Chapter Thirty-Eight
Eliot did not touch me during the journey back into Fortblanche. We walked in silence through the worming tunnel passageways, the air between us sparking with a battlefield alertness, like the wary anticipation of two fighters circling one another—each of us waiting for the other to pounce.
Something had been acknowledged tonight. Perhaps we had been aware of it before, but it had been like an unseemly sore, actively ignored by both of us to the point where we could feign its nonexistence. In the cavern, though, we had caught one another looking, and that had made it all real.
If the choice were given to me—between myself and you, as you put it—I know who I would choose.
It was a relief when I sighted the gaping exit wound of the tunnel mouth before us, the workroom waiting just beyond, as still and silent as it had been when we’d passed through it hours before.
Once we were safely back inside the estate, Eliot walked me to the gallery corridor before pausing to lean against one of the archways.
“It’s all right, you know,” he said, his eyes leveling with mine. “That you couldn’t open it. It doesn’t mean we’ve lost.”
My chest clenched, then released, as though with a gasp of breath.
Foolish as it was, for a moment, I’d thought he’d been preparing to address the incident between us—the conversation that had followed my tumble into the lake.
My clothes were still wet with cave water, my braided hair a limp rat’s tail lying against my neck, and the bite of moisture on my skin felt like evidence.
Proof of a crime, the nature of which I refused to admit.
I gathered myself. “The Vainglory ends the day after tomorrow,” I said, relieved when my voice held steady. “Finding the key before then would be a miracle—much less, that and your sister’s killer both. Do you truly believe we stand a chance of victory?”
Leaned against the stone, Eliot cocked his head. “You’ve found far more than simply a key on your own since entering Fortblanche. Perhaps I have faith in you.”
“I had time then,” I replied evenly. “Now we have almost run out.”
He seemed to sour at that, his mouth twisting into a grimace. Releasing another exhale, he rubbed at his jaw. “Listen…it’s been a long night. Neither of us is in a state to discuss these matters now. Why don’t you rest? We can pick things up in the morning.”
I nodded but remained where I was, still in a daze. When I didn’t start for my room, Eliot’s brow furrowed, his eyes darting between me and my bedroom door across the hall.
“Lovett…” His voice was odd—uncertain, with a throaty, full rasp, as if he’d caught a cold.
I startled at the sound of it, focusing back on him.
“Earlier tonight,” he continued, and immediately, the hairs along my arms rose.
“Perhaps I spoke out of turn. I thought—well, I’m not sure what I thought, to be honest, only that I felt… compelled to say what I did.”
As he spoke, a pinkish tinge rose to his skin, an uncharacteristic warmth. Was he blushing?
“I hope I didn’t offend, is all,” he finished.
I stared at him, watching as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other.
What did he wish me to say? That I, too, felt compelled by him?
That I trusted my ability to betray him even less than I trusted myself?
Or, possibly, that I understood his meaning exactly—that I always had, and always did, as clearly as if he’d muttered it into my ear?
All of it seemed dangerously unwise. “You didn’t,” I answered, a moment later. “It’s fine.”
The color in his cheeks deepened—he was blushing, and the confirmation unsettled me almost more than anything I’d witnessed in the cavern. “Good,” he replied shortly. “I’m glad it’s fine, then. Good night.”
Before I could muster a response, he was sweeping roughly by me, disappearing down the corridor.
I turned to watch his retreat, my lips parted to call after him, but a nagging reluctance stopped me.
In his wake, the atmosphere was charged and combustive, the air around me tight as if the space were waiting to exhale.
Tugging the end of my braid in irritation, I gave up and crossed to my door.
It was as Eliot had said—the night had been a long one, as had the day that preceded it, and I was in no state to scrutinize either.
Exhaustion burned in my muscles; I needed sleep, yet when I crawled beneath my sheets, resting my head diligently on my pillow, I found it would notcome.
Grunting, I switched positions, but no matter which way I turned my head, it refused to clear.
My mind was full of Eliot: his hunched form in the fading daylight as he sat at my bedside, a book in his lap; his curls dripping cave water down onto me, the wet glisten of them on my skin like teardrops in the dark.
