Chapter Four #2
Eliot glanced at me sidelong, his manner expectant. “And?” he prodded impatiently. “It was the talk of the capital last year. Surely, the rumors extended further than that?”
“You asked me what I know, not what I’ve heard,” I supplied more sharply.
“They are different questions—I would expect a man of society to understand the line between gossip and fact. But, fine. I know also that ten silkwitches were chosen to attend, and when the event concluded, only nine were left.”
I wondered if Eliot would flinch at my rebuttal, but the reference to his sister only seemed to harden him—to my side, his jaw flexed.
“All true,” he replied when I finished. “For reasons relating to privacy, the Alaires did their best to keep the specifics of the affair rather…vague…last summer. To be candid, I don’t think Bastian would have turned down the chance for a spectacle, but Noé preferred otherwise.
The silkwitches you refer to were handpicked by Bastian himself—and the selection process was grueling, to say the least. Families in our circles began bribing Bastian the moment they got wind of the competition, in many cases whether their daughters wished them to or not.
” He sighed. “Be grateful you avoided it,” he said grimly. “Dreadful circus that it was—”
“But why bother with such an unorthodox matchmaking scheme at all?” I interrupted, frowning.
“I’ve always wondered. The Alaire Weavers are the most renowned sorcerers in the nation, and the wealthiest by far, even if they are controversial.
Certainly, the son of a man like the Weaver King would have silkwitches fighting for his hand regardless of setting? ”
Eliot arched a brow. “I asked Noé the same,” he answered.
“He would not say as much, but…my friend has always been a bit of a romantic. I think his father feared that if the choice of a wife were left up to him, he would follow his heart, rather than his head. Making the courtship process more formal allowed Bastian to define prospective brides by his terms, rather than his son’s.
And…” He paused. “It is as you stated. When it comes to your kind and mine, the path to a ring is always a battle. The competition simply…crystallized it.”
I knew what he meant. As much as I despised the society mamas who had cast me out of the marriage mart a year ago, there was a part of me that recognized, had our positions been opposite, I would have done the exact same.
After all, riches aside, no amount of coins could produce more Weavers.
If there were roughly three dozen sorcerers of marrying age in our nation at any given time, there were likely twice that many silkwitches—a minuscule number, by any other measure, but considering each eligible man could take only a single wife, still vastly too many.
And unlike Bastian Alaire, the cloisters were not swayed by bribes.
Considered through that lens, I understood how a tournament like the one the Weaver King had concocted, as risky as it was, would seem the fairer fight.
I straightened. “Go on.”
“As you know, a victor was never crowned last summer—my sister died before the winner could be named, and after her passing, the Alaires ended the proceedings in her honor.” Eliot obliged after a moment.
“The decision was unpopular with several of the more influential silkwitches’ families, to say the least, and so this year, the nine surviving girls have been invited back.
Nine veterans…and one new face, to fill the tenth and final spot. ” His eyes focused on mine. “You.”
A chill dragged a nail down my neck at the reverence in his voice—as if I were a key for him to turn—but I held his gaze. “Will it not look suspicious?” I questioned. “You, producing an unknown silkwitch out of nowhere—out of the gutters—to step in for your sister?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve told Noé you’re the orphaned ward of my great-uncle—Mr.Elio James.
He passed away last year when his estate burned in a fire, and prior to that, he was notoriously reclusive.
A bachelor. I stayed a fortnight with him a few summers ago while traveling, but beyond that, no one in my family had seen him for the past half decade before his death.
Even my father cannot contest my claims, though I believe he doubts the notion that Uncle Elio could be so charitable. ”
A slight frown creased his forehead, carving a line between his brows.
“From what Noé has relayed to me, Bastian initially pressed him to have me select a more established silkwitch, from a known family, to replace Ophelia, but it is Noé’s marriage in question—he has the final word, and he has promised to support my choice. I think—”
Abruptly, he stopped, the sunset tracing the sloping lines of his profile so that his features were glazed in hot orange.
“I believe it is his way of making things up to me,” he admitted a second later. Something tugged at my organs at the reluctant quality of his speech: a disused muscle, almost like sympathy.
