Chapter Nineteen
I’d broken away first.
I hadn’t intended to, but Anais’s confession had startled me—and once I’d balked, there had been no undoing it. I’d had the sword to her neck, ready to cut, but she’d flipped it on me, and its bite stung all the more for the knowledge that the match had been mine to lose.
Really, Lovett. I wasn’t sure what upset me more—the implication that Anais had been looking to unsettle me and had chosen Eliot Lear as the vessel through which to do so, or the fact that her ploy had worked.
I didn’t return to my room immediately. The day was not yet over, and already it had stretched on longer than seemed possible, like the shadow of a clock hand thrown upon the ground.
I knew I should summon Eliot to inform him, if not of my conversation with his friend, then at least of Ophelia’s mystery correspondent—but each time I went to reach for my coin, I found myself hesitating.
Whomever Eliot’s sister had been conspiring with, they likely held much more information about her death than I did, perhaps had even been the one to kill her.
If I handed them over to Eliot now, who was to say if he wouldn’t dissolve our bargain altogether in favor of a newer, more intriguing source?
I would help him find his sister’s murderer, if they existed—but I would be the one to do it. Only through absolute victory was I confident I could force him to keep his end of our deal.
If any sources were to be consulted, they would need to be consulted by me.
The afternoon passed swiftly. I slotted my letter beneath Anais’s door sometime before dusk, my heart knocking loudly against my ribs as I watched it disappear.
I’d spent a good hour crafting its contents and felt reasonably confident the other maiden would not be able to pull any meaning from them besides what I wished, but she had proven herself a formidable foe already; there was always the chance she would surprise me, as she had at the end of our last conversation, and that possibility was more than enough to keep me on edge.
I attempted to put my misgivings aside during dinner. After the meal had at last concluded, I returned to my room once more, wasting no time before crossing to my desk and lighting another match. Flame bloomed at its tip, orange melting to white as it met the wick.
It wasn’t there. Your recommendation—Pender.
As before, I sat back and waited for a reply—and as before, one came. Now, that IS curious.
Did you take it? I wrote.
What a tedious game that would make for , came the response. Another followed it as I was in the middle of arranging my message back, forcing me to set down my pen. Perhaps you are not the only one playing.
I began to draft a reply, then hastily blew the candle out at the sound of something scraping across my floor. Twisting over my shoulder, I saw that an envelope had been slid beneath my door, resting just past the threshold like an offering.
Rising, I went to it. Inside, a note was nestled, the paper body-warm as I removed it, still bleeding another’s heat. My earlier anxieties dulled as I read it, a smile pulling at my lips.
Perhaps I hadn’t lost as badly as I’d thought.
D.D. has not seen any candle matching the description you included in your message. He spoke under the influence of my Wit; I can attest to his honesty.
I shall consider our scales now evened and can see no reason for you to ever speak to me again.
Disappointed, I eyed the candle on my desk, its wick still smoking from the fire I’d extinguished.
So Dorian Drake was not the person behind its flame, then—and, judging by the fact that she had delivered her letter to me while I’d been midcorrespondence, neither was Anais.
It would have been far simpler if the opposite had proven true—if I could have definitely fingered, if not Ophelia’s killer, at least her conspirator—but evenso…
I tore the notepaper in half, then in quarters.
The riddle of Ophelia’s death remained—yet I was getting closer to unraveling it, of that I was certain.
Every suspect eliminated furthered my objectives, like a pair of drapes drawn closed over one in a line of windows.
Eventually, I would reach the view I needed.
And when I peered through its glass, I did not know whom I would see looking back at me.