It was infuriating—over the past twenty-four hours I had discovered so much, witnessed so much, and still I was unable to empty my thoughts of him , the sense-memory of his touch as persistent as the sun chasing its quarry across the sky.
I wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed when I finally got up again.
My mirror was still covered, so I did not know how I looked as I passed it, though I could imagine it—my brown hair half fallen from its messy plait, strands escaping from the feeble scrap of ribbon securing them, and my feet bare and dead-white in the lightless gloom.
With my restless demeanor, I would resemble nothing so much as a vengeful wraith if anyone were to sight me in the castle halls, yet I didn’t stop to don a caul before I slipped back out into the corridor.
When the worn green door appeared in front of me, I was unsurprised.
I’d climbed to the top of the turret containing Eliot’s and my meeting room with only a vague awareness of my destination.
The instinct to come here had been natural in a way I couldn’t articulate, like the pull of a bird to migrate—even if I tried, I knew I could do nothing to stop it.
The door creaked open without resistance as I twisted the knob. When I stepped over the threshold, I froze.
There was already someone inside.
He was slouched in one of the room’s two armchairs, clad in the same outfit he’d worn to the caves with an open book resting on his thigh.
The globe sconces were unlit, the cozy round chamber illuminated solely by the flames that crackled in the soot-blackened fireplace.
Rain, which had kicked up as I’d been walking, pattered off the window, its inky sheen against the panes standing in stark contrast to the orange warmth within.
Eliot closed his book when he saw me. “Lovett.”
There was trepidation in the way he said my name—a caution, as if he were unsure of my intentions—and for an inexplicable reason, it made me feel ashamed.
His expression, which I’d learned to read nearly as well as my own over the past weeks, was shuttered; it was like he’d drawn a curtain closed. “I couldn’t sleep,” I stammered weakly.
The door was still lolling open behind me, and for the few seconds that he was silent, I wondered if he would usher me out of it.
It shouldn’t have mattered, if he wished for solitude—I’d ostensibly come here in search of the same—and yet now that I’d happened upon him, the notion of his rejection drove all the heat from my bones.
It was a relief when he sighed, slumping back against the armchair. “Me neither,” he said, motioning to the seat next to him. “Care to join me?”
Gratefully, I did so, tucking my feet beneath my legs so that I was curled, catlike, on the chair cushion.
I expected the conversation to resume once I was settled, but rather than speak again, Eliot turned smoothly back to his book, flipping through the pages in silence.
Though his face was downcast to read, I got the distinct feeling that he was deliberately avoiding glancing over at me—he radiated a bruised sort of petulance, like I was an unfavored guest at the dinner table, invited but not necessarily welcome.
It reminded me of the tension in the corridor when he’d left me by my room, the sense of volatility like after the conclusion of a fight.
As if he’d come up here to lick his wounds.
After several minutes, I could not take the quiet any longer. “Reading?”
Unspeaking, Eliot nodded, the whisper of another turning page lancing through the stillness. Annoyance partially usurping my unease, I pressed on. “Noé reads often, too.”
“He picked up many of his better habits from me.” Eliot’s reply was caustic and immediate.
Tilting his chin back, he exhaled heavily through his nostrils as if composing himself, then shut his book again and turned to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a gentler tone. “I can’t seem to avoid disparaging him around you. ”
The force of his stare prickled at me, though I’d brought it upon myself. “It’s fine.”
Eliot’s gaze was unwavering. “It is disrespectful, considering he may be your husband soon.”
I flinched, then winced again as, promptly, I registered my mistake. Hurriedly, I tried to hide my distaste—but it was too late. Eliot had held up the prospect of marriage to his friend, and I had leaned away rather than toward it. Had shown myhand.
A weight dropped in my stomach as Eliot shifted forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Lovett,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Why did you come here?”
“I have told you already,” I answered, careful to keep my speech even. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He shook his head. “No—that’s why you left your room. Why did you come here , to this place?”
Neither of us had moved from our armchairs.
If anything, it should have been easier to rebuff him now than it had been in the caves, with his presence leaning over me, close enough to make out my lies—and yet I felt the compulsion to speak the truth just as intensely.
“I suppose I thought you might,” I whispered. “Come here, that is.”