Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Here’s what I’ll do,” Noé said. “You will have twenty thousand, because I find it embarrassing to have any family connection of mine living in abject poverty. Then you will detach yourself from your sister and me like the well-fed leech you so clearly desire to become. If you attempt to return and ask for more, I will kill you. If you so much as speak her name aloud”—he gestured toward me, his fingers splayed with what I realized with a dull shock was fury—“I will hunt you down, I will hurt you, and then I will kill you. You are familiar with my father’s gifts, I am certain.
If you do wrong by our family, the Weaver King himself will search the mind of every man, woman, and child on the Isle d’Eylau until he uncovers whatever mud heap you have buried yourself in.
There is no place you can hide from us.”
He paused, his body tensed, though his voice remained perfectly calm.
“Do I make myself quite clear?”
For a moment, my brother gave no response, the only sounds the occasional creak of wood as the barman shifted back and forth across the floorboards and the thump of my own heart, knocking at my chest. Then Markham’s eyes slid my way. “Lovey—”
Noé’s tsk was like a knife. “Already slipping up, I see,” he chided. “I asked you not to address her.” He cleared his throat. “My offer now stands at seventeen thousand,” he said, unbudging when Markham winced as if cut. “Shall I lower it again? I am sure you have debts to pay.”
My brother flushed—truly flushed, like a berated servant, apologizing for some mishap at dinner. It was everything I could do to keep myself from gaping at him as he answered, “No.”
Noé smirked. “Excellent.” Nodding to me, he prompted briskly, “Let’s practice, shall we? Who is this woman to you?”
Markham’s gaze traveled guiltily toward me before hurrying away again. “Nobody,” he ground out. “I have never seen her in my life.”
“Fast learner.” Noé clucked his tongue, while I remained still, my skin buzzing with disbelief. “I’m beginning to see the resemblance.”
Digging into his pocket, he produced a fresh note from his billfold and flicked it across the bar toward Markham. “A bonus, for strong improvement,” he said. “Now get away from us. The sight of you nauseates me, and I cannot drink on a sour stomach.”
—
We passed the remainder of our time at the pub in silence.
After my brother left, my fiancé had ordered a cup of red wine, then a second, downing them both in quick succession.
Though I’d questioned the choice, there was a reckless, unbalanced air about him that made me hesitant to voice my qualms aloud; he’d gripped his glass like a man just returned from the boxing ring, his fingers still reaching to throttle his opponent.
And I’d been in my own haze, too. Pleased as I was to see Markham brought low, I was ashamed and humiliated by my performance. Curling up like a schoolgirl before her bully—it was pathetic. Not to mention, my floundering had put me even further in Noé’s debt.
My gaze slid to him, seated next to me in the leather booth of the automobile, which he was jerkily directing back up the cliffside path toward Fortblanche. He’d saved me twice now—once at the end of the Vainglory, once from my own brother.
Once more, and I feared it would become a pattern.
I cleared my throat. “I suppose I should say thank you.”
Noé’s eyes skipped my way, his hold on the steering level loosening. “Tamerlane, I would never make you thank me for that.”
For some reason, his answer only embarrassed me further. “You are not making me,” I replied tightly. “I am offering.” Glancing reluctantly at him, I forced myself to utter the dreaded words. “Thank you.”
His lips crooked in a half smile. “Only you could make gratitude sound like a curse.” Exhaling, he tugged on the brim of his cap, then dropped his arm to his side. “So,” he ventured. “Your brother. Is he your only sibling?”
I nodded around the knot in my throat. “Yes,” I replied. “His name is Markham—my elder brother. We lived together prior to my joining the Vainglory.” Averting my gaze, I shifted in my seat. “Our parents left the country over a year ago. You shouldn’t have to pay off anyone else.”
Noé paused. I felt him looking at me but did not acknowledge his stare. “Was he cruel to you?”
His question was soft, spoken without emotion.
Still, the back of my neck prickled under its force.
“I…” I swallowed. “I find it pointless to dwell on the past. People who linger there too long end up finding their memories distorted. They confuse themselves for victims, when in truth they may have been villains.”
“And is that what you think you are? A villain?”
