“Whatever,” says Ravi. “At least you give a shit about something. I’m tired and cold. I’m going to bed.”
The courtyard has its own matching interior staircases, on the east and west sides, that rise to the top floor. Ravi chooses one and begins to climb.
After a moment, his father takes the pipe from his mouth and says, “Welcome home, son.”
Ravi stops climbing. He doesn’t turn around to face his father, but he says, “How’s Mum?”
“Your mother is tiptop, of course,” says Octavian. “She always is. What did Patrick need that kept you out so late? Brooding again? Affairs of the heart?”
Ravi breathes a laugh and doesn’t answer. “He’s a silent brooder, you know that. How’s Kiran?”
“Your sister has not yet deigned to visit me.”
“Well, you don’t make it easy, you know, with your vampiric hours. And Charlotte?”
A draft touches Jane’s throat, making her shiver. “Your stepmother is still away,” Octavian says sadly, glancing up at the glass ceiling and showing Jane, suddenly, where Kiran gets her snub nose, her broad face. Then Octavian turns and wanders through the north arches into a part of the house Jane hasn’t seen yet.
Ravi continues to climb, his footsteps echoing. The house seems to settle into a sigh around the aloneness of the two men. A long, deep breath.
Jane knows Ravi’s rooms are near hers on the third floor, but he stops at the second floor and disappears into the bowels of the house. Interesting, thinks Jane, remembering that Lucy St. George introduced herself as Ravi’s girlfriend, “so to speak.” Whatever that means.
She’s trying to decide where to go next when Jasper appears, making small whining noises at her and hopping.
“Shush,” Jane whispers to him, bending down to soothe him.
He moves closer to the main staircase that leads down to the receiving hall, and whimpers again. He seems to be trying to lure her to those stairs. “Do you need to go outside, Jasper?” she whispers, going with him, beginning to follow him down the stairs.
The spotlights are no longer turning on as Jane moves. It’s quite dark. She follows Jasper’s low, black, descending shadow, clings to the banister, and wishes she’d paid more attention to the location of light switches earlier.
Jasper stops on the second-story landing so suddenly that she walks into him and loses her balance, tumbling against the banister, grabbing on to it with a gasp. When she pushes herself back toward the nice, solid wall, Jasper trots around behind her and begins to head-butt her calves over and over.
Everyone is bonkers, Jane thinks. “Jasper,” she whispers, swatting at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
Before her, dimly, Jane recognizes the huge oil painting she was admiring earlier, the painting of the house interior with the umbrella left open to dry on the checkered floor. Jasper is still head-butting her. “Enough!” she whispers. “Knock it off, screwball!” She starts down the next flight of steps, but he makes an urgent yipping noise behind her. She turns back. “What? What is it?” but she can barely see him, and when she climbs back up to the landing, he’s gone.
Jane turns up the steps, wondering if maybe he’s returned to the third floor. But she doesn’t find him again. She’s just decided to return to her rooms when a figure appears across the way, gliding past the opposite archways, then out of sight.
Ravi again? Or maybe Octavian the Fourth?
No. It looked like Philip Okada, Phoebe’s germophobic, Chuck Taylors–wearing husband. Jane hears a door swing open and closed and recognizes it as the door to the servants’ wing.
What business does Philip Okada have going into the servants’ quarters at four-something in the morning?
On impulse, she rounds the perimeter of the courtyard and slips silently into the servants’ wing. There’s no sign of Philip. She’ll be spotted if anyone comes out of a room, unless she manages to dive into one of the small side hallways in time. Holding her breath, she tiptoes along and sets herself to the lunatic task of resting her ear against doors.
Nothing. Door after door after door, the only thing she hears is nothing. The servants of Tu Reviens are enviable sleepers. She puts her ear to the door she knows is Ivy’s. Also nothing. She’s as relieved as she is ashamed of herself. I hardly know her. It’s none of my business what she does or whom she does it with and I shouldn’t be sneaking around spying on her. What is wrong with me? She moves back into the main corridor, determined to return to bed.
Suddenly, a door opens and light spills out from a small hallway near the end of the main corridor. Jane freezes, then jumps into a nearby side hallway and flattens herself against the wall where she can’t be seen.
“You’ll have to stay there until the final phase,” says a deep voice Jane recognizes. Patrick Yellan.
“While not knowing where I am?” says the English-accented voice of Philip Okada, dryly. “Won’t that be lovely.”
“Be grateful for it,” says Patrick. “The less information you have, the safer you are.”
“Yes, yes,” says Philip. “Who doesn’t like a mystery holiday in a room with no windows?”
“Not everyone is swallowing the story you’re putting out,” says a third voice, female, brusque, English-accented. Phoebe Okada.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Patrick.
“When it involves the safety of my husband?” says Phoebe sharply. “Go to hell, Patrick.”
“We’ll handle it,” says Patrick roughly.
The voices are receding. Jane, not entirely in her right mind, can’t help herself: She edges out of her hiding place and directs one eye into the corridor. The three conspirators are at the far end, passing through the big wooden door that leads to the west attics. Patrick is in front. Phoebe is next, wrapped in a pale green, silky robe. Philip Okada brings up the rear, still wearing his blue suit, carrying a plush white bag with orange ducks on it, and holding a gun.
The door closes behind them. Jane turns and dashes out of the servants’ quarters, heart racing. While she was in the west attics earlier, she saw a spire through the big windows, somewhere in the east wing. She wonders now if she might be able to see into the west attics from that spire.
Starting around the atrium, Jane barrels headlong into the dog, then falls over him, trying not to cry out or crush him. Scrambling to her feet, she tries to get around him, push him away, but he’s head-butting her again and his low center of gravity makes him stick in place like a tree stump.
“Jasper! Move!” Jane whispers, then accidentally steps on one of his toes. He squeals.
“Sorry!” Jane whispers. “Sorry!”
He barks.
“Jasper-Bear?” rises a voice from below. “You okay? Come here, boy.”
It’s Ravi, climbing the courtyard steps from the second level. “Yes,” Jane whispers to Jasper, “go bark at someone who’s not trying to be stealthy. Hey!” she cries as the dog takes her pajama leg in his mouth and starts pulling. Jane grabs her waistband as it slides down her hip. “What are you trying to do, pants me?”
“Who the hell are you?” says Ravi, behind Jane, out of breath from running the rest of the way up the stairs. “And what are you doing to my dog?”
“Your precious dog is mauling my pajamas,” Jane retorts, not even looking around. “Jasper! Stop it, or I won’t take any more pictures of you with the umbrellas!”
“Oh, hell,” Ravi says, “a weirdo. My mother didn’t bring you here, did she? Oh, god, I don’t even want to know where you’re from.”
“Your sister brought me here,” Jane says, “and your dog is the weirdo.”
Jasper, who’s finally released Jane, now stares at her reproachfully. Then he turns and marches away.
“That dog may be weird,” says Ravi, “but he’s still my dog.”
Turning to Ravi, Jane finds that shadowy, predawn light suits him. Spectacularly. Ravi is tall and solid, electric, with scowly eyebrows and a face that flashes with feeling. He’s got dramatic white streaks in his hair too, surely premature, since he’s Kiran’s twin.