Chapter Seventeen
I woke to a knock on my door. Around me, my bedroom was bright with morning, sunlight reflecting off the brass candlestick on the desktop, which had tipped over during my slumber and now lay nestled against my arm.
I’d fallen asleep in my seat, surrounded by curling scraps of paper like fingernail clippings, waiting for the wick to light again and split the darkness with its luminescent burn.
It never had. My mystery correspondent’s last message remained the grim period at the end of our conversation, their ashen words all the more portentous, somehow, when viewed in the cheery glow of day.
Ophelia Lear killed herself with her questions.
Muttering, I got up and went to the door, wincing as a muscle in my abdomen gave a sudden twinge—my body evidently protesting my unorthodox sleeping arrangement.
Blearily accepted a letter from the Alaire footman behind it.
My drowsiness dissipated when I saw the paper had been sealed with the Alaire sigil—the wheel and the A —like a rosebud in its center.
Working my finger under the wax, I popped it free, unfolding the note beneath.
My intriguing Miss Lovett,
Our conversation has left me feeling introspective. I will be waiting in the central cloister at half past nine. Come, and tell me more about myself.
Noé’s signature was as laconic as the rest of him, a drawling, indistinct flourish like a black-inked smirk.
I ran my finger beneath it, contemplating the message above.
It seemed my stunt, as Eliot had called it, to capture his friend’s attention had worked—though Noé’s interest in me had the potential to become hazardous if I did not take care, considering I had no aspirations of becoming his bride.
Even so, if I truly wished to discover the secrets of Fortblanche—including the identity of Ophelia’s confidante—there could be no person better toask.
I made my way to the ground floor directly after dressing, Eliot’s coin stowed discreetly in the side of my left slipper and my caul in place.
The scent of the cloisters reached me before any other part of them, loamy and herbal, with a pungent bitterness that burned in my nostrils.
Light followed soon afterward; farther up the passage I was walking on, the monotonous interior grayness of the estate’s halls was cut through by a watery, pale wash of sun.
I approached and saw a central garden, surrounded by four arched walkways and ripe with plant life, green bushes and gnarled, twisted trees shivering gently in the morning rain.
Noé was leaning against one of the arches, his head bowed to read a slim clothbound book.
With his free hand, he held his suit jacket, which he’d slung carelessly over his shoulder, exposing the slightly disheveled white shirt and suspenders beneath.
A fine mist of drizzle hung around him, kissing his raven hair with moisture, but he seemed unbothered by the dampness, wholly engrossed in his reading.
He looked up at the sound of my heels clicking against the stone floor, his gray eyes brightening. Even they appeared softer under the haze of the rain, a pretty ashen color like a dove’s wing.
“Good morning. You look lovely.” Noé ducked his chin in greeting, slipping his book into his pocket. Leisurely, he shrugged his jacket on, then gestured at a pair of sleek black umbrellas balanced against the archway. “How do you feel about walking in the rain?”
I felt poorly about it, having no desire to ruin Ophelia’s fine dress—likely worth more than what I could have earned through a half dozen thefts—with mud and wet, but I knew better than to voice this aloud.
“I will permit it, so long as you agree to sit by my bedside and feed me soup if I fall ill,” I replied archly.
Noé chuckled; I’d answered correctly. “Naturally,” he said, nodding. “It would be preferable to another interminable ball, in any case.” Taking one of the umbrellas by the handle, he extended its tip toward me. “Here—catch.”
I did, the lacquered wood slippery with moisture as I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled it from the air.
With another approving smile, Noé directed me through the archway and into the cloister beyond.
The onyx crowns of our umbrellas popped open in unison as we stepped onto one of the garden paths wending through the greenery, flexing against the rain like bullfrogs’ stomachs.
We wandered in silence for a minute, the veil of drizzle and the lingering remnants of the morning’s fog rapidly shading the house around us into obscurity.
I let my fingers trail over the drooping head of a violet as we passed it by, its petals slick with dew that coated my skin like a dog’s tongue.
“So,” Noé said, glancing sidelong at me as we walked, “Father wasn’t pleased about my seeking you out today.
