Chapter Twenty-Six
As a reward for her victory, Clio and Noé took their dinner together.
The rest of us gathered in their absence.
Rather than the usual awkward trio of Bastian, Noé, and me seated around the table, Fortblanche’s dining room was packed to bursting with the entirety of our bridal party—all six of my bridesmaids aside from Clio, plus Eliot and Adélard.
Despite the number of bodies present, no one spoke much; still, halfway through our meal, what meager conversation we had mustered up was quashed by a great clap of thunder.
Beyond the dining room windows, the gray paper sky tore open, unleashing torrents of rain. The temperature within the estate’s walls suddenly dropped; around us, the storm dripped like cold black ink.
“Well!” Bastian brought his hands together, his figure a craning shadow in the dimness. Behind him, servants rushed between gas lamps, flooding the room with light. “None of you can drive home in this. You shall all have to spend the night.”
He looked disproportionately pleased by the suggestion.
Seated to his direct left, I gripped my wineglass harder.
A night in Fortblanche. The message in my future father-in-law’s pronouncement was clear: My fellow silkwitches had failed to do away with me during our race today, so now Bastian was handing them a second chance.
He really was determined to kill me.
I smiled thinly, mimicking Bastian’s excitement. Undoubtedly, one of my bridesmaids would make a move against me tonight…
Which meant I needed to make one of my own first.
—
Noé had yet to knock at my bedroom door by the time I exited my quarters.
I carried with me only the knife which he kept under his pillow.
It was nearing midnight, or past it—the clock in my room was too shrouded in shadow to make out, so all I heard was its anonymous tick-ticking, driving me onward as I departed.
Around me, the world was timeless and flat; I could hear the angry churn of the sea past my windows, crashing mournfully against the cliffs.
The house was silent. Still, despite the lateness of the hour, I was certain not all the other silkwitches had gone to bed. Likely, some of them would still be up—networking, conspiring with their former allies, many of whom they would not have had much chance to speak with since the Vainglory.
By cooping us all up inside Fortblanche, Bastian had given them access to me—but I had also been given access to them. The chance to hear what they were whispering about in their private quarters when they thought themselves alone.
A chance which I intended to take.
My steps halted at the sound of a low cough emitting from a door to my left. Warm yellow light seeped out from beneath it; as I watched, a shadow twitched—a figure passing in front of the threshold, then moving away again.
Creeping forward, I laid my hand gently on the flank of the door. The wood shivered beneath my touch, awakened by the presence of my Wit. Feeling slightly ridiculous, I leaned closer to it and whispered my request.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a subtle snap, like the crack of a candle flame, as the door gave another shudder. My Wit strained; my ears popped as if from a drop in pressure.
The next time the figure behind the door moved, I could hear them perfectly, the same as if I were standing in the room with them.
“—can’t even look at her. You cannot imagine—it feels like a knife wedged between my ribs every time we are in the same room, the knowledge of what I tried to do to her. I’m a terrible person.”
Manon Blanc. I recognized her voice immediately, though I was fairly certain she had not been installed in the chamber I was standing in front of. This one had gone to…
“Manon, please.” Anais’s voice was more distant than the other silkwitch’s, as if she were sitting down rather than pacing near the door.
Briefly, I imagined them: Anais cross-legged on the guest chamber’s four-poster bed, Manon standing before her, hands clasped anxiously. “You are far from terrible.”
The other silkwitch huffed. “Stop it.” Her voice was thick, clotted with tears.
“You are flattering me, because you think it will bring—this—back.” She emphasized this, as though she were gesturing between them.
“You see how mercenary I’ve become?” Manon breathed.
“That’s all I think of now—what I want, what others want, how to use them. I am horrible.”
“You are not,” Anais insisted. The other silkwitch must have made a face, because a moment later she laughed. “All right, perhaps I am flattering you—partially,” Anais admitted. “But it is only because I miss you. Dearly. I wrote you letters—”
Manon tutted. “Oh, your letters,” she said.
“They were far too full of emotions for me to believe them.” A scuffing noise, like she was driving the toe of her slipper into the floor.
“You lie now because it suits you,” Manon continued.
“You do not miss people. You despise sentiment of any sort—do you think I do not know you at all?”
