"How did you end up in myhouse?"
Her head turned suddenly, andfor the first time all day, she met his gaze. "What?"
"The first time I sawyou, you were in my room, crying. But our nearest neighbor is more than anhour's drive, and the highway is almost as far…" He wasn't sure how far heintended to go with this inquiry. Had she been killed in the woods somewherebetween the highway and his family home? Had she run from her attacker? Had shewandered as a ghost until she found him?
"Oh," shesaid, sitting stiffly. "I don't remember going to your room. I think Iwas drawn to you."
He nodded slowly, but hedidn't really understand. He had never understood.
"Will all your family bethere?" she asked. Was she changing the topic?
"Yeah. Wearen't that many, though. No one brings their significant others home. If theyhave any, they leave them someplace else—someplace away from the estate. No oneis family unless they have the Lyon blood." He recalled a heated argumentbetween Lucy and his mother once when she wanted to bring her girlfriend to thehouse. "So, it was just my mom, her brother, Vernon, and his two kids, andthen Elysium, Lucy, Luis, and me."
They drove out of the woodsand into a clearing, the Lyon family home far from the reach of branches. Hehad thought of it as a castle when he was a boy. Threestories of brick with big windows, balconies, and glass doors opening ontostone-laid trails between rose bushes and gnarled, little apple trees.
The front doors opened, andtwo staff members stepped out, waiting for his arrival. Elysium joined them onthe landing at the top of the steps.
"Everything is going tobe okay, Em," Benedict promised one more time."If anyone sees you, or even feels you, we'll leave."
She didn't reply, and hepulled up in front of the house.
The two footmen hurried downthe steps, one ready to park the car while the other sought to take his bag.Benedict stopped him before he reached for the trunk and shook his head."I travel light. It's just the one," he said, pulling his duffle fromthe backseat. Emmeline looked up at him, a stolen glance now that she was to beunseen. He stepped back, holding the car door open and masking the moment ittook her to step out as a chance to stretch his back. Emmeline didn't need himto hold the door—she could pass through walls if she wanted—but it was a habithe would not willingly abandon. It had become his way of acknowledging her evenwhen he interacted with a world that didn't see her. He saw her.
"You made goodtime," Elysium called from the top of the stairs.
Benedict didn't fight when thefootman took the bag from his hand. They both knew he could carry it himself,but Elysium ran a tight ship, and there was no reason for Benedict to rock theboat.
He took the stairs two at atime. "Am I the first to arrive?"
Elysium's small upturn of lipssaid it was the opposite. "Uncle Vernon moved into the house a year ago.He lives here year-round now. And Luis was here looking after Mother in herlast days," he said, mentioning their other brother.
Benedict nodded. Luis hadalways been trying to get Mother's love. It was a finite resource in the Lyonhouse, and everyone knew Elysium would get all she could spare. Everyone butLuis, that is, who thought he had a fighting chance for her favoritism.Benedict didn't need to wonder if he had earned it in those last days. Theirmother had probably favored Elysium even more for not staying by her side. Shehad been a practical woman and would not have liked the waste of time onsentiment.
Elysium led the way into thehouse, the vaulted ceilings dwarfing the tall doors they walked through. It wasall as he remembered it: the checkered marble foyer floor, the wide staircaserising up one side and turning into the second floor of bedrooms, and a pair ofFrench doors to the left leading into the parlor. The windows in that roomoffered so much light that during a summer's day they did not need electricity.The same couches and chairs stood in the same arrangements. A piano occupiedone corner with a round table on the other side of the room for séances andreadings. The chirping of birds and the occasional flutter of wings stirred inthe three cages hanging, one higher than the other, with their brightly coloredfinches.
His sister, Lucy, sat at thefamily séance table playing cards with his cousin, Theodore. Somehow it madesense to see those two being friendly. They had both made spectacles ofthemselves and the family name. Mother and Uncle Vernon had not approved atfirst, but they eventually turned a blind eye. Lucy had grabbed up their familyhistory of spiritualism and taken it a small step further, into the occult. Shewore black velvet and lace, hanging off her dark shoulders. A thin metal crownringed her head, pressing down her thick curls. Her long, lacquered, purplenails tapped the backs of her cards. She called herself a witch. Their motherhad hated that, but her disapproval had only made Lucy enjoy it more. She readtarot cards for royalty and tycoons now. She rented out castles in Transylvaniaand held séances. She even had a coven, lining her pockets and devouring herperfect blend of true supernatural and sugary lies.
She twisted sideways in herseat when they walked in. She dropped her cards and shot to her feet. The deckwas worn, the black backs rubbed of color by fingers. He caught sight of theones she had abandoned; the royalty cards were all skeletons in collapsing garband falling crowns and swords. "Benny!" Lucy cried, wrapping her armsaround him.
Benedict hugged his sisterback. He had seen her in December when she had thrown a particularly large,though macabre, gala for her thirty-fifth birthday.
"Well, damn, I lost thebet," Theodore said, cigarette bouncing on his lip while he swept up
