The Weaver Bride #1

Chapter Forty-Three

Rising back into Fortblanche was strange. Caked in dirt and with my eyes sore and beady from the darkness, I felt like a creature crawled from her own grave to wreak havoc on the living.

I supposed in some ways, that’s exactly what I’d come todo.

The lantern had still been lit when I’d arrived back in the atrium, dutifully marking my exit path.

At the end of the passage I’d taken, a ladder stretched up into the dimness, blue light filtering through the rectangular opening just visible at its top.

Evening had come while I’d been underground, the day passing high above me like a bird. I hadn’t even felt it leave.

The rungs of the ladder were slick in my hands.

When I poked my head aboveground again, I saw that I was in a small, tastefully furnished space: the Weaver King’s study, where he’d administered the second trial.

Drizzle coated the latticed windows, Bastian’s desk and the rug beneath it pushed aside to expose the opening I’d come through.

Another entrance. Not for the first time, I wondered how many there were, riddling the foundation of Fortblanche.

Imagined the blood from Clio’s wound seeping outward from the atrium where I’d left her, spreading through the estate like groundwater.

“At last, our winner emerges.”

I’d expected Bastian’s voice, flinched when instead his son’s carried easily through the quiet.

A chill slipped through me as I glanced over my shoulder and found Noé seated in his father’s armchair, lounging idly with one leg crossed over the other.

He was dressed in ivory, the same as he’d been the day of my arrival, with his hair neatly combed and his silver eyescalm.

His father was nowhere to be seen, though that in itself provided me little comfort. Facing his heir would be trial enough.

The last time we’d spoken, Noé had promised me victory. Had that, too, been a lie?

How much did he know? It was the question at the center of all others. Which of the Vainglory’s secrets had his father shared with him—and which had the Weaver King kept for himself, as a person’s head hides its purpose from their heart?

“So,” Noé said suddenly, leaning forward in his seat, “Miss Lovett Tamerlane. Wonderful, really, to get to speak with you at last.” He rested his elbow on his armchair, cupping his chin in his palm as he observed me. “You’re not who we were expecting,” he remarked.

I held his stare, still clutching the top rung of the ladder. His use of my true name did not disturb me; it felt appropriate somehow. The time had come for both of us to shed our disguises.

“Upset your father’s rankings, have I?” I replied.

Noé smirked but said nothing in response, gesturing for me to climb fully into the room.

I did so, kicking the rug over the tunnel entrance once I had and backing up to lean against the opposite wall.

If Clio—or Bastian, wherever he was—attempted to come through the same exit, the barrier of the carpet would give me a head start.

Once I was settled in my position, Noé spoke again. “Did you kill Miss Lavoie?” His expression was blank—free of judgment or concern. His apathy revolted me.

“No.”

The arch of his brow was the only sign that my answer took him by surprise. “You know she would have, had your situations been reversed.”

Privately, I remembered the plunge of her knife as it cut down toward my chest, and I did not doubt it. “It is fortunate for us both, then, that they weren’t,” I said aloud.

Another flicker of a smile. This time, Noé tucked his amusement away, his expression turning solemn.

“Miss Tamerlane,” he said, shifting forward in his chair.

His voice had taken on a new tenor—low, somber—and I was reminded abruptly of the worry he’d shown after Dorian’s assault, the care over my well-being, which I’d considered genuine at the time.

I would not make that mistake again.

“Why are you here?” Noé continued. “Your Wit would have allowed you to escape through any tunnel—my father is absent, in fact, because when neither you nor Miss Lavoie resurfaced in a timely manner, he became convinced you had done so. He is searching for you now. Why did you not take the opportunity to flee Fortblanche while you could?”

So that was where Bastian had gone: to track me down himself. Would he return here when he could not find me? The prospect of it was disquieting; still, I met his son’s gaze, unafraid. “I have questions for you. About the moonless door—and what lies beyond it.”

The effect of my words was immediate. A cool sort of understanding slid over Noé’s features, chasing away the false anxiety; he settled back in his chair, watching me with flat eyes.

“Well, by all means, then,” he said evenly. “Ask away.”

I did not wait for him to reconsider. “You told me this morning that if I wished it, I would be your bride,” I accused, careful to keep my voice steady. “Yet you were lying. Clio Lavoie has been destined for victory since the beginning—I saw the evidence myself. Do you deny it?”

