Chapter Thirty-One #2
Ophelia’s candle stared up at me, squatting where I’d planted it the morning after Sybil’s death like a pale toadstool.
I hadn’t written to my correspondent since Eliot and I had fought, but now…
Manon’s words had lured my mind back to them, her admission too tantalizing to ignore.
An affair , she’d said. It would have been easy for the other maiden to assume Ophelia’s relationship was romantic in nature—I’d done the same at the start of the competition—but could Manon have truly scented a different kind of partnership?
One that was, like an affair, both intimate and covert—one that I, myself, had become tangled in.
I loosed a sigh. If the events of the past few days had taught me anything, it was that I could not afford to trust anyone within the Weaver King’s halls.
I recalled Marie-Louise’s warning before she’d left Fortblanche: the person she’d sighted in my room, standing near my desk.
Whether they had been searching for my candle the night of the Midway Ball or not, reinitiating contact with my correspondent would be foolish unless I had good reason.
Still, when I went to shut the trunk again, I found myself hesitating.
Gritting my teeth, I remained locked in debate for another minute before collapsing back and letting the lid loll open again.
It wasn’t worth fighting; though I was reluctant to admit it, I knew the root of my hesitancy.
The resistance that kept budding up in all my encounters: first with Noé, then, afterward, Manon.
Sybil.
It couldn’t be denied that our relationship, however brief its tenure, had been a hostile one.
Even so, the more I learned of the other silkwitch, the more I found myself dwelling on the nature of her passing.
The facts as I knew them about Sybil’s death were few, but from my conversation with Noé, I was fairly confident she had indeed died in the tunnels—and that when she perished, she had been alone.
Alone, because the boy she’d believed to be her ally had ignored her summons in favor of mine.
If I hadn’t left the dance floor during the ball, I wondered, if Eliot hadn’t been compelled to follow me instead of searching for her as he’d planned, would she still be alive?
I was not flattered that he’d chosen me over her.
On the contrary, it only made stronger my awareness of my own precariousness.
How many times had a silkwitch like me been elevated according to a Weaver’s fickle desires, then brought down when he tired of her?
I was not exceptional; I was merely the girl of the moment.
And that moment would always, inevitably, end.
Resigned to my decision, I focused back on the trunk, my gaze lingering on the twisted candle for only a second before drifting to the second item stowed within it: Aristide the Culler , the book I’d inquired with Manon about.
Even if I did not feel prepared to speak to Ophelia’s correspondent yet, I could unpick the clues they’d already given me.
And one of the first had been this tome, the mysterious Pender.
Lifting it out, I opened the volume to its middle.
The text was antlike, cramped and crawling over the page, dense enough that I felt tempted to immediately avert my eyes.
From what I could gather, the book was a biography of one of Noé’s ancestors, and Sisters, was it dull.
I found my mind wandering further with each line I forced myself to read, as if eager to make its escape.
I thumbed the book to a new page, attempting to focus—and stopped short. The chapter I was reading ended midpage, leaving a sizable block of blank space beneath it.
And someone had filled it with their own handwritten words.
To the maiden who has been following me,
I do not know who you are, but I aim to find out.
I borrowed this book from the library because I am aware that whatever draws my attention receives yours as well, and I wish for us to talk.
Recently, I caught my maid smuggling a piece of mail out of my room and attempted to make her confess the name of the person who paid her to do so, but she refused to break, no matter what punishment I threatened her with.
You must have bribed her very well—as you know, we Lears are an influential bunch, and quite used to getting what we want.
You could have approached me directly, and I would have parted with my secrets for free.
But since you prefer to take what is mine without my consent, you may receive them as a thief would.
The tunnels of Fortblanche are vast, but this riddle will guide you through: First is the rabbit, then follows the fox.
Third comes the archer, last the rooks in their flocks.
They have buried something behind the moonless door. I do not know what yet, but I feel it calling to me, as a lover feels her beloved the moment they enter a room—even with her back turned, even through a wall.
Be careful. Be quick. They are not as lenient with spies as I.
It was as though in my chest, a clock had been wound up; my thoughts were speeding, jerked into sudden motion. Hastily, I dropped the book to the floor, reading the first paragraph of the scrawled message over again: We Lears are an influential bunch…
This note had been written by Ophelia Lear.
At once, several pieces clicked into place.
Marie-Louise had implied that Sybil kept a close eye on Eliot’s sister during their prior Vainglory—that she had been interested in Ophelia, as I’d been interested in Sybil herself.
Evidently, Ophelia had picked up on that interest, but rather than punishing the other girl, she’d offered her guidance.
A path through Fortblanche’s tunnels, to a singular destination: the moonless door.
If you know the way through, it would benefit both of us…
I have discovered where they keep the key.
Sybil’s remark to me before her death—the route she’d been seeking to uncover could be none other than the one Eliot’s sister laid out in her note .
Had she solved Ophelia’s riddle the night of the Midway Ball—was that what had prompted her to venture into the tunnels again?
Or had she died trying?
And then there was the matter of the key she’d mentioned—a reference that, until now, I hadn’t given much thought. It seemed natural to assume it accessed this moonless door, but…
What lies behind it? The most important question, and the one I found myself least able to answer. Whatever the door guarded, it had been compelling enough to draw Ophelia’s attention last summer, enough to prompt her to pass word to Sybil about its existence during their previous Vainglory.
Had she shared any of that knowledge with Eliot? I tapped at the page thoughtfully. He’d written off my exploration of the tunnels when I’d told him of my findings, though I supposed he could have been deceiving me to protect his other conspirator—Sybil.
The theory was sound, yet I found myself doubting it.
Whatever else Eliot had lied to me about, his mission had always remained constant: to find his sister’s killer.
If Sybil had told him of the riddle in this book, I was more inclined to believe he would have had both of us combing the tunnels for Ophelia’s moonless door and any possible leads related to it, not kept the knowledge of it from one of us.
More likely…I inhaled. More than likely, it had been Sybil who had been hiding her true motives for approaching Eliot.
According to him, she’d wanted to solve the mystery of Ophelia—her supposed friend’s—death.
But in reality, had it been this puzzle she’d cared about most?
I had to admit, it would have been a clever trick: to seek out a mourning brother and offer to help him unearth the answers he desired most, then use the information he provided to unravel the riddle his sister had left behind.
He would have told her whatever she’d wanted to know.
Without accessing the door’s contents myself, I could not be sure of anything. Yet I did have one advantage—one that I was certain neither Ophelia nor Sybil had possessed.
To open the door, they required a key. I did not.
Crossing to my entrance, I pressed my ear against the wood and listened for sounds of the other maidens returning, but the hall beyond was quiet. Empty.
It was an opportunity. And I had never been one to let an opportunity go to waste.
I eased my door open, slipping into the corridor. Then, pulse racing, I made for the tunnels.