Page 33 of The False Vow

The response seemed to pacify Anais. Relaxing, she plucked again at her caul. “A few days ago, I received a rather unexpected visitor,” she started. “Bastian Alaire.”

As if in a test, her gaze cut to mine. I managed to remain still under the lens of her assessment, though within me, my heart gave a kick at her confession. Bastian.

It appeared my future father-in-law had been busy since we’d last spoken.

“Mr. Alaire confided in me that your triumph in his son’s competition had been achieved only through trickery—that you had cheated your way through the trials, and infatuated poor Noé so thoroughly that he refused to acknowledge your corrupting influence on him,” Anais went on. “He made me a…proposition, shall we call it. Namely, that if I could dispose of you before your wedding day without being caught, he would allow me to take your place at the altar.”

She cleared her throat primly.

“Bastian did not say as much, but I gather I was not the only silkwitch he went to with his offer. The rest of our former competitors were contacted, too.” Her lashes flickered as her eyes swept appraisingly over me. “He must be truly desperate to be rid of you.”

The final bit she uttered with a sort of grudging respect, as though she were impressed by how deeply I’d managed to bury myself in Bastian’s side. I could barely appreciate her admiration. My mind clouded, her words echoing within my skull. Dispose of you…Take your place at the altar.

The test is finished…when you lose. Bastian’s remark from the coach came back to me—and yet, apparently, my future father-in-law did not have the patience to simply wait for me to fail. No, he had designed my end himself. Had set a trap while my back was turned, after I’d thought he and I had agreed to a bargain.

Swallowing, I replied to her. “So, all of them are after me.”

Anais shrugged, nonchalant. “All the girls who are not yet engaged, certainly.”

“And you?”

Her laugh took me aback, the sharp trill of birdsong. “Oh, how quaint,” she answered. “You think Adélard would allow me to walk free, if I further shamed the Drake line by leaving him for Noé?” She clicked her tongue, her expression reproachful. “Ironically, my dear Cecilia, I may be one of the only people you can trust.”

I ignored the tug of pity which pulled at my sternum as she twisted her ring. On the one hand, I had no doubts that the Cloister Master would make for an even crueler husband than his brute of a nephew; on the other, it was likely only Anais’s fear of him which was currently keeping her dagger away from my throat. In this particular situation, the benefits seemed to outweigh the costs.

“Speaking of trust,” I said instead, “I have another question for you. The night of the Midway Ball, during the competition. You lost an item which belonged to you.”

“An item…” Anais’s brow creased at my abrupt change in subject, then smoothed with understanding. “My gloves?” she chirped, delighted. “Have you found them?”

Her features were bright; she seemed to have put aside our previous topics of conversation entirely. Truly, the depths of her vanity amazed me. “I want to know when you last saw them,” I answered carefully.

She frowned but obliged me. “I left the ballroom at one point, to meet with Dorian,” Anais replied just as slowly. “In the course of our…encounter…I took them off.” She cleared her throat. “We were interrupted—I fled in a hurry. When I realized I’d forgotten the gloves, I went back to retrieve them, but they were gone.”

I sat forward, intrigued. “Where was this exactly? And what was the nature of the interruption?”

Anais’s gaze sharpened. “What do you care?” she sniped. She sat forward, both slippered feet extending toward the floor. “Why are you inquiring about my gloves?”

By her curiosity, I knew I’d been too obvious. Tensing, I mimicked her cool demeanor. “Does it matter?”

Her teeth came out then, from where they’d been hiding behind the pink of her smile. “Darling, it always matters.” Tucking up into her chair, she let her chin drop. “I’ll tell you,” she said, and my heart knocked against my ribs in eagerness. “For a price.”

“The one I have just agreed to does not cover it?” I scoffed, but nodded at her to continue. “Name the cost.”

I half expected Anais to pull her paws to her chest and lick them, so feline was her gaze. Her grin widened, the pearled jut of her incisors now exposed. “I want to be your maid of honor.”

It was the very last request I could have anticipated. A snort escaped me before I could kill it, loud enough that I worried it would be overheard by the silkwitches still lingering on the first floor. “You must be joking. Anais, you do not even like me.”

“And is that not to your benefit?” she protested. “I will be candid. Have you selected your dress yet?”

An incredulous look was my only reply. At it, Anais’s posture shifted, her limbs ridding themselves of their girlish looseness.

“Cecilia,” she said in a low tone, and though it was not my true name, I understood we were speaking honestly. “Listen to me. However justified you think your actions during the Vainglory, you cannot deny that you ruined my game. Your meddling cost me my future, and the affection of the only person I have ever loved.” She paused, her gaze briefly shuttering, and though I didn’t wish it to, guilt pierced me again. “After the competition, my choices were the cloisters or the man who ran them,” Anais continued. “Society has all but cast me out due to my entanglement with Dorian, but if I am your maid of honor, my status will be elevated. I will have friends again. Rich female friends, who also despise their husbands and will include me in all the expensive, frivolous hobbies they keep up to avoid them.” She leaned closer, her eyes leveling with mine. “You have already brought me down. Do you wish to see me in the mud?”

It was a difficult question to answer. Only months ago, I would have said yes without hesitation—I had orchestrated her exit from the Vainglory, after all, because I found her particular brand of cunning to be a direct threat to my own. And yet now…though my opinion on her personally had not changed—I still found her to be selfish, malicious, unrepentant—I could not make myself hate her in the way I had back then.

She was my rival. But I had learned the difference between a rival and an enemy.

“Fine,” I said, frowning when her features lit with glee. “But if your information is bad, I reserve the right to revoke my offer.”