Chapter Two #2
She turned when she sensed the light on her.
In the coin’s wan glow, her white skin was luminous, her eyes—a pale green—shining as they latched on to mine.
She appeared to be about Bastian’s age, faint lines just beginning to appear in her forehead and around her mouth; still, she wore her long red hair loose, cascading like a hood around her shoulders.
I saw her daughter’s face when she smiled. “So, here is the newest Mrs. Alaire-to-be,” Lucie Dabos said. Her voice, too, was more girlish than her age suggested, fluting over me as she spoke. “Come closer, dear.”
Eliot wordlessly nudged me onward. Conceding, I made for the seat next to the one Lucie was curled on, conscious of him lowering himself into the chair on her opposite side.
My pulse stuttered as I sat. Unlike her daughter and me, Lucie was not a silkwitch—but that didn’t mean, necessarily, that she was powerless.
She’d held her position as a Councillor on Balmoore’s Virtuous Parliament nearly as long as Eliot’s father, the notorious Weaver Reginald Lear, had.
Even before Eliot and I had met, I’d known of the two families’ rivalry.
Reginald was a stalwart advocate for sorcerers’ rights—less oversight, more control over silkwitches and the magesilk we produced, all the issues which Bastian Alaire told him to support—while Lucie and her Laborer’s Party favored the exact opposite.
It was part of why we’d approached her for this conversation.
I stiffened as Lucie placed a knuckle beneath my chin.
Her hands were gloveless, her skin chilly—softer, I thought, than Sybil’s had been.
“Well then,” she said, examining me. “Pretty enough, but I have seen your features a hundred times, on a hundred different girls. I daresay my Sybil was more striking.” Her gaze swept past me, toward where Eliot was seated on her opposite side.
“What did you say her Wit was, my dear?”
He cleared his throat. “She has a talent for doors, as I told you.”
Lucie’s stare clipped back to me. “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “Rather pedestrian. My own daughter was clairvoyant, as you likely remember.”
I did remember. Humming, she dropped my chin without waiting for my reply.
“Lear tells me you are an orphan,” she went on.
Her tone, I noticed, differed slightly from the one she’d used with Eliot.
There was subtle condescension to her manner now, as a party guest speaks to the host’s child.
“Do you think that is what drew Noé Alaire to you? He is rather sentimental, I recall—forever losing himself in his novels.” She clucked her tongue.
“Perhaps we should have added some tragedy to Sybil’s background before sending her into the competition. ”
I smiled at that. “You judge your daughter unfairly, madame. It is very likely that she should have won Mr. Alaire’s heart, had she not died before she was given an adequate chance.”
The Councillor’s eyes gleamed. “That’s right,” Lucie said, studying me.
She did not seem greatly uneased by my mention of her daughter’s passing.
I was given the impression of a dog which had caught a scent.
“A terrible loss. As her mother, I have naturally taken it particularly hard.” She shifted forward in her seat.
“Bastian Alaire insists that her death was an accident, but he fails to understand that for a grieving parent, there can be no such thing. An incident so painful simply demands a party to blame. Thus far, no such person has had the dignity to step forward, yet…” Briefly, she turned toward Eliot.
“Mr. Lear tells me you may be able to change that.”
I hesitated. With our limited communication, Eliot hadn’t mentioned how he’d lured Lucie to this meeting tonight, only that he had. How was I to play this?
After a moment, I decided to proceed with the truth. “We don’t know who, or what, killed your daughter.”
Lucie’s brow creased. Shaking her head, she reached over to lay a hand on Eliot’s forearm. “For your sake, sweet, I do hope she’s teasing,” she murmured.
Lips pursed, she addressed me again. “I was not a part of the Alaires’ little game, Miss Lovett. I have no patience for tests and trials.”
Neither did I, and yet it seemed I was constantly expected to endure them.
“You sent your daughter into Fortblanche for a secret,” I answered.
