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It’s an effort to smooth my brow. I can’t very well let the entire table know how confused I am that someoneelseset a fire.
Then I realize what Remy must think. My food settles in my stomach like a weighted stone. If he’s angry, though, he doesn’t show it. He only wipes the corners of his mouth with his napkin before dropping it to the table and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
“Well, there you have it, Maman, the undeniable proof that Aika is not this vigilante. I haven’t let her out of my…” He lets the wordbeddangle in the air unspoken before belatedly finishing his sentence. “…sight since the wedding.”
Remy smirks, and Chloé laughs outright.
Katriane glares between the two like they are petulant children dancing along the edges of her last nerve.
I wait for him to convey a subtle sign of accusation to me, but it doesn’t come.
In fact, there isn’t a single hint of surprise behind his calm, indifferent mask. Remy is a talented actor, so he could be faking it.
Or…
It dawns on me then.
His hushed conversation with Lawrence yesterday. The stack of missives from his father. He isn’t surprised, because he already knows about the fire. He didn’t ask me about it, because…he already knows who set it.
And so do I.
Because who else would start a fire just like the vigilante’s, right when I was with Mother, conveniently providing me with the perfect alibi?
Who else understands alchemy enough to use the same accelerant and the same means of containment?
Someone who asked me to tell her when I would go back to Mother’s for reasons that didn’t entirely make sense.
Seven Hells.
Zaina set an entire crew of slavers on fire.
And she did it for me.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
AIKA
After breakfast, Grandmère decides that it is her personal duty to escort us around the palace for a tour so that I may better get to know my new home—the famedPalais de Etienne.
It’s more of an awkward double date with me and Remy and her and her manservant Paule, who she is a little more handsy with each martini she drinks. Remy doesn’t seem fazed by the tour or the strange facts and bits of gossip they share, all of it peppered into a history lesson of each room we enter.
I try to pay attention, though my mind keeps wandering back to the fire.Did Remy know at the time? Did he let it happen anyway?
I can’t ask him until we’re alone, so I push the thoughts forcibly out of my head, focusing on our charade instead.
Remy plays his part exceedingly well, as usual. Between the small affectionate touches and the terms of endearment, I almost believe him.
I can’t turn off the way my body reacts to his proximity, or the way my heart speeds up when he trails his hands along my spine. It makes our show more believable, at least, which helps us stay alive, since there’s no telling how much of the palace staff is in Madame’s employ.
So I lean into it, into him, because I have no choice.
Plus, as much as I hate to admit it, the added assistance of Remy’s arm escorting me through the palace is helpful. The pain from my injuries is tolerable, but I don’t want to reopen the wounds.
He glances down when I put my weight on him, a frown gracing his full lips.
“We should probably wrap this—” he begins for at least the third time, but I shake my head yet again.
We don’t have a good excuse to forgo the tour I should, by all rights, need. I can’t very well explain that I have memorized the floor plan and walked most of it, and I can’t tell them that I’m too worn out from all the merry torture.
