Page 120 of The False Vow

“Lovett,” he said simply. The air was humid, rich with the scent of lavender, the cleansing bite of salt. “How are you?”

He seemed to know better than to reach for me, though I could tell by the way his hand flexed that he wished to do so. “It’s been a trying week,” I replied. “First, my ex-lover exposes me before all of good society on my wedding night; then his fiancée shoots my husband in the back.” I paused. “I assume Clio is the one who told you where to find me, yes? Took her a while. Perhaps she is losing her touch.”

Eliot huffed. “There is more to what I did at your dinner than meets the eye. I know you are aware of that, or else you would have never agreed to speak to me. And yes,” he admitted. “It was Clio who tracked you down. Marie-Louise did something with her Wit—tucked bits of you in mirrors all around the country, like a host of false reflections. It made it more difficult for Clio to pick out where you truly were.”

Had it? Clever girl. I sent a silent pulse of gratitude toward the Owl.

“Are you still engaged to her?” I asked.

Eliot was silent, but by the fact that he refused to meet my eyes, I knew his answer was a yes.

Against my better judgment, I stepped closer. “You realize she nearly killed Noé.”

“I…” Eliot broke off, his features twisting. His shoulders drew together, his hand rising to rub gingerly at his bruised cheekbone before he spoke again. “I made her a promise,” he growled. “I do not expect you to understand the depths of it. And I know what she did to Noé.” He lowered his arm, half turning away from me. “It was never my intent to harm him—to harm either of you. Trust me, I have mourned his injury more than you could ever comprehend.”

I swallowed. “How is he?”

Eliot’s eyes flashed, the pain in them evident. “He is…all right,” he replied in a hesitant manner. “I don’t know more than that, to be fair. He won’t let me see him.”

“Did it hurt you, to think of him dead?”

“Hurt me?” Eliot laughed, grating and dark. “It killed me.”

He fell silent, thumbing at his bruises. His jaw was clenched tight, his gaze hooded and—I hated the thread of sympathy I felt for him then. Abruptly, Noé’s words rose in my mind: I know him better than anyone alive.

Noticing me studying him, Eliot glanced up. “Well,” he said. “Go on. I know you have a theory about what happened at your wedding. Let’s hear it.”

He was right—I did. Blinking, I tucked my thoughts away, grateful for the excuse to ignore them. “Bastian was involved,” I guessed. “I assume he struck a deal with you, though it would have to be a good one for you to agree. What was it—my hand in marriage if you could separate me from his son?”

Eliot shook his head. “Your safety,” he whispered. “Lucie…” He drifted off; his mouth twitched. “I confessed to you how she ceased contact with Clio and me, but there was more to it than that. About a week ago, apparently, she went to speak with Bastian. Told him that you and I had approached her at the opera house—and what we’d shared with her while there. She offered to bury the truth about the origin of Weavers’ magic, and Sybil’s death, for that matter, provided Bastian agreed to cut her in on his magesilk production.”

His throat bobbed.

“She wants the cloisters,” Eliot went on in a low tone. “Managed and operated by her, with sorcerer oversight to help settle the public’s nerves. And in exchange, of course”—his eyes flicked to mine—“the Weaver secret stays safe.”

He paused, biting at the corner of his lip.

“They were going to pin Sybil’s murder on you,” Eliot went on. “Tie the whole matter up that way, but Bastian…He told me he’d grown fond of you. Offered me the chance to take you away, to spare you—but only if I tarnished your name. Made it so that no matter how desperately Noé wanted you, the public would never allow you to be together.”

My stomach had gone cold. So that’s why he did it. Eliot had outed my true identity not to defend me from the Weaver King or another sorcerer—but from Lucie Dabos. The mother of the girl whose murder I’d spent weeks attempting to solve.

“Bastian is the one who killed Sybil.” I spoke flatly, without emotion. “Lucie would strike a deal with the man who murdered her daughter?”

If Eliot was surprised by my disclosure, he didn’t show it. He shrugged, scratching his neck. “Bastian assured her that you were behind it, and she’s taken him at his word. I don’t think she’s much interested in examining the matter beyond that.”

Raising his head, he sighed.

“Sybil’s death was a tool for Lucie,” Eliot continued. “Now that she’s gotten what she wanted out of it, she can set it aside.”

Right and wrong…are merely terms…Is it all just strategy—games won and games lost?

Bastian’s words echoed in my ears. Clearly, he’d meant nothing of what he’d said to me during our last conversation; clearly, all the while, he’d been forming other plots of his own. So why did it feel like, in a strange way, the Weaver King was the only person I’d met since my arrival at Fortblanche who’d been honest with me?

I forced myself to focus. “And you accepted Bastian’s offer,” I guessed. “That’s why you said what you did at the Diplomat, about my wedding being no celebration. You were attempting to warn me.”

“I thought I might convince you to avoid the whole affair and leave with me right then.” Eliot spoke the words grimly, like he loathed himself for saying them, but nodded all the same. “The—the plan, I suppose, was to have Bastian’s staff apprehend you at the wedding, and then, before Adélard could cart you to the cloisters, you’d be passed to me. We’d tell people you escaped—or that you’d fallen to your death and your body had been lost to the ocean, perhaps. The important thing was that you’d be alive.”

He phrased it well. I could almost see his logic. Except…“Why not simply tell me what Lucie was planning and let me save myself?” I asked. “Why work with Bastian at all?”