Chapter Seventeen #2
My thoughts jumped to the afternoon Eliot and I had arrived at Fortblanche—when I’d glimpsed him pulling out his plain timepiece and wondered where its handsomer Woven cousin, the watch he’d used on me at the Diplomat, had gone.
I’d assumed he’d swapped the two items after I’d rejected the more valuable one, but had the opposite been the case?
The enchanted item, he’d carried only as a lure to draw me in, and the other one was his usual?
Lear feels…that we take from your kind more than we give.
I had never heard of a Weaver expressing such a sentiment.
It pulled at something within me, at the knotted clot of emotions I’d tried to keep as tightly constrained as possible.
“I agree with him that conditions could be made fairer, but his methods, I feel, are self-serving.” Beside me, Noé went on, oblivious to my internal tumult. “First we take power, in my opinion—then we reform. His is nothing but a child’s rebellion, designed to soothe his own ego.”
Abruptly, he came to a stop as the path we’d been walking on ended, depositing us at the center of the garden.
Just ahead of us, an impressive granite fountain loomed, altar-like, a statue of a woman rising proudly from its middle.
Her hair trailed from her head in long, stony ropes; in place of her pupils, two small holes drilled into her eyes spouted twin streams of water, like tears arcing into the fountain’s basin and mixing with the softly falling rain.
As if in decision, Noé dropped his cigarette to the ground, where it died with a hiss against the wet gravel. With its extinguishing, the atmosphere between us seemed to shift, the air growing denser as if we’d passed out of the sunlight and under the cold arm of dusk.
“Listen, Miss Lovett,” Noé said crisply.
“In the spirit of getting to know each other…we are out here all alone. My judges are not lurking nearby to overhear us. So tell me: How did you truly learn my secret yesterday? And be honest, please,” he added before I could speak.
“Your lie was amusing last night—if you try another one, I fear I shall grow tired of them.”
Drizzle clung to his umbrella like a dour gray halo, his eyes glittering discerningly out from beneath its black curve.
Just as it had been during our last conversation, the abrupt shift in his demeanor—the reluctant, brooding savant folding away like a card sorted back into its deck, revealing the prince stacked beneath it—was unnerving, the transition as stark and physical as if he’d thrown off his cloak.
I was beginning to understand that he kept the former persona with him always, hanging at his side like a sheathed sword, waiting to be drawn when it suited him.
And I understood, too, that my nonanswers and subterfuges would not be enough to satisfy him any longer. Schooling my expression into one of diffidence, I bit down on my lip, ducking my chin as if beaten.
“Mr.Lear keeps a journal,” I said begrudgingly—if I gave my lie too willingly, he would smell the falseness in it.
“He believes it unknown to me, but I noticed it amongst his things when he accompanied me to Fortblanche. After you announced the first trial, I used my Wit to gain entrance to his room and read it while he slumbered. It didn’t provide as much information as I’d hoped, but he did mention you—and his concerns over your recent heartbreak.
” Lifting my gaze back to Noé’s, I smirked. “He is quite the worrier, Mr.Lear.”
Bastian’s son regarded me through the misting rain, stoic, his handsome features inscrutable. I held myself completely still as he watched me, my arms aching where they hoisted my umbrella aloft, my heart thumping in my chest, urgent and anxious, as I awaited his reaction.
“So, you stole from him,” Noé said after a moment. “From the man who championed your nomination—who defied his own father’s wishes to bring you into my halls.”
His tone was hollow; I calmed my racing pulse. “I took measures to ensure I could provide what you , sir, asked of me,” I answered evenly. “If you wished to safeguard your friends’ privacy, perhaps you should have chosen a less invasive test.”
A silence, as strained as a bent bough, then his lips crooked up.
Lowering his umbrella, Noé stepped closer, rain beading in his lashes and on the collar of his suit.
“You are fascinating,” he said, and victory unfurled like a flower in my core.
“The only remaining mystery is, if I took you as my wife, would you lie down beside me in peace, or slit my throat while I slept?”
I matched his smile. “Wouldn’t the nights be exciting, waiting to find out?”
He laughed, unrestrained and delighted. “Who are you?”
His eyes were hot and interrogating, but I was no longer frightened of them. Pleased, I smiled blithely and looked away, turning my attention to the garden spread around us. “It is beautiful here,” I said, avoiding his question. “The entire estate is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” His umbrella still lolling at his side, Noé came to stand next to me. “How are you finding Fortblanche?” he asked. “My father hasn’t scared you off with his mind tricksyet?”
I lifted my shoulders in response. “Would you care if hedid?”
He sighed. “Disturbingly, Miss Lovett, I think I just might.”
My umbrella bobbed as, ever so slightly, his arm brushed mine, causing me to flinch. Heat shivered through me—yet almost before I processed the contact, he was shifting away, only the engineered elegance of his withdrawal telling me the touch had been intentional.
I felt dazed, my confidence vanishing at the press of his skin.
“It is a disquieting thing, to know that another may be lurking in one’s most private quarters,” I said, collecting myself.
“But no, your father hasn’t frightened me away quite yet.
” Glancing sidelong at him, I ventured hesitantly onward.
“If you’d permit me to ask it, sir—you don’t share his gift? ”
Noé smirked. “Not to worry, Miss Lovett—I am gentleman enough to stay out of your thoughts, even if I could let myself in. But no,” he conceded.
“I do not possess my father’s particular talent—nor any other, really.
” He sighed, stabbing morosely at his discarded cigarette with the tip of his umbrella.
“It is a great family shame. Father is convinced that there is some dark seed of power lying as-yet-undiscovered in me, but in truth, I worry I am quite barren.”
