Page 16 of The False Vow

My hand stiffened. The door will never let you pass.

So certain, his next note said. And yet, it has known me far longer than it has you.

A few seconds after it arrived, another slip of white was thrown from the flame. Enough playing. Come out, come out, Tamerlane.

It was as close to an ultimatum as he’d ever given me. I refused him anyway, undeterred. No.

For a long beat, the flame sat quiet. When his next scroll arrived, I could hear the snarl behind his words. Your choice.

The flame went out. I watched the smoking wick for a moment before turning toward the front of my room, half indignant, half anxious. Would Noé truly break into my quarters, if I denied him entrance? It wasn’t a step he’d taken before, though that certainly didn’t mean he wouldn’t do so. I thought of him lurking outside our opera box when I’d returned from my meeting with Eliot—his eyes on mine, his teeth by my ear.

Since our engagement, I have not touched you once.

My stomach clenched. Eyeing the gilded doorknob, I clutched my fountain pen tighter, testing the sharpness of its nib…

A sudden pulse behind my eyes distracted me. Without warning, I felt my Wit rouse, a vision briefly flashing through my mind: a familiar green door creaking open, then closed again.

My pen dropped to the floor, my magic returning to its resting place, curled tight behind my ribs. He wouldn’t dare.

Rage erupted within me. Standing, I shoved back my chair and then—throwing my own door open—raced from my room.

Chapter Eight

The door to Eliot’s and my old meeting place was just as it had been during the Vainglory: its paint peeling, the estate roof folding above it in a tight steeple like a pointed cap. Beyond the slim windows, a fresh storm had started up, the sheer force of the rain so violent, it was as though Fortblanche had been positioned beneath a bucket which some petulant child had overturned.

I stood before the threshold with my hand hovering over the doorknob and my chest tight. It was true that, unlike Marie-Louise, I had yet to be able to develop my Wit in any meaningful way since the Vainglory. But though my talent for doors thus far remained unchanged, through weeks of concentration and practice, I’d found that my awareness of them had at least increased. Whereas previously, I could access an entrance only if I were standing directly in front of it, lately I’d discovered that I could retain a kind of mental hold on select passages even once I’d left them behind. The trick worked best on doors I was intimately familiar with—so far, I had employed it successfully only on the entrance to my new quarters, as well as the one in front of me now.

Whenever one of the doors I’d befriended opened, I’d feel a quiver regardless of where I was in the Alaires’ mansion, as if I’d looped a string around the knob and held the other end in my fist. Up until today, I’d mostly used the trick to ensure no intruders were entering my bedroom while I was out, but now…

I gritted my teeth. I’d made the mistake of sharing the new application of my Wit with Noé shortly after I’d discovered it, in a futile attempt to halt his ill-conceived “practices.” Evidently, my fiancé had come here because he’d known I would sense his entrance, but though my head urged me to turn around and retreat to my own chambers, my heart refused to obey.

I was protective of this space, and Noé knew it. It was the only one which had belonged to Eliot and me.

I turned the knob, and the door opened. There was someone else inside.

“The mouse appears!” Noé grinned at me from where he was seated, in the same armchair Eliot had habitually used during the competition. He looked as though he’d been caught in the rain—though he was wearing a fresh shirt and trousers, his hair was damp, falling in liquid black waves over his forehead. In one hand, he held a lit cigarette; the pack was half crushed beneath his left leg, peeking shyly out from under his thigh.

“I suppose you can be tempted after all,” he taunted. “What is it about this chamber, I wonder? Too many happy memories?”

His brows quirked suggestively. At once, I lost my patience. I stepped farther into the room, shutting the door behind me. “Even for you, this is low.”

“I agree. Unfortunately, darling, you forced my hand.” Noé seemed unmoved by my criticism, drawing lazily at his cigarette. Glancing about the cramped quarters, he added, “You know, I have always found it funny that Lear chose this place as the meeting point for your secret rendezvous, above all others. Did he tell you I was the one who found it? My father had it shut up when we were children, which of course only made me more determined to burrow my way inside.” He shifted back toward me, his expression coy. “What did the two of you get up to in here?”

There was pride in his voice. He was pleased with himself, I realized, with the clever way he’d lured me here, and the notion made him all the more insufferable. I never should have confided in him about the expansion of my Wit. The disclosure had been a momentary lapse in judgment, but regardless…

I sorely regretted it now.

Frowning, I replied to him. “What do you want, Noé?”

My fiancé stubbed out his cigarette on the armrest of his chair. I eyed the char mark he left on the fabric, my jaw clenched, but I made no move to draw closer and sweep the ash away.

He cleared his throat. “I fear you have been holding out on me, partner.”

A curl of trepidation. Wiping my face blank, I said, “Fear is a burdensome emotion. With hard work and practice, you may yet rise above it.”

He did not laugh. “That red-haired insect of yours,” Noé continued, as if I’d never spoken at all. “Mia.”

“What about her?”