Page 77 of The False Vow

I advanced another few paces, listening carefully this time for the echo of Noé’s footfalls behind me. His treads were heavier than usual, almost lurching, as if he were drunk.

Less than a minute later, there came a loud thud.

My pulse leapt. I whirled around. “Noé!”

He was lying in the middle of the cobblestones, one elbow braced weakly against the ground, the other gripping at the collar of his shirt. Even in the dimness, I could tell that his face had gone deathly pale. His neck muscles were strained, wire-taut.

I ran to him, kneeling on the cobblestones. “What is the matter with you?”

Though I didn’t mean it to, it came out more hostile than concerned. For a half second, Noé’s mouth crooked up in a smile; then another shudder passed over him, and his expression wiped clean. “I don’t…” he managed. “I’m fine.”

With effort, he pushed himself into a seated position. I grasped him by the shoulders, shoving him down as he attempted to stand. “You are evidently not fine,” I hissed. My voice was waspish—why wasn’t I better at this? Why couldn’t I sound sympathetic? “Are you sick?”

“Dammit, Tamerlane, I don’t know!”

Noé turned to look at me directly. Even that effort seemed to weaken him—my heart dropped as he swayed against me, his vision clouding.

His hand came over mine. “Get Philippe,” he gasped.

I didn’t need to be told twice. Easing him to the ground, I stood and sprinted the length of the alleyway, my chest constricting at the sound of him coughing behind me. My thoughts were moving too quickly for me to keep up—dashing ahead like startled rabbits. What was happening? We’d eaten nothing while with Dorian. We’d drunk nothing. Had Noé been poisoned somehow? Wounded? Was he ill?

Each possibility was worse than the last. What if he was hurt—seriously hurt, because I’d forced him to accompany me on this mission tonight? What if—what if he—

A wave of relief crashed over me as I emerged onto the street and found Philippe waiting there, leaned up against our carriage, which was pulled to the side of the road. He startled when he saw me. “Miss—”

I shouted out to him. “Call a doctor!”

His eyes widened. He took off down the street before I could yell at him to use the carriage. Hands on my knees, I watched him go for a moment, panting—then turned and ran back to Noé.

He was curled where I’d left him, his knees tucked up by his stomach. His breaths were shallow—for a moment, I couldn’t make them out at all, and I wondered—but then he gasped, and shivered, and my body unclenched.

Gently, I maneuvered him upright. “We’ll lie you down in the coach,” I said lowly. His skin was tacky with sweat, though the night air was quite cold. “Can you walk?”

I took his wheezed exhale as a yes. Wrapping an arm around his waist, I threw his left one over my shoulder and hauled him to a standing position. He held himself up, but just barely. I couldn’t shake the impression that it was taking the fullness of his strength to keep himself from falling again.

Balancing him against me, I patted his hand. “You’re all right,” I whispered. My heart was beating very fast.

We made it to the side of the carriage before his knees buckled, sending us both to the ground. Between the two of us, we were making a good deal of noise, yet no one had emerged from Dorian’s to investigate. Did they care? Had Dorian been the one to do this somehow?

Noé reached for me. I couldn’t lift him into the carriage on my own, so I merely propped him up against its side, his head resting on the coach’s bottom lip. Hovering over him, I let him take my hand.

He swallowed. “I think…it may be…serious.”

I laid a palm on his cheek. “It isn’t,” I murmured. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Noé.”

Slipping my other hand from his, I placed it on the opposite side of his face, my thumb beneath his temple. I’d never touched this part of him before. His jawbone was sharp; I could feel the pounding of his blood, the bob of his throat as he swallowed, each motion rocking through me as if it were my own. The sensation was so intimate that under any other circumstances, I would have been embarrassed to look at him.

I smoothed a curl of hair away from his brow. “Noé,” I repeated softly. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

He didn’t answer me. His lashes had fluttered mostly closed, his forehead clammy where my fingers brushed it. Beneath the thin cover of his eyelids, I could see his eyes rolling, as though he were lost in a dream.

Abruptly, they flew open. My thoughts stalled as Noé’s thumb came beneath my chin. Delicately, he lifted my head, tilting it upward until my gaze met his.

His expression was perfectly calm. It was as if I were watching him through a window—through a memory, like he existed in another time. He seemed so impossibly cool. Unable to help myself, I returned his stare. His eyes were intent; looking into them, I was struck by the sudden, deeply strange conviction that beneath his composure, he had accepted that he was about to die, and decided the last sight he wished to look upon before he passed was that of my face.

He said—more breathed—my name. “Lovett…”

My pulse slowed to a complete halt. A coldness swept over me.