Chapter Fifty
His eyes were dead, fixed unwaveringly on mine. When I saw the emptiness in them, I understood.
The meeting at the Diplomat. His words to me, just before we’d parted: Your wedding day—it will not be the celebration you think.
It hadn’t been a threat. It had been a promise. A warning.
And I’d failed to heed it.
Around me, chaos erupted. Eliot was still speaking—panic had clouded my mind, so that all I could make out was the constant, low buzz of his voice—but in the audience, guests were beginning to get to their feet.
I looked past them all toward the back of the room, where Bastian was standing, one elbow leaning against the ballroom bar.
In contrast to the rest of the crowd, the Weaver King looked unsurprised, even amused, by Eliot’s disclosure.
In one hand, he held a slim flute of champagne, freshly filled.
When he saw me staring at him, he smirked and lifted it toward me, and at the motion—at his smile, coy and slippery—I knew.
He’d planned this. Somehow, at some point, he and Eliot had conspired, and this was the result.
I started at the feel of Noé’s hand gripping my wrist. My mind collapsed back into my body; turning away from the Weaver King, I looked over at him.
My husband’s face was drawn, his skin pale. Still, it was in a steady, focused voice that he asked me, “Who do you trust?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Of the silkwitches,” Noé said evenly. “Who do you trust?”
His calmness cleared my mind. “Anais,” I breathed. I said it without thinking—when my brain caught up, I was startled to find I stood by my words.
Noé nodded. Reaching over me, he took Anais by the arm, turning the other silkwitch toward him.
His voice was stern and clear. “Get her out.”
Anais’s features contorted. Hissing, she ripped away from Noé’s grasp. “I don’t even know her.”
The loathing with which she said it made my stomach flip. Undeterred, Noé dug his fingers more firmly into Anais’s bicep. “Anais. You know me. This is not a matter you wish to test me on.” He leaned closer, his tone like steel. “Get. My wife. Out.”
Something seemed to pass between them—a bit of history, an understanding, exchanged like a note. I could barely believe it when, a second later, Anais relaxed—then begrudgingly nodded.
Noé released her, pivoting back to me. He took my face in both hands, tilting my forehead to press against his. There was a tremor in his fingers, a quiver subtle enough that I could sense it only in the places where his skin touched mine: the sole sign he was afraid.
“Library doors,” he murmured. “I’ll meet you there. Think of your extrapolations, Lovett. There is always a way out.”
He dropped my chin before I could say a word in response. Rising, Noé cast one final look toward me—strained, desperate—then turned and shouted, “Lear!”
Eliot glanced over just as my husband’s fist collided with his cheekbone.
The crowd, already whipped into a frenzy, exploded as the two of them toppled to the ground.
Somehow, the violence was clarifying; at least, I understood its purpose.
Noé was creating a distraction—giving us a chance to escape.
I couldn’t afford to waste it. Anais and I stood in the same moment, turning to face one another. Glaring at me, she spat, “Let’s go, Lovett.”
We dove into the crowd. At first, Anais tugged me toward the main ballroom doors, but I pulled her instead to the terrace—nearer to us, and emptied of guests thanks to the drizzle which had kicked up during the course of our dinner.
Rain pattered against our hair as we burst onto it, coating my wedding gown with moisture. Breathing hard, I sprinted the length of the terrace, to a pair of double doors at its far end which I knew led into the billiards room.
A couple of older men, evidently having chosen to exit the banquet early, blinked at me as I threw the doors open. Anais close behind me, I shoved past them, out of the rain and back into Fortblanche’s corridor once more.
“Sisters!” I shrieked as a body wheeled in front of me.
Mireille Laurent. The silkwitch’s hair had come free of her caul, wisping against the sleeve of her bridesmaid’s dress.
She was breathing hard; there was a knife in her hand, a pasty white substance smeared along its bottom edge.
Frosting. She must have grabbed it from the cake stand.
