This is the professor’s private diary. I doubt he’d want me reading it.”
Manfred took the book from her and flipped the pages open, scanning them with his jeweled eyes until he found what he was looking for, two thirds of the way through the volume and turning it around to face her. He stabbed a bony index finger on the page. Despite herself, Rook leaned closer to take a look. “Oh. Yes. That does say ‘Rook.’ But that doesn’t mean it’s for me to read.”
Manfred flipped back another page and jabbed at the words again. This time, Rook dared to skim.
I worry for Rook’s left wrist. An old injury, I would assume, aggravated by the sheer scale of fights she’s been in lately. I approached her with a tonic that I mixed earlier in the day and offered to make it for her regularly to help with the ache. The smile she favored me with has left me enchanted all day now, and I can scarcely think of anything else.
A diagram of a human hand was carefully sketched below the paragraph, the bones and tendons rendered with perfect precision, with an arrow pointed at the trouble spot in question. He was right; she had fallen hard during a dance lesson in her Crow training and sprained her wrist. The old ache was certainly more troublesome now that she was forced to do more hand-to-hand combat than usual.
The tonic Emmrich had insisted upon helped, though. It was sweet that he found her smile so delightful, and that he'd taken the time to sketch the five small crows on the inside of the diagram's forearm, mirroring the ones tattooed on her flesh.
In spite of herself, she flipped to the next page, dated only a few days ago.
We visited Treviso to assist the Crows in an Antaam matter today. While there, Illario Dellamorte made a most unpleasant remark about Rook’s affinity for chocolate. The nerve of the boy, to mock a person for their indulgences! Rook merely shrugged it off, the peacemaker she is, and simply said a Rialto cordial was as good for the soul as it was bad for the body. I asked Andaratei Cantori for her recommendations on chocolate shops within the city, and she was most kind in pointing me to one that sold the Rialto cordials.
When I’ve worked up sufficient courage, I’ll give them to her. Maker knows she deserves all things as sweet as she is.
She found herself blushing at that. Emmrich was truly a sweetheart, she decided. Perhaps she could find him something in the Necropolis to remind him of home as thanks for the chocolates.
It was invasive, she knew, to keep flipping through the journal. But perhaps he’d mention something in earlier entries that she could get him for a gift?
“Manfred?” she said hesitantly. The skeleton hissed eagerly. “Will you watch the door for me? Tell me if Emrmich’s coming?” The words sounded horrible even as she said them. She was just looking for gift ideas, she reminded herself. She’d skip anything that was too personal.
Once Manfred had clattered off, Rook nestled deeper into the chair and flipped back a couple of pages. As she skimmed, her name lept off the page frequently, and she stifled the urge to read more carefully. She was the leader of the team. Those under her command were entitled to their opinions of her.
She slowed, noting her full name. Not Rook. Annika de Riva, written with such care and elegance that she found herself stopping to read the page.
I learned Rook’s true name today during a visit to the Cantori Diamond. Illario Dellamorte called her “Little Anni”, to which she scowled and threatened to gut him. The boy teases her as a child might tug on a girl’s pigtails and thinks himself a charmer for it. According to Lucanis, Rook’s been dodging Illario’s advances for years.
Later, she told me her ‘Anni” is short for Annika. Annika de Riva. In old Nevarran, it means ‘Graceful’ or ‘Gracious’. A fitting name for one so lovely.
The next paragraph made her heart pick up its pace.
I find myself staring at her name on my page, as entranced with it as I am with the woman herself. I’ve been afraid to put a name to the feelings that I have been plagued with since meeting her in the Necropolis, when her earnest compliment of my helm made me blush like a schoolboy, but I can no longer deny the way my heart leaps when she addresses me, or how I fumble my words when smiles.
It is foolish to be so infatuated with a woman half my age. My chest aches at the thought of her being with anyone else, though that is a reality I must come to terms with. She attracts admirers wherever we go, with her grace and thoughtfulness and humor. Not to mention the way her eyes sparkle like the glittering turquoise waters of Rivain, the sunshine gold of her hair, the perfect bow shape of her lips that I long to-
Rook slammed the volume shut, her heart pounding, face hot.
This was fine, she told herself. Completely fine. Plenty of people found her beautiful. It was merely a tool in her arsenal as an assassin, honed along with her skill with a blade. She’d gently turned down advances from Bellara, skillfully avoided an attempt at a dinner date from Elek Tavor in Minrathous, and been given a key to Isabela’s apartment in Rivain, just in the last few weeks. (That last one had been tempting, she’d admit.) Emmrich was no different.
