Chapter Fourteen
I turned over my shoulder. Noé was barefoot, dressed in a loose tunic and linen trousers, a clothbound book in his hand.
Of them all, it was the first detail which infuriated me the most. In the hours since dawn, I’d survived an unexpected tea party, Eliot’s surprise betrothal, and a murder attempt, and yet my fiancé had not even bothered to put on socks.
“Speaking with my fiancée again, Anais?” Noé asked. “You seem to be seeking Miss Lovett out quite a lot lately.” He clicked his tongue. “Go on, then. Tell me what my father’s done.”
Anais and I exchanged scrupulous glances. Before I could think of a response, the other silkwitch stood, the innocent smile she’d worn when we’d spoken earlier slipping back in place. It disguised her viciousness completely, pulling up like a hood over her features.
“I would, darling, but I make it a point not to intrude upon family matters,” she chirped, rose-cheeked once more. “You look well, Noé. I’ll leave you two be.”
She moved as though to kiss my cheeks, one hand reaching out to retrieve the flask I’d rejected and tucking it subtly behind her back. Straightening, she gave Noé a final doting smile and—proof of her sins now secured—fluttered away.
My fiancé and I eyed one another in the silence she left behind. Sensing my opportunity, I made to get up from my armchair as well, but Noé’s voice caught me before I could.
He gave a dark chuckle. “Do not even try it.”
I froze with my skirts half gathered. Noé was standing to my back, out of sight from my current position, but the menace in his tone was enough to give me pause.
Cursing, I pivoted to face him, rising as I did so that we were on even ground—me, him, and the chair placed between us, keeping us apart.
Slowly, he approached. His brow furrowed as he took me in, his expression befuddled, even concerned.
“Tamerlane,” he said softly. I was glad for the ridge of the chair’s back preventing him from advancing too near, like a guard dog crouched before me.
“What did I just overhear? Why are there a half dozen silkwitches in our library? Father made no mention of a gathering…” He paused. “Did Manon Blanc do that to you?”
His fingers lifted to trace something along my cheekbone—a cut which I’d procured in my fall and hadn’t yet noticed, most likely.
I swatted his hand away. “I’m fine,” I replied.
If I showed him weakness, this conversation would never come to an end.
“And Manon did nothing—she was acting only on behalf of another.”
I spoke the excuse lightly. It didn’t seem to have much of an effect. “Another?” Noé echoed.
I hesitated. I’d never heard his voice so low as just then, repeating my words back to me.
The hand I’d batted back had fallen to his side; there was something about his demeanor which reminded me of an ebony cat, curled up in a fireplace—a black pit within a purpling cherry.
Darkness cupped inside of darkness, absent of any light.
It unsettled me—enough so that I gave in. “Your father,” I admitted. “It seems as though in addition to the deal he offered me, he has extended another to the rest of your maidens: my life, for your hand in marriage. They have until the wedding to make their plays.”
I felt vaguely ridiculous, speaking it aloud.
Like some waifish heroine out of a romance novel, the sorry target of a murder plot formed out of jealousy.
In a way, I would have preferred to be one of the other girls.
At least there was some respect to be earned in a clever killing, more so than a tragic death.
Instead, the Weaver King’s scheming had made me into a martyr-bride, doomed to be buried before I could speak my vows.
Really, it was insulting.
Noé was quiet for a long moment. He shook his head once, a sharp crease forming between his brows—and then, almost before I could process the motion, he was turning on his heel and striding briskly away.
I watched him go for several seconds, his pale figure stalking past the bookshelves, before calling after him. “Where are you going?”
My fiancé did not slow. “To speak with my father.”
Alarm pulsed, a clenching fist in my chest. “Why?”
He whirled to face me. “Why?”
His expression was one of furious incredulity—his forehead creased, his eyes silvered coins, made bright by the force of his wrath. Their mean glint made my rib cage tighten. I had far less time to rein him in than I’d thought.
“Confronting your father is a fool’s move.
” Maneuvering around the armchair, I crossed to him, all too aware of the gathering still limping on below us.
“Bastian will not revoke his offer simply because you ask it of him. If you speak to him now, all you will do is reveal our knowledge of his plot. That he thinks us ignorant of his scheming is our sole advantage over him.” Drawing a breath, I forced myself to calm.
“I’m fine,” I repeated in a stern tone. “Manon didn’t kill me. ”
The assurance didn’t pacify him in the way I’d hoped. “She tried.”
“And failed,” I reminded him. “No lasting harm has been done. We can still carry out your plot, just as before.”
Noé scoffed. “My plot depends on you having full use of your limbs. Tamerlane—”
I interrupted him. “Tell him, and I will break off our engagement,” I hissed, and was rewarded when his eyes snapped back my way. “I will turn myself in to the cloisters this very evening. You will as good as have sent me there anyway.”
His gaze narrowed. We were as close as we’d ever been, face-to-face like a single body mirrored, but though I detested his nearness, I did not back away. Rather, I tilted my head up to catch his stare more fully, let him search for my bluff, as I knew he was doing.
He would not find it. I was not lying.
After a minute, he snorted and stepped back. “You are ridiculous,” Noé spat without looking at me. “Willing to risk your life over—what? A strategy?” He ran a palm over his face. “Tamerlane, we’ve been over this. You are to be my wife. You are of no use to me dead.”
I blinked. It was not the response I had expected.
“I am not your wife yet,” I corrected, once I’d swallowed his reply down. The term sat oddly in my stomach, stuck like a bit of undigested gristle. “You realize this engagement is a sham.”
He chuckled—shallow, as if I’d insulted him. “Sisters three,” Noé muttered. “Trust me, my dear, the reality of our ‘engagement’ haunts me nightly.”
Scratching at his earlobe, he turned toward the bookshelves. I tensed, half expecting him to make for the door again, but he only stood in profile to me, his jaw flexed and his head slightly bowed.
“This is your problem, you know,” he started a moment later.
The loose collar of his shirt had drooped open farther as we’d been talking, exposing his collarbone.
In the dim light of the library, his skin was like cream.
“You are so damned clever, you believe all battles may be won with the mind. That to trap an opponent is an elegant undertaking, best achieved through months—perhaps years—of effort.”
He shook his head. “Death is no gentleman soldier,” Noé said.
“It will not wait until you are ready to face it—it will strike primally, at the ugliest and least poetic of times. All it takes is a door left open. An intruder. A rock, and all your beautiful plans will fall to nothing.” He sighed.
“Thinking yourself immortal is also a fool’s move. ”
His eyes were hard, a stern winter-gray. But his voice dipped as he spoke, and I knew I had won.
Just then, a sudden flare of heat pulled my attention to my heel. Inside my slipper, my coin had abruptly turned warm, nuzzling against me like a mouse curled tight in my shoe. Eliot. My pulse skipped. At last, he was calling.
I smiled at Noé, hastening to quell the emotions that rioted through me. “Say nothing to your father. We will consult later.”
He groaned as I passed by him, heading for the exit farther up the walkway. “Now where are you going?”
“Nowhere!” I sang out, a final command, and slipped through the door.