Chapter Twelve
The note was slipped under my door just before dawn, arriving with a swish like a broom scraping over the stone floor.
I was lying in bed, awake, when it came, though I did not fetch it immediately.
After returning from my exploration of Fortblanche, I’d fallen into an uneasy, shallow slumber for only a couple of hours before my dreams—full of snaking tunnels and wide-bellied rooms like empty stomachs—pulled me awake again.
The skirt of my nightgown had been damp and gritty with tunnel dirt when I’d crawled into bed; I’d changed into another, but all through the night I swore I could still smell earth on my sheets, a heady mix of petrichor and loam, like the air after a hard rain.
Only when the sun’s yellow spread had fully eclipsed the final remnants of the night did I rise and retrieve the paper. The letter was plain, bearing no address or sender—just a single sentence in now-familiar cursive script looping across its middle:
Meet me when you wake.
On the note’s back, a dashed list of instructions directed me to the intended meeting place.
Even if I had not recognized Eliot’s penmanship from the note he’d packed away in my trunk the day before, I would have read him in the spareness of the message itself—the detached way its writer dispatched a command and then stepped back, without any consideration for how I might follow, as clear as any signature could be.
I skimmed the list of directives three times, then lit one of the taper candles that were stocked in my bedside drawer and burned the paper in my fireplace.
Once the last of Eliot’s words had been reduced to snowy gray ash, I crossed to the standing mirror in the corner of my room and examined myself in it, grimacing at the sight of the girl who stared back at me.
My midnight quest had left its marks. Exhaustion thumbed dark circles beneath my eyes and hollowed my cheeks, my hair snarled and matted in its braid like a wild creature’s.
In the looking glass, my reflection regarded me suspiciously, as if waiting for me to step aside, reveal whether I was hiding another more sinister creature behind me.
I flinched as, just as it had the day before, my mirror caught the sun’s glare and threw it back at me, a slant of light glancing across my vision and making me turn my chin.
Irritated, I glanced reproachfully toward my window, but the sky beyond was clouded, its dull, ashen coloring almost indiscernible from that of the calm morning sea.
I looked back toward my reflection, blinking. The harsh gleam that had blinded me only a second ago did not assault me again; it was almost as if the mirror had been a coin in someone’s palm, tilted toward the light for a moment and then angled back away.
Curious.
Putting the thought to the side for now, I began the arduous process of unpacking the rest of my trunk and cleaning myself up as best I could.
During yesterday’s flurry of arrivals, I’d learned that several of the other maidens had brought squadrons of maids with them to aid in their upkeep, but my benefactor’s generosity seemed to have ended at supplying me with his dead sister’s garments, and so I kept my wardrobe choice simple: a high-necked rose frock with flounces on the shoulders and a cascade of pearl buttons down the front.
Carefully pinning up my tresses in another caul—this one gold, its weave fashioned of delicate metal chains rather than netting—I gave myself a final once-over in the mirror and, moderately pleased, departed my room.
—
As predicted, it took me nearly a half hour to track Eliot’s meeting place down, his jumbled list of directions like a knot of yarn, confounding me further with every attempt to tease meaning out.
Eventually, though, I managed to follow his instructions up a flight of spiraling stone stairs to the arrowed peak of one of Fortblanche’s many spires, where my path ended in front of a stout green door, hunched beneath the steepled ceiling like a crouching child.
Opening it, I stepped into a cozy circular chamber, its floor sunk beneath a pile of thick, faded rugs and its walls bare except for several tarnished globe lamps, which painted the room in cheerful orange light despite the overcast sky glowering beyond the crosshatched windows.
Eliot was sprawled in an armchair near the back of the space—one half of a matching, frayed pair, which made up the room’s only furnishings—a book in his lap and his head bent toward it.
He was dressed in a brown checked morning suit, his waistcoat flapping, partially unbuttoned, beneath it.
Perhaps it was the tightness of the quarters, perhaps just the fact that I had not seen him since the previous night, but he appeared taller than I remembered, his limbs loose and long with… Could it be… ease ?
