Chapter Fifty-Five
Morning came too quickly.
I woke to the sound of rain beating steadily against the turret roof. Thunder rumbled low in the distance; past Noé’s bedroom windows, the sea was gray and flat, sunk back on its haunches. The horizon was dark, as yet unbroken by dawn—a storm was rolling in.
Next to me, Noé stirred. I turned to look at him as he shifted on the pillows, angling his body toward me. We’d passed most of the night awake in this very bed, planning at first—then, once we’d caught one another up on all we’d missed while apart, simply talking.
He smiled as he took me in. It faded when he registered my expression—my features resolute, my knees pulled up to my chest, and my arms looped around them, clutching myself close. “Leaving already?”
Reaching down, I twined my fingers with his. “I’ll be back soon.”
He did not protest, only squeezed my hand once and pulled me toward him. Acquiescing, I slipped back beneath the sheets; he gathered me close, kissing my shoulder, then my jaw.
His fingers traced my ear, his voice rough with sleep. “Be careful, hmm?”
A flare of heat lit my low belly at his touch, but I pushed it aside, nodding. Outside, another peal of thunder broke through the rainy haze; using the sound as an excuse, I wriggled away from him, swinging my feet over the side of the bed to the floor.
The air was cold—chilly with the promise of the storm. Shivering, I dressed quickly in the same frock I’d worn the prior night, before crossing to the sitting-room entrance.
“Lovett.”
I turned. Noé had propped himself up against the headboard, watching me with a pensive expression.
For a moment after I sighted him, I wondered whether he would call me back to his side.
Perhaps now that we were wed, he would prefer to keep me close, ensure the only chaos I doled out was done at his discretion.
Instead, he only winked. “Go get her, Tamerlane.”
I breathed a laugh. Shaking my head, I faced back toward the door, my Wit curling tight in anticipation as I took the knob firmly in hand. Twisted it.
In front of me, the open doorway yawned. And once more, I stepped through.
—
The bedroom where Clio was staying was dark.
I could hear the rain as I crossed over the threshold, whispering softly beyond the curtains, but I could not see it.
I was in a square chamber, cloaked in blackness; ahead of me, various pieces of furniture stood, providing texture to the gloom.
There wasn’t much: I made out a writing desk and chair against one wall, a washstand in the corner.
A bed—and a girl slumbering within it.
Silently, I pulled the door closed behind me.
It had taken Marie-Louise the better part of our journey to pinpoint Clio’s whereabouts.
From my conversation with Eliot, I knew the two were still engaged, and that the other silkwitch had gotten away with her wounding of my husband.
Still, part of me assumed that Eliot would have taken at least some distance from her after what she’d done.
I was wrong. Instead, the Owl had found Clio in the Lear family’s townhome, only a bedroom away from Eliot’s own.
I drew nearer. Something glinted as I approached Clio’s bedside: a knife.
She’d placed it beneath her pillow, the blade poking out, lying against the mattress like a flat silver tongue.
Her hand lay not far from it—if I were to guess, I’d have bet she’d fallen asleep gripping it, only for her fingers to unclench while she slumbered.
It appeared she was expecting me.
Carefully, I climbed onto the mattress, my hand finding the knife’s hilt and teasing it out from under the pillow. By the time her eyes blinked open, I already had the blade to her throat.
I slapped my other hand over her mouth before she could scream. Her gaze narrowed on me, crouched over her with her torso clamped between my legs, then darted sideways to a bellpull dangling above her nightstand. Pinned beneath her bedcovers, I felt her arm tense.
“Your door will not open unless I command it to.” I spoke softly, stilling her before she could move. “If you summon Eliot or his father, they won’t be able to reach you—only pound on your walls and distract me. And if they distract me, my hand might slip.”
I jerked the knife in demonstration. Her eyes bored into mine, hatred radiating from them; even so, a second later, she relaxed her arm.
I hummed in approval. “That’s better,” I said. “Nice to see you, Clio.”
Her responding mutter was muffled by my palm. Removing it, I wiped the flecks of her spit on her pillow and gestured for her to speak again.
She scowled. “I said, that bullet was meant for you, not him.”
