“Months, years,” said the man beside her.

Remi shook her head. “It hardly matters, Leith. She’s engaged.”

Leith, Ben repeated in his mind. He would commit him to memory and be sure to learn all that he could about him later on.

“Matters of the heart are far more complex, ma cherie,” Leith said as if he understood Elise’s situation better than either of them.

“Yes, well, I hope she can explain it to Tante Beline when she discovers their affair.” Remi rubbed at her temples, breaking free of Leith’s hold.

“What will you do?” Ben asked.

Remi whirled, ready to turn her anger on him when she suddenly sagged. She looked lost and confused.

“Remi?” Ben asked again.

“I’m going to have a cup of tea,” she decided. “And ask Sylvie to clean the sheets.”

With that, she turned on her heel and swayed on her feet to the hall that led to the kitchen. Ben made to follow after her, but Leith’s hand pressed lightly against his chest.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he said.

There was something about his tone Ben didn’t like, but he nodded. “Thank you.”

The foyer was quiet after their retreat, with just Ben and Jacques left to inhabit it.

“What an exciting morning,” Jacques said, the suggestive tone unmistakable.

Ben tried to hide his annoyance as he watched Remi and her friend disappear. “It’s not what I would have predicted.”

“I might have,” Jacques said.

Ben turned to eye him curiously. “What do you mean by that?”

Jacques shrugged. “I might have seen the young lady and the footman running off to the stables at some point during the wake.”

Ben sputtered with laughter, grateful for Jacques’s presence. “Come on. I need to distract myself.”

“With what?”

“My sister’s room,” Ben said, heading for the stairs.

Jacques tracked behind, falling into step beside him a moment later. “I think now is as good a time as any to start the search.”

With Remi distracted, they could take their time to investigate. The night before led him there and he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a reason for it. It could mean nothing, but it felt significant. Why else would her phantom lead him to the one place she spent most of her time? There were secrets there, buried somewhere in a desk drawer. He was sure of it.

“What about lunch?” Jacques inquired.

“It can wait.” Though Ben felt his stomach gripe in protest at his remark.

“Fine.”

Ben brushed past him. “Come on then. Her room is this way.”

They moved down the hall, following the familiar path to Soleil’s chambers, Ben following the path where his sister’s ghost led. They passed portraits of deceased family members: aunts and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers, the paint faded and crumbling. There was great-grandmother Mathilde, whose white hair looked like a ferocious street cat had tousled with a puddle of mud in a back alley. Then there was the surly face of an Uncle Bayard and an Aunt Vera, who looked lost and distant with her haunted brown eyes. The largest portrait among them depicted Arthur and his wife, Leyda, the Leones who settled on the Isle and built the manor years ago. They were a serious-looking couple surrounded by three small children.

“Who are they?” Jacques caught him staring.

“More dead family.”

Ben used to know them all by name, but now they looked out at him in anonymity. When he was younger, he and Soleil would make a game of it. One stolen scone from the kitchen for every aunt, uncle, or cousin whose name they could guess right. At some point, they could name them all, and the scones were shared. He smiled at the memory. It used to be good fun, but then he was alone, his sister too grown up to play childish games.

Then came the portraits of Ben as a young boy. He ignored them, inching closer to the end of the hall where the gray light of the day hit Soleil’s bedroom door. Marked with her name on a faded plaque, its handle was dusty and untouched. He tried to open it, unsurprised to find it locked. It was a silly thing to think that she’d unlocked it for him the night before.

All she really did was show me the way, he thought. The rest is up to me.

Beside him, Jacques cleared his throat. “Is that it? Can we eat now?”

Ben scoffed. “We can get in without a key.”

Jacques shuffled backward and watched with interest.

Ben held the knob firmly and lifted it slowly, grinning when he felt the familiar shift in the hardware, sliding sideways and away from the lock. The door stuck against the frame, but with a forceful shove, Ben shouldered his way in.

Behind him, Jacques whistled. “How intuitive.”

“I was a thief as a boy.” Ben chuckled, swinging the door open. He breathed in a cloud of dust as it unsettled from the hardwood floor. His eyes watered, his lungs and throat sore from coughing by the time he caught his breath.

Her room was perfectly preserved. Though her spirit had been bright in life, Soleil’s room was full of dark grays, earthy greens, and simple decor. She kept oil paintings and sketches hung in frames on the walls and poetry books stacked in dusty corners. A few dresses lay at the foot of her bed, a sewing kit left beside them, as though she would return at any moment to mend their frayed hems.

A dull twinge pulled at Ben’s heart, knowing she never would come back.

“What a rascal you were,” Jacques said, bringing Ben back to the present.

“Yes.” He smirked. “They did their best to keep me out, but neither my father nor my sister ever knew how I did it. My mother, however, was keenly aware of my antics.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Jacques asked, covering his nose and mouth with a handkerchief he pulled from his jacket pocket. He was already scouring the room’s surfaces and drawers.

Ben wandered to her writing desk, the same place she had exploded into a cloud of smoke the night before. He went through its drawers quickly, spying only junk and a box halfway hidden beneath ribbons. He picked up a discarded needlepoint project left unfinished from the chair and gave it a quick once over.

A thick sheet of dust covered the surface. He wiped it away, revealing a clump of little purple flowers—ugly smudges of thread all hastily worked into a misshapen form. She was always sewing or writing, anything to keep her hands busy. For as much time as she spent on her hobbies, she never was any good at sewing. She was much better at skipping rocks and hitting bottles with pebbles from thirty feet with Ben’s slingshot. He used to tell her as much.

It never failed to bring her joy to hear his praises, no matter how silly they were. Months before their mother died, Soleil would let him in her room to read or play while she practiced her needlepoint or wrote poems. In the weeks leading up to her passing, however, she had closed herself off more and more. It had pained him to see how his sister faded away to little more than skin and bones.

This house has a way of draining away life. He thought then of Remi and how, on the day he returned, she seemed more like a ghost than a person. Her visage resembled that of the peeling wallpaper, worn out and sapped of color. Not unlike his sister.

“I see notes here,” Jacques announced loudly as he sifted through papers on her bedside table. “Nothing fully coherent, though; just scratches here and there, some broken sentences.”

Ben came to, emotion lodged in his throat.