Page 115 of House of Roots and Ruin
Julien shook his head. “We were young.”
“Too young,” Viktor agreed. “Days after our fourth birthday. We didn’t understand what was happening. Why we were being sent away. Only that one day, we were a family, happy and whole, and the next…”
“Exiled,” Julien finished.
The corners of Viktor’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “You make it sound as though we were cast into the forest, raised byferal dogs. We had servants. Tutors. The best Father’s money could buy. Julien speaks eight languages,” he informed me.
“Nine,” Julien corrected flatly.
“But we didn’t have…this,” Viktor continued, waving his hand about the room. “Our home. Our family.”
I thought of all the things I’d learned of Gerard and Dauphine last night and wondered if that might have been a blessing.
Julien drummed his fingers on the tops of his knees. “There’s an old family estate in the north. We were sent there.”
“Marchioly House,” I guessed, then froze. “There was an incident there recently. A fire…” I glanced uneasily at Viktor.
“It wasn’t me,” he said sharply. “I swear it.”
“It was a storm,” Julien admitted. “You know how fierce they can be in spring. Lightning struck the north end of the house. There was some festivity going on in the nearby village. A wedding. Only two of the staff was with us. Brahms—”
“He was a terrible cook,” Viktor quipped.
“—and Sheffield,” Julien continued, speaking over his brother’s interruption.
“Father’s watchdog,” Viktor said. “Our jailer. He controlled the grounds, the gates. He was the only one who had keys for anything. He made sure no one ever came to Marchioly.”
“Or left,” Julien added pointedly, his eyes as hollow as his voice. “In his haste to put out the flames that night, Sheffield’s keys fell from his pocket. I saw them in the hall as we ran for buckets of water….”
“We used the cover of the storm to escape,” Viktor said.
“And you came back here?” I asked, sitting down, drawn into their tale. I could so easily envision the rain lashing at tallwindows. I could hear the pops and crackles of embers, could smell the building smoke.
“Where else would we have gone?” Julien asked with a little shrug. “Chauntilalie is the only home—the only real home—we’ve known.”
I imagined the two of them as small boys, wandering around a quiet, lonely estate with only the other for friendly companionship, their faces tight and frightened. It was an impossibly sad tale but one fact poked at me like a thorn, catching on my sleeve and refusing to go unacknowledged.
“I don’t understand why Gerard would have sent his sons away in the first place.”
Silence settled over the room and I had the distinctly uneasy feeling that the two of them were somehow talking to each other without me overhearing.
“They kept their son. Theirfavoriteson,” Viktor finally said, his bitterness evident. With a flick of his fingers, every candle in the room sprang to life, flames jumping to dangerous heights.
“Stop it,” Julien hissed at him, and after a moment, the flames settled down to manageable, soft glows. He turned to me. “From what I’ve been able to draw out from the tutors, our…talents…would have drawn too much attention among the polite company our family kept. Alexander was deemed…palatable.”
The explanation did have a horrible ring of truth. How would Dauphine possibly explain one of Viktor’s outbursts at a society luncheon?
“Which makes me all the more curious…you’ve been around our brother for weeks now,” Julien pressed. “Have you noticed anything…peculiar about him?”
“Nothing.”
He squinted his eyes. “Think about it. Think hard. There must be something.”
“I don’t…I haven’t seen anything. Certainly nothing like either of you.”
Julien sighed. “There must be something. Otherwise there’s no point in you being here.” I started to counter but he leveled me silent with his gaze. “You see ghosts, Miss Thaumas. There’s little use in pretending otherwise. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. These gifts make us more, not less.”
“Yours might,” I said. “Mine could send me to the madhouse.”