Noé frowned, a reflexive jerk of his mouth, as though I’d offended him.

“I meant what I said this morning,” he replied a moment later.

His words came slowly; I got the sense he was taking great care in selecting them, weighing each one before he spoke it aloud.

“Miss Lavoie was my father’s chosen winner, yes, but I wanted you.

Was going to defy his wishes and select you, but then…

” He drifted off, shrugging, and I heard what he’d left unsaid.

The ransacked bedroom. Me, with the candle in my hand.

Bastian’s presence usurping my thoughts.

My anger sparked. Was he blaming me?

“Did your father know about your and Ophelia’s correspondence?” I asked before my emotion could divert me.

“He does now,” Noé answered from his chair. “He didn’t before.” His gaze tightened on me. “You found the candle forhim.”

Indignation stoked in my chest at his chiding expression.

He was blaming me, I realized, and the notion of it made me furious.

Illogically, I found myself comparing his reaction to Eliot’s—Eliot, who always sought to understand me, comfort me.

Who, even when we’d argued, had taken care to avoid my weak places, pulling his punches whenever I flinched.

Whom I had rejected and abandoned.

“And Eliot?” I heard myself asking. “What about him?”

Noé winced as though struck. “Eliot knows nothing,” he said softly.

“He’s been worried about you, you know. Was irate when he learned you’d been taken to the final trial without his being notified.

” Looking down at his lap, he picked absentmindedly at his thumbnail.

“My father had him dismissed until the ball tonight so he wouldn’t interrupt the proceedings.

It wasn’t supposed to be held until tomorrow, but because of you, the competition’s timeline has been expedited. ” He smirked. “An honor, really.”

Will you marry him? Will you be his bride? The echoes of Eliot’s speech pressed up against me; with effort, I pushed them away.

“What were the two of you to one another exactly?” I asked once I’d gathered myself. “You and Ophelia?”

There it was again: that barely discernible twitch of his mouth, like a crack in his armor, which told me my inquiries affected him.

“We were friends for a long time,” Noé said, his gaze still stubbornly downturned.

“And then, later, something more. We hid our involvement from Eliot, of course. He wouldn’t have approved—would’ve thought her far too good for me—and Ophelia…

She didn’t want to upset him.” He paused, his eyes jumping to mine, and I was startled to glimpse remorse in their gray depths, like a sudden fog.

“The candles were originally a way for us to speak to one another while we were apart,” he went on.

“Once she was in Fortblanche, we used them to communicate privately.”

I broke his stare, unwilling to entertain his bid for pity. Outside, the clouds had darkened; rain lay as thick as saliva on the windowpanes, obscuring the view beyond.

“Then the story you told me in the gardens about the other girl—Clémence—was a lie,” I said after another beat had passed. “It was Ophelia whom you’d been in love with prior to the start of last year’s competition. You sought me out after the first trial to determine what I knew.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Noé’s cheek dimple with the ghost of a smile.

“So determined to doubt me. I sought you out because I found you intriguing,” he interjected.

“But yes, naturally, it was a lie. Lear had already let word slip to you about my heartbreak—he’d begun to suspect that I was seeing someone before the Vainglory last year, and I needed a story to keep him from wondering about the girl’s identity.

” He paused as if in consideration. “Normally, he’s quite good with secrets, you know.

I was surprised when I learned he’d passed the rumor on. ”

I turned back to him as he shook his head.

“He thinks himself so subtle,” Noé remarked.

“It was obvious he was plotting something when he asked me to admit you to the Vainglory. For his own safety, as well as yours, I should have denied him, but…” He sighed.

“I don’t know. I felt for him, I suppose.

And…there was a part of me that wanted to see what you could find out. ”

“About Ophelia,” I clarified. “And her death.” When he did not correct me, I cleared my throat, steadying myself. “Did you kill her?”

His responding laugh was grim and humorless. “No,” Noé replied without looking at me. “But her death was my fault. We argued—the night she fell. She’d made a discovery, and she doubted my ignorance.”

My pulse sped. “Ignorance of what?”

He lifted his head, arching a brow in wordless rebuke.

