Chapter Five
Our carriage was already pulled close to the curb by the time Noé and I exited the opera house.
In the belly of the city, night did not fall so heavily as it did up near Fortblanche; still, in the months since the Vainglory, the temperature had plunged.
The black night air made the buildings around us appear huddled, as if they were gathering close, bracing themselves for autumn.
Bastian Alaire did not seem to mind the chill. He was wrapped in the great velvet coat he’d worn to the theater, his silver eyes gazing intently out toward the street as the pair of us climbed inside and bundled into our seats across from him.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Lovett,” Bastian said once we’d made ourselves comfortable.
Like his son, he spoke levelly, without much inflection, so that it was impossible to tell how he felt about my appearance.
“Apologies for the brusque summons. I attempted to fetch you earlier, but Noé informed me you were caught up in the powder room.” He smiled, thin-lipped and slippery. “Only a cosmetic ailment, I hope.”
As he spoke, he rapped sharply on the window, signaling the driver.
I gripped my seat cushion as the coach gave a sudden lurch forward.
“I’m sorry if I caused a delay, sir.” Glancing sidelong at Noé, who’d slumped drunkenly against the carriage window as soon as it had rolled into motion, I added somewhat accusatorially, “I didn’t realize you meant to leave early. ”
Bastian chuckled. “You are referencing the performance?” he replied. “Oh, I got bored. It seems I am cursed to only enjoy the beginnings of things. After that, they all become so…predictable.”
His forehead dimpled with a smile. I forced myself to glance away from his seal, which squatted on his ring finger like a white roach as he spoke. Its name, Mariéprix, meant bride-price in old Balmoorish—a reference to the strand of magesilk encased within its gem, Woven from his wife’s hair.
Though I hadn’t known it when we’d first met, his power—the ability to peer into a person’s mind, to glimpse their thoughts like fish in a stream—was drawn from her, too.
Thus far, I had not felt the mental jab that usually signaled Bastian’s intrusion into my head, but then again, I’d missed his assessment of me in the theater until Noé had pointed it out.
Far safer to assume a thief was hidden, and act accordingly, than mistake oneself for alone.
In the silence, Bastian’s gaze traveled from Noé, to me, then back again. “Oh dear,” he said, clucking his tongue. “Was there a spat at the theater? You two seem quite frosty tonight.” He arched a brow at his son. “Did you do something to her, Noé?”
“Father, please,” Noé answered. Rather theatrically, I thought, he leaned harder against the window, pressing his forehead into the glass. “I am not sober enough to undergo any interrogations this evening.”
I resisted the urge to scoff at his display. A second later, the sound of Bastian’s voice pulled me back to him. “Fine,” the Weaver King conceded, shifting away from his son. “Perhaps your bride will prove more forthcoming.”
He sat forward. A lock of black hair tumbled over his forehead; it made him look surprisingly boyish. “Yes,” he murmured, studying me. “There has been an incident, hasn’t there? Something which has upset you. Please—won’t you share?”
At last, I felt it: the damp crawl of a presence in my thoughts, settling into my mind like an infection, which told me he had entered.
Tensing, I moved to shield myself as Noé had taught me.
During the Vainglory, the method by which Bastian organized his mental searches had been a mystery to me, but in the months since, his son had instructed me that emotion was the key.
An extrapolation, as Noé had termed it, of the original Wit belonging to his mother, whose ability had allowed her to read emotions in tea leaves.
If the Weaver King desired a secret from his prey, he would search out a memory that gave off the feeling of guilt; if he suspected an affair, lust; if he wished to learn a person’s enemy, rage.
The trick, then, was to hide any bits of information one wished to protect beneath memories which provoked similar emotional responses, the way a dog might roll itself in mud to disguise its own scent.
Bastian had already pulled free my true name—Lovett Tamerlane—during the competition, meaning any attempts to bury my past entirely would have been useless.
Rather, the story Noé and I had crafted for his father was this: that prior to the Vainglory, I’d been a penniless orphan, surviving on the streets of the capital with my Wit until Eliot Lear had found me and offered to secure me a place in his friend’s upcoming Vainglory.
