Chapter Thirty-Four
I cleaned up the evidence of the fire as best I could, scrubbing at the soot stains that marred my wall with water from the pitcher balanced atop my washstand.
Once I’d made all the progress I was able, I took the scroll bearing my correspondent’s final message and burned it in my fireplace, watching with satisfaction as its edges shriveled and curled in on themselves like insect legs.
You think you can evade me forever? My correspondent’s words stirred in my mind as the paper glowed red, then fell to ash.
I did not know how they’d discovered my name, though I supposed their methods mattered little.
What mattered was that they knew me. My true self—not Cecilia Lovett, the persona I’d fashioned with Eliot’s help, but Lovett Tamerlane.
The liar and the thief.
Whatever their motives for penning it, the note had been a warning—on that point, at least, I was clear.
But who was its writer? It ate at me that I did not know—that though they had stripped away my mask, I was no closer to removing theirs.
Of the remaining maidens, Manon and Anais both had Wits that would have made it possible for them to learn my name: Anais by kissing the right person, Manon by smelling my secret on me.
And then there was the Weaver King himself.
I still did not know what, if anything, he had managed to pull from my mind during the second trial.
Had he learned my identity and shared it with Noé?
Was it Eliot? Practically speaking, I understood there would be no point to his deceiving me in such a manner, but another more superstitious part of me found the notion of his involvement oddly fitting. As if it were only natural that every path I took led back to him.
I make it my business to learn all the Weaver King’s weaknesses. I shook my correspondent’s words from my head. There was no logic to their answers; even if there were, I now knew better than to trust their claims.
Whatever they’d tricked me into believing, they were not on my side.
My ponderings were interrupted by a brisk rapping at my door.
Startled, I glanced first at my wall—and the charred mark still visible against the stone—then in the direction of my window.
Morning would not fully arrive for another hour or so; currently, the only evidence of it was a muted pink tinge to the sky. Who would come calling this early?
Breathily, as if the knock had roused me from a deep, peaceful slumber, I called out, “Who is it?”
I tensed in preparation for their response, only to relax again when an unfamiliar voice replied, “Mr.Noé requests your presence, miss.”
My brows lifted. Noé? He’d seen me only the past evening, and our farewell had been uneasy at best. I hadn’t expected him to summon me again so soon, unless…
Was this the start of another trial?
“Oh—give me just a moment,” I answered hastily. “I am not dressed, you see.”
In the corridor, my caller cleared his throat. “He said now, Miss Lovett.”
Well. That didn’t sound particularly promising.
Binding my hair in the first caul I could find, I went to the door, opened it.
A servant stood in the hallway; I recognized him as one of the men who’d been assigned to watch us after Sybil’s passing.
He was young, likely only a few years older than I was, with flaxen hair and a vacant sort of look about him, as if he were staring around me but not at me.
At my greeting, he nodded, then took off down the corridor without another word, leaving me to stumble after him.
I expected him to lead me to the spire where I’d dined with Noé last night, but when we came upon a set of stairs, the servant followed them down, not up.
Perplexed, I trailed behind him, feeling like a lost lamb in my flimsy nightgown, my bare feet numb from the freezing stone floor.
If it was a test I had been fetched for, it seemed an odd way to begin it.
I thought of Eliot, nudging past me into his friend’s chambers the night before. What had the pair of them talked about, I wondered suddenly, after I’d gone?
Eventually, the servant came to a stop in the house’s western wing, before a plain door in an empty side corridor.
It was one I’d visited my first night at Fortblanche, during my search for a secret.
If I remembered correctly, the room behind it was a drawing room—unused, I’d assumed, based on the amount of dust that had accumulated on its furnishings.
I hesitated. Noé was waiting for me here ?
With a neat cough, the servant swung the door open for me to pass through. I noticed he made no move to follow me as I stepped over the threshold, instead hovering like a sentry just outside the doorway. Pressing my lips together, I gave him a final assessing look, then turned my gaze inward.
The door swung shut behind me in the same moment that I realized my mistake, like the damning click of a trigger. I tried to walk back, only to be rebuffed by its hard wooden flank, like an executioner shoving me unfeelingly forward to meet my fate. I’d been tricked.
“You,” I growled.
Eliot gazed steadily at me from where he was tucked in the far corner of the room—conveniently out of view from the hallway, I noticed. At my address, he peeled himself from the wall, his attention darting to the entrance I’d just come through.
“I’ve instructed Fabian to lock the door behind you,” he replied tonelessly.
I scoffed. “You know that will have little effect on me.”
His eyes traveled to mine again, narrowed. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been in the previous evening, I realized: sack trousers and a casual shirt, his collar undone. Had he slept at all last night?
I bit at the inside of my cheek, forcing down the envious curiosity that rose up in me—the urge to ask him where he’d been, and with whom.
It was proving to be a more difficult habit to break than I’d anticipated, thinking of him.
Like a lingering itch, all the more tempting now that I couldn’t scratchit.
“Fabian has also been directed to wait in the corridor,” Eliot said, nodding toward the doorway behind me. “In case you attempt to exit prematurely.”
His words brought me back to myself. “So you’ve resorted to entrapment, then,” I said. When he did not contest the claim, I crossed my arms and continued, stone-faced, “What do you want, Mr.Lear? I am very tired and would like to return to my bed.”
He stepped forward, his jaw flexing. “I would like you to leave Fortblanche.”
His proclamation was blunt, issued without explanation or apology; I might have laughed at it, were it not for the urgency in his voice, his gaze holding mine like a plea.
His manner, I saw suddenly, was agitated—he seemed to shrink away from the waxing dawn that issued through the windows as if burned by it.
