Page 19 of The False Vow

Noé laughed. “I understand him better than anyone alive,” he said. “Including you.”

I stiffened. “He loves me.”

“Maybe he does,” Noé admitted. “But you are now connected to me. And for that, he will grow to despise you, too.” Shaking his head, he gave a bitter half shrug. “It is his way.”

My heart twisted. “You are wrong.”

There was a tremble in my voice. I could hear it, echoing off the turret walls, and it felt like a confession—like he’d pressed on a bruise. At my rebuke, we both went still. Noé had moved away from the window as he’d been speaking; he stood, frozen in the center of the room, his hand splayed as if locked in the midst of a debate.

His lips pressed together. I felt his pity approaching, the cool drop of a shadow signaling a presence behind, and I could not bear to face it. I would not.

I hefted my sword. “Do you think yourself clever?” I spat. “Luring me up here—needling me? Do you think it gives you power over me?”

Without thinking, I drew nearer to him. The movement was necessary, somehow, as if with every meter I approached, I shoved my own falter further off.

“You claim to understand Eliot, but you do not yet know me,” I hissed. “You and I share a common goal: revenge against your father. That is the extent of our partnership. The moment your needs no longer suit mine…” I let my words drop, then picked them up again. “I left the side of the only boy I have ever loved because you offered me a better bargain. You believe Lucie Dabos is immoral—what do you think a girl like me would do to you, someone I detest?”

Noé’s eyes were dark. He hadn’t retreated at my advance, only tilted his head down to better observe me. “What would you do to me, Tamerlane?”

I raised myself up on my toes. “I would come into your room at night, when you thought yourself safe,” I whispered. “I would climb into your bed. And I would kill you while you slept.”

His throat bobbed. We were so close now, chest to chest—it would have been intimate, if not for the loathing radiating between us.

I arched a brow. “Do you doubt me?”

A beat passed in silence, his gaze flicking over mine. Finally, Noé spoke. “Not in the slightest.”

The tension between us dissipated. I twisted away, satisfied—only to stop short as his hand came over my wrist.

“One moment, dear,” Noé murmured. “You accuse me of wanting a partnership, yet ours is no equal bargain. You have power over doors, yes—but I hold power in this house.”

I resisted as he drew me back toward him.

“Tomorrow,” he said, his features hardening. “We start our search for Sybil’s killer—or you may find that your visits with my friend are suddenly…restricted.”

Our stares locked. Dropping my arm, Noé broke the connection, starting roughly toward the door.

“If you are to lie to me, try harder next time,” he called as he took the doorknob in hand. His voice was harsh—there was no elegance in this departure, only a mutual, borderless anger. “Your lack of effort is insulting.”

The door clicked behind him as he left. I felt, illogically, as though it were on his side.

Chapter Nine

I went to bed in a sour mood and woke up feeling worse.

My ankle twisted as I stumbled my way through Fortblanche, making for the library—the meeting place Noé had designated for the first of our ridiculous detective sessions. It was midmorning, the estate still drowsy, tucked in behind a thin veil of sea fog which nuzzled against the stained glass windows. Bastian himself was absent, gone to attend to some business in town, and though it could have been my imagination, all the servants seemed easier without his presence. Their shoulders un-bunched, as if they no longer had to guard their heads from his prying.

The section of the house where I stood currently was not the section I wanted to be in. Despite my best efforts, I’d gotten lost again—taken a wrong turn to glance behind some door which had caught my notice and then been swept away into Fortblanche’s sea of passages. After a series of missteps, I finally seemed to have gotten on the right path, but I knew I had to hurry.

I didn’t want to keep my fiancé waiting.

A gentle whooshing sound from one of the rooms to my left drew my attention. The noise was hollow, rhythmic, like the drone of an insect swarm, whisking under the closed door so that I could not help but overhear it. It was peculiar enough that I paused, glancing toward the entrance with my skirt bundled in my arms.

The plain face of the wooden door stared back at me. I know this door. It was one I’d utilized quite often during the Vainglory. Behind it lay a disused spinning room, at the back of which sat a hidden entrance to Fortblanche’s tunnel network, where Sybil had died.

Was it still disused?

Unable to resist, I summoned my Wit and cracked the door open. There was a click as the lock undid itself, betraying a peek at the room inside.