“He’s still asleep,” I say, to save him the trouble of finishing the sentence.
He nods, and I nod, and Helena says nothing, and the sort of silence that makes a man want to talk about the weather falls between us. I take a spot at the table and help myself to a crusty bread roll off a tray in the center, just for something to do. It’s staler than it looks.
Helena’s eyes narrow at the letter she’s reading, face pinched until she catches me watching her and composes herself. She refolds it and tosses it onto the stack on the table, then stands to hang the chocolate pot over the fire.
There’s a noise in the hallway, and a moment later a tousled Percy makes his entrance, sleepy and oblivious to the distress he caused me all night. Dante greets him with the same puplike enthusiasm he offered me, though with less head bashing this time. Percy slides down the bench to my side, just far enough away so that he won’t crack me in the eye with his elbow when he starts to wrangle his hair back into a queue. As he fastens it, one long ringlet escapes and settles around his ear. I think about tucking it back into place for him, but take another bite of my roll instead.
“Sorry that we haven’t much to eat,” Helena says, then gives me a wry smile across the table. “You don’t expect a trio to show up on your doorstep looking like someone dragged them from the sea with nothing but stolen property and a violin.”
“Oh!” Dante laughs. “The violin. I’d forgotten.”
“Do you play?” Helena asks, looking between us.
“I do,” Percy says.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Do you play well?”
“Oh. That depends upon your standard.”
“He plays very well,” I interject. Beneath the table, Percy knocks his knee into mine.
Helena sets a jar of grape molasses between us, spoon clanking against the crystal. “Our father was a musician.”
“I thought he was an alchemist,” I say.
“A hobby musician,” she qualifies.
“Mine as well,” Percy says. “My fiddle was his.”
Dante, still crouched at the hearth and poking at the flames like a boy, pipes up, “I have some of his music in the bedroom. My bedroom. The bedroom you’re . . . I saved it. If you’d like—if you want—you might—”
“I’m sure he’s not interested, Dante,” Helena says. She’s fetched mugs from a cabinet and is spreading them around the table before each place. When she bends over, the neckline of her dress dips so low I can see all the way to her navel. I was going for my bread but nearly take a bite of the candle instead.
Dante’s face goes red, but Percy, bless him, says kindly, “I’ll take a look at it. It’d be good to play some.”
“He played mostly the—the glasses. So the songs, the music, I mean, it’s meant to be performed on the crystallophone. But they might still—”
“If you’re planning to depart this morning, there are diligences that will take you from the city center to the border,” Helena interrupts. “And you can hire a coach from there.” It seems she’s really shoving us out the door, but then she tacks on, “Though if you’re in no great rush, you’re welcome to stay with us for a time.”
Clearly there was no consult on this subject, for Dante drops the fire poker with a clatter. “Wh-what?”
Helena ignores him and instead says to Percy and me, “You’ve come so far, it seems a shame to leave so soon. And if you’re touring, you should see Barcelona. Not many English tourists make it this far, and there’s so much to do. The fort, and the citadel—”
“We should be moving on,” Percy starts, but Helena cuts him off.
“We’re going to the opera on Friday night—you should at least stay until then. I’m not sure we can compete with Paris, but it’s grand to us.” She gives me a smile that’s rather too predatory to accompany such a benign invitation.
I can think of plenty of reasons to flee the house right then, ranging from that smile to All those death objects in the study are damned unnerving to Dear Lord, don’t make me share a platonic bed with Percy again. But I’m not going anywhere until we have a chance to ask them about their father’s cure-alls or whether there’s anything they know that might help Percy, even if Helena seems as keen to keep an eye on us as I am on her. No secret so carefully guarded isn’t worth knowing.
“We’ll have to speak with Felicity,” Percy says, at the same time I start, “Seeing the opera would be good,” but we’re both interrupted by Dante’s squeak of “Boiling!”
We all look over as the kettle lid clatters, foam spilling over the sides. The fire spits. Helena curses under her breath, whipping her skirt over her hands so she can hoist the kettle from the fire. Percy leaps up too, lifting the lid off the serving pot. A thin line of chocolate splatters from the spout as Helena pours, leaving a dark splotch along the linen. A few drops make it as far as the letter she tossed down the table, and I feel compelled to assist in some way, so I scoop them into a pile, out of her way. “Should I—”
“There’s a box on the study desk,” Helena says, still focused upon the chocolate pot. “Dante, please don’t sit there. Fetch plates and the cutlery.”
I pad into the study, tripping yet again on that damned loose floorcloth. The room is dark after the bright kitchen, windowless and all light swallowed by those bookshelves and that dark papering. The death masks seem to stare at me, empty eye sockets sunken into shadows.
The tabletop is buried, same as the rest of the room, both with papers and with more of the paraphernalia, but there’s a single box shuffled into one corner. I shift off a few layers of papyrus and a plaster casting to find a smattering of letters, the top one addressed to Mateu Robles. They must be quite piled up if they’ve still post for their dead father. I shift the top few aside, curiosity getting the better of me. A few down, there’s a sheet of fine creamy stock with a green wax seal broken in one piece, the crest imprinted on it the fleur-de-lis in triplicate.
I nearly drop all the letters I’m holding. It’s the crest of the Bourbons.
The House of Bourbon controls Spain, so perhaps it’s a tax letter. Or news from friends in the court. Maybe that impression in the green wax did not come from the ring of the duke who stole the box from the Robles siblings and attacked us in the woods.
I toss the stack of mail onto the desk in a haphazard pile and snatch up the letter, unfolding it with fumbling fingers.
Condesa Robles,
In regard to our arrangement pertaining to your father’s Lazarus Key—
“Did you get lost?”
I whip around. Helena is standing with one hand on the door frame, giving me a coy smile until she sees the letter in my hand. Then her eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”
“Just . . . making certain . . . this was the right place.”
She’s still staring at me, so vehemently that beads of sweat begin to congregate on the back of my neck. I almost thrust the letter behind my back, like that will somehow conceal my rather obvious treachery.