Neither of us is a good person. I pressed his earlier words forcibly up against my heart.
Pitying him, relating to him, would be of no use to me—he’d already told me who he was, and if our roles were reversed, I doubted he’d extend me a comforting hand unless he could use it to pull himself up as well.
Biting down on the inside of my lip, I looked away toward the windows, where the evening was continuing to descend.
“The other silkwitches will not appreciate your presence, but they will be unable to protest it—not when they’ve been given a second chance at Noé themselves,” Eliot continued, collected once more. “Still, it will not do to go in uneducated.”
At last, he unfolded the paper in his hand, spreading it on the table before us.
Running down its center was a log of names, crowned by a brief message: Lear—I’ve gotten the full list from Father, so you know who your girl will be up against. Aside from Ophelia, they’re all returning. Pick well—I can’t bear another bore.
A thrill went down my spine as I read the note: unsigned, but nonetheless, I sensed the hand lingering behind it as if I could see it before me, holding the pen.
Noé Alaire—the son of the Weaver King himself—had written these words.
For a moment, I imagined him—dark-haired, like his father, hunched over a desk, scrawling these letters across the page.
I did not know whether he shared Bastian’s talent for mind reading; if I faced him now, would he be able to sort through my thoughts as his father could?
Would he find the deceit knitted within them?
My gaze snagged on the message’s close. Pick well.
Inhaling, I turned my eyes back toward the names.
There were nine in total, stacked neatly, one atop another.
Nathalie Moreau. Delphine Barbier. Mireille Laurent.
Elspeth Winn. My throat tightened as I skimmed down the row.
How many residents of this very capital had spent days—weeks—attempting to conjure these girls out of obscurity after the conclusion of the competition last time around?
How many tabloids would pay a small fortune for even a single name off this list?
And soon enough, I would be one of them.
“All the girls you’ll be competing against have played the Alaires’ game before.
” Next to me, Eliot spoke, the abrupt reminder of his presence startling.
“More important, all of them have lost it once already, meaning they’ll be desperate not to repeat their mistakes.
Underestimating any of them would be foolish, but there are a few in particular… ”
His index finger traveled down the page, pausing at an entry near the middle of the list.
“?‘Anais Tremblay,’?” he read aloud. “Born of a Weaver line, like Noé and me. They called her grandfather the Puppet Master of Eylau—his magic granted him the ability to inhabit the bodies of others while they slept.” His lip curled.
“Anais inherited his talent for manipulation, along with his utter lack of regard for the privacy of others.”
Disturbed, I bent closer to the paper, tensing when Eliot twisted to catch my eye.
“Her Wit allows her to compel any person to speak the truth with merely a brush of her lips,” he said. His voice was low, as if he hadn’t anticipated my nearness; his gaze drifted toward my mouth for a fraction of a second before lifting away again, focusing back on the paper in front of us.
“Be wary of her,” he continued brusquely. “She deals in gossip and delights in peddling the sins of others, but she is loyal to only one person—and I mean only .”
His stare dipped farther downward, his finger stopping at the name a few lines beneath Anais’s.
“Manon Blanc,” he stated. “Heir to the Blanc shipping empire and Anais’s closest confidante—as well as the hound to her hunter.
They complement one another in every way, including their Wits.
” His nostrils flared in distaste. “Manon’s affects her senses; specifically, she can smell hidden things, be they physical objects, or secrets. ”
Eliot’s chin cut back my way. “You’ll need to take special care around them both,” he instructed. “If Manon scents deceit within you, Anais will pull it out.”
I frowned, my lips parting to question him further, but his attention was already darting to the next entry on the list, oblivious to me.
“Clio Lavoie was also a favorite amongst the Weavers in attendance last year, as well as Marie-Louise Rochefort, to a lesser degree,” he said, tapping the names in turn.
“The Rocheforts are a Weaver line; the Lavoies are not, but Clio’s Wit attracted a great deal of interest last year, including from Noé himself.
She possesses what she calls perfect targeting—she can find anything, so long as she has a sufficient mental image of the object she is searching for. ”