Chapter Forty-Four
The dress fitting sped by without incident.
I despised my wedding gown as much as I had when I’d first tried it on, but at least this time, no one attempted to kill me while I was wearing it.
My bridesmaids seemed preoccupied, each of them lost to their own worries.
Not all of our party was present: Clio never showed, though she did send a servant with a message claiming a stomachache.
I wondered if it was fear of me questioning her again that had kept her away, or if she just didn’t want to see me without Eliot there to defend her.
Neither possibility made me feel particularly good.
After the dressmaker took her final measurements, I escorted the other silkwitches back toward the front entry hall. Nathalie lingered at the rear of the group, her pace dragging. Catching her eye, I fell into step with her.
She spoke softly, so that only I could make her out. “Good Sister couldn’t do as you asked.”
My heart dropped.
Noticing my disappointment, Nathalie continued.
“She identified the path the veiled lady took,” she clarified, “but she couldn’t follow it all the way.
The passage went too deep…Good Sister described encountering a great pressure bearing down on her from above.
It was too much for her to stand, so she turned back.
” The other silkwitch ducked her head closer to mine.
“I think it was the ocean,” she murmured.
“The tunnel the lady took must run beneath the bay, to mainland Balmoore.”
The answer came as a shock. “The mainland?” I asked. “You’re sure?”
Nathalie shrugged. “I’m sure of nothing. It is only a suspicion.” Hesitating, she glanced over at me. “Are you all right?” she whispered in a still lower tone. “You seemed…emotional…last night.”
I flushed. “I’m fine.”
She raised a brow, but at that moment Delphine Barbier dropped back, evidently curious to know what we were whispering about. At her approach, Nathalie and I both went quiet, straightening to face forward once more.
We conducted the rest of our walk in silence.
I thought about what she’d disclosed to me for the rest of the day. Several theories were bumping around my head—and yet all of them collapsed upon deeper prodding. There were too many holes in the narrative; whenever I went to make a stitch, the fabric pulled and tore clean through.
Frustrated, I returned to my bedroom after dinner, determined to sort through all I’d learned.
The sudden pop of Ophelia’s candle startled me as I made my way to my desk. The wick had sprung to life, the flame winking at me like a fading star above its hump of melting candle wax. As I watched, a scroll of paper fluttered out of it, drifting to the desktop.
I hesitated before fetching it. Noé and I hadn’t written each other since he’d lured me to the turret room at the start of our investigation—not to mention that last I’d heard, his candle had been in his quarters. Had he taken it with him when he’d left Fortblanche?
A message was imprinted on the paper, neat letters stamped in stark gray ash.
Sending a missive. Is anyone reading this? I am incredibly wealthy, and in desperate need of aid.
For a moment, I could only stare at the note. Then, reaching for a fountain pen, I dashed back: No one around. Better you take your money and help yourself.
I fed it to the flame. The response came less than a minute later—as if the writer had been hovering directly beside their candle, waiting for my message to appear. So callous. You can only be my bride, Lovett Tamerlane. I’ve missed you, darling.
So it was Noé, then. I rolled my eyes, fighting back a smirk. He must have snuck his candle into his trunk while packing so he could reach me while he was away.
I was not sure how that realization made me feel. I thought you were meant to be hunting, I wrote. Have you killed anything yet?
Yes. My liver. A terrible loss—I do not know how I will endure without it.
Ah. Well, at least now I understood why he was writing me. You’re drunk.
Absolutely not! Another scroll followed swiftly behind its predecessor. I left drunk behind several hours ago. I am exploring new and uncharted territory. I shall let you know what I find there.
Safe in the confines of my room, I shook my head, glad he could not listen through the candle and hear the small breath of laughter his message teased from me.
Silencing it, I steadied myself. If we were going to talk, we could at least talk of useful things—it would, at minimum, quell the whisper in my mind which asked why I was so eager to keep answering him.
Focused now, I penned my reply. Have you heard of a tunnel that connects Fortblanche to Balmoore’s mainland?
A minute later, I stiffened as the flame gave another shiver and a scroll fell. One of my father’s? Not at all. Why do you ask?
I hadn’t the time to explain. A theory, I wrote back instead. The candle was silent for a long moment after I sent the message. Without fully knowing why, I found myself dashing out another. I spoke to Anais earlier. She told me Adélard makes his girls wear Woven lockets to inspire obedience.
Noé’s response was lengthier than his previous one.
It’s true, he wrote. Adélard mentioned them to Eliot and me earlier, actually—he’s very proud of the enchantment.