To be perfectly candid, if the decision were left up to him, I’m fairly certain you’d have been sent home with Miss Moreau and Miss Laurent last night.
” He slipped his free hand into the pocket of his trousers as he spoke.
“Fortunately for you, he and his lackeys are so petrified I’ll lose my nerve and call this whole competition off that they’re unwilling to poke me as hard as usual. ”
To my surprise, he withdrew a crumpled packet of cigarettes, flipping the flimsy lid open and bringing one to his lips.
The cherry ignited smoothly upon his inhale, without any sort of match or spark, flaring a searing white rather than red: Woven, of course.
When he noticed me eyeing it, Noé arched a brow as if in wordless challenge.
Ah—so this was another test, then. I met his stare, keeping my own level and my face impassive.
“Do you share your vices or only flaunt them in front of your guests?”
A twitch of his mouth. Noé held the open packet out to me, his own cigarette clenched neatly between his teeth.
I noticed an Alaire sigil stamped in gold foil near the package’s bottom—likely, this product had been crafted by Bastian’s own artisans, in a workroom not dissimilar to the one I’d visited my first night at Fortblanche.
I recalled my own hair, wound around the golden spool and ferried away from me to bolster the Weaver King’s stores, and suppressed a wince.
“Excuse me,” Noé said. “Would you like one?”
I regarded the packet, then lifted my chin primly. “No, thank you. They are horrible for the breath.”
He laughed then, and I felt satisfaction spread to my toes.
“You’re not the type of girl I expected Lear to pick, you know,” he said, dragging at his smoke.
“Vain bastard that he is, I assumed the maiden he selected would be more like him—a well-mannered game piece he could steer around as desired. Not someone so…bold.” He lowered his cigarette, wisps of gray trailing from its end. “So different from himself.”
I blushed, the desire to defend Eliot rising senselessly up in me. “Mr.Lear is bold.”
Noé clicked his tongue reproachfully. “I assure you, Mr. Lear is not. Arrogant, sanctimonious, staunchly convicted to his archaic morals, yes, but…daring?” His gaze tightened on me, whetted with the fierce, jagged edge of a hunting knife.
“Brazen enough to confront me with my own deeply held secrets, in front of a panel of my dearest friends?” He hummed.
“No, no. He is far too cautious for that.”
Apprehension tingled through me. Over the past few days, I realized, I’d slipped into viewing Noé as a gilded trophy—an object I needed to fight for, needed to win.
Yet close-up, I saw that the younger Alaire was all cunning.
As if all the hours I’d spent watching him, devising ways to pass his trials, he’d been studying me back, like a fox stalking its trackers from the brush.
I did not want to know what he’d find if his attention lingered on me too long. Adjusting my hold on my umbrella, I changed the subject. “During my presentation, you referenced Mr.Lear’s morals, too—called him a dissenter ,” I said. “What did you mean by that?”
Noé scoffed. “Ah, that,” he said around another draw of his cigarette. “Nothing—an old joke. I was merely speaking of his pointless boycott of Woven goods.” At my befuddled frown, Noé paused. “Surely, as the ward of his relation, you would know this?”
Panic kicked at my lungs, my mistake obvious now that it had been pointed out.
“Actually, I only met Mr.Lear a couple of times prior to the Vainglory, on the occasions when he would come to visit my guardian,” I replied, careful to keep my tone neutral and my steps even.
“His nomination was as much of a shock to me as it was to you, I’m sure. I thought…”
Hesitating, I dropped my voice, angling my body nearer to Noé as if I feared being overheard.
“To be candid, I assumed it was on behalf of his sister that he acted,” I murmured. “That he saw a silkwitch in miserable circumstances and with poor prospects and came to my aid, since he could not go to hers.”
Noé’s jaw tightened, his cigarette twitching in his fingers; for a terrifying second, I thought he’d pierced my disguise, but then he sighed, tapping loose a spray of ash.
“You might be correct about that,” he said grimly.
“Anyhow, Lear feels that the relationship between silkwitches and Weavers is unequal—that we take from your kind more than we give. He avoids anything created with magesilk if he can help it.” His gaze cut to mine, disdain evident in it.
“You may have noticed that hideous watch he carries.”