She’d read just a little more, to find what his intentions were. If the necromancer’s feelings were serious, it would give her time to let him down gently.
Carefully, she reopened the journal to the same page, and continued to read.
-to feel against my own. Oh, what a besotted idiot I am indeed!
I’d thought myself past this point in my life, but this indomitable woman has made me yearn in ways I didn’t think myself capable of. It’s ridiculous, really. There is no chance she would be interested in a stuffy old academic like myself, a coward in the face of the same death she both deals out and faces each and every day.
No, these feelings will remain my innermost secret. This will not interfere with my work within the team, nor the lovely friendship Annika and I have developed over the last while of working together. It is one that I will treasure for as long as I shall live, even if I am successful in my bid for lichdom and carry on forever.
Rook made a mental note to research ‘lichdom’ the next time she visited the Necropolis, and ordered herself to shut the journal.
Alas, her hands had a mind of their own as they continued to thumb through the pages.
The next section she read sent her cheeks flaming.
I’m writing in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, having been awoken by the most luridly inappropriate dream.
Annika, straddling my thighs as I sat at my desk, naked and writhing against me. She was whispering the most sinful pleas in my ear as my hands explored the lush curves of her body. In this dream, I somehow knew she would enjoy my hand entangling in that liquid sunshine hair of hers, yanking her head back to run my tongue along the graceful curve of her neck.The taste of her was exquisite, the feel of her wet heat against my length even more so.
She begged me to take her hard, and who was I to refuse such a pretty plea? I thrust into her, as roughly as she wished. The gorgeous blush that so easily comes to her skin spread over her cheeks and down to those tempting breasts, and I leaned forward to take one into my mouth to suckle her perfect nipple.
Unfortunately, I woke at that moment, and now I cling to the already-fading memory of how she felt under my hands, my mouth.
I wish I could say I shook it off and returned to sleep, but I’m ashamed to admit that I took myself in hand and came twice to that cursed fading dream.
The next time we visit the Necropolis, I shall procure the ingredients for a tonic of deep sleep. It will sacrifice my dream journeys into the Fade for the time being, but will also keep such inappropriate dreams at bay. Annika does not deserve to be reduced to the object of my lust as well as my desires. As a master of seduction within the Crows, she certainly doesn’t need one more person ogling her as I find myself doing.
Perhaps I’ll also see if the Necropolis grocer has any of those roasted hazelnuts. Those sound delicious right about now.
It was a long moment before Rook could process that she’d found what she was looking for, slamming the journal shut. A dream was a dream, she reminded herself. She’d woken up to one about Neve a few days after they had met, and while certainly pleasant, didn’t mean she intended to go hounding after the detective.
Did Emmrich think she was some experienced seductress? In some ways, that was certainly true. She did often use her looks to get close to her contracts, knowing how to flatter and bat her eyes at the right moments. Fortunately, she was good enough at her job that the target was typically dead before things got any further heated.
Due to the nature of her job, Rook had found herself wanting her first time to be special. Cheesy, she realized, but still she held out hope that the right person would sweep her off her feet and allow her to go at her own pace.
At any rate, she had hazelnuts to acquire.
“Manfred?” With a clatter of bones, Manfred appeared before her. She handed the journal back. “Would you please put this back where you found it and find me that book on dream connections within the fade?”
“
Hissss!
”
A few minutes later, he returned with a thick tome, a portrait of a sleeping woman embossed on the cover. She took it, then tilted her head. “Manfred, please don’t tell Emmrich I read his journal. And perhaps don’t go showing off other people’s private writings in the future, okay?”
Manfred clapped his hands and chattered eagerly. She’d take that as a yes, and left the laboratory with a thanks and the tome under her arm.
Emmrich’s infatuation for her wasn’t a big deal, she decided. He was a gentleman through and through, and seemed to fully understand the reasons she likely wouldn’t be interested.
Although, as Rook shut the door to her chambers and settled on the small settee to begin her research, aside from their age gap, she couldn’t really think of what those reasons were.
***
Some time later, a knock at her door startled her from her reading. Rook set the thick tome aside to answer. “Hi, Emmrich!”