Offered to share it with us, in case our wives prove troublesome.
I never thought I’d learn of a charm which disgusted me more than the killing curse my father puts on his Woven goods, but here we are.
I smoothed my thumb over his words. As I finished reading them, another message came through the flame.
Tamerlane. You will never belong to Adélard.
How had he known Anais’s confession had planted that very worry in my heart? If we don’t find Sybil’s killer, I will.
If you fail to solve my father’s mystery, I will take you to a temple in the dead of night, and I will marry you before Father can speak a word against it. I told you I would make you my wife, Tamerlane, and I intend to keep my promise.
My chest tightened as I read the scroll. The candle is burning low, I wrote, eyeing the rapidly depleting pillar of wax. Why did you write me?
Noé did not seem bothered by my brusqueness. There is a passage in Wasting Season I was reflecting on, but I can’t quite recall it, he replied. I left it in the library before departing earlier. Will you transcribe it for me?
I furrowed my brow. A passage?
Chapter seventeen. Third page in the chapter, first line in the second paragraph.
I pressed my lips together. You’ve memorized it?
I sense incredulity. Why must you always doubt me, sweetheart?
The question made a vague feeling of embarrassment rise through me. Clearing my throat, I sent my response. Eliot once told me that you stole your love of reading from him.
It withered in the fire, then turned to ash. I busied myself mopping up the mess until the flame spat another scroll back, the paper knocking against my knuckle as if in chastisement.
Just because Eliot Lear loved something first does not mean I cannot love it better.
My cheeks blazed. I dropped the note, flustered by the sheer ferocity of my own reaction, nervous that he would somehow sense it, passed like a message through the flame. Really, Lovett, I thought. Give him his quote and be done with it.
Gathering myself, I exited my room and hurried to the library. Wasting Season was lying on the sofa just as it had been in the morning, still turned to its fourth chapter as if awaiting its owner’s return. Snatching it up, I departed.
By the time I reentered my bedroom, the candle had melted almost to its base.
Hurrying to the desk, I set the book down atop it, then flipped to chapter seventeen and ran my finger down its third page until I found the lines Noé had requested.
I copied them on a fresh scrap of paper, then let them burn in the weakening flame.
Here you are, my message read. “I saw her in the morning—she was intangible; I met her in the afternoon—she was unknowable; I held her in the evening, and then she was gone. And all else in life, I have found rotten aside from these three seeds, and the first two I have named Knife and Water, and the third I have named Death.”
It was, admittedly, a beautiful passage. The candle was still for a long while after I sent it, the wax pooling thickly atop the wood of the mantel. Just as I was beginning to wonder whether Noé had been pulled away from his side of the conduit, the fire jolted again.
His message, this time, was brief. That’s right, it said. Thank you.
Something about the solemnity of it, the conciseness, gave me pause. Why were you thinking of those lines?
I sent the question before I could stop myself. The paper burned only halfway before the wick fizzled altogether, a breath of white flame still gnawing at the scrap of scroll I held even though the candle itself had guttered out, like the echo of a voice after its speaker has departed.
With a flick of my wrist, I put it out. And all else in life, I have found rotten aside from these three seeds.
Unsettled, I sorted through the rest of his messages, eager for a distraction. Most of the scrolls had cooled by now; they curled in on themselves like dead bugs atop the wood.
My focus lingered on the longest missive Noé had sent, regarding Adélard’s Woven necklaces. I never thought I’d learn of a charm which disgusted me more than the killing curse my father puts on his Woven goods. Those words had caught me when I’d first read them—why?
Bastian’s killing curse. It had been a long while since I’d thought of the enchantment the Weaver King had informed me of on our drive back from the opera.
A charm meant to detect ill will toward Bastian in all who came in contact with it—there was a sick sort of genius in that.
He couldn’t possibly apply it to all of his Woven goods; many were sold through standard channels, and I doubted it would be good for business if random consumers began dropping dead after touching Alaire products.
He must reserve it for select items—those which, if they fell into the wrong hands, could prove incriminating.
At the thought, another one itched at my mind. Frowning, I went to my end table and dug out the newspaper clipping I’d shown Noé on our drive to Dorian’s—the one with the article on the Daboses’ independent autopsy.
I found the line I was searching for easily. A chambermaid present at the scene, who requested to remain anonymous, expanded on the disturbing findings: “She looked alive. Even beaten as she was…when the doctor opened her eyes, I swear they were glowing.”
My attention lingered on last word. Glowing.
Something snapped. My stomach twisted.
And at once, I knew who had killed Sybil Dabos.