The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(30)

But the House was sullen. A sourness crept into the wood, and no matter how many candles were lit, the staff wrinkled their noses whenever they stepped past the threshold. Carpets newly flattened bunched, rolling ankles at every hour of the day. Curtains unraveled from their hooks, painting shadows over the walls and turning the rooms hunched and small.

“It’ll be over soon,” I said to the House, patting its topmost stair. “It’s only one party.”

It did not seem convinced.

The week of the event, Indigo and I hid in the Otherworld for as long as we could, emerging only to eat and sleep and attend school. Tati was to blame, but still I felt sorry for her. Tati needed our thoughts on decorations, wanted our measurements taken for dresses. She made us taste cake samples and Indigo write thank-you cards in advance. She wanted us—as I overheard her saying one evening when I was supposed to be in the bath—“to take this seriously.”

“I hate her,” Indigo said, her words dropping like stones. The party was two days away, and the House was still shrugging off any attempt at festivity. Today it had loosened a whole string of lights from two of its pillars.

“You don’t mean that,” I said, thinking of Tati’s hopeful smile and her bruised mood from each of Indigo’s refusals.

A couple of days earlier Tati had shown me a sketch of a mask she was commissioning just for me. It was made of blue satin and sprinkled with small blue rhinestones. Light and playful. I touched the drawing, imagining the satin’s watery smoothness against my skin, and smiled up at her.

“I’m so glad you like it, sweetheart,” she said.

She opened her arms to me, and I hugged her tight. I could tell from the way she held me that she was imagining Indigo, soft and sweet. I tried not to mind. I kept all that warmth for myself and daydreamed about the jeweled mask.

I loved that mask in a way that made my teeth ache from the guilt. I wished I could be more like Indigo. I wished I didn’t notice every gleaming stone set into the bathroom mosaics, all the polished silver laid out on the mahogany table, each marble surface anointed with golden bowls of rare fruits and exquisite truffles. It’s true we shared one soul, but I was the one who had to return to Jupiter’s house, who had to venture between light and dark, and whose eyes needed time to adjust.

The evening before the event, what had once been frosty between Indigo and Tati iced over and snapped. Since the tables were covered in decorations, we had to eat dinner in the formal dining room, the Camera Secretum. It was Indigo’s favorite place, and my least favorite, in the House. The translation of its name was the Room of Secrets, though it only ever gave me nightmares.

Lined with the skulls of animals on one side and the heads of taxidermied beasts on the other, it was where Indigo’s grandfather displayed his hunting trophies. Indigo said it was the best place for dreaming. While I read in the library, Indigo hid in the Room of Secrets, sketching pictures of what we would look like when our true, fae spirit made itself known. She never let me see her work.

“Until I’m finished, it’s a secret even from me,” she would say.

Which was probably why she loved the Camera Secretum so much in the first place. Tati once told us that Indigo’s grandfather had insisted on conducting every business meeting within the walls of that room.

“Only the dead know how to keep secrets,” Tati told us with a dramatic wink.

I thought of that again when Tati stood in the archway of the dining room. Her face was stony, and her hands clenched at her sides.

“Indigo,” she said, flashing a tight smile at me. “I need to speak with you. Now.”

Indigo looked mutinous. After a moment, she pushed her chair back from the table and stood. I set my napkin down to follow, but Tati shook her head at me.

“I’ll be right back,” said Indigo. “Wait here.”

Without Indigo beside me, the jaws of the animal skulls lengthened and grinned. My back prickled from the gaze of a lynx frozen in a snarl. I pushed my food around my plate for what felt like hours but what was probably minutes and then ran from the room.

Firelight flickered in the parlor down the hall from the kitchen. I meant to go straight to the stairs and up to Indigo’s bedroom, but a sharp, animal sob drew me back. I had never heard Indigo weeping before, and the sound—fragile as a glass bell—tore into me. I crept to the parlor, holding close to the wall, peeking inside only to see Tati crumpled on the ground. She was backlit by the fireplace, her face bloated with tears.

Indigo stood over her, the light shining through her thin nightdress. She looked like an icon from ancient times, draped in fire and linen, her hands impassively clasped in front.

“How could you say that?” sobbed Tati.

Tati’s hand flew to a brooch pinned to her long black nightgown. It was the rose, the one made of fine baby hair. Tati’s fingers dropped. She stared up at Indigo. “I didn’t become your guardian because of money. I stayed because I love you, Indigo. I am human and I make mistakes, but I am trying my best to raise you, to help get you ready for the world, and that means showing them who you are . . . the niece I love.”

Tati reached out to touch Indigo’s dress. Indigo didn’t move away from her, though her expression didn’t soften.

“I don’t care about the settlement,” said Tati. “I care about you. You are all I have left in this world.”