Chapter Twenty-Nine
The applause came first, cutting through the iridescent flare of light cast by the dying illusion.
When the brightness dimmed, I found myself standing at the threshold of the receiving room, Noé and his judges reclining at the opposite end of the long, narrow chamber.
In the time I’d spent solving the third trial, dawn had come; a rosy sky blushed on the other side of the lancet windows, gilding the space with a shy, peachy cast.
Its softness was disorienting after the drowned, dark world I’d just left behind.
Were I to wet my lips, I half believed I’d taste salt on them where I’d been kissed by the sea breeze—that if I turned, I would find the ocean waiting behind my shoulder, rolled out like a carpet to walk on.
How had the Alaires been able to produce such an immersive illusion, I wondered? Another of Bastian’s mind tricks?
Blinking, I went to shield my eyes, then paused as I received my answer.
Circling my fingers were ten unfamiliar slim golden rings, connected to one another by dainty chains, which draped over the backs of my hands, forming looping bracelets around my wrists.
Where the morning light glanced off the metal, a sudden flare of Woven brightness assaulted my vision, like the white slash of an animal’s claw.
I reared instinctively back, dropping my arm.
During my time on the Isle d’Eylau, I’d heard tell of Woven trinkets with the power to alter a user’s senses—a pair of enchanted spectacles that allowed one to see clearly in the dark, a jeweled ear cuff that supposedly heightened its wearer’s hearing—but never had word reached me of something so…
total. So all-consuming. Surely, whatever these chain…
I searched for a word and landed only on gloves —were, they could not be sold through any official channels, or else I was certain the Virtuous Parliament would have long since swooped in and snatched them away.
A shudder moved through me. I’d pondered the question of the Alaires’ great wealth before—how Bastian and his forefathers had been able to accumulate a fortune vast enough to elevate them even above their fellow Weaver lines.
Now, it seemed, I knew. What other miracles were the Weaver King’s artisans forging in his workrooms?
What other instruments had his late bride given her hair to produce?
“Well done, Miss Lovett!” Noé called out to me across the distance, drawing me back to the present. Grinning, he beckoned me closer. “Boys, didn’t I tell you she could manage it? Are you not impressed?”
I strode forward hesitantly. Flanking Noé as usual, Dorian and Eliot observed my approach with varying degrees of enthusiasm, their elegantly suited figures making me feel naked in my thin nightgown by comparison.
Dorian tilted his head to the side, his gaze disaffected as it skimmed over me. “Clio Lavoie sniffed out the illusion quicker,” he said, angling a smirk my way. “And was much more pleasant to retrieve.”
I glared stonily at him.
“Yes, but Miss Lovett was faster overall,” Noé rebutted from his chair. He rested his chin in his palm, turning toward his left with an entreating expression on his face. “It seems I’m in need of an ally. Lear, surely you will agree with my assessment?”
My annoyance dissipated as in his own chair, Eliot stirred, his knuckles curling over his armrests. “She solved her riddle more quickly than the rest,” Eliot conceded, “but she is too rash. Unobservant. She nearly lost herself in the enchantment.”
He spoke with the pinched haughtiness of a lordling, gazing down at me with a superior expression as if I were a beggar at his table.
Despite myself, I flinched at his reprimand—worse, somehow, than the detachment he’d shown to me in public previously.
If he noticed my reaction, though, Eliot gave no sign.
Next to him, Noé frowned. “Soured on your favorite, have you, Lear?”
His tone was restrained—testing, like a fencer raising his weapon to see which way his opponent would feint. Eliot returned his stare, his eyes flinty.
“Simply endeavoring to fulfill the role you assigned me,” he answered. “You asked us for our judgment—and mine is that she ”—he nodded brusquely toward me—“is lacking. Miss Lovett is clearly unpossessed of the mental fortitude necessary for this competition and should be sent home.”
Noé’s scowl deepened, his arm flexing where it rested on his chair.
“You begged me to admit her,” he growled softly, a moment later. “You would cast her out so soon?”
I flushed. In the span of a minute, the atmosphere in the receiving room had shifted—my presence, previously welcome, now felt intrusive, as if I were eavesdropping on a private argument.
Aside from the sound of Dorian clearing his throat uncomfortably, the space was quiet, Noé and Eliot watching one another without speaking like fighters circling in a ring.
Eliot was the first to break the silence. “If you like her, keep her,” he spat, his gaze narrowing. “This judgeship has been a farce since its inception anyhow. We both of us know there is only one man whose counsel you obey.”
I saw the stern cliff of Noé’s jaw waver, as if he’d been struck. “Eliot.” His voice was low—there was a warning in it, a line firmly drawn.
Yet rather than back away, Eliot leaned forward in his seat. “You heeded your father when we were children,” he accused.“You heed him still. He has been in your thoughts for too long for you to know the difference.”
“I fear, dear friend, that you forget your surname at times. And where it stands in relation to mine.” Noé’s counter fell quick, as if he had been waiting to strike.
He, too, had shifted toward the edge of his chair, his attention wholly fixed on Eliot.
“Perhaps you should ask your own father to remind you. I believe there is a vote in Parliament coming up—which way do you think he will cast his ballot?” His posture relaxed, his expression turning sly. “Or has he not been told yet?”
To Noé’s other side, Dorian directed a wild, questioning look at me, as if attempting to make sense of the ongoing clash.
For once, his panic matched my own. I’d known, from what Eliot had told me, that relations between him and Noé had grown strained in recent days—yet this was far beyond the cold hostility they’d exhibited at the Midway Ball.
Do you think I enjoy it…bowing to him…calling him my brother ? I winced as the memory of Eliot’s words struck me, making my stomach plunge like the proof of some sin.
“Noé,” Eliot’s voice was hushed, almost pleading as he held his rival’s gaze. “Let her go, please. I am asking you as a friend.”
Noé did not flinch, calmly meeting Eliot’s stare. The silence in the room was oppressive, made more so by the fact that I knew I could not disrupt it. That no matter my protests—no matter my performance in his tests—my presence in, or dismissal from, the competition was Noé’s to determine.
Loathing, sudden and self-righteous, churned in me. Was this how Eliot wished to play our game? To bring me into the Alaires’ halls, use me, and then usher me out again when I turned against him?
I almost laughed. He’d called me a rat, once. He should have known that vermin, once admitted to a building, did not leave peacefully.
They only hungered. They only ate.
Abruptly, Noé shifted to face me, banishing the disquiet that had begun to build behind my ribs.
“Miss Lovett may pass on to the next trial,” he proclaimed, leveling his eyes with mine. “And if she is amenable to it, I think I would like her to join me for dinner this evening.”
My heart leapt with triumph. Instinctively, I hazarded a glance toward Eliot—some petty part of me eager to watch him register my victory—but he was staring obstinately toward the wall, refusing to acknowledge my attention.
“Of course,” I replied with a forced smile. “I’d love to.”
Pleased, Noé brought his hands together in a clap. “Wonderful. Lear, why don’t you escort Miss Lovett out—”
The scrape of a chair against the stone floor clipped his sentence short. I blinked, taken aback as in a single rigid motion, Eliot stood. His lips were parted, his expression suddenly intent—unconsciously, I leaned forward, frightened of what he might say and desperate for it at the same time.
But he only shook his head once, tightly, as if banishing something, and strode from the room without a word.