“I do not miss other people,” Anais corrected.
I was surprised to find that her tone, usually so cynical, was genuine.
She was speaking to Manon with a vulnerability I’d never witnessed before; it was like seeing a crab without its shell.
“You were all I needed. Whatever else you choose to believe about me, I know you understand that.”
Manon made a small noise. Somehow, I knew without seeing it that her gaze had fallen to Anais’s engagement ring, the emerald bulging above her knuckle like a plump green insect.
“You never should have accepted his suit,” she said.
Her voice was softer than before—sadder.
“You never should have started up with Dorian to begin with. If you’d just talked to me, Ani, I would have allowed it.
I’m not some fledgling bird in need of protection, like you seem to believe. I would have understood.”
“I don’t think you a fledgling bird.” Anais’s reply came quickly.
“I think you good. What I did with Dorian…I withheld it from you because I couldn’t bear the possibility that you would’ve been ashamed of me.
Disgusted by how low I was willing to stoop for victory.
” Her voice caught. “You know that you’re the only person who has ever thought highly of me.
I just…wanted to preserve that impression while I could. ”
There was an odd, garbled quality to her words, which hadn’t been there a second prior. Was she choking? Or—Sisters three.
Was she crying?
In the bedroom, Manon was silent. Unconsciously, I leaned forward, eager to make out her reply—only to jerk back when her voice bounded through the door a second later.
“Even when I hated you, I could never be ashamed of you,” she said.
“You…You are brave, Ani. Of the two of us, you were the only one willing to face our future, back before the Vainglory. All I wanted was to run away, but you—you were determined to carve a place in society for us, no matter the cost.” She hesitated as if debating something; then, to my shock, I heard her footsteps move in the direction of the bed. “You were always too hard on yourself.”
Anais laughed weakly. “I have a high standard to meet.”
Quiet descended. Outside in the corridor, I backed away from the door, blushing. This conversation was much too intimate to witness—I felt suddenly guilty for intruding on it.
Just then, Manon’s voice followed me out of the room. She sounded ruffled, unsure. “I—I should go.”
That decided it. Lifting the skirt of my nightdress, I turned and rushed back the way I’d come before she could exit and find me lurking.
Only once I was a safe distance away did I resume my snooping.
Every time I detected noises from within a room, I stopped and repeated the trick with my Wit.
It was remarkably effective, every sound amplified as if caught in a bell jar, but even so, I picked up little of use.
A few pieces of gossip, a few rumors passed and circulated through the dimness—but beyond that, nothing.
Wearily, I pressed forward. Ahead of me lay the door to the billiards room—the site of Anais and Dorian’s rendezvous during the Midway Ball. On a whim, I placed my palm against the wood, startled when a voice rang out from beyond.
“Mind if I join you?”
I went still. The words were accompanied by the sound of another door opening—the entrance on the far side of the billiards room, which I knew led out to Fortblanche’s terrace. And the speaker…
It was Noé.
A second later, another voice answered him—lower, with a polished, crisp accent in comparison to my fiancé’s drawled syllables. Eliot. “Go ahead,” he said.
Footsteps padded across the space, followed shortly afterward by a muted thunk. It took me a minute to place the sound: They were playing darts.
It seemed an eternity before Noé spoke. “Your fiancée is a rather talented storyteller.”
My spine straightened. There was another thunk as one of them—Eliot?—threw a dart at the target. “What did she say to you?”
“Oh, nothing really.” Noé’s reply was bitter. “That my bride-to-be cheated her out of a win during the Vainglory. That throughout the competition, Lovett constantly sought out opportunities to bully and belittle her, which was the reason for her outburst today.”
A pause. I made out a harsh clink as though one of them had set a glass down too hard; I wondered if one, or both, of them were drinking.
“Noé.” Eliot’s tone was soft; hearing it made my heart seize up. “You have to know—I had no idea she would behave like that. I would never…” He broke off. “Is Lovett all right?”
The tension in the room lessened. I could feel the atmosphere open up somehow, though I was not there to witness the effect of it myself.
“According to the doctor, fine.” I could picture Noé’s laconic shrug.
“Personally, I’ve found her to be slightly more murderous than usual lately, which I have taken to mean that she’s hurting.
