“Fine,” Viktor spoke first. “But somewhere outside the house. You never know who could be listening in.”
“Of course…What do we do with all this?” I asked, glancing at the papers, the diary, the shards of glass in the fireplace.
“I’m taking the documents with us,” Julien decided, crossing back to the desk. “I want to make sure we’ve not missed anything.”
I pushed the false bookcase over, blessedly covering the specimens, then looked around, trying to decide the best way to help. I felt adrift, like a forgotten fishing net, tossed about on waves and gathering up sea debris until the weight of everything pulled me under to a silty burial. I longed to crash into bed but knew sleep was unlikely to come.
I feared I’d never be able to sleep again.
Before Viktor put the absinthe bottle back into the hidden cache, he spit into it with sullen spite. “Gods, why did I drink so much?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself, brother,” Julien said, straightening the papers in an ordered pile. “You’ve no idea how it feels to be living with either of your thoughts right now. It’s like wading through waist-high shit.”
Viktor’s lips stretched into a deeply amused, wicked smile. “Hearing you say that will be worth tomorrow’s hangover, I’m sure.”
Their easy banter made me think of my own sisters and I was struck by a sudden longing for them.
Mercy, Honor, Annaleigh.
Even Camille.
Especially Camille.
My throat swelled and I realized I was very close to tears. Julien noticed immediately and I caught the pained look he shot Viktor, clearly beseeching for an intervention. I wiped my face, quickly trying to push the overwhelming thoughts aside. “Gerard said he had messages from my sisters here.” I sniffed. “Since we’re taking everything else, could I get those as well?”
The desk was bare, save for the fountain pens lined up at the side, a trio of fanatical tidiness. Julien pulled open the middle drawer and rummaged for a moment. “Here,” he said, foisting a stack of correspondence toward me.
I took it, puzzled. There were far more than the three RSVPs Gerard had mentioned.
“He’s been keeping mail from me,” I realized, flipping through the stack. There were envelopes written out in Mercy’s swirling cursive, Honor’s blocky lettering, Annaleigh’s careful printing, and even Camille’s copperplate.
Eagerly, I opened one of Camille’s, but her wax seal was already broken, the letter gone.
I pawed through all of the envelopes. Every one of them was empty. “Where are the letters?”
“He probably burned them,” Viktor said, glancing back at the fireplace longingly.
I blinked in disbelief. “Why would he do that? What good are my letters to him?”
Julien made a face, looking as if he’d swallowed back a heavy sigh. “After all the trouble it took to lure you to Chauntilalie, Papa certainly wouldn’t want you to leave. If he cut you off fromyour family, making it seem that none of them missed you, that none of them expressed any concern for you, you’d feel as though you had nowhere else to go.” He licked his lips. “I doubt any correspondence you wrote made it out of the manor either.”
I frowned, a spark of anger rising up my spine, as hot and biting as if Viktor had kindled it himself. My hands balled into fists. The nails dug in deep. “He needs—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Julien said, holding up a finger to stop my outburst. “Save it for tomorrow, Miss Thaumas. Save it for when itcounts.”
When Frederick opened the door to Alex’s room the next morning, his face long and grim, I knew the day was not going to go as I’d planned.
I’d fallen asleep with dreams of whisking Alex down to the lake, away from the prying eyes and ears of Chauntilalie, to tell him everything.
But Frederick loomed over me now, filling the doorframe without an offer to step aside.
“I’m sorry, Miss Thaumas,” he began. “Master Laurent is indisposed today.”
“Another fit?” I guessed, my heart falling as I pictured Alex in pain once more.
He nodded solemnly. “He’s resting now. I know he wouldn’t want you to see him in such a state.”
“He’s had so many of them lately,” I observed.