Something was strange in his demeanor, however. His skull pin was gone, the top few buttons of his crisp white shirt undone to expose a sliver of silver hair at his chest. The blue vest he wore was also unbuttoned fully, hanging open at his ribs.
But it was his eyes that startled her the most. The light gray irises were mere circles around dilated pupils, giving him a wild look. “Did you need something?” she asked, her stomach clenching in worry and…something else that she couldn’t quite identify.
Emmrich gave her a dark smile that sent a shiver down her spine. “You could say that, yes. May I come in?”
She stepped aside, letting him brush past. When she shut the door, she turned to find him looming over her. Maker, he was tall. Her throat was suddenly quite dry as she spoke. “Is there something wrong, Professor?”
“Perhaps. I believe you may have read something you weren’t supposed to,” he said evenly.
Rook’s pulse quickened, her face reddening. “I-uh, well, you see-”
Her stammering reply was promptly smothered as Emmrich descended upon her, pushing her against the door and kissing her with all the same passion and sensuality with which he wrote about her.
And by the Maker, it was glorious.
Rook’s lips parted to let him further in, his mouth equal parts brutally claiming and worshipping. One of his gold-laden hands was in her hair, gripping at the roots and pulling in a way that made her moan, the other on the door beside her head to keep her caged in. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with need. “What you read in my journal was only a fraction of the depths of my desire for you,” he said hungrily. “If you allow it, I would show you just how deep my affection runs.”
“I…I’ve never done this,” she stuttered. Her body ached with her need for him to continue, warring with her nerves.
Emmrich gave her an absolutely sinful smile and dropped to one knee before her and lifted one of her legs, kissing the soft inside of her bare thigh. When had she changed into her night clothes? “Then allow me to share my experience with you.”
Her heart all but stopped as he continued to run kisses along the inside of her thigh before pressing his lips right onto her bare apex. No smallclothes either it would seem. She couldn’t dwell on it, however, not when his talented tongue began to lick her soaked folds, the tip of his tongue finding her clit almost instanteously. Her hands scrambled for purchase against the solid oak door as all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her head, but he hooked her thigh over his shoulder to support her as he ravished her.
The aching pleasure in the core of her stomach began to build as he sucked her clit into his mouth gently, lips tugging on the sensitive nub until she was panting with need. One of his hands snaked up her body beneath her shift to run a broad thumb over her peaked nipple, and she arched her back with a keening groan. Her reaction brought his other hand up to cup her other breast, squeezing and pinching at her nipples. “Emmrich…” she gasped.
“So perfect for me,” he moaned into her cunt, the hand teasing her breast dropping to slip a finger into her tight entrance. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted this, Annika.”
Maker, the way his finger played with her in time to his mouth’s ministrations was sending her to the stars. She clutched at his hair, the fine graying strands coming undone from their immaculate coiff. “Emmrich, please!”
Before she could reach that glorious peak, so close and yet so very, very far, she abruptly found herself on her back on the chaise, Emmrich’s clothes melting from his body to reveal lean, angular lines of muscle and silver chest hair as he knelt between her open thighs. “Let me hear you beg, my sweet,” he groaned.
The head of his cock teased her entrance, and in spite of never having more than a finger or two inside her before, Rook was desperate to feel it stretch her.
“Fuck me, please, Emmrich!” she sobbed, shifting her hips upward in demand.
He leaned over her, the cold metal of his rings and bracelets sending chills along her bare skin as he kissed her passionately. “Very good, darling,” he whispered, eyes alight with adoration.
His hips snapped forward, and Rook jolted, eyes flying open at the thud of the heavy book she’d borrowed from Emmrich sliding from her chest to the floor.
Under her leather trousers, a dull throbbing pleasure between her legs remained the only evidence of the dream. Rook willed her heart to slow from its frantic gallop and slumped back onto the chaise with a groan.
Maker, she really should not have read that journal.
She stood and stretched, her back popping from falling asleep sitting upright. The dream had felt so real, she could feel the dampness of her arousal in her smallclothes as she moved to the wardrobe.
It was just a dream. Just like the one you had about Neve. No different, no deeper than that.
Rook had changed into the sleeveless pink satin shift she wore to sleep and was beginning to settle in for some actual rest when a knock at the door sounded. Likely Harding, plagued with dreams for the first time in her life and left deeply unsettled. Or perhaps Spite, who often piloted Lucanis’s body to her room for a game of cards when her fellow Crow dozed off.
“Who is it?” she called, finishing drying her face after splashing cold water in the basin.
