Chapter Twenty-Eight
When morning came, Noé was still by the door, slumped in the chair with his arms crossed, a blanket wrapped loosely around him for warmth.
I was the first to wake. Lifting onto my elbows, I regarded him through the grainy sunlight. His eyes were closed, the stark gray of his irises obscured.
Something tugged at my chest as I watched him. His words, buried as night had rolled over them, pushed up through the dark soil of my mind: I rather enjoy your cruelty.
I shivered. As if sensing my notice, his lashes flickered. Abruptly, he roused, stirring from his slumber and locking his gaze with mine.
For a moment we both remained where we were, studying one another, the remnants of our truce hanging like a tattered flag above us, the night a tall shadow to our backs. Then he got up.
—
Breakfast was no better than dinner had been, the collective mood grouchy even though the storm had passed us by.
Rather than taking my meal in the breakfast parlor as usual, Bastian had set up a spread in the dining hall: There were pots of tea and coffee with cold jugs of cream sweating in between them; silver trays full of fruit, sliced in half and splayed open like fresh kills; and platters bursting with sausages and cheeses.
I picked at the offerings. My head was sore and aching from my two fights with Clio, and I had little appetite. Each time another of my bridesmaids crossed near me, all the breath left my lungs, my throat tightening where Clio had shoved her knife against it.
My attacker herself was nowhere to be seen, nor was her fiancé.
I wondered how she’d explained her injury to Eliot after fleeing my room—or whether she’d seen him at all since her escape last night, blood spilling down her leg and her hair unbound from her usual caul.
Certainly, he couldn’t write off a stab wound as easily as he’d accepted everything else Clio had told him. Could he?
Clio’s voice echoed in my ears. You could present him with my knife buried in her chest, and he would still insist that she was the one who put it there.
I tensed as Nathalie Moreau slid into the unoccupied seat next to me.
My fellow silkwitch had partaken in Bastian’s feast with much more gusto than I had: Her plate was stacked high with various fruits and several sausage links, plus a curled cheese rind, which I strongly suspected she was reserving for Good Sister.
Setting her food down, she poured herself a cup of tea and stirred a thimbleful of cream into it, gazing at me sidelong as she did.
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
Her tone was flat. Turning toward her, I lifted a brow. “I thanked you for your assistance in the Maiden’s Race last night. Do you require further gratitude, or is this for something new?”
Nathalie curled her lip. “Thank-yous aren’t usually as stony as the one you gave me,” she replied blithely. “It sounded as though you’d chipped it out of solid rock. Though I do bring fresh news for you, as well.”
Setting aside her teacup, she leaned toward me. “Good Sister did as you asked,” she murmured, her eyes darting briefly over my shoulder as if to ensure we wouldn’t be overheard. “None of your bridesmaids match the scent of the veiled lady she sighted in the tunnels.”
For the first time since Clio’s assault, intrigue crowded out the anxiety which had curled up in my mind like a dog before a hearth and refused to budge.
I’d dropped by Nathalie’s room directly following yesterday’s dinner to convey my appreciation for her help during Bastian’s game—but also to ask a few favors of her mouse.
After her actions during the race, I felt relatively confident I could trust the silkwitch, yet I hadn’t anticipated her delivering results so soon. “But?” I asked. “I do sense a but.”
Nathalie nodded. “The woman Good Sister saw the night of the Midway Ball wasn’t one of the girls competing in the Vainglory,” she said.
“Or at least, she doesn’t smell like any of them.
But Sissy is relatively confident that the lady was a silkwitch.
She didn’t put two and two together at first, but after scenting the rest of us witches, she feels certain. ”
A silkwitch. My pulse leapt. It was a good lead, except…aside from the girls who’d competed alongside me for Noé’s hand, I didn’t know any other silkwitches. What had one been doing in the tunnels of Fortblanche the night of Sybil’s murder?
I thought back to Noé’s and my conversation in the pub.
The veiled lady—our mysterious silkwitch—had been sighted by Bernard after she’d exited the tunnels, carrying a key which the butler claimed belonged to Bastian.
If it was indeed the key we were searching for, the one which opened the moonless door in the tunnels, were her motivations and mine the same?
Was she another silkwitch who’d discovered the Weavers’ secret and was attempting to obtain proof?
It was possible. But then how had Sybil ended up dead?
Shaking my head, I focused back on Nathalie. “And did Good Sister manage to complete the other favor I asked of her?”
The other silkwitch blinked. A second later I went rigid as I felt an object being pressed into my hand beneath the table—circular and smooth like a small mirror.
I glanced down. It was a monocle, rimmed with gold, a thin chain draping from it where the user could secure it to their buttonhole—the same one I had spied tumbling out of Mireille Laurent’s pocket during the race yesterday.
As soon as I’d sighted it, I’d known I’d wanted to take a closer look at the piece, though retrieving it from Mireille’s room would have been difficult without knowing where she’d stowed it.
Thankfully, Nathalie’s mouse had helped me with that. I thumbed the monocle’s surface, the glass cool against my fingertips. Success.
“She took it from Mireille’s chamber last night,” Nathalie informed me proudly, dropping her voice so that Mireille herself, who was gossiping with Delphine Barbier by the dining hall’s entrance, would not pick up on our conversation. “Hold it up to your eye—you’ll see something interesting.”
When I tilted my head, wordlessly requesting more, she merely winked and glanced away. Sighing, I bent down as if to adjust the tie on my heeled boot and surreptitiously raised the monocle to my vision.
As soon as the lens was level with my eye, a message flared to life. Words danced on the other side of the glass, formed from a powdery gold dust and floating seemingly in midair. They drifted slightly to the side as I read them, as if caught in an errant breeze. Seek and find.
I paused. I’d seen that slogan before.
Below the phrase were a pair of clock hands, ticking down. No hour markings accompanied them; instead, the hands seemed to be wheeling in an aimless circle, toward an invisible midnight positioned at the clock’s top.
When I lowered the monocle, both the message and the hands disappeared, blinking out of existence like a trick of the light. Curling my knuckles around the item, I sat up. Curious.
Nathalie observed me smugly over the top of her plate, evidently pleased with the results of her minion’s thievery. Biting down onto a sausage link, she chewed, then asked primly, “Remind me why I’m aiding you?”
I chuckled. “Oh, I think you enjoy being in on the action.” Rising, I stowed the monocle in my waistband. “Thank you,” I said sincerely to Nathalie. “And thank Good Sister for me, too. I’ve a suspicion I may call upon you both again before my wedding day is done.”