Chapter Eight
The door to Eliot’s and my old meeting place was just as it had been during the Vainglory: its paint peeling, the estate roof folding above it in a tight steeple like a pointed cap.
Beyond the slim windows, a fresh storm had started up, the sheer force of the rain so violent, it was as though Fortblanche had been positioned beneath a bucket which some petulant child had overturned.
I stood before the threshold with my hand hovering over the doorknob and my chest tight.
It was true that, unlike Marie-Louise, I had yet to be able to develop my Wit in any meaningful way since the Vainglory.
But though my talent for doors thus far remained unchanged, through weeks of concentration and practice, I’d found that my awareness of them had at least increased.
Whereas previously, I could access an entrance only if I were standing directly in front of it, lately I’d discovered that I could retain a kind of mental hold on select passages even once I’d left them behind.
The trick worked best on doors I was intimately familiar with—so far, I had employed it successfully only on the entrance to my new quarters, as well as the one in front of me now.
Whenever one of the doors I’d befriended opened, I’d feel a quiver regardless of where I was in the Alaires’ mansion, as if I’d looped a string around the knob and held the other end in my fist. Up until today, I’d mostly used the trick to ensure no intruders were entering my bedroom while I was out, but now…
I gritted my teeth. I’d made the mistake of sharing the new application of my Wit with Noé shortly after I’d discovered it, in a futile attempt to halt his ill-conceived “practices.” Evidently, my fiancé had come here because he’d known I would sense his entrance, but though my head urged me to turn around and retreat to my own chambers, my heart refused to obey.
I was protective of this space, and Noé knew it. It was the only one which had belonged to Eliot and me.
I turned the knob, and the door opened. There was someone else inside.
“The mouse appears!” Noé grinned at me from where he was seated, in the same armchair Eliot had habitually used during the competition.
He looked as though he’d been caught in the rain—though he was wearing a fresh shirt and trousers, his hair was damp, falling in liquid black waves over his forehead.
In one hand, he held a lit cigarette; the pack was half crushed beneath his left leg, peeking shyly out from under his thigh.
“I suppose you can be tempted after all,” he taunted. “What is it about this chamber, I wonder? Too many happy memories?”
His brows quirked suggestively. At once, I lost my patience. I stepped farther into the room, shutting the door behind me. “Even for you, this is low.”
“I agree. Unfortunately, darling, you forced my hand.” Noé seemed unmoved by my criticism, drawing lazily at his cigarette.
Glancing about the cramped quarters, he added, “You know, I have always found it funny that Lear chose this place as the meeting point for your secret rendezvous, above all others. Did he tell you I was the one who found it? My father had it shut up when we were children, which of course only made me more determined to burrow my way inside.” He shifted back toward me, his expression coy.
“What did the two of you get up to in here?”
There was pride in his voice. He was pleased with himself, I realized, with the clever way he’d lured me here, and the notion made him all the more insufferable. I never should have confided in him about the expansion of my Wit. The disclosure had been a momentary lapse in judgment, but regardless…
I sorely regretted it now.
Frowning, I replied to him. “What do you want, Noé?”
My fiancé stubbed out his cigarette on the armrest of his chair. I eyed the char mark he left on the fabric, my jaw clenched, but I made no move to draw closer and sweep the ash away.
He cleared his throat. “I fear you have been holding out on me, partner.”
A curl of trepidation. Wiping my face blank, I said, “Fear is a burdensome emotion. With hard work and practice, you may yet rise above it.”
He did not laugh. “That red-haired insect of yours,” Noé continued, as if I’d never spoken at all. “Mia.”
“What about her?”
He rubbed his thumb and index fingers together. “Why is she spidering around my maidens’ old quarters, searching for a pair of gloves?”
My spine straightened. After agreeing to Bastian’s bargain in the morning, I’d given Mia instructions to search for any signs of the missing gloves Marie-Louise had mentioned to me during our talk—but in all honesty, I hadn’t expected my fiancé to notice.
Typically, when Noé wasn’t bothering me, he was poisoning himself with cigarettes or drink; I’d assumed that most of Fortblanche’s daily happenings ticked by without his awareness, like gears in a clock, their workings too detailed to capture his dulled attention.
Shrugging, I answered him. “Perhaps I misplaced my pair.”