“It’s Emmrich!”
Rook flinched, face automatically heating at the sound of the necromancer’s melodious voice. She hastened to find her robe and yelped as her leg knocked into the sharp edge of the dresser, sending her sprawling to the floor.
“Rook?” Emmrich’s voice was tinged with concern. “Is everything all right?”
She scrambled to her feet and hissed in pain at the bruise swelling on her thigh. “Fine! Fine!”
The door opened and Emmrich strode in, brow furrowed in concern. “Forgive me, but you do not sound fine-” At the sight of her in just her thin pink shift, the hemline barely grazing mid-thigh, his face went quite red.
Rook found herself blushing as well. “It’s okay, Professor. I just had a clumsy moment. Knocked into the damn dresser and gave myself a little bruise.” She could practically hear Viago ordering her to balance on the highest parapet in Treviso to practice her agility.
“Would you like me to take a look at it?” he asked, his eyes trained carefully on hers and absolutely no lower. Ever the gentleman, she thought. Would he write about this in his journal too?
She found herself turning to lift the hem of her shift just a little higher on her thigh, exposing the already darkening bruise from the corner of the dresser. “I’ve certainly had worse,” she joked weakly.
Emmrich’s mouth was slightly open as he took in her mostly bare leg. Rook blushed deeply, both in the memory of what he wrote in his journal about her, and what she’d just woken up from herself. After a beat, he shook his head. “I’m certain you have, but I can at least make this small hurt go away, if you wish.”
“If you want, but it really doesn’t need-”
He was already on one knee before her, hands glowing the pale green she’d come to associate with his magic over the sore spot. Rook prayed her face wasn’t as red as it felt as the intrusive image of the necromancer’s mouth between her legs blossomed in the forefront of her mind.
Cold, tingling magic overtook the bruise, and Rook watched with no small amount of amazement as the angry purple spot shrunk to nothing under his careful ministrations, leaving little more than the yellowed skin of a faded bruise. He looked up at her face with a small, satisfied grin, and Rook was struck by how handsome he was, the strong jaw and small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth indicating a lifetime of easy smiles. The thin mustache above his upper lip kept drawing her eye, wondering how it would feel- “There,” Emmrich interrupted her spiraling thoughts. “How does that feel?”
“Like new,” she replied, cursing the waver in her voice. “Thank you, Professor.”
Neither of them moved, gazes locked. Rook would have given everything she had to know what he was thinking. With a sinking feeling, she knew she would find it difficult to stay away from his journal now.
At last, he rose to his feet. He cut a striking figure, Rook realized with no small amount of surprise. Emmrich raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you thinking about, my dear?”
The endearment rolled off his tongue so easily. She had to remind herself that he referred to all their little group in that manner. She fumbled for words. “I…You’re very tall, aren’t you?”
Very elegant, Rook
. Teia would be groaning if she saw this pathetic display.
“I suppose I am,” Emmrich replied, looking slightly startled. “Although it could be a matter of perspective, as you are not very tall at all.”
Stop. Blushing. “Oh, I suppose that’s true. Sorry, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, I think it’s rather dashing.” Andraste’s tits, one sex dream about the man and she was reduced to this? That journal entry about her name meaning ‘Graceful’ popped into mind, and she nearly laughed at the irony.
Emmrich seemed to flounder for words as well at the clumsy compliment. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you think so, my dear.”
Rook cleared her throat, the room feeling very hot. “Did you need something?”
“Oh! Yes. I just wanted to see if you found the book you were looking for in my library.”
“Manfred was able to find it for me,” Rook replied, hoping she didn’t look too guilty. “And I devoured at least half your chocolate stash. I didn’t realize you were fond of Rialto Cordials yourself, professor.”
The redness in his pallid complexion intensified. “Ah. Well, you could say I developed an affinity for them somewhat recently.”
“A man of good taste,” she teased. It was almost addicting to see the way he reacted to her compliments while knowing what he thought of her.
His throat bobbed after a beat. “How is your wrist? Is that tonic helping any?”
“Yes!” She extended her arm to show him, twisting her hand to and fro. “I haven’t had this sort of flexibility for a while now.”
Emmrich took her hand in his and turned it over, tracing a practiced finger over the tendons and fine bones of her wrist, lingering for a moment at the first bird in her tattoo of five.
