Page 180 of House of Roots and Ruin
I paused, waiting.
The railing had held.
For now.
My vision was blurry and I struggled to focus. I could feel a warm wetness trickling into my slippers but there was no time to stop and assess the damage.
I pushed forward, however shakily.
“Ver?” Viktor’s voice was at the stop of the stairwell. “That sounded like quite a tumble. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.”
“Alex, we need to hurry!” I hobbled my way down the last of the steps. My voice sounded funny and I wondered how hard I’d hit my head. When I pushed back a loose curl of hair, my scalp felt sticky with blood.
A great booming laugh rebounded down the stony walls. “Do you really think me so stupid? How on earth are you meant to be carrying the boy? On your back?”
He laughed again and I stopped on the landing, wincing. He’d seen straight through my ill-conceived plan. I could only pray the feeble attempt to divert his attention had allowed Alex enough time to find a safe hiding spot.
Viktor’s footsteps clanged down the metal steps, then stopped. I glanced up and saw him peering over the edge.
“Ver…what are you doing?” He took a step down, forcing me to retreat farther, keeping the space between us the same. “Drop the heroics. Let’s find the boy, finish him off, and be done with all this.”
“You’re mad.”
He shrugged.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because,” he answered, his tone even and reasonable. “I can. Because I want to. Because everything that boy has ever had was meant to be mine. And I want what’s mine.”
“It was meant to be Julien’s,” I said.
“He never wanted it. He was going to just hand it over to that little fool.”
“You killed him.” He snorted as if it was of little importance. “Your own brother. Your closest friend.”
“He was in the way. Now he’s not. And soon dear little Alexander will be out of your way and it will just be us.”
“There is no us,” I insisted, falling back another step as he advanced forward. “The two of us together—”
“Think of it, Ver. Think of what we can create. We will bring new gods into this world, shaping it in our image. You and me.”
“No,” I said flatly, retreating down two stairs now.
His eyes roamed over me, tangible and unwelcome. “We’ll see how you feel. After.”
“After?” I echoed, worry creeping in.
He offered out a carefree wave of his fingers before disappearing behind the railing. His footsteps were softer now, ascending the spiral.
“The lift,” I muttered to myself, setting out toward the back of the house. “Fix the lift.”
The house was strangely empty as I stumbled through it. I’d never noticed just how many servants the Laurents employed until they were all absent, stilling the manor to silence. Chauntilalieseemed bigger without them, a living thing with its eyes now fixed upon me, its sole entertainment.
I took a wrong turn, lurching down a corridor with doors on both sides and not a window to be seen. My vision swam before me and I leaned against a door, listing heavily. It pushed open, revealing Marguerite. She cowered behind a sofa, the drapes hastily drawn and the gas lamps lowered.
With enormous eyes, she peered at me in the darkened space. “Is that you, Thaumas girl?”
“We need to get out of here, Madame Laurent. There’s been a terrible…somany terrible things.”