Unsettled, I cleared my throat. “If my memory is correct, Noé refused your request only yesterday. Whatever makes you think I’d agree to it?”
Eliot exhaled noisily, running a hand through his curls.
“The fourth trial will be held today,” he started.
I quieted at the admission, my interest piqued.
“Noé told me about it when I spoke to him last night, after you’d left his quarters.
It is to be an individual assessment—each maiden will be led through a specialized course designed to test their Wit, with their progress monitored by a single judge.
” His throat bobbed. “You’ve been paired with Dorian. ”
An individual assessment… I hid my concern, unwilling to let Eliot glimpse the disquieting effect his fellow judge’s name had on me.
In my mind’s eye, I saw him—his slim, lanky form washed in lamplight as he’d stood in the tunnels, his smirking mouth.
I will draw you out like pus from a wound.
And his eyes as they’d drifted unknowingly over the place where I’d hidden, so rarely touched by emotion, presented with the world and yet forever bored by it, as if it were nothing but a fruit rind, all its sweetness already sucked clean by him.
I shifted my bare feet beneath me. “And?”
“And?” Eliot’s tone sharpened; he drew another pace nearer, only to stop himself a moment later. Hesitating, he gave a curt shake of his head. “Anais Tremblay is being sent home this morning—I wouldn’t be surprised if the guards are collecting her now,” he said.
A thrill of satisfaction went through me at his words. The maids I’d spoken with must have been even more industrious in spreading their gossip than I’d been anticipating.
“Noé caught his servants whispering about an affair between her and Drake,” Eliot went on, confirming my supposition. His gaze fixed on mine. “Lovett. Dorian knows the rumor originated with you. He despises you.”
“He may despise me all he likes—his feelings are of little matter to me,” I replied. “He would not dare raise a hand against me while it would anger Noé.”
“Noé does not hold Dorian’s leash.” Eliot’s rebuttal was hissed and forceful, his restlessness taking on a frenetic, dangerous quality, like the quivering fury of a snapped wire. “Bastian does. And he may hate you even more than Drake.”
Sighing, he ran a palm over his forehead.
“Lovett, listen to me,” he began again a second later.
“I am not trying to deceive you. Dorian Drake is not the kind of man you want to confront alone. Please—” He seemed as affected by the entreaty as I was, both of us tensing as if it were a pistol tossed between us, liable to go off at any minute.
“Take me at my word, and exit the competition while you can. You have made your impression; there are plenty of Weavers in Balmoore who will court you after this. Just, for the Envies’ sake, go . ”
I stared at him, feeling unsteady and exposed in my nightgown, my hair incongruously neat in its caul.
There was a rawness to his speech that convinced me he was not lying—and I had to admit, in the face of his begging, my determination wavered.
Would it truly be so horrible to bow out of the competition now?
But…as soon as the thought entered my head, other protests forced it down again.
I’d survived to see the fourth trial already.
After this, only one more challenge remained before the end of the Vainglory—and the choosing of Noé’s bride.
I was so close to victory. So close to a life out of the cloisters’ reach, to following through on the threat I’d made to Eliot and seeing him sunk low before me, forced to repent for all he’d done.
For better or worse, after all he’d put me through, my pride would not allow me to give up now. Not when I was only a few days away from beating him for good.
“What does it matter to you anyhow—what Dorian, or anybody else, does to me?” I started, just as the silence had begun to settle between us.
“My downfall would only benefit you, surely; at the very least, you wouldn’t have to worry about me confessing to Noé any longer.
If I were you, I would pray for my demise. ”
Eliot’s mouth twitched, crooking up as if in surprise. I thought at first that he would curse at me, but he did no such thing, only took a single step backward, away from where I stood.
“Perhaps I am not so vengeful as you,” he said flatly.
“Just because I am no longer in allegiance with someone does not mean I wish them ill. It is good, I suppose, to know that you feel otherwise.” His eyes flashed, an unkind green like the viridescent glare of envy.
“Tell me, Miss Lovett,” he asked, “if you were given the chance, would you kill me now so that I could not divulge the truth about you to my friend?”
His stare was like an accusing finger, and under it, I abruptly felt ashamed.
Would I kill him if he endangered my place at his friend’s side?
As if prompted, I saw myself as I strode into Noé’s quarters only the night before, ignorant of what lay in wait for me but wholly willing to give whatever he demanded of me—whatever was needed to ensure my future.
There is kindness in you , Noé had said. But I was not sure.
I was unsure, sometimes, whether there was anything in me at all.
Rather than admit to this, I pushed my shoulders back, holding Eliot’s gaze.
“You think yourself clever,” I said. “It is pathetic, really. You don’t even know how completely you’ve been duped.
” Tipping my chin higher, I stepped nearer to him.
“Sybil lied to you, Eliot. She and Ophelia were not friends last year. Sybil was following your sister— watching her. I have seen the proof myself.”
My words had the desired effect; Eliot’s lips parted, the look of contempt sliding from his face. “What do you mean?” he asked. When I gave no answer, he drew nearer, his voice rough. “What proof? Lovett—”
A knock from the hallway interrupted him—we both jumped back as the servant’s voice issued through the door, steady and clear. “Maids begin rounds in five minutes, Mr.Lear.”
Eliot swore under his breath, half turning toward the doorway before glancing back at me. His demeanor was harried, vaguely disoriented as though he’d been unexpectedly awoken from a dream.
As if deciding something, he shifted to face me directly again. “Will you leave as I asked, or no?”
I met his eyes without wavering. “No.”
His expression hardened. “Fine.” I grabbed at my shoulder as he blew by me, knocking into me like a sudden wind. “Make your own grave, then.”
The door opened easily for him when he left. I wondered, as it did, whether it had ever been locked at all.