In return, if I won Noé’s hand, I would work to ensure Eliot’s own elevation—namely, that he avoided the role of political lackey which had been cast upon his father.
A lonely girl in unfortunate circumstances.
A life-changing bargain. A secret purpose.
The tale we’d spun on Bastian’s behalf had all the same elements of the truth, even if it was, in fact, a lie.
My parents were not deceased, only distant; Eliot had not been acting according to his own interests when he’d sought me out, but rather those of his murdered sister.
Still, the shape of the stories was the same.
So long as I prevented the Weaver King from peeking beneath the cloth, the falsehood—we hoped—would hold.
It had to hold.
Bastian’s claws abruptly sunk deeper into my skull.
An incident. That was what the Weaver King was searching for, and he was correct.
There had been an encounter during the opera which had left me uneased: namely, my conversation with Lucie and Eliot.
But I certainly couldn’t let him see that.
What to bury it beneath? I needed to be quick—I could feel him working through my thoughts, a dreadful skittering like a beetle pushing through a crust of dead leaves.
“Ah.” It was difficult to quell the surge of relief that swept through me as the Weaver King’s brow creased, his grip on my skull notably relaxing. “So, my business dealings have caught your notice, have they? Quite natural. Would you like a peek at one of my offerings?”
He reached into the dark folds of his coat. I could sense Noé watching us out of the corner of his eye as his father produced a ring from his garment: pale gold, set with a dark ruby. Light from the passing streetlamps caught hypnotically in its facets, making the red glint.
Bastian grinned at my intrigued expression.
“Pretty, no?” he asked. Holding up the ring, he studied it, turning it this way and that.
“This one is for a special client of mine. I intended to share it with him this evening, but he was unable to meet as planned, so the piece will be staying with us for another night.” His thumb swiped affectionately over the ruby.
“This particular buyer is a rather cautious man. Always concerned that his enemies—or friends—have discovered his secrets. The ring has been Woven with an enchantment to assuage that fear. If he looks into the ruby while wearing it, he will see whether anyone nearby knows something about him that they shouldn’t. ”
A shiver moved down my spine. I’d wondered previously at the sort of enchanted items the Weaver King might be crafting in his workshops—now, it seemed, I had an example.
But which silkwitch’s hair had been spun into the magesilk that powered this atrocity?
Again, my earlier ponderings sprang to the front of my mind.
If the Weaver King wasn’t stealing fresh product from me—and he wasn’t, or at least, he hadn’t yet—where was he getting his supply?
Ignorant of my revulsion, Bastian hummed. “The spellwork is quite complicated,” he said, extending the ring toward me. “But effective. Go ahead—look into it, if you’d like.”
“Don’t.” Noé’s hand came over my arm before I could think. Briefly, his eyes met mine, then shifted to his father. “I told you, I do not want her dead.”
Dead. I wasn’t expecting the word—I jerked in surprise. Opposite us, the Weaver King tsked.
“Look at that,” he said reprovingly. “You’ve startled her.” Stowing the ring back in his coat, he smiled at me. “Don’t fret, Miss Lovett, the enchantment is not fatal. At least, not in the way you assume.” He cocked his head. “Have you ever heard of the King’s Curse?”
I hesitated. Noé had dropped his arm at his father’s reply; I could still feel the itch of his fingers over my flesh. “No, sir,” I managed.
Bastian scratched his chin. “It is a precaution,” he replied, “of my own invention. One which is sadly necessary for the kind of enterprise which I operate.” He patted the coat pocket where the ring was tucked.
“When my artisans produced this ring, they layered in a second enchantment, interlinked with the first. Usually, it is benign, but…if any person who wished me harm were to touch the item, the curse would activate.” He winked.
“Many have tried to purchase one of the…less savory…of my offerings and present it to the Council as evidence against me. Of them, none has lived to reach the Parliament floor. It is curious that my son is so desperate to keep you from touching the piece, no?” His gaze narrowed. “What might that imply?”
His mental hand palmed the curve of my scalp as if determined to find out. My breaths grew quick—as much as I’d attempted to prevent it, his disclosure had riled me, as I was certain Bastian had hoped it would. Emotion wept into my thoughts, painting them starker—