Chapter Nine
From my presentation, I was quickly passed to another Alaire servant and ushered back into the labyrinth of Fortblanche, led down one murky corridor, then up another, until the receiving room was lost somewhere behind me like a discarded spool.
As I walked, I thought over the encounter I’d just exited.
All in all, I was not entirely displeased with my own performance.
Eliot’s unhelpfulness aside, Noé had seemed satisfied by my responses—not to mention, I’d taken several valuable lessons from my interaction with the only son of the Weaver King.
I recalled his listless expression, the way his interest in me had risen, first at the confirmation of Eliot’s backing, then again once I’d described my Wit.
He respected his friend’s opinion, that much was clear; more than that, though, it was apparent that, as his note had suggested, Noé Alaire was profoundly world-weary.
The manner in which he’d regarded me, just before I’d left—it was, I felt, the look of someone awaiting a dare.
That kind of restlessness…It could prove useful to me. Those eager for dares were often amenable to being pushed— preferably in whatever way best suited me, and the investigation I’d come to carry out.
My pulse sped with a surge of adrenaline. I could find Ophelia Lear’s killer. I would find them.
And I would never need to fear the cloisters again.
Ahead of me, the servant abruptly stopped in front of a pair of arched doors, nearly twice the height of the ones that had led into the receiving room, their panels carved with interlocking knots of wooden thread.
Lamplight spilled through the crack at the bottom, carrying with it bits of sound from the space beyond.
I detected raucous laughter, the cheerful clink of glasses, the tangled hum of a chorus of voices, all of them speaking over one another.
The servant rapped sharply on the doors, and they swung obediently inward like an eye blinking wide, pulled by a pair of footmen on the opposite side.
Before me extended a vast, glittering space—a ballroom, I quickly identified.
I seized up as, in unison, all the heads in the room swung toward me, the murmur of conversation faltering like a fumbled plate.
Silence compounded, humidified, and stuck to my skin.
Unsure of exactly what was required of me, I curtsied, the skirt of my dress pooling on the stone floor.
The gesture seemed to appease the onlookers; gradually, I felt their gazes slide away from me, the sound of their chatter once more rising to fill the silence.
Left blessedly alone, I moved farther into the room.
The crowd, though still intimidating, was smaller than I’d anticipated—a few dozen guests at most, all milling languidly about the space.
The intimacy made me feel my out-of-placeness more acutely; hoping to distract myself, I searched for Bastian Alaire’s hawkish, waxen face in the crowd but found no sign of him—nor of Eliot’s father, Reginald Lear, for that matter.
I wondered if the Weaver King and his right hand were waiting to make their grand entrance later, once all ten of Noé’s maidens had been presented.
How many of us are already here? I hadn’t encountered any other silkwitches on my walks to or from the receiving chamber, but now I let my gaze sweep over the ballroom, abruptly curious.
I saw no caul-wearing maidens amongst the guests clustered near the polished oak bar stretching along the far side of the room, nor dancing beneath the chandeliers, which dangled overhead like tree roots, globes of frosted glass sprouting from their ends.
The space’s exterior wall was almost entirely made up of windows, wider and nobler than the lancet-style ones in the throne room, looking out onto a sweeping balcony beyond.
Through the distorting blur of the rain, I could make out what appeared to be a thin ivory spine at one end of the landing, disappearing in the dimness: a staircase.
I recognized the feature from its description in the papers.
It led up to the White Terrace—the site of Ophelia’s death.
The hairs on my arms lifted as, shifting away from the windows, I noticed a pair of eyes tracking me from across the room.
A young brunette man in a sleek ebony suit was leaning against the bar, his drink held to his lips and his gaze directed my way.
When our stares met, he winked, lifting his glass higher as though in invitation to join him.
Tight-lipped, I shook my head subtly and glanced away.
My heart was pounding; though I was certain the boy was a stranger, there had been a second, however brief, when I’d seen him looking at me and been convinced he was one of my former marks.
The clutch of bodies around me, already stiflingly close, seemed to press nearer still.
