Page 126 of House of Roots and Ruin
To my surprise, her brown eyes drifted up to mine and nodded. A look of grave concern crossed her face. “What am I doing in here?” She froze, noticing the brothers. “Who are they?”
“They can’t see you,” I assured her. “Or hear anything you say.”
Julien cocked his head, as if straining to reach out and listen to her thoughts. After a moment, he gave up, frowning.
Constance glanced about the sitting room. “We were just in the kitchen, weren’t we?”
“No.” My voice was gentle, willing her to remember.
She sighed and her figure flickered heavily, an open flame tugged by a strong draft. “I’m so very tired,” she admitted. “I keep thinking I’ll slip off to sleep. But there is no sleep. Not here.”
She winked out.
And then was back, pacing restlessly in front of me.
“Here. Here. Why am I still here?” She stopped and attempted to take my hands.
A horrible bout of unease filled me as her transparent fingers pawed uselessly at mine.
“I don’t understand why I’m here. I did everything right in life. I prayed to the gods. I gave them offerings. Why are they keeping me here?” Her sob was broken up into chunks of ragged sound as she faded in and out of sight.
“Care to let us in on what’s happening?” Viktor called out, reminding me of their presence.
Before I could answer, Constance was back, flaring into a moment of solid form, just as I’d seen her look that night in the storm room. “The seeds,” she gasped. “I need the sacred seeds.”
“Sacred seeds. What seeds?”
From behind me, Julien cleared his throat. “The People of the Petals bury their loved ones full of seeds, stuffed into the bodies. It aids in the decomposition process, helps the dead return more quickly to the earth. Then from their death…new life.”
It was a lovely sentiment, so different from the People of the Salt, casting our dead to the sea, their spirits at peace deep in the Brine.
“She thinks she needs the seeds—so her spirit can move on.” I turned back to her. “Where are you buried, Constance?”
She wandered over to the terrace windows, wavering. When she tried tapping on the glass pane, her hand went straight through it. “Near the side garden, on the south side of the house.”
“The mounds,” I murmured, remembering the day Alex had shown me the peacocks. “Gerard’s rose maze.”
Constance’s face grew grim. “There’s far more than roses in that soil.”
There’d been so many mounds lying across the meadow. How many girls had Dauphine harmed? I crossed to Constance, peering out into the dark night. “Are there others with you?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She stilled, as though piecing something together. “Did you see my babies?”
I nodded.
She grabbed my hand, wrapping her icy fingers through mine with a strong urgency. A sharp wave of vertigo washed over me. My knees felt weak. “He intends to do all that to you. Do you see now? Do you understand?” She disappeared for a moment.
“I think so,” I said when she returned. “I won’t let him.”
Constance looked uncertain. “He’s too powerful to be stopped.”
“I’ll find something…something that shows everything he’s done,” I promised. “And we’ll tell everyone. We’ll tell—”
“The study,” she murmured dreamily, cutting me off. “You need to get into the study.”
“What’s in the study?” I asked, excitement rising up.
“It’s locked,” she said unhelpfully, winking out. It took her a full seven seconds to reappear.
