Page 61 of The False Vow

“I do not miss other people,” Anais corrected. I was surprised to find that her tone, usually so cynical, was genuine. She was speaking to Manon with a vulnerability I’d never witnessed before; it was like seeing a crab without its shell. “You were all I needed. Whatever else you choose to believe about me, I know you understand that.”

Manon made a small noise. Somehow, I knew without seeing it that her gaze had fallen to Anais’s engagement ring, the emerald bulging above her knuckle like a plump green insect.

“You never should have accepted his suit,” she said. Her voice was softer than before—sadder. “You never should have started up with Dorian to begin with. If you’d just talked to me, Ani, I would have allowed it. I’m not some fledgling bird in need of protection, like you seem to believe. I would have understood.”

“I don’t think you a fledgling bird.” Anais’s reply came quickly. “I think you good. What I did with Dorian…I withheld it from you because I couldn’t bear the possibility that you would’ve been ashamed of me. Disgusted by how low I was willing to stoop for victory.” Her voice caught. “You know that you’re the only person who has ever thought highly of me. I just…wanted to preserve that impression while I could.”

There was an odd, garbled quality to her words, which hadn’t been there a second prior. Was she choking? Or—Sisters three.

Was she crying?

In the bedroom, Manon was silent. Unconsciously, I leaned forward, eager to make out her reply—only to jerk back when her voice bounded through the door a second later.

“Even when I hated you, I could never be ashamed of you,” she said. “You…You are brave, Ani. Of the two of us, you were the only one willing to face our future, back before the Vainglory. All I wanted was to run away, but you—you were determined to carve a place in society for us, no matter the cost.” She hesitated as if debating something; then, to my shock, I heard her footsteps move in the direction of the bed. “You were always too hard on yourself.”

Anais laughed weakly. “I have a high standard to meet.”

Quiet descended. Outside in the corridor, I backed away from the door, blushing. This conversation was much too intimate to witness—I felt suddenly guilty for intruding on it.

Just then, Manon’s voice followed me out of the room. She sounded ruffled, unsure. “I—I should go.”

That decided it. Lifting the skirt of my nightdress, I turned and rushed back the way I’d come before she could exit and find me lurking.

Only once I was a safe distance away did I resume my snooping. Every time I detected noises from within a room, I stopped and repeated the trick with my Wit. It was remarkably effective, every sound amplified as if caught in a bell jar, but even so, I picked up little of use. A few pieces of gossip, a few rumors passed and circulated through the dimness—but beyond that, nothing.

Wearily, I pressed forward. Ahead of me lay the door to the billiards room—the site of Anais and Dorian’s rendezvous during the Midway Ball. On a whim, I placed my palm against the wood, startled when a voice rang out from beyond.

“Mind if I join you?”

I went still. The words were accompanied by the sound of another door opening—the entrance on the far side of the billiards room, which I knew led out to Fortblanche’s terrace. And the speaker…

It was Noé.

A second later, another voice answered him—lower, with a polished, crisp accent in comparison to my fiancé’s drawled syllables. Eliot. “Go ahead,” he said.

Footsteps padded across the space, followed shortly afterward by a muted thunk. It took me a minute to place the sound: They were playing darts.

It seemed an eternity before Noé spoke. “Your fiancée is a rather talented storyteller.”

My spine straightened. There was another thunk as one of them—Eliot?—threw a dart at the target. “What did she say to you?”

“Oh, nothing really.” Noé’s reply was bitter. “That my bride-to-be cheated her out of a win during the Vainglory. That throughout the competition, Lovett constantly sought out opportunities to bully and belittle her, which was the reason for her outburst today.”

A pause. I made out a harsh clink as though one of them had set a glass down too hard; I wondered if one, or both, of them were drinking.

“Noé.” Eliot’s tone was soft; hearing it made my heart seize up. “You have to know—I had no idea she would behave like that. I would never…” He broke off. “Is Lovett all right?”

The tension in the room lessened. I could feel the atmosphere open up somehow, though I was not there to witness the effect of it myself. “According to the doctor, fine.” I could picture Noé’s laconic shrug. “Personally, I’ve found her to be slightly more murderous than usual lately, which I have taken to mean that she’s hurting.” A pause, deliberate and curious. “She didn’t tell you, then? About the deal my father’s offered them?”

I assumed Eliot shook his head, because a moment later, Noé explained. Hearing his description of Bastian’s ultimatum made me feel ashamed, as if it were a flaw of mine he was reciting to Eliot and not a plot against my life.

I supposed it did seem like the former sometimes. An issue I could not fix, no matter how hard I tried.

The room grew quiet once Noé had finished speaking. A second later Eliot laughed. “Seven girls after her head,” he said. “And still, she’d rather marry you than me.”

There was a clipped thump as his dart met its target, sank into the cork. Noé cleared his throat. “I don’t think her preferences have anything to do with it,” he replied. “Eliot, are the two of you all right?”

Eliot huffed. “It’s so strange to hear you call me that. Do you remember, when we were younger, I begged you to say Eliot rather than Lear. And you told me that you only used the surnames of the people you liked best, because our given ones were too precious to waste.” A second pause, this one sour. “Another line from your Sisters-damned books.”