I pivoted back toward the billiards room just as the door to it thumped open. Delphine Barbier stood in the threshold, grasping a silver candlestick tight. Both girls looked positively murderous; I pressed closer to Anais, my pulse racing, as they began to close in.
Delphine shrieked. A white blur had jumped on the hem of her dress, scrambling up her body to tangle itself in her hair. Good Sister. I felt a surge of gratitude, as strong as a tide, as the mouse dug her claws into the silkwitch’s scalp, forcing her to drop her weapon.
Nathalie was right behind her, several more mice skittering at her feet.
For a moment after she appeared in the threshold of the billiards room, we locked eyes, neither of us moving.
Had she come to aid me? Or had Good Sister only dispatched Delphine so that her mistress stood a chance of killing me herself?
I stiffened. Nathalie took a step forward, her gaze still on mine…
And launched herself at Delphine.
Her mice swarmed after her. My heart in my throat, I shifted back toward Mireille—my remaining attacker—in the same second that the sharp sound of porcelain shattering issued from behind her.
Abruptly, the fair-haired silkwitch’s eyes rolled toward the back of her head.
She swayed where she was for a beat, then crumpled inelegantly to the ground, unconscious.
Standing in her place was Manon. She was gripping the jagged remnant of a patterned dinner plate in one hand, the rest of it scattered on the floor around her. Her eyes were saucer-wide and fearful, darting from Mireille’s body to the fragment of porcelain she was gripping to me.
Anais spoke first. “Manon!”
“Ani!” The other silkwitch’s voice seemed to focus Manon; she looked past me, her gaze fastening on Anais, to my back. “I—you’re helping her?” Her expression gentled.
Anais melted beneath it. “Of course,” she effused, stepping around me toward Manon. “As if I would’ve made any other choice.”
I scoffed. At the sound, Manon straightened, her cheeks coloring. “Cecilia!” she cried out. “Or—Miss Tamerlane. Are you all right?”
Anais was less sympathetic. Stooping, she picked up the cake knife from Mireille’s prone body and pressed it into my hand. “Move or be caught,” she commanded. Then, catching Manon’s reproving look, “If you please, that is.”
I glanced back at Nathalie. She’d pinned Delphine to the ground, mice rushing over the other witch’s body, but Delphine was still struggling. As I watched, she managed to grab a section of Nathalie’s hair and pulled.
Nathalie shrieked and pushed her away. “Go,” she spat, peering up at me. “She’s a fighter.”
As if in confirmation, Delphine’s form shivered. Abruptly, she disappeared, a raven fluttering out from between Nathalie’s arms. Several mice launched themselves at the bird in pursuit, which rapidly flew up toward the ceiling, evading them.
I didn’t wait for it to come down again. In unison, Anais, Manon, and I took off, sprinting for the library entrance.
By some miracle, we reached it without further interruption. Like the corridors we’d passed through, the area was abandoned, two halls meeting in a T-shaped intersection with the oak double doors at their center.
Anais pressed an ear against the wood, listening for voices on the other side. Pulling back, she asked, “What now?”
I didn’t know. Noé had told me to come here—why?
I thought through the extrapolations I’d discovered thus far.
I could reach out to another door, the way I’d done when Manon had pushed me from the landing and then again during the Maiden’s Race, but all I’d accomplish would be jumping us to another place within Fortblanche.
Most of the guests had likely fled the ballroom by this point; soon, the estate would be flooded with them.
We’d leap away from one set of pursuers and into the arms of others.
Not that, then. What else? The binding ritual threaded into the marriage ceremony meant my power was now tied to Noé, but from what he’d explained to me at the end of the Vainglory, the transition wasn’t an instant severing—more a gradual draining, magic moving from one body to another.
The more he called on my Wit, the more it would be coaxed out of me and into him, until he possessed all of it and I, none.
That meant for now, I could still use it. To do what, though?
