Page 113 of House of Roots and Ruin
“I think we must. We’ve wasted weeks here, looking for answers on our own. She can help us. She’s terribly clever.”
“Help you?” I echoed, wanting to laugh.
Julien did laugh, a flat, unaffected little clearing of his throat. It sounded disturbing, like the rustling of an insect’s wings. “She’ll run straight to Papa and tell him everything.”
Viktor smiled, unconcerned. “She wouldn’t dare. Becausesheknows thatweknow.”
“That you know what?” I pressed my fingers into the back of the armchair, clawing at the brocade. My heart was pounding so loudly I was certain they must hear it.
“What you see.” Viktor wiggled his fingers. “Ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” I tried smiling, as if his words didn’t send a bolt of panic down my spine. “I don’t…I don’t know what you mean.”
Viktor tilted his head, his eyes little crescent moons of amusement. “Of course you do. You just thought me one, only moments ago.”
I shook my head. “Nothing more than a joke.”
“She’s a terrible liar,” Julien observed.
Viktor nodded. “We heard you last night. In the storage room.”
“The storage room.”
I recalled the noises I’d heard standing in that darkened space, shifting and sighing from the far side of the room one moment, behind me the next. “You both were in the storage room last night.”
Their heads bobbed in unison.
“How did you disappear without us seeing you?”
“Secret passage,” Viktor started, but Julien held up his hand, stopping him.
“You said ‘us,’ ” he observed, and I inwardly cursed. “But by our account, there were only three people present in that room last night. You,” he said, pointing. “And him. And me.”
“Yes,” I agreed, unconvincingly.
“Then who were you speaking to? We listened to an entire conversation, quite animated I’ll grant you, but only ever heard your side of it.”
I licked my lips.
Viktor rolled his head back into a throw pillow. “He knows, Ver. We both know. You might as well stop trying to hide it.”
I shifted my weight uneasily from foot to foot. “What does he know?”
“Everything,” Julien said. “You see ghosts. You’re scared of others finding that out. You’re scared of us. You’re pretending you’re not. You’re wondering why I think that.” He peered at me with Alex’s eyes and I wanted to duck behind the chair and cower away from that stare. “You’re worrying over the number three. And something about a set of babies…”
I froze. “How…how do you know that?”
“I hear every thought racing through you right now, Miss Thaumas.”
A noise of disbelief barked out of me. “You’re a mind reader?”
Julien raised his lips in an approximation of a smile.
The concept was far too large and weighty to absorb. “I don’t understand.”
Julien glanced at Viktor with disdain. “I thought you said she was so terribly clever?”
“She saw through my ruse, quick as a wink.”