Prior to my arrival at Fortblanche, I hadn’t given much thought to the possibility of my being recognized—my pseudonym, and Eliot’s protection, seemed like safeguards enough.
But a false name would not fool a man who knew my face, and as for my guardian, Eliot was nowhere to be seen.
As a Lear, I will survive the fall from grace.
You may not. Eliot’s words had never rung truer than they did now.
My earlier confidence suddenly felt ill earned, dissolving to nothing, like sea-foam.
Picking at the woven threads of my caul, I tried to calm my nerves. You are fine, Lovett. You’re fine.
Fine, perhaps—but I was also wholly alone.
A sudden swerve in my vision made panic leap in my chest. I hissed as a passing guest collided roughly with my shoulder, knocking me off-balance. I caught only a gust of gauzy lavender fabric, lifted as its wearer spun toward me, and then a hand was on my waist, steadying me.
“Outside. Behind the drapes, where the swordsman points. Be discreet.”
Along with the voice came a scent: floral, fresh, and pure in the way of sunlight after a rain.
It filled my nostrils and then was gone, the speaker slipping away into the throng of gentlemen hovering near the bar before I could catch a glimpse of them.
I saw the hem of a chiffon gown flash briefly like a flicking tail between the unsteady legs of a pair of guests, their arms thrown drunkenly over one another’s shoulders, then nothing at all.
Straightening, I put a palm to the place where the stranger’s hand had brushed me and turned in another circle, as if admiring the general splendor of the ballroom.
Near the back corner, half hidden behind a string orchestra on their stand, was a portrait: a Weaver on horseback, his sword held aloft and directed at some unseen target.
I followed the path of the weapon tip to a swath of brocade drapes, pulled partially across the back wall and covering the windows that lay beyond it.
Interesting. Given a target to redirect it, my anxiety receded. It seemed as though my earlier ponderings on the whereabouts of my fellow maidens were soon to be answered.
I had a feeling I was going to meet my competition.
I delayed a short while more, watching the couples spin across the dance floor at the center of the ballroom and demurely declining the few men that approached me.
After the final pair had taken their bows, I edged around the orchestra, moving quickly while the guests were distracted with their applause, and slipped behind the curtains.
The rain was louder here, drumming a steady rhythm against the windows, the space dark and womblike without the light of the golden chandeliers to illuminate it.
Set into the far edge of the wall, double doors led out onto the balcony; pushing them open, I stepped through, steeling myself for the frigid pounding of the rain.
It never came. Emerging on the other side of the threshold, I saw that this portion of the balcony was roofed, protected from the elements by another smaller terrace, which extended out from the floor above it, creating a makeshift ceiling.
A glittering veil of rain fell in an unbroken sheet past its edge.
It gave the pocket of dry space a protected, private feel, as if I’d ventured behind the white blanket of a waterfall, into the secluded hollow of a cave on the other side.
To my left, three girls sat perched on the wide windowsill, observing me.
“There she is.” The one in the middle was the first to speak—I recognized the alto rasp of her voice as the same one that had whispered instructions in my ear earlier.
The diaphanous pleats of her lavender gown were damp, clinging like wilted petals to her willowy frame; above them, clever green eyes watched me closely, set into a cherubic, pink-cheeked face.
Her blond curls were covered by a caul, like mine—though hers was far more elaborate, its threads beaded with dozens of glinting seed pearls—and while there was no sun to reflect off them, I knew without doubt that she was a silkwitch.
It wasn’t only her beauty; observing her, I felt a sort of terror, too, as if I had encountered a creature both more and less than human.
A girl like me.
“Nice work finding us, Miss Lovett,” she continued. “There was some debate, you know, when we heard you were coming from the country, but I said, ‘Girls, we must give her a chance before we deem her a complete simpleton,’ and look how well you’ve done. You’ve proven my instincts quite right.”
Lifting up the bottle at her feet, she tilted it my way, pale froth sloshing from its top. “Champagne?” she asked sweetly.
I shook my head at her offer, not moving from the place where I stood. “No, thank you,” I answered. “I find I am simple enough without adding alcohol to themix.”