I eyed the soggy, mauled cigarette butt, but did not comment on it. “I have heard that Weaver abilities mature late—sometimes not until well into a man’s twenties,” I countered. “Perhaps you only need more time.”
“An optimist.” Noé’s voice was sarcastic, but he relented his assault. “Well, perhaps you’re right. Who knows—in a few years, maybe I shall be able to bypass locked doors, as youcan.”
He winked, and I laughed appreciatively—though in my head, my thoughts were turning. A talentless heir. I was surprised by how freely Noé admitted the weakness. Our conversation was progressing more smoothly than I’d dared hope; I wondered, if I pushed further, what else I could get him to confess.
“I must admit, it felt… odd , at first, my being here.” I took hold of the silence, steering it in my desired direction.
“Knowing that my presence in this competition is due only to another’s absence.
” Breath shallow, I risked another sideways glance.
“Is it true that Ophelia Lear was going to be crowned victor the night she died?”
“Ophelia…” Frowning, Noé averted his gaze. “Hers is a tragic tale. One I try to avoid if I can. Don’t apologize—you deserve to hear it,” he said, waving off my murmur of regret.
“Yes,” he affirmed a moment later, “it is true that, had Ophelia Lear not passed before the competition’s end, she would have won it.
Her magic was strong, and my father has been searching for a way to join our bloodline with the Lears’ for years now.
” He clicked his tongue derisively, a resentful notch in his brow.
“To speak frankly, from the day Reginald Lear wrote us with the news that he’d been blessed with a silkwitch daughter, my hand was Ophelia’s to lose. ”
“And Ophelia,” I replied evenly, “did she want to win?”
Noé shook his head. “Her father wanted it badly, but Ophelia herself, no,” he said. “The only thing she ever loved was her Wit. Besides, she knew I’d claimed Eliot as my brother long ago and saw her solely as a sister—it never could have been romantic between us.”
He exhaled, pushing back a lock of damp hair from his forehead, as glossy as ink in the rain.
“Last year, she and I came to a sort of understanding: We would wed, and afterward, I’d give her her freedom,” he went on.
“She may not have adored the idea of the competition, but she took to Fortblanche quite well—spent most of her time tucked away in my father’s library, in fact, reading.
It may not have been a typical love match, but…
I do believe she could have been happy here.
And it was easier for me regardless—my heart was still with Clem. ”
His gaze slid to mine, prompting and deliberate. The message in it was clear: I’d been given an opening, that name, Clem , like a key dropped into my hand. “Your beloved?” I asked obligingly.
Noé hummed in confirmation. “A lofty term for her—really, we were friends, old friends who became something more,” he replied.
“For all her virtues, Clémence herself is not a silkwitch, and so we were forced to part ways prior to the hunt for my bride last summer.” He snorted, glancing down.
“I was a fool—I deluded myself into believing that our connection was such that she might have been content to continue our relationship from the shadows, as my mistress, but she is far too proud for that.” His jaw flexed, with shame or bitterness, I couldn’t tell.
“She’s been married for almost a year now. ”
The admission fell limply from his tongue, as dull as Eliot’s coin in my slipper.
Though he was standing in profile to me, I could make out much of Noé’s expression: His gaze was as lusterless as hardened wax, something from which the life had gone out.
Strangely, the emptiness seemed to suit him better than either the princely condescension or the rebellious wit, which he’d worn previously; this, I felt certain as I regarded him, was my first true glimpse of the younger Alaire.
A boy utterly miserable, and completely alone.
I felt the sudden urge to lay my hand on him but did not dare move. “I’m sorry.”
His smile was self-deprecating, as if my apology had wounded him. “It is fine,” he said, pushing his shoulders back. “This house is old—it has seen a thousand heartbreaks. Mine will not be the last, nor the most devastating.”
Clearing his throat, he at last raised his umbrella, shielding himself from the drizzle that misted like frozen breath around us. It was as clear a signal as any, but as he prepared to turn back toward the path leading out of the cloister, I stepped forward.
“Did you speak to her often last year? Ophelia?”
Noé frowned, his umbrella casting his expression in shadow aside from the pale slope of his mouth.
“Before she arrived at Fortblanche, certainly, though not after,” he replied.
“The other maidens would have viewed any friendship between us as evidence of favoritism, and I did not want to contribute to what I knew was an already difficult stay for her.” He shifted, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “Why do you ask?”
I thought of the dozen or so scrolls currently stuffed in my desk drawer like a pile of wood shavings, the gray-lettered messages emblazoned on them, penned by an unseen hand.
It was unsettling, knowing that somewhere within Fortblanche, Ophelia’s correspondent awaited me with a second candle to match my first. That perhaps they could be watching me evennow.
Smiling, I adjusted my grip on the handle of my umbrella. “No particular reason,” I said. “Except, I suppose, an excess of curiosity, which I’ve been told is my greatest flaw.”
I’d intended for my remark to restore the levity to our conversation, but Noé seemed to take it in earnest, his expression softening. “I must disagree with your critics,” he replied. “I rather like that quality.”
He regarded me pensively for another moment, as if deciding something.
“And, Miss Lovett,” he started again abruptly. “Referencing an earlier topic—even a man like my father is not invulnerable. Every strength nurses its own weakness. For example, he particularly struggles in games of chance, which he cannot influence through his mind-meddling.”
His expression bore a cryptic quality, as if within his message, he meant to communicate something else—another second, hidden meaning. I reached for it but could not find it. “Of course,” I responded neutrally.
Noé chuckled. “I mean only that you have nothing to fear from him,” he amended, smirking.
“Or me, for that matter.” Rolling his shoulders back, he hoisted his umbrella higher.
“Come now,” he said. “You are doing an admirable job of pretending not to be miserable in that dress, but I see you shivering. Let’s get you inside, shall we? ”