Octavius groaned, and slumped further into her arms.
Getting to his room on the second floor was going to be an experience.
Fola tried to keep her composure as they climbed the spiral staircase. She kept her eyes trained on the dark wooden steps beneath her, and on the Fibonacci sequence etched into the wood.1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…It helped to focus on the numbers instead of the sound of Waxler’s heavy footsteps behind them and the threat they posed.
It felt like one hundred years later, when they finally reached Octavius’s bedroom.
As promised, Waxler did not enter with them. Instead, he stood guard outside. “I’ll give you two some privacy, but remember we are in the middle of an investigation and time is of the essence,” he said.
“We’ll be quick!” Fola replied even though she couldn’t guarantee that inOctavius’s current state. She was relieved when the door closed behind them, and Waxler was finally out of view. Even though she knew he was just outside, at least she could drop her shoulders now that they were in the privacy of Octavius’s bedroom.
Aside from fetching her brother before the will reading, Fola hadn’t properly been inside this room in a long while—probably not in years at this point—and was immediately taken aback by the decor. Everything in here was race car themed, from Octavius’s race car bed to the miniature vintage car shelf displays he had all over the room; there was even a trail of model cars on the lid of his grand piano. Most disturbing, though, were the several posters Octavius had on his walls of his first celebrity crush—Lightning McQueen, the red car from theCarsmovie. If Octavius hadn’t been a music prodigy, she imagined an alternate universe where he’d become a greasy car mechanic holed up in some small-town garage, having the time of his life.
“I forgot how much of an automobile fanatic you are,” she muttered in a tone much too low for Octavius to hear, which was good given what she planned to do next.
Remembering that Octavius’s room wassomewhatsoundproof, Fola marched over to her brother’s grand piano, picked up a model Porsche, and used it to whack him on the shoulder, hard.
“Ow!” Octavius yelled, holding his arm now with a shocked expression. “What’s wrong with you? What in the world was that for?” He asked in such a serious way that Fola knew he had zero awareness of his own behavior.
“What is wrong withme?” Fola began in a loud whisper, not wanting to risk Waxler somehow hearing them. “I’m not the one who just broke into the stables androde a horse into the drawing room full of suspects and prying eyes! Nor am I the one who is currentlydrunkduring a murder investigation. Ourfather’smurder investigation. I don’t know why you’re behaving like this—”
Octavius snorted loudly. “Behaving like what?”
Fola folded her arms. “Since I picked you up yesterday morning, you’vebeen acting like a mess, wandering around in those stupid glasses, looking pretentious—”
“Well, first of all, these are prescription,” he said, pushing the designer shades up to rest on his head, and revealing his eyes.
She gasped, shocked to see how much the glasses had been hiding. She could now see the purpling of a newly developing bruise, and how red rimmed his eyes were, as though he had recently been crying behind his plastic eye armor.
“And second of all?” she asked, instead of addressing his appearance just yet, though her heart sank at the sight of the dried blood on the sides of his face.
He looked confused. “That’s it. I don’t have anything else to say.”
He looked so ridiculous standing there in his bright clothes. At some point it seemed that he’d removed much of the stolen layers he had been wearing before, but his current look was somehow even worse. She longed for the time in the early afternoon when he simply looked like a clown. Now he was still wearing Bilal’s bright orange tracksuit bottoms and a butterfly tank top she was almost certain belonged to Perdita—his entire midriff on show to the world (or rather the police officers and twenty or so odd “guests” in the Manor).
It was clear, and had been clear even when she’d rescued him from Grand Central Station yesterday morning, that her brother was having some kind of quarter-life crisis. She needed to try a more sympathetic approach.
She sighed. “Tavi, I get that this has been a difficult time for you. If it’s the breakup making you act out, then I’d understand but—”
He looked up at her sharply then, giving her a disarming sort of glare. One that had all of the world’s truths carved into the shimmering surface of his eyeballs. “You know it’s not