Page 8 of The False Vow

“Sybil requested secrecy—”

“Sybil.” He spat her name out like a curse. Chastened, I held my tongue. “Since when do her requests—or those of anyone—matter to you? You care for no one but yourself until, suddenly, you’re a champion for your fellow witches.”

I shrank back. My voice was small. “You think I care only for myself?”

“That is not…” Eliot seemed to register his mistake. Cutting himself off, he turned away, rubbing irritably at the bridge of his nose. “Let’s not speak of it. This night has made us both emotional—nothing either of us says now will do any good.”

It was not a no. My chest felt like a bruised melon. “Eliot.” Cautiously, I went to him, laying my palm on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

He stiffened then, reluctantly, looked down at me. My ribs seemed to open up as he took me by the chin, my heart—my very being—cupped in his palm. “What do you think of him?” Eliot whispered, holding me. “Tell me honestly, Lovett.”

I did not need to ask to know whom he was referring to. This time, the right answer came easily. “I think he is selfish, and feckless, and rotten to his core.”

Eliot visibly relaxed at my response. “And he has not touched you? You have not—”

“No.” Turning my head, I broke away from his grasp, unsettled by his questions. “Why are you asking me this? Do you not trust me?”

Eliot’s gaze was pitying. I did not draw back when he reached for me again, his left hand finding my hip, his other holding my face.

His finger traced the ridge of my cheekbone as he spoke. “I don’t know that you’re the type of girl one trusts.”

Guilt swallowed me. Prior to the end of the Vainglory, I was certain he would have answered differently. He had trusted me during the competition, had cared for me despite all my thorns, and I…

I had let him down.

“I can’t linger here long,” Eliot said, tearing me from my thoughts. “I’m expected elsewhere, and the Alaires will begin to wonder at your whereabouts.”

I watched him suspiciously as he bent to pick up his coin. The metal piece sat beating in his palm like a luminescent moth. “Have another rendezvous lined up after this one, do you?”

His smirk made the knot of anxiety in my stomach unbend, just a fraction. “Only with my father. Decidedly less romantic.” Bending, he kissed me chastely on the lips before straightening again. “I’ll arrange another meeting with Lucie soon—next time the Alaires let you out of that horrid old house. She only needs to grow more acquainted with you, and I am sure she will see reason. It will be all right.”

I laid a hand on his chest before he could move away. “Do you love me?”

His posture softened. I felt his eyes on me but kept my own gaze stubbornly averted, humiliation rising like bile in my throat. Do you love me? A foolish question—dangerous, vulnerable, weak. He should not love me. And yet, just as I could not prevent myself from coming to him when he called, I could not stop hoping that he did.

“Of course I love you,” Eliot responded, and my lungs released their held breath, and I lived another day. “I feel the bite of it, always, like a knife in my back.”

I frowned. “You make me sound like a curse.”

He chuckled softly. “Sometimes, Lovett, I think that is exactly what you are.”

He silenced his coin as he departed. I heard the click of the compartment door before darkness closed over me again, and I was left alone.

Chapter Four

I waited five minutes before following Eliot out. It was the precedent we’d obeyed in previous meetings—the one we’d set, unknowingly, during the Alaires’ competition, after he’d first kissed me the night of the Midway Ball. Since then, neither Eliot nor I had ever stated aloud our reasoning for adhering to our chosen measure; though we hadn’t voiced it, I got the sense that both of us were attempting to resurrect our past periods of togetherness, like slotting our feet into old tracks in the snow.

The corridor was as unpopulated as it had been earlier. Having missed a section of the performance during my conversation with Eliot, I had no idea of how the opera was progressing, but by timing alone I could gather that the show must be nearing its intermission. Soon, these halls would be flooded with attendees craving gossip and drink—any of whom could theoretically confirm that I had not been returning from the powder room as I’d claimed to my fiancé, but wandering odd sections of the theater.

If I wished to preserve my cover, I needed to hurry.

Alarm flared in me when, upon nearing my original box, I caught sight of a lanky figure leaning up against the otherwise-empty bar opposite it. Noé. My fiancé’s mask was tossed on the bar top beside him like a discarded fox skin; he appeared slightly more disheveled than he had when I’d left him, his ascot tugged loose and the sleeves of his jacket pushed up. In his left hand he held a fresh glass of wine, which he was sipping on moodily, seemingly lost in thought.

I could sense the moment he noticed me—it felt like being closed in on by a predator. As I neared him, he peeled himself away from the bar, unceremoniously shoving his glass across the pale marble.

“Rather lengthy trip to the powder room,” Noé called out. His stance was steady; he was drunk and hiding it well. Only the haziness of his gaze gave him away: a softness which I might have in the past mistook for kindness, but now knew he acquired only through copious consumption of alcohol. “I wonder, what do you ladies do in there?”

“You may as well follow me in next time, since you seem determined to deny me any measure of privacy,” I replied. Hesitating beside him, I asked coolly, “Did you come out here to wait for me?”