“I think I have hurt people who have tried their best to love me.” My voice was hot; I did not know what had sparked the sudden defensiveness which welled in me, but now that it had, I could not put it out. “I think some flowers cannot shed their thorns.”
The quiet was unwieldy. Giving in to it, I turned to face Noé. We’d reached the bottom edge of Fortblanche’s circular driveway; ahead of us, the house rose up, a stony illusion swathed in gray cloud.
My fiancé’s expression was somber. Unlike in the bar, I could not deduce the meaning of it; it was as though he’d backed away from me, closed himself within a shell.
“Do you truly think it a disgusting habit?” he asked abruptly. When I frowned in confusion, he clarified, “Smoking.”
Ah. I recalled my sharp words, just before he’d exited the pub, and nearly winced. “Why would it please me to watch you poison yourself?”
My answer seemed to cheer him, though I couldn’t fathom why. Blinking, he ran a palm over his mouth, as if hiding a smile. The automobile had stalled; we remained where we were, frozen in place.
I broke the quiet before he could disembark. “May I ask you something? As your…” I couldn’t think of the proper word. “Coconspirator.”
Noé looked back at me. By the arch of his brow, I could tell my request had caught him by surprise—it had me, as well.
There was something oddly confessional about the tight confines of the automobile’s booth.
It made me want to question him, out here where his answers would remain safe, drowned beneath the hum of the engine. “Go ahead,” he said.
I did. “The bargain you struck with me at the end of the Vainglory,” I replied.
“I suppose I am trying to understand the—the logic of it.” I shook my head.
“What you said to my brother in the pub about your father…the magic he possesses. If you continue aiding me, and I succeed in exposing the origins of Weavers’ gifts, you will lose any chance of claiming that sort of power for yourself.
Your wealth, your family’s influence…all of it would be thrown into jeopardy.
” I hesitated. “It seems counterintuitive.”
“Counterintuitive.” Noé repeated my word, then smiled. Dropping the expression, he shifted in his seat. “If you bring down the Weavers, it means my father is already dead,” he said. “I don’t care much for what happens after that—to myself or society.”
His tone was matter-of-fact, his words lacking any reluctance or qualification. The directness of his answer startled me. “That is a…remarkably selfish view.”
“Or unselfish, depending on how you look at it.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’ve no love for the Weaver system. If it fails, all the better, in my opinion. I think it abusive and ugly—I told you as much, the first time we walked together during the Vainglory.”
So he had. “But that’s not why you’re helping me,” I stated.
Noé breathed a laugh. “No,” he agreed. He rubbed his forehead as if in contemplation.
“My father took something from me, when Ophelia died at the end of my first Vainglory,” he went on.
“I want to take something back. For a year, I thought I might never get the opportunity, but then Lear brought me you. Your Wit—and all the potential it holds.” He sighed, sitting straight forward again.
“You’re imbuing me with more layers than I possess, Tamerlane.
I’m quite a blunt weapon. I desire an outcome—I bend the world to make it happen. ”
His voice was confident. Still, I found I did not quite believe him. There was something he was keeping back from me—some part of his plan I wasn’t yet seeing. “You would martyr yourself—martyr your father—to avenge one girl?”
He smirked. “I’m a romantic.”
The mirth in his eyes unsteadied me. Before I could form a response, he leaned forward, bridging the space between us. I froze as the tip of his finger traced the edge of my caul, just barely.
“Lovey,” he murmured, looking at me. “It is odd to think of you as a child.”
The buzz of his skin on mine was strange. I could not tell whether I wanted to lurch away or hold myself in place, studying him. “Innocent?” I asked, following along with his change in subject.
He dropped his arm. “Vulnerable.”
My chest tightened.
“You know,” Noé went on, “there is a part of me that pities your brother. The whole time while we were speaking, I couldn’t help but compare him to a sheep—a ram.
He thinks himself a leader, in charge of his flock.
” His eyes swept over my features. “He has no idea that for years, he dwelled so near to a wolf.”
We were both silent. I felt a sort of twinge when, at last, Noé lowered his chin, breaking our stare. The sensation was subtle and deep, hidden beneath my belly.
“You are far more dangerous than he,” Noé said. “Don’t forget that, Tamerlane. You are the deadliest creature I know.”