“Look, man,” he says. “Just…be careful with this. Roth might be playing you.”

He sounds like Natalie. After I was promoted to tracker, she’d told me to consider why Roth had asked me. The promotion couldn’t be based on talent.

I scoff to myself. Even I don’t believe that.

“Have you been talking to Natalie?” I ask.

“No…no…just…what if Roth already knows who the Eurydice is?”

I want to shoot this down, claim there is no way Roth’s observant enough to guess. And the Order wouldn’t likely be reporting on what’s been happening here over the past few days. They try to keep Roth out of things as much as possible. But he may know something anyway. Why else would he have me searching for her? There’s something in Jacobi’s face that’s telling me he knows more than he’s letting on.

“What did you find?” I ask tightly, my impatience growing.

He looks away, opening and closing his mouth.

“Jacobi…”

“I did some research on the Eurydice…on her past lives. In the process, I discovered she’s always incarnated with another person. A protector…a lover.”

This is new information. I know a lot about the Eurydice’s past lives, mostly how she was killed, which is super depressing.

I wait. He waits. My heart beats so hard in my chest, it hurts.

“I hacked the records.” The records are a restricted part of the archive that track reincarnations from the beginning of time. There are a few missing pieces, strands Valryn have missed, but for the most part, they’re comprehensive. And they’re only accessible by the records keeper, a designated shadow knight who apparently has the ability to see and read the threads of Valryn past lives.

He continues. “I followed the threads.”

I know what he’s going to say before he continues, know it like I know the feel of my blades in my hands, but it still somehow manages to cut right through me.

“It’s you.”

He says it like he’s delivering a death sentence, and from what we know about the Eurydice, I guess he sort of is.

“In your last incarnation, you were captured and murdered. Whoever did it sent the Eurydice clues to your whereabouts, and once she got there, they attacked her too.”

So I’d been the trap that ended her life—and that would prevent her from incarnating for seventy years. All those annoying questions from Roth about whether I have a girlfriend make sense now. He’s guessing I’ll be attracted to the Eurydice. Problem is, he is right.

“The other lifetimes aren’t any better,” Jacobi says, his voice gritty and unfamiliar. Whatever he’d read must have been horrible. “I got suspicious when Roth appointed you as tracker. I mean…you’re talented but…”

“No one gets promoted before training,” I finish. “Roth knows.”