Chapter Thirty-Six #2
A flush leapt to my neck, cutting through the tension. Twisting around, I followed the path of his gaze. A breeze from my open window had stirred my drapes, revealing the scorch mark hidden like a scar behind them. I bit at my lip, eyeing the burn.
“Eliot…” I said, glancing back at him. “There have been a few…developments…since we last spoke.”
To Eliot’s credit, he did not interrupt me—not when I showed him the melted stub of the Woven candle, its wick almost depleted, nor during the entire time it took for me to explain all that had occurred since we’d parted ways the day after Sybil’s death.
He sat, unmoving and unflinching, as I described my venture into the tunnels and the conversation I’d overheard while there, the message from Ophelia in the library book.
When I relayed the events of Dorian’s and my confrontation in the music parlor—his questions about the key he’d accused Sybil of stealing—only the twitch of his neck betrayed his wrath, the feathered jump of a muscle.
Even after I finally fell silent, Eliot did not react immediately. Instead, he rose from his chair and crouched down, reaching for the candle, which I’d positioned on the floor between us.
His jaw flexed as he picked it up. “You truly have no idea whom she could have been speaking to?”
I did not need to ask to understand whom he was referring to.
It was evident that the notion of Ophelia’s correspondent bothered him; I could tell by the way he rankled as he held the candle, as if its presence were an irritant to an unhealed wound.
“I’ve had more luck eliminating suspects than confirming them,” I answered, shrugging.
“Anais told me Dorian had never seen a candle matching my description of this one—though she could have lied, I suppose—and I feel fairly confident she is not the writer, either. At first, I suspected Sybil was behind the messages, though that changed for obvious reasons.” Nodding to the library book on the floor, Ophelia’s note etched within it, I added, “You see why Sybil’s claims of friendship with your sister now ring false to me. ”
Eliot’s frown grew bladed. “She was researching her,” he said tersely, setting the candle back down in front of him. “Like some moth to pin on a board and study.”
I shifted in my seated position, the loose fabric of my nightgown wisping against my skin. “And you’re certain you haven’t glimpsed anyone with a similar candle, either? Unless it was lit, you may not have noticed it. Noé, perhaps?”
Eliot rested back on his heels, his forehead creasing as if he’d shaken free of a daze.
“No,” he replied. “Not Noé, nor Ophelia when she was alive. Once the competition had begun, she hardly wrote to me at all—certainly, she never mentioned colluding with some stranger via candle. The very idea seems…” Drifting off, his gaze swept over the accumulated debris in front of us, the book splayed unceremoniously open and the mostly-melted candle.
“You say Dorian knows about this key she was searching for? That he and Miss Lavoie were looking for it?”
I nodded. “I believe so. He asked me about it when he cornered me—whether or not I knew where to find it.” I paused.
“One thing I don’t understand, though…If Dorian was telling the truth when he said Sybil stole the key from Bastian, wouldn’t it have been on her body when they recovered it?
And in that case, why the search?” I sighed.
“What exactly has Noé told you about how she was killed?”
He huffed, the noise agitated. “Very little,” he replied.
“Just the same story he gave you—that Sybil wandered into the tunnels of her own accord, was injured there somehow, and succumbed to her wounds.” He passed a thumb over his lip, pulling the library book closer to him again.
Ophelia’s annotation winked enigmatically up at us, like a secretive smile.
“So, if your theory holds, Sybil—and presumably my sister—needed this key to open a door in the tunnels,” he said.
“But to find the door, one must first decode the riddle. All this talk of rabbits and foxes…It makes no sense.” He traced the lines with his fingertip, scowling.
“I doubt I could discern my sister’s meaning from these verses alone, let alone a stranger like Sybil Dabos. ”
He shoved the book roughly away again. I watched its pages flutter at the movement. “I’m afraid my luck hasn’t been much better,” I said. “I’ve tried, believe me.” Then, picking at the hem of my nightgown, I added, “You must hate her.”
Eliot smirked, joyless and swift. “Hate Sybil?” he echoed. “After how I abandoned her?” He bit at the corner of his lip, shaking his head. “No, I respect her,” he replied. “Ophelia would have, too. My sister always liked a good rival.”
I had no clever reply for that, but rather than look away, I let my gaze linger on him.
While we’d been speaking, dusk had come; beyond the glass doors of my balcony, a full moon was rising, as round and heavy as a stone.
Without any clouds to obscure it, its glow bathed over Eliot, painting his skin like pearl dust.
He must have noticed me looking, because he flashed me a thin smile, nodding toward the balcony. “Speaking of my sister’s riddle…it’s a rabbit moon out tonight.”
His teeth glinted; for a moment, I was caught in him, slouched against the floor with his head tossed back, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, and his forearms straining from the effort of supporting his weight. Then his words cracked into me.
I sat straight. “What did you say?” My voice was a razor, bladed and quick.
Eliot shifted on his elbows to face me more fully, alarmed. “Nothing—I just thought of it,” he replied. “A full moon in late summer is called a rabbit moon. My mother enjoyed astrology…” He drifted off, flushing. “It was foolish to bring it up. Forgive me.”
But I was already moving, fetching the library book and shoving it toward him. “These other animals,” I said, gesturing to the riddle. “Are there moons for them, too?”
Eliot cast me a questioning look, but bent over the text obligingly, his brow creasing.
“A fox moon,” he said slowly, tapping the first line.
“That refers to a waning gibbous, specifically the one that occurs just after the equinox. My mother never spoke of an archer moon—though, actually, I suppose there is a bow moon, a crescent moon, which might fit. And lastly…” He traced the riddle’s final verse, once more meeting my eyes.
“A crow, or rook, moon. A new moon in midwinter.”
A shiver went down my spine. Mentally, I recited Ophelia’s poem in full: First is the rabbit, then follows the fox. Third comes the archer, last the rooks in their flocks. Not only four creatures, but four moons—and not only four moons,but…
I recalled the eight archways encircling the underground atrium—their edges carved with simple, yet distinctive, designs. The pattern had not been identical from arch to arch; where one had displayed a full moon bordered by waves, the next had been at three-quarters, as if mimicking a lunar cycle.
Chest tight, I looked down at the riddle again. Four beings, corresponding to four moons. And four moons, corresponding to four passages.
Four doors .
Hurriedly, I collected myself. “I…I think I’ve solved it,” I started uncertainly.
“Eliot, listen—in the tunnels, there are arches marking the start of every passageway. The moons Ophelia is referring to here…I think they correspond to the patterns over those archways. I think she’s telling us which tunnels to take.
” Swallowing, I gestured to the library book, still spread open between us.
“First, we take the passageway marked with the rabbit—a full moon. When we reach the end of that one, we search for—”
“A fox moon,” Eliot interjected before I could finish. “We go down the passage with an arch featuring a waning gibbous.”
He’d moved closer, pushing onto his knees. I blinked at him, taken aback by his nearness. “Exactly. And if we follow her directions to the end, we’ll arrive at…”
“The moonless door,” Eliot breathed. His words were rushed with eagerness. “Lovett—you’re brilliant.”
Something arced in my stomach, a fiery trail like a thrown ember. “It’s only a theory. I haven’t been past the first atrium—we can’t know what lies beyond it until we see for ourselves.”
Eliot’s stare narrowed on mine. “A fair point,” he said. His grin was wicked, glinting devilishly in the moonlight. “So why not do so now?”