Chapter Six #2
In the mirror, Marie-Louise shook her head. “Miss Dabos had gone somewhere I could not reach,” she said. “I searched my mirrors for signs of her when the Alaires first started looking, but I could not find her.”
The tunnels. I knew the destination Marie-Louise spoke of, of which she herself was ignorant.
Sybil, Clio Lavoie, and I were the only maidens aware of the tunnels’ existence, aside from Ophelia Lear.
Sybil because she, like me, had been searching for the moonless door which Eliot’s sister had found the year prior; Clio because Dorian Drake had taken her in to hunt for the missing key after it had vanished, and our final trial had been conducted there.
Noé and Bastian were familiar with the passages, too, naturally, as were Dorian and Eliot.
Was Sybil’s killer one of us? Or had another individual slipped beneath Fortblanche the night of her murder, as invisible to those of us aboveground as a worm buried in the earth?
“Have you discovered a new mystery?”
I blanched. Marie-Louise appeared curious, in that childlike way of hers, as if she were concerned not so much with the consequences of an issue, but more enthused by the prospect of a puzzle to solve.
It made me uneasy. I couldn’t forget that as helpful as the Owl was, she was a suspect in Sybil’s death, too.
If I wanted to solve the murder Bastian had tasked me with before my wedding day, I needed to tread carefully.
“I fear one has been thrust upon me,” I replied.
Settling my hands in my lap, I asked, “And you are certain there is nothing else you noticed during the ball? Perhaps even something inconsequential which struck you as being out of place?”
The other witch’s nose twitched. “I suppose there was the matter of Miss Tremblay’s gloves.”
Anais Tremblay. One of the other girls I’d competed against in the Vainglory—and not one I particularly liked. I tried not to let my excitement show. “Her gloves?”
“Yes,” the Owl confirmed. “She had quite a nice pair—white silk, reaching just above her elbows. I watched her put them on before the ball, once her lady’s maid had finished dressing her. I often made it a habit to peer in on her prior to events.”
Emotion flared in her eyes, as though she’d been tossed back into a memory.
“She has such splendid clothes,” Marie-Louise breathed.
I chose to ignore her last remark. I simply could not think of what else to do with it. “Go on,” I prodded.
Blinking, Marie-Louise obeyed. “Miss Tremblay was wearing the gloves when she entered the ballroom, but by the end of the evening, they were gone,” she continued. “Did you not notice? She made rather a fuss about it the next day.”
I retreated briefly into myself. Now that the Owl mentioned it, I did recall Anais grumbling about a pair of missing gloves at breakfast the morning following the Midway Ball.
At the time, I’d thought little of her complaints, distracted by Eliot’s kiss and the larger melodrama of Sybil’s death.
If anything, I’d put her remarks down as further evidence of her callousness, along with her treatment of Manon Blanc and her affair with Dorian Drake.
But had there been a deeper meaning to the incident?
Adrenaline sparked in me. “And you did not see them for the rest of the competition?” I inquired sharply. “The gloves?”
Marie-Louise gave another shake of her head. “I thought if I found them, she might give me an item from her wardrobe as a reward,” she said petulantly. “But I never did.”
Her attention tightened on me. I could sense that she was preparing to press on the reason behind my interest again, and I broke in before she could.
“Thank you, Miss Rochefort,” I said. “I shall leave you to enjoy the rest of your evening. If you recall anything else from that night, I trust you’ll alert me?”
She fluttered her lashes, diverted but not necessarily disturbed. “Naturally,” she replied.
Without warning, she glanced away. A faint smile played on her lips; it was shocking, how completely it transformed her countenance—like a lamp positioned behind a cloth, making the fabric blush. “Cyril says hello.”
Looking back, her gaze locked briefly with mine, and then she was gone.
I remained seated in front of the looking glass for another minute after she departed. Without her figure to fill it, my bedroom seemed emptier in the mirror, my own figure smaller. Lonely, like that of a shy child waiting for her parents to come fetch her.
Averting my gaze, I got up. A pair of missing gloves.
As far as revelations went, it was not an especially shocking one; there was a strong chance, in fact, that it meant nothing at all.
Anais might have simply lost the accessories during the chaos of the Midway Ball, or else had them stolen by a jealous maid, or even thrown them out herself for some unknown, petty reason.
I wouldn’t have put it past her; she was the kind of silkwitch who seemed likely to burn a dress if she saw another girl wearing the same.
Still, it was a place to start. A loose thread, bound to lead somewhere.
Now all I needed to do was pull.
Stooping, I dug into the heel of my slipper and plucked out the coin lodged within. The metal was warm with body heat, tacky from the time it had spent beneath my foot. Nevertheless, I rubbed my thumb over it tenderly, as if it were a jewel.
I shall have to come up with a story to distract from the scandal of a broken engagement…Revealing your true identity should do the trick.
I closed my fist around the bit of metal.
Bastian’s threat had bothered me more than I’d let on in the carriage.
When Eliot had given me my false name before the start of the Vainglory, I hadn’t realized what a chore it would become, keeping up the facade he’d fashioned for me.
Everything had seemed easier back then, I supposed.
Back when I’d had a partner to share the burden with.
But now…I recalled the feel of Eliot as he’d held me against his chest in the abandoned opera box, the dry brush of his lips when he’d kissed me. Of course I love you…I feel…it, always, like a knife in my back.
I felt a lump forming in my throat. Though I could never admit it aloud, I knew I was frightened—horribly, illogically frightened—that one day I would venture too far into the dark and he would leave me.
That he would tire of sorting through my many layers for a seed of virtue and realize I was nothing but rotten selfishness, bitter all the way to my core.
You are far too interesting to be good, he’d told me once. But was I good enough to love?
I bit my lip. Before I could second-guess my actions, I tapped on the coin three times, activating the enchantment.
Light split the dimness. I let the pale, Woven glow beat for a second, then silenced the coin by tapping it again. Darkness settled over me as I stared, unseeing, at the now-dull token in my palm, my muscles tensed with the effort of waiting.
Waiting. Until…
Without my initiating it, the coin lit up. Its paleness was shocking against the murk of my bedroom, as sudden as a flash of white ankle beneath the hem of a lady’s dress. A knot formed in my throat as I imagined Eliot on the other side, his own token in hand, calling back. Not giving up on me yet.
Releasing a breath, I clenched the coin in my fist without quieting it. Its warmth thumped against my knuckles as I finished dressing for bed and curled against my mattress, a tiny, beating heart, until at last, heavy with the events of the day, I fell asleep.