Page 154 of House of Roots and Ruin
He reached out as if to trail his fingers over my bodice, making his intention clear, but stopped just short of touching me. An embarrassed flush of heat rose up over my chest, burning my ears. Everything I wanted to convey felt too big to be cut up into neat, tidy little words. My feelings were too messy and smattered.
“Oh, Ver,” he said pityingly. “The things I could show you.”
“I don’t need you to show me anything,” I snapped, irritated by his tone and cavalier assumptions.
I pushed past him and stomped up the stairs, heedless of the dark and unfamiliar ground. The thirteen steps ended at a door and I fumbled for its handle, pushing it open without caring about where we were. Night air rushed down the stairwell, carrying with it the tickling scent of jasmine and orange blossoms. The world was all deep indigoes and inky blues. Twinkling stars spun in slow dances across the scope of sky, dazzling in their far-off beauty.
“The rooftop garden,” I murmured, remembering my first glimpse of the entryway’s spangled skylight.
It was in front of me now, so much bigger than what it appeared from the ground. Its glass plates jutted up at sharp angles, sleek and silvery in the moonlight. Thick lines of leading held the masterpiece together.
The rest of the roof was full of potted ferns and palms, bursts of flowering bushes and beds of night-blooming buds. Serpentine benches were nestled throughout the botanical splendor, theperfect spots for hidden assignations and the whispering of sweet nothings.
I heard Viktor’s footsteps behind me as he treaded up the stairs.
“Starlight,” he announced, sweeping his hand across the expanse with pride as if he’d engineered the entire thing himself.
“It’s beautiful,” I said perfunctorily. I crossed away, leaning against the railing while studiously avoiding any glance toward Viktor or those wicked little conversation benches.
“You’re mad at me.”
“Irritated,” I admitted.
He hummed, wandering toward the opposite end of the roof. “I probably deserve it.”
“You do.”
“Just…consider your options, Ver. All of them. You’ve been stuck on that chain of islands for far too long. You need to get out, experience the world before settling down. Explore its facets. Satisfy your curiosities.”
I turned and blinked at him incredulously. “You almost sound as though you’ve not been trapped in a rotting manor the whole of your life. ‘Experience the world,’ ” I mimicked, lowering my voice in an attempt to match his baritone. “What world have you seen?”
“I’ve seen things,” he insisted. “I’ve done things.”
“I’m sure you have,” I said, making it clear I didn’t believe him.
“Tutors weren’t the only sort of attendants Father sent to Marchioly. There were girls.” Viktor’s lips rose in a half-smile as he remembered something. “Beautiful, beautiful girls.” He sniffed. “Julien wanted nothing to do with them, obviously. Justmeant more for me…The things I did there would curl your toes, Ver.”
“I take it all back,” I said with a lofty, unimpressed air. “You’re an absolute connoisseur of sophisticated pleasures. A denizen of decadence and vice. I marvel at your worldly ways.”
His countenance fell and for a moment, his vulnerability reminded me of Alex.
“Where do you think you’ll go? After…everything? With the whole world before you?”
He shrugged and meandered over to the seat nearest the skylight. The glow from the inner foyer lit his face with a strange radiance, drawing me to the other end of the bench, despite myself.
“I don’twantto go anywhere,” he admitted. “All through my childhood, there was always this idea of Chauntilalie in my mind, like a beacon, a mecca, a perfect bright light on the horizon. Something to dream of, to reach for. It seems mad to just abandon it.”
“Will you stay with Julien, do you think?”
Viktor shook his head. “We’ve been together for so long it seems impossible that we could ever be separated, but the thought of spending another day with only him for company is unbearable. He’s so…empty, but not. So full of thoughts—his own and everyone else’s. All thought and no emotion. It’s like living with the shell of a human being, staring at half a painting, only hearing the left hand of a piano solo. I can’t do it anymore.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “We’re this odd set of bookends. Julien feels nothing but I feeleverything.The world’s pain, the world’s rage. Every bit of it seems amplified and magnified until it all comes bursting out of me like—” He threw his handaway as if something scalded him and down on the terrace far below us, a brazier suddenly ignited. Its flames shot skyward, lighting the night with a flash and flare of orange.
“And I’ve never known why,” he snarled, his hand now clenched. I could just make out a phantom trail of smoke escaping from the tight fist. “Do you know how terrifying it is to grow up with these things inside you—to be laid so open and exposed to it all, to know you’re different, to know that no one else feels what you feel, knows what you know—but to never know why? Or how? Or…” He dissolved into dark laughter. “Of course you do…and you don’t. You grew up completely different from anyone around you…but youdidn’tknow it and everyone else did.” His laughter grew. “Oh, Ver, we’re so much alike, you and I. So terribly, terribly alike.”
He reached out and cupped my chin, gently, as if holding on to something precious.
“You don’t love him.” It was said definitively, a statement decided, not an inquiry of doubt.
“I do,” I insisted, even as every fiber in me yearned to lean into Viktor’s caress, longed to reach out and touch him as well.
