Page 79 of The False Vow

“Tamerlane.”

My name sounded through the silence of the carriage. We were driving back toward Fortblanche, Philippe having returned with a sleepy-looking doctor shortly after Mireille had finished tending to Noé. The man’s examination of my fiancé had yielded little; aside from the fact that he’d nearly perished, Noé appeared perfectly healthy. The verdict brought me as much confusion as it did relief.

Now I looked over to where Noé had been napping on my shoulder. His eyes were open, his gaze bleary. I could feel his chin digging into my flesh. “How do you feel?” I asked.

He frowned. “Excellent, actually,” he replied. “What happened?”

His response, at least, loosened the knot of worry in my chest. “I’m not sure.” A terrible answer—I hated admitting it. “One of Dorian’s silkwitches, I think. His talk about friendship must have been a lie.” Glancing down at him, I sighed. “You don’t recall one of his girls approaching you on our way out? Touching you—or something of the like?”

Noé shook his head. He’d yet to lift it from my shoulder, instead simply tilting it to look up at me. I stiffened as, tentatively, he raised a hand toward my face.

“Don’t say it,” I said.

His fingers brushed over my jaw. “You saved me.”

My neck flared with heat. Before I could think better of it, I jerked my shoulder forward, sending him crashing into my lap.

“Sisters three, Tamerlane.” He swore, righting himself. “I’m injured.”

“You said you were feeling excellent,” I sniped in reply. My skin felt tender where he’d brushed it. Self-conscious, I pressed myself against the window. “You are incredibly close.”

Noé huffed. Shaking his head, he moved to the opposite end of the carriage bench—as far from me as he could conceivably get while remaining in the same space. “Better?”

I nodded. The carriage air was dark and stale between us, bitter with the scent of wood polish. Positioned as we were, we could have been two statues, taken from our original posts and locked away in storage—doomed to glare at one another until one of us eroded.

Minutes ticked by, impossible to quantify with the night sealing us off like a great black cloche. I winced as, without warning, a throbbing pain flared at my temples, where the band of my caul bit into my skin. The use of my Wit, and Noé’s near-death encounter, had left me shaky and exhausted, exacerbating the slight headache which had appeared upon Philippe’s return into an agonizing, teeth-clenching ordeal.

Reaching up, I attempted to pull the accessory off, but the netting snagged on the jeweled pins interspersed throughout my hairdo. I hissed as the caul gripped painfully at my scalp, like it was punishing me for my attempt to remove it.

Noé inclined his head. “What is it?”

His concern made me flush—I did not want to need it. “It’s nothing.”

Shifting away from him, I worked my fingers through my waves, but it was no use. The caul only became more tangled as a result of my prodding, knotting up with my hair as though the two were one.

Giving up, I turned sullenly toward Noé again. “The caul is stuck.”

Loose hair wisped against my forehead. Embarrassed, I picked at the pins studded over my scalp for another minute, all too aware of Noé watching me wordlessly from the other side of the bench, before he sighed and said in a tone of great irritation, “Would you let me?”

I paused. His features were stern—exasperated, even—his mouth a flat line beneath the creased arrow of his brows, and yet…behind it all, I thought I sensed a kind of hesitancy. As if his annoyance was only a disguise, held up to prevent me from glimpsing whatever lay beneath.

My lips parted. No one had touched my hair since Eliot. In fact, aside from arranging it every morning, I barely touched it. Most of the time, it was kept separate from me, bound up in the protective webbing of a caul as if a single brush with my skin would dirty it. There were instances when it did not feel like part of me at all—when I resented it, as though it were a precious relic which I was forced to guard at all times.

All of this, I was prepared to state. But then another pulse of agony reverberated through my temples, and before I could stop myself, I was turning on impulse, pivoting so my back was facing toward him.

I inhaled as he shifted closer. His nearness was tangible, like humidity, or frost—I could feel it thickening the air. A thrill passed through me as, delicately, his fingers made contact with my scalp.

There was a muted plink as one pin, then another, fell to the carriage floor. Noé’s touch was unexpectedly gentle; he moved slowly over my waves, parsing strand from strand, combing them out so they lay flat and silky against my back.

Whenever the tip of his fingers brushed my skin, I felt a small shock, like a bead of static. Neither of us spoke a word; for several minutes, there was only quiet and the unflinching darkness of the coach, the sensation of his hands dragging through my hair and the knowledge of his presence hovering just over my shoulder, the hot shiver of his breath against my neck.

Finally, he tugged the last pin free, the caul dropping to the seat between us. I lowered my shoulders, expecting him to move away now that his task was complete—yet instead of retreating, Noé lingered where he was. His fingers traced a light path down the back of my head, all the way to the base of my neck.

The soft buzz of his nails over my flesh was glorious. Against my will, my lips parted. A small noise escaped me—deeper than a sigh, nearly a groan.

The sound seemed to bring us both back. Behind me, Noé froze; blushing, I whipped around, my hair slipping like a rope through his hands. In the dimness, it was difficult to place his expression—his skin was puddled with shadows, his eyes so dark they were practically black.

As if unable to help himself, he reached forward, tucking a loose strand behind my ear.