“I can lock us in.” I felt confident the doors would listen to that command, though by barricading ourselves behind them, we’d essentially be trapped.
Anais came to the same conclusion. “They’ll break the entrance down, and we’ll be caught,” she said impatiently. “Dammit. Just when my reputation was starting to improve.”
I ignored her. Focus, Lovett, focus. What had Noé said, exactly? Think of your extrapolations. There is always a way out.
I bit down on my cheek, my mind drifting back weeks, months, all the way to the end of the Vainglory, when Noé had first described the concept of extrapolations to me. Imagine my mother’s Wit as a root of power, he’d said. What else might a gift such as hers grow into?
Desperately, I applied the same logic to myself.
Opening doors—that was the core of my Wit.
And expansion of it could be commanding doors, more generally—making them open and close upon my orders, even transporting myself to them from relatively far away, as I’d learned to do—and an expansion of that… ?
Forging new doors. Making new paths. My eyes snapped open. “I think I can take us someplace else.”
Anais and Manon exchanged glances. Ignoring them, I turned back to the library doors.
Where to? We needed to get away from Fortblanche, that much was certain, but without testing my Wit, I wasn’t sure how far I could push it.
Somewhere on the Isle d’Eylau, then. A meaningful destination, one I knew well—could picture clearly in my head. Like…
It came to me in an instant. Breathing deeply, I shoved away everything except for myself and my Wit, curled up within me. There was nothing I understood as well as my magic. It was intrinsic to me—no, it was me, even if it was now connected to Noé.
It would come when I called it.
Exhaling, I tugged on my power…
And without fail, it answered.
Stepping forward, I opened the library doors. Before the threshold, where I stood, Fortblanche’s corridor remained the same as ever. But on the other side of it…
Stood room fifteen at the Diplomat hotel.
I let out a breath of relief, my head swimming with the effort of exerting my magic. To my back, I heard Manon gasp, “How…?”
Dropping the door handles, I stepped back to make room for her and Anais. “Go through.”
They did, Anais taking Manon by the elbow and prompting her to follow. The air shimmered with an iridescent slick as they crossed over the threshold, like they were passing through the skin of a bubble—and, at once, they were through it, standing in the hotel room.
I was close behind them. The door allowed me to pass easily, admitting me to the room on the other side, but when I went to close it and cut the connection, I hesitated.
Noé had said he’d meet me here. Though I knew he’d encourage me to, I didn’t want to leave him without saying goodbye.
I’d abandoned Eliot during the Vainglory, when I’d dropped his hand and taken his friend’s. I did not want to abandon Noé.
The sound of footsteps from the far end of the corridor we’d come down jolted me. Relief slipping through my veins, I stepped forward just as a figure rounded the corner.
Dark hair. Sharp eyes. Pale olive skin.
Not Noé. Clio Lavoie.
The other silkwitch halted when she saw me. In her left hand, she was clutching something—a small pearl-handled pistol. I had no idea where she’d procured it, though as for who might have given it to her, I had a guess: Bastian.
Steadily, she raised the gun. I dropped back as, to my right, there came another burst of noise—not from the hallway we’d passed through this time, but the one which intersected it, extending out to my side.
Noé’s face slackened with relief as he took me in. Then he registered the terror lighting my expression, and he stiffened.
Three things happened at once.
Clio’s finger moved to the trigger.
Noé took off, sprinting toward me.
And I remembered Clio’s Wit: perfect tracking. From there, it was not a large jump to…
Perfect aim. When she shot that gun, she would not miss.
My heart stopped. I’d dropped the door handles when I thought I’d heard Noé, but now I reached for them again, stretching across the threshold of the hotel room back into Fortblanche.
My husband got there first. Positioning himself in front of me, he gripped the edges of both doors, his body bridging the gap between them.
His eyes met mine. “I love you,” he said. “Don’t forget it.”
He slammed the doors closed just as, from behind him, I heard the gun go off.