The five birds he’d so lovingly sketched in that diagram
. The touch sent goosebumps erupting along her skin, and she prayed he’d just think she was cold. “That does seem much less stiff. I’ll prepare another dose for you to try with breakfast every day to see if we can’t get it back to fully normal.”
“You don’t need to go to that effort for me, Professor,” she said quickly, though a warmth was building in her chest at his thoughtfulness. “This is already more than I could have ever hoped for.”
“Think nothing of it! It’ll be a wonderful opportunity for Manfred to learn reagent compounding, at the very least.” His elegant fingers settled at her pulse point, and he frowned slightly. “Your heart is racing, my dear. Are you quite alright?”
Rook all but snatched her hand away from him, smiling to lessen the strangeness in her jerky movements. “Fine! Just fine.”
He frowned further as he studied her. “Well, if you start feeling ill, please don’t hesitate to come find me. I worry you don’t take enough time for yourself, Rook.”
Emmrich Volkarin was the most thoughtful man, she realized with a strange combination of vexation and admiration. Suddenly, she found that she wasn’t ready for him to depart. “I did have some questions regarding the book I borrowed, on dream connections within the Fade. Do you have a moment?”
“For an academic discussion with a brilliant young woman? Always!” He practically beamed. There was no way for her to turn any redder at that point. “Did you get your fill of tea earlier? I can warm up the pot.”
“That sounds wonderful. Let me find my robe.”
As Rook opened her wardrobe to find her pink satin robe, a matching set with her shift gown, she caught Emmrich staring. She met his gaze and felt bold enough to wink. “Something caught your eye?”
Emmrich’s throat bobbed again, but his gaze did not falter. “Sorry, I just…That is a lovely color on you.”
At that, she smiled shyly. “It’s my favorite. I’d wear this color all the time if I wasn’t, well, a Crow.”
“They do so love their black,” Emmrich chuckled. Rook finished tying the robe and grabbed the Fade dreams book off the dresser.
Together, they lapsed into a deep discussion as they made their way to his laboratory that lasted well into the early morning hours, with Rook studying the necromancer like she’d never seen him before.
***
If Emmrich wasn’t thoroughly bewitched, body and soul, by Annika de Riva before, the bag of roasted hazelnuts she’d left on his desk would have sealed his fate.
The note left beside the brown bag was open on his desk, read, and reread about a dozen times already as he savored the crunchy hazelnuts:
Emmrich,
Thank you for loaning me that book the other evening, and for letting me keep you up all night answering my questions about it. And for the wrist tonic, and for healing that silly bruise. I guess what I’m inadequately trying to say is thank you for always looking out for me. I’m glad you’re here.
-Annika
Emmrich found the somewhat untidy scrawl completely charming, a trait that he normally detested with his students in the Necropolis.
How did the clever girl guess his love for hazelnuts? Sometime, he’d have to share his mother’s hazelnut torte recipe with Lucanis so they could all try.
Their fearless leader had been acting strange lately, visiting him in the laboratory much more frequently and peppering him with all manner of questions about the Fade, magic, necromancy, Nevarran history, and all else in between. She had such a wonderfully inquisitive spirit, and her desire to learn was yet more quality he found utterly irresistible about her.
Those intoxicating blushes were coming more frequently too whenever he thought to compliment her. Emmrich had to tamp down on his arousal at the idea that Annika might have something of an…affinity for praise. One that he certainly shared.
The book now lay on the desk beside him, returned along with Annika’s thoughtful gift. He’d thumbed through the pages briefly and was amused to find a smear of chocolate on one of the pages. She’d been stealthy about her trips to raid the stash he kept in the desk drawer just for her, and he was pleased to find most of the drawer empty now. He’d have to restock the next time he visited Treviso.
Emmrich reached for his leather-bound journal, intent on slipping the sweet note from Annika between the pages as a memento of his unrequited love.
As he thumbed through the journal, some of the pages stuck together. He frowned. Did Manfred spill something?
Carefully, he pried the pages apart, the small brown stain on the very edge of the page a near-perfect fingerprint. His heart stuttered in his chest as he realized what the stain was: chocolate.
Oh, sweet Maker, no…
The page in question was dated two weeks prior, detailing in his trembling hand the fantastically lurid dream about Annika he’d enjoyed.
Hands trembling, Emmrich sank back into his chair. All he could do was stare at the damning journal before him.
He rarely cursed, but the word he uttered felt justified in the moment. “Fuck.”