Upon my entrance, he flipped to the next page of his book unhurriedly, not bothering to glance up at me. “Late sleeper, are you?”
His voice had a sarcastic curl to it, his question trilling down my spine like descending piano keys. I straightened, batting the sensation away. “I’m surprised you didn’t come and rouse me yourself,” I replied tersely. “You certainly seemed to enjoy following me around last night.”
The rasp of paper filled the room as Eliot turned another page, his attention still firmly fixed on the text in front of him—though the corner of his mouth lifted at my words.
“That balcony is not private, no matter how fervently your new friends attempt to claim it as theirs,” he drawled in response.
“I warned you to be careful around Anais. Though, if it is of any comfort, I tried my best to make you sound as uninteresting as possible when she asked.”
At last, he lifted his head, his hazel gaze meeting my dark one.
I was caught off guard by the mirth in it—like an outstretched hand when I had expected a slap.
Without my willing it to, my mind drifted back to the hot impression of his fingers, wrapping securely around my wrist when I’d started to fall last night. Pulling me up.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, jolting myself free of the memory. So he’d woken in a good mood this morning; that did not mean I needed to play along.
“I’m sure that you did,” I answered neutrally. Turning away from him, I cast my eyes over the cramped dimensions of the spire room. “What is this place?”
“Somewhere Noé and I used to come as children.” Following the path of my stare, Eliot closed his book and set it to the side. “I believe he’s all but forgotten it now. We won’t be bothered here.”
Curious, I crossed to the nearest window, peering past the grid of thin black bars intersecting the glass.
On their other side, Fortblanche extended, the start of the Isle d’Eylau’s cliffs visible beneath its bulk.
I mentally traced the steep lines of the rocks, following them as they swept out—then rapidly down.
“Wonderful,” I said, twisting back to face Eliot. “Then you can tell me why you summoned me without fear of interruption.”
Eliot’s dark brows arched. Sitting back in his chair, he regarded me silently, several seconds passing before he spoke again. “How did you enjoy your first evening at Fortblanche?”
Frustrated by his deflection, I turned half away, tapping a nail against the windowpanes. “Why, Mr.Lear, I just loved it. I revel in self-humiliation.” Frowning, I shot him a glare. “How do you think I enjoyed it?”
Another smirk, this one more sympathetic than its predecessor. “You did better than you think,” Eliot said, his tone placating. “Noé was intrigued—he asked me about you afterward.”
“I barely said two words to him.”
“And he filled your silence in with whatever he pleased,” Eliot countered smoothly. “As you probably gathered from the nature of his trial, Noé’s always enjoyed a mystery. No harm in allowing him to make you into one.”
I scoffed. “Mysteries imply the existence of the unknown. Can such a concept even be conceived of by a boy like him?” Meeting Eliot’s gaze, I leaned one shoulder against the stone wall. “I heard Bastian Alaire’s voice in my head last night.”
Eliot did not contest the claim, though his expression tightened.
“Weaver abilities are like silkwitches’ Wits—distinct to each man,” he replied after a moment.
“Noé is not his father, in more ways than one. And if you’re worried about Bastian discovering your deception, don’t be—his powers are a scalpel, able to pierce deeply and keenly, but not widely.
So long as you avoid arousing his suspicions, you should be fine. ”
I weighed his response. “Reassuring,” I said. “And what kind of instrument would you compare your own abilities to? I assume you have at least some to speak of—you are a Weaver, after all.”
His chin lifted as I spoke, his eyes narrowing as if to better track mine. Defiantly, I crossed my arms, tugging my own head higher. The reaction seemed to focus him—he leaned forward, his gaze suddenly keener, as though noticing me for the first time.
“Now, that, Miss Lovett,” he said a second later, “is none of your concern.”
He dropped his head, and the tension dissipated.
“If you’re finished with your questions about Noé—”
“I have one more, actually,” I interjected before he could finish. “Were Noé and your sister ever romantically involved? Or if not him, perhaps she had another suitor that you knewof?”
“Ophelia and Noé?” Incredulity twisted Eliot’s features. “Absolutely not—he’s been in love before, but not with her. Why would you ask that?”