Noé gave a dark chuckle. “You, misplace something?” he challenged. “Come now, Tamerlane. We both know you do not lose items, lest you do so with a purpose. You set traps and you scheme—now, which is it this time?”
Tamerlane. There was that name again. Now that he’d started, he seemed determined to keep using it.
Still, I relented. “I received a tip that Anais Tremblay reported a missing set of gloves following the Midway Ball,” I admitted.
Lying to him was purposeless—if I continued to do so, he would likely just go to Mia, and as hard-shelled as my maid was, I did not trust her not to crack beneath his questioning.
“This morning, I instructed Mia to see if any stray pairs might have been left behind. I thought they might be connected to Sybil’s death, seeing as the events occurred so close to one another. ”
Noé snorted. “So, you’ve decided to take my father up on his challenge.
” He rose, striding over to the crosshatched window nearest to us and lifting the latch to push it open.
Rain spat immediately through the gap, dampening his sleeve; I barely heard him over the thrash of the storm as he flicked his spent cigarette into the gale and said, “Do you even realize how stupid you’ve been? ”
I bristled at his tone. “I—”
“Oh, what is it—you want me to coddle you, like Lear would? Tell you how clever you are?” Bitterly, Noé shut the window again.
With his wet hair and the pounding of the storm around us, I could not help but compare him to a character from a novel—some dark-haired villain, brooding in his tower by the sea.
“I will not lie just to make you feel better, Tamerlane,” he sniped, turning over his shoulder.
“I am not your lover. Whatever rules you play by, I will obey the same.”
Sulking, he leaned against the windowsill.
“Answer me,” Noé said a moment later from his post. “Did you agree to my father’s deal? Will you play sleuth for him, as he asked you to?”
I held his gaze. “You seem to already know my answer.”
He smirked, quick and cruel. “Oh, but I want to hear you say it.”
My skin chilled. It was without my conscious decision that I heard myself whisper, “Yes.”
Noé slumped back, shaking his head. Defensive, I went on, “It was the smart move. The only way to ensure the continuation of our plan—and keep myself from the cloisters.”
“If it were beneficial to either of us, Father would not have proposed it.” Noé rubbed at the bridge of his nose in frustration.
Grunting, he raised his gaze to mine again; I was startled to see there was an air of hurt to his expression, as if he’d been wounded by my reply.
“I’ve already promised to keep you from the cloisters. ”
I scoffed. “You could not even read through a copy of the marriage accords. It is because of your negligence that Bastian was able to exploit this loophole to begin with.”
“I did read them.” Noé’s voice was hot. “The morning after my father proposed this scheme. Which is how I know that the favor Father spoke of is meant to be decided by a groom and his family together. Which is why I’ve attempted to speak with you these past few days, but you refuse to see me.”
He broke off, jaw tight. I felt a jab of shame as, irritably, he went on.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve agreed to his request now, just as he wanted,” Noé said. “Nicely done.”
I stayed silent. The room suddenly seemed quite small—and I at the center of it, looking like an idiot. Too late, I thought back to the countless requests Noé had sent me recently, asking for the two of us to talk. Never had I considered that he’d actually had something to say.
Swallowing, I shifted in place. “What would you recommend I do?”
Noé chuckled. “You’re asking my advice?” he teased. “My father truly must have you running scared, Tamerlane.” Dipping his head, he brushed down the damp sleeve of his jacket. “If you agreed to solve his mystery, our obvious next step is solving it.”
I frowned. “I can manage Sybil’s death on my own.
” My fiancé’s response had a dangerous edge of comradery to it, which I both mistrusted and disliked.
I would work with him so long as I had to, but I had no desire to work together.
“I uncovered the truth about you and Ophelia without much help, during the Vainglory—I can do so again.”
My answer seemed to amuse Noé. “Lear was that useless, was he?”
I paused. It hadn’t come out the way I’d intended.
“We will solve the case together,” he asserted before I could form a rebuttal. “Allowing you to operate on your own has created enough trouble for us already. You investigate with me, or you do not investigate at all.”
My temper flashed. “No.”
Noé quirked a brow. Desperately, I softened my tone, trying another argument. “Investigation is arduous work.”
“You think I am opposed to hard work?” Again, that sly smile. I was seriously beginning to detest it.