“She confessed as much to me in a letter which she penned prior to her death—there is no use in denying it. That is why you permitted her to join the Vainglory, a competition for the hand in marriage of one of your oldest foes, is it not? You wanted her to uncover evidence of a scandal, which you could use to bring down Bastian.” I paused. “Do you still want that?”
Lucie’s attention focused. Even within the limited scope of our interaction, I could sense her skill as a debater—the decades of practice she’d undergone as a Councillor in Parliament.
She argued with a loose, relaxed hand, receiving counterpoints and batting them away with a girlish ease, almost as though she were flirting.
“I have all the evidence I need, dear,” she said after a moment. “My daughter gave me what I required, whether it was in the way we intended or not. If you read the papers, you should know that.”
Independent Autopsy Raises New Questions. The headline of the article I’d stowed in my reticule flashed briefly in my mind. Shoving it away, I answered, “Your investigation will prove fruitless. Sybil was not killed by Bastian.”
The Councillor’s gaze tightened on me. “You are certain of that?”
“As much as I can be certain of anything.”
“And from where did you secure such confidence? What are your findings?” Lucie pressed. When neither Eliot nor I spoke, she laughed lightly, folding her hands in her lap. “Ah. Of course. The bargaining has commenced.”
Eliot shifted in his seat. “Sybil was looking into something before she perished,” he said cautiously.
“The sort of secret you requested her to unearth. The kind which, if brought to light, would all but ensure Bastian Alaire’s—along with all Weavers’—social ruin.
” He hesitated. “We have discovered what it is that she was investigating, but we lack the platform to share that knowledge effectively with the public.”
“And let me guess—you’d like me to elevate your message.” Lucie smiled softly, shaking her head. “I do so love being a puppet.”
Idly, she picked at her nails, then glanced up at us.
“Well? What is it?”
This was the riskiest part. Quickly, I cut in before Eliot could speak. “Agree to our alliance, and we shall tell you.”
Another tinkling laugh. “How quaint,” Lucie cooed—but there was annoyance in her voice now. We were testing her patience. “My loyalty is valuable. I do not just give it away.”
I met her smirk with one of my own. “So is our information.”
“Even so, your friend has just admitted that you lack the mouthpiece to disseminate it,” Lucie countered. “In this situation, it seems I hold the cards.”
Though I hated to admit it, she was right.
Since I’d first told him of what I’d learned during the Vainglory’s final trial, Eliot and I had spent most of our meager windows of time together debating how to spread the news, to little avail.
The Weaver lie had been forged over centuries—stitched into the fabric of our society itself—meaning possible holes for us to exploit were few.
Silkwitches under twenty-one were kept isolated and warned against using their Wits unless it was in the presence of a Weaver suitor, while any girl who aged beyond that deadline was swiftly taken to the cloisters before she, or the public, could begin to question why her magic had yet to fade.
By contrast, sorcerers came into their powers around maturity, conveniently near the time that most of them married.
Most young Weavers were not even told that their powers were stolen, rather than inherited naturally, until just before they wed, to prevent any grooms from being struck by a bolt of empathy and attempting to share the truth with their fiancées prior to binding them.
As Reginald Lear’s son and a Weaver himself, Eliot held considerable influence, but his outspokenness on the issue of silkwitch rights meant he was mistrusted by his fellow sorcerers.
If he attempted to break from their ranks, it would be all too easy for Reginald, or other sorcerers, to paint him as a well-meaning zealot, his mind muddled by conspiracies following the death of his sister.
On the other hand, my engagement to Noé meant I’d earned protection from being sent to the cloisters, but their threat hadn’t diminished completely.
If I spoke out against Bastian, I had no doubt he’d find an excuse to cart me away for good.
Recruiting Lucie had been Eliot’s idea. She had what the two of us lacked—both the independence to speak freely, and a platform from which to do it.
Her long-term hatred of Weaverkind should have made her a natural ally, and yet…
I was loath to give up the truth to her without knowing, for certain, how she would use it.
My chest squeezed as Eliot released a sigh. “It pertains to my kind,” he said. “Weavers.”
I glared at him.