“The chamber behind the moonless door,” I ventured.

I knew I’d guessed correctly even before he nodded.

“What is its purpose?”

For a moment, Noé was silent, his stare unflinching and inscrutable as he studied me. Then he smiled, clucking his tongue reproachfully. “Now, that, I believe, you can answer yourself.”

I felt a pluck of irritation at his evasion. “Our hair is taken there,” I said. “Mine and the other maidens’. The competition is rigged, as I have already said.”

His nose wrinkled as though in distaste. “Of course it’s rigged,” he replied bluntly. “Does that really come as a surprise to you? It has always been rigged.” He jerked his chin at me, prodding me onward. “Keep going. You can do better.”

I glared at him, standing my ground. “But why bother with trials if the winner is decided from the beginning?” I protested, unbudging. “Why host a competition at all?”

“The trials are a distraction, meant to keep the girls from guessing what they are truly being judged on. If they lose, they turn their blame inward rather than anywhere else.” Noé’s tone was impatient, his speech clipped. Grunting, he narrowed his eyes. “Does Lear always give you so many answers?”

I returned his scowl. “Eliot is helpful.”

“He is going easy on you.” Noé held my stare for a second more before glancing away, down toward his lap again. “What exactly did you find in the chamber?” he asked brusquely.

My skin bristled at his retreat—his unceasing questions, as if we were in the middle of yet another test. “It was a workroom,” I replied.

“There were spinning wheels, and satchels of our hair—mine and the rest of the maidens’.

And…” I hesitated. “Inside the pouches, there were measurements. Purity and potency of yield.”

Noé nodded along absently, seemingly absorbed in the act of picking a bit of stuffing from the armrest of his chair.

“Naturally,” he replied. “My father needs me to wed the strongest silkwitch, to produce the finest product with which to enchant his Woven goods.” He glanced up at me skeptically. “What else?”

“My Wit was recorded as well,” I answered tersely. “Along with several…extrapolations.”

A spark flared in his gaze—a jolt of satisfaction. Slowly, he laid his hand down, the blade of his attention returning solely to me. “Good,” he responded. “Now, what could those mean?”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know.”

His nostrils flared. “Think harder.”

“I am thinking.” I spat the words out, the last of my patience fraying. Why was he pushing me in this manner? At once, the exhaustion of my tussle with Clio in the tunnels seemed to settle into my bones; I swayed on my feet, struggling to remain upright.

To my front, Noé’s expression softened, as if with a current of pity. I looked away, disgusted.

“Do you know what my mother’s Wit was, before it left her?” he asked. His voice was gentler now, the question extended to me rather than hurled.

Still, my frustration was such that I could have cried, were the idea of doing so in front of him not utterly humiliating.“No.”

If Noé heard the petulance in my tone, he ignored it. “She was a diviner,” he went on. “She could read people’s emotions in tea leaves.”

“Whatever would she see if she read mine just now, do you think?” I risked a glance at him.

He chuckled drolly. “How funny,” he conceded. “Now take her Wit and extrapolate from it.”

I knitted my brow. “What do you mean?”

Noé shook his head. “You’ve been taught to believe that silkwitch blessings are specific—a narrow, if useful, set of abilities,” he said.

“I’m encouraging you to broaden your horizons.

Imagine my mother’s Wit as a root of power, rather than magic matured to its fullness.

What else might a gift such as hers grow into? ”

My head pounded. I wanted nothing more than to turn and leave Noé and his nonsensical thought experiments behind me, but where could I go?

Shut up with him in Bastian’s study, I was like a mouse in a hole; if I abandoned my cover and ventured back into Fortblanche, I had no doubt the Weaver King would find me.

For better or worse, I was trapped. “Reading tea leaves…An expansion of that might be reading emotions generally?”

Noé hummed in approval. “Good start. Think bigger.”

I closed my eyes, warding off the ache in my skull. “Reading…impressions?” I guessed desperately. “Thoughts? Reading another’s mind?”

My eyes snapped open as I realized what I’d said.

“I don’t understand,” I breathed. “A power like that…It is beyond our reach. It could belong only to sorcerers like your father.”

Noé’s gaze was sad. “Weavers are not sorcerers, Miss Tamerlane,” he corrected. “Your kind are.”