I had no intention of going anywhere near him, but Julien stepped forward, herding me over to the chairs. I chose an armchair instead, as far from the offered seat as I could get, but stayed standing behind it, using its size as a protective, well-padded barrier.
Julien took the chair opposite me as Viktor sprawled across the chaise, kicking up his feet and tucking his arms behind his head. He looked like a cat stretched in a sunbeam, sleek and wholly satisfied with its place in the universe.
“Where should we begin?” he asked.
“Must we?” Julien questioned.
His clothing was different from his brother’s. Viktor wore the jacket and cravat I’d been painting Alex in, but Julien was less formally dressed. His vest remained unbuttoned, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. I could see a shine of wear on the knees of his trousers and noted the cheaper cloth, the patches and darning. This was not someone who had spent his life in the comforts of Chauntilalie.
“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. Because she knows that we know.”
“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.”
He sighed. “That’s not saying much.”
“Would one of you please explain what’s going on?” I demanded. Too many things were happening too fast. I felt bogged down in their collective mire.
Julien turned to me. “I’m special.” His tone was flat and expressionless, making the word sound anything but. “Viktor’s special. We’re both so terribly special.”
“You read people’s minds?” I repeated, needing to hear him say it.
I knew there were things, many things, about the world that I did not know, did not understand. Things too fantastical to be believed. Mind reading sounded far-fetched but they’d overheard me talking to a ghost. Who was I to say their story was outlandish?
“Yes,” Julien said simply, offering no other explanation.
“Both of you?” I asked, carefully avoiding Viktor’s gaze. My cheeks flamed as I remembered all the things he might have overheard while I enjoyed his kisses.
Julien let out a short laugh, more a burst of sound than actual amusement. “No. Viktor has other…talents.”
I dared to look over at him. “What?”
“I…” His eyes fell to the floor, looking somber.
Julien sighed with impatience. “Just show her.”
“But—”
“We’re all laying our cards upon the proverbial table. There’s little use in keeping secrets now.”
Viktor pursed his lips before gesturing to the writing desk on the far side of the room.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to notice.
Then, a flicker of movement.
The slight dance of a slip of flame.
I turned back to Viktor. “You lit the candle?”
He nodded and a candelabra on the side table ignited as well.
Then the tapers lined in the windows.
Then the gas lamps.
“Stop!” I ordered. The illumination was too great, too bright to trick myself into believing what happened before me was an illusion, some sleight-of-hand mischief designed to impress and enthrall.
Viktor shrugged and, one by one, the flames extinguished, wicked away by hands unseen.
“How?”
Another shrug. “I just…concentrate on the feelings inside me and—”
I struggled to find the right words. “No, not how—” I paused, all the swirling chaos of my mind stilling down to the only question that really mattered to me. “If you are Alex’s brothers, and both of you can do those things…what about him?”
Viktor shrugged. “Father sent us away before we ever noticed Alexander’s…gift.”
“Sent you away?”
They nodded together.
“To…to boarding school?” I guessed, trying to pry the story free.
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 by feral dogs. We had servants. Tutors. The best Father’s money could buy. Julien speaks eight languages,” he informed me.