Page 117 of The False Vow

“Are you insane?” Anais seethed down at me, her meticulous blond updo now a riot of corkscrew curls falling chaotically about her face. She looked messy and frightened—two terms I had never ascribed to her before. “Open that door, and she will strike you dead.”

Her warning had no effect on me. My skull was pounding—with panic as well as the aftereffects of using my Wit. I’d never strained it so greatly before; it felt as though I were beneath the armchair again, being crushed to death in the turret room. My mind was a squeezed lemon, all the juice wrung out.

Glass rattling in my lungs, I stood. My ears rang as I took one step, then a second, toward the door, echoing with the rip of the bullet as it left Clio’s gun.

This time, Anais handled me more gently. Stepping in front of me, she placed a single hand on my chest. Her touch was light, barely there, but pathetically, I found I was too weak to resist her. “Sisters three,” she said softly. “You’re devoted—I’ll give you that much.”

Her eyes searched mine, sympathy in them; ashamed, I glanced away. “Let me go.”

“Lovett.” Manon was beside me now, petting my hair. Her touch was cool—it was only then, feeling the winter kiss of her fingers against my neck, that I realized how hot my own skin had become. “She’s right. You’ve overexerted yourself—”

I shook her off, speaking over her. “Let me go!”

“Fine!” With a huff, Anais pulled her arm back.

Lacking her weight to support me, I swiftly tumbled forward, my knees colliding roughly with the ground. My muscles screamed, a swarm of black dots invading my vision; I gritted my teeth to keep back the bile I could feel rising up my throat.

“Crawl to him if you wish,” Anais said from above me. Her tone was harsh—when I glanced up at her, she pressed her lips together and nodded at the door. “Come on, then. You wanted to go—go.”

I knew what she was doing, and I didn’t care. Placing my hands on the floor—my legs had abandoned me, and I could not stand—I heaved myself in the direction of the door.

I love you. Don’t forget it. His words in my mind sounded foreign, like they’d been uttered in another language; even so, I clung to them desperately, driving myself onward.

My breath left me all at once. I’d barely made it a foot before my arms gave out beneath me, the world fading to an endless heap of black.

Chapter Fifty-Two

For a long while, I slipped in and out of existence.

Dark infinities circled overhead. I was back in the tunnels, being dragged along a path toward the cloisters—no, I was in a carriage, Noé seated across from me, burning away the night with the lit ember of his cigarette.

Lowering it, he looked at me. His eyes were like pieces of the sky; suddenly, I could have sworn I’d known them since childhood. Had glimpsed them in every gray cloud that rolled past the window of my family’s cottage, every iron streak of rain.

He cocked his head. I heard his voice, though his mouth did not move, vibrating through me as he stubbed out his cigarette against the window. Forgive me. I know you think it a disgusting habit.

His fingers were bare. He was not wearing his engagement ring, I saw; neither was I. The jewelry had vanished, as surely as if I’d never donned it in the first place.

My lips were sealed shut. I sat in silence as the carriage drove on, ferrying us both into the blackness, the connection between us shattered like we were two strangers, as yet unmet.

—

A voice. I sensed it more than I heard it, like an object wrapped in wool, rubbing roughly against my consciousness. Murky depths swam above me; through them, I could make out the sound of two people murmuring to one another, distant and warped as if their conversation were occurring on the other side of a fogged mirror.

I swam toward the noise. Light filtered gradually into my vision, my mind pulling itself out of the muck—and then, suddenly, I was opening my eyes, death slipping from my shoulders like a skin I had shed.

I was lying in a bed. Around me, a well-appointed, cheerful room unfolded. A gentle breeze stirred dainty lace curtains, the open windows beyond them displaying a view of the Balmoorish coast. Inside, vases of wildflowers brightened the room, placed beneath an alarming number of mirrors which lined the walls like gape-mouthed soldiers, ogling me from their posts.

Sitting next to my bedside was a figure. Reality crashed back over me at the sight of them. I whipped my arm out, grasping on to their wrist.

“Sisters—” Anais gasped. Her face contorted in irritation as she ripped her arm away from me. “He’s alive, dammit. Are you going to do this every time you wake?”

I’d woken before? Perplexed, I searched my mind; if I focused, I thought I could make out the faint trace of memories—snatches of conversations similar to this one, slivers of this same room—but they were as vague and undefined as smears of jam on a plate.

Still. That revelation mattered little in comparison to the other one Anais had imparted to me. He’s alive.

Noé, alive. It was impossible. I’d seen him, hadn’t I? Suspended in death beside me, embarking on that strange carriage ride through the impenetrable night, toward some dark and unknown country. I’d heard the sound of that bullet. But…I was here now. Somehow, I’d survived my wedding day, had clawed myself out of Fortblanche and to safety.

Could that mean he had, too?