“And yet it is he, not I, who bears the scars.” My smile was chilly enough that Clio quaked beneath it. Adjusting my grip on the knife, I leaned closer. “We’ll get to the bullet,” I murmured. “First, I would like to know what you’ve done with the gloves you stole from me.”
The other silkwitch stared at me. “I told you, I didn’t take any Sisters-damned gloves.”
“And I told you, you were the only girl at our bridal dinner whose magic could have shown you where to find them,” I rebutted.
“Anyone else would have gone to my room—the place where I said the accessories were hidden—if they wanted to retrieve them, but you headed straight for the turret. I’m assuming you didn’t realize my Wit would inform me when you entered, yes?
” I winked at her. “Lucky Eliot was around to cover for you. Did he see you with the gloves once the pair of you had left Fortblanche? Is that why he told me before my wedding that you frightened him—because he’d realized you were just as much of a liar as me? ”
It was a wild guess, but instinct told me it was the right one to make.
Clio held my gaze. Even in the dimness of her bedroom, I could see her mind working—weighing the strength of my argument, feeling it for holes.
Her brain was like a great puzzle box; there were mazes within it, and then traps tucked away beneath those, all of them coming together in an elaborate construct of dark machinery hidden inside her skull.
I shivered against my will. She was a formidable opponent.
Eventually, Clio tilted her head. Her throat bobbed against the tip of my blade; calmly, she said, “Conjecture.”
I smirked. “Is it?” I asked from above her.
“Let’s take the story further back. I have seen you several times since the Vainglory, and on each occasion, you’ve matched the color of your gloves to that of your dress.
It seems to be a preference of yours—yet on the night of Sybil Dabos’s death, you were wearing white gloves when you came to alert me to her passing. White, though your dress was green.”
Finally, a reaction. Clio’s pert nose twitched, her abdomen clenching where I gripped it between my thighs. Progress. My heart lurched.
“They did not match your gown because they were not yours,” I asserted.
“You discarded your pair after you exited the tunnels, trading them for Anais Tremblay’s, which she’d dropped earlier in the evening.
Your gloves were ripped. You couldn’t wear them, else someone might have asked questions as to your whereabouts, so you hid them in the first place you could find—a vase in a corridor near the ballroom.
“You meant to go back and fetch them after the gathering was over, but Manon Blanc found them first,” I continued after a beat.
Clio had altogether stopped pretending to feign disinterest by this point; her eyes were honed blades, digging into mine.
“That the gloves were not in your possession would have seemed an intolerable risk to you. What if Manon realized that they were yours and attempted to find out why you’d hidden them?
With your Wit, it would have been simple for you to keep tabs on their location, waiting for an opportunity to arise where you could retrieve them again.
When the gloves left Manon’s townhome and came to my bedroom, you must have sensed that chance was nigh. ”
I arched a brow at her, careful all the while to keep the edge of my knife pressed against her neck. Clio’s body was coiled as tight as a wire; the second I let up, I had no doubt she would strike.
“Just over three weeks ago, Bastian Alaire asked me to find Sybil’s killer,” I told her levelly. “I don’t believe that person was you, but I do require an explanation. What were you doing in the tunnels that night?”
Clio snorted. “I didn’t kill Sybil.”
I was grateful that the dimness masked the surprise on my face. I hadn’t expected her to concede so easily. “A fine start,” I said warily. Then with a dip of the blade: “Go on.”
She winced. I could see her still considering the bellpull, her gaze darting toward it every so often when she thought I was not looking, though she had yet to reach for it again.
Her reticence concerned me as much as it soothed me.
If she was not calling for help, it was likely because she’d concocted an alternative scheme.
I needed to play this very carefully.
After a minute, Clio spoke. “It was because of the first trial.”
For a second, her meaning slipped past me. When I finally grasped it, I frowned. “The first trial of the Vainglory?” I asked, uncomprehending. “The one involving secrets?”
Clio started to nod, only to stop short as my knife wedged against her. “A secret Noé did not know,” she quoted dryly. “Ridiculous—I thought so even then.” She sighed. “That night, I asked my Wit to show me such a secret. It gave me an image: a pair of coins cupped in a hand.”
My brow furrowed. “It can do that?”