Page 50 of Oleander

I noticed then that he wasn’t dressed properly, wearing a smart shirt and what looked like striped pyjama bottoms. He looked out of it – like he was drunk. His hair was mussed, and a light stubble coated his jaw.

“Oh, Jude, hi. You’ll be here to work, I’ll get out of your way.” He brushed a hand through his hair, dishevelling it further.

“No, I’m here for Caspien,” I told him. “Have you seen him?”

“Who?”

Concern rose in me. “Caspien. He wasn’t in the library.”

“I’m here,” Caspien’s voice sounded from behind me. I turned to see him sitting on the top step of the staircase. It looked like he’d been there a while watching Gideon.

As Gideon came toward me, he smiled. On his feet, he wore outdoor shoes.

“Christ, every day you look more and more like him…” he whispered, looking at Caspien. I felt his hand on my shoulder.

His voice was even quieter when he spoke, a whisper meant only for us. “I am certain he was sent here to torture me until the end of my days,” he said before wandering down the hallway into one of the sitting rooms, the door closing with a gentle snick behind him.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s in one of his moods.” Caspien didn’t sound particularly concerned.

I rounded the stairwell so that I stood at its foot. He still sat on the top step. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his feet bare, and his hair a sleep-rumpled mess. At the sight of him, all the anger that had carried me here disappeared like a fog in the sun’s warmth.

“And what sort of mood is that?”

Caspien studied me. “Have you ever had your heart broken?”

I never had any clue what he was about to say, ever, but this was completely beyond anything I could have expected. I had no clue how to answer. Whether I even should. What would he do with that kind of information? But then I was thinking about my parents. About how much I’d cried and how alone I’d felt in the weeks and months after. Was that heartbreak? It had felt like something inside me had broken, never to be fixed again.

I didn’t feel it as intensely now, not with any consistency, but there were still moments when the longing for them was so strong and fierce it would suffocate me.

“Yes.”

His gaze sharpened as if my answer intrigued him.

He considered something for what felt like a long time. Then he said, “I think it’s easier for hearts to heal when they’re still young. Gideon’s was fully grown and weaker than most when it was broken. It will never heal.”

Something hung unsaid in the air between us for a moment before I glanced again in the direction Gideon had gone. I returned my gaze to Caspien.

“Well,” I asked him in a firmer voice. “What did you need my help with?”

Caspien stood, let out a sigh, and turned.

“Come,” he said, disappearing down the upper floor corridor.

Anticipation buzzed under my skin like a swarm of agitated bees.

With a surge of trepidation, I followed him up the stairs. I could hear sounds down the hallway in the opposite direction of his bedroom, along the ‘closed-off’ wing, so I followed them. There was only one door open, one about halfway down the corridor.

Inside the room, the sheets had already been removed from the furniture, and he was pulling up the sash windows on one side of the dual-aspect room. The room itself was in much the same style as the rest of the house, but there was something distinctly feminine about it. Where the downstairs décor had notes of burgundy, green, and navy, this was done in pinks, creams, and purples.

Caspien was by the window, an easel set up in front of it and fiddling with what looked like a box of pencils.

“You can sit there,” he said, pointing to the window seat diagonally opposite where he stood. He’d already set it up with a cushion.

“Why?”

He stopped what he was doing and stared at me as though I was an idiot. “I’d have thought it obvious, no? I’m drawing you.” He went back to arranging his pencils.