” A pause, deliberate and curious. “She didn’t tell you, then?
About the deal my father’s offered them? ”
I assumed Eliot shook his head, because a moment later, Noé explained. Hearing his description of Bastian’s ultimatum made me feel ashamed, as if it were a flaw of mine he was reciting to Eliot and not a plot against my life.
I supposed it did seem like the former sometimes. An issue I could not fix, no matter how hard I tried.
The room grew quiet once Noé had finished speaking. A second later Eliot laughed. “Seven girls after her head,” he said. “And still, she’d rather marry you than me.”
There was a clipped thump as his dart met its target, sank into the cork. Noé cleared his throat. “I don’t think her preferences have anything to do with it,” he replied. “Eliot, are the two of you all right?”
Eliot huffed. “It’s so strange to hear you call me that.
Do you remember, when we were younger, I begged you to say Eliot rather than Lear.
And you told me that you only used the surnames of the people you liked best, because our given ones were too precious to waste.
” A second pause, this one sour. “Another line from your Sisters-damned books.”
His volume had risen, just slightly. All sounds of dart-playing had ceased; I could picture him holding on to one, pressing its tip into his palm.
“Lovett and I are fine,” Eliot lied a moment later. “Too bad you can’t add her to your roster. My sister, my fiancée, my lover—is that it?”
I flinched against the door. From inside the room came the sound of Noé’s scoff. “Don’t be ridiculous. Clio came for me,” he said. “Eliot, after today, you can’t seriously mean to marry her. She would’ve traded you in like a betting chip if she could’ve—and killed Lovett to do it.”
“Do not pretend to care for Lovett.” Eliot’s rebuke was instant, as if he’d prepared it.
“You speak of betting chips—do you think your imbecilic scheme is any different? You’re using her, Noé.
It is how you are—no cause, no person, has ever mattered to you.
To you, the world is just another fool to trick. ”
“You truly think me so callous?”
“I know it,” Eliot hissed. “I know you, Noé.”
My fiancé said nothing. The mood in the room had changed again—there was a volatility now, a hot fullness like a balloon swollen almost to the point of bursting. I know it…I know you. I felt the truth behind those words. The care, sown over so many years, and now—abruptly—left to rot.
Beneath the anger, there was sadness to Eliot’s reprimand, like he was laying something in a grave.
A long moment passed before he spoke again. “Lovett is not your ally, you know,” Eliot said. “She is loyal to no one but herself. Whatever deal the two of you have made, she will turn her back on it in a second if it benefits her.”
He punctuated his words with the hurl of a dart.
I swallowed as it thwacked against the board—louder this time, more violent.
Unprompted, a memory drifted back to me, something he’d said after we’d argued about his partnership with Sybil during the Vainglory: Do not delude yourself into believing you were ever loyal to me…
Such inclinations are against your nature.
I hadn’t realized he still believed that. I wondered if he’d ever stopped.
I didn’t expect Noé to reply, but he did. “Do you ever think she might be loyal to herself because no one has been loyal to her?”
I furrowed my brow at that. “I…” Eliot started, then cut himself off. His tone was angrier now; his temper was riled. “She is self-serving,” he spit. “Vicious. I’m only warning you.” A break in his speech. “I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.”
Nor did I know why I was still listening. Ashamed, I moved away, Eliot’s words echoing in my ears.
She is self-serving. Vicious. So stupid of me to be wounded by his insults when I’d chosen to wait around and listen to them. What had I expected? For Eliot to confide in Noé? For my fiancé—my cold, calculating, heartless fiancé—to convince him to forgive me?
I was an idiot. Hurrying my steps, I started back toward the turret, illogically fearful that Noé would beat me there and realize where I’d been. I had already shown him enough weakness, with my brother in the pub—I’d be damned if I let him glimpse any more.
Upon reaching the turret stairs, I raised my knife again, ascending the steps slowly in case a silkwitch was lurking somewhere along them.
I shouldn’t have worried; the stairwell was silent and completely abandoned.
When I reached the landing which led to my room, I saw that my door was closed and locked, just as I’d left it.
With a deep exhale, I slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind me—
And cried out abruptly as I was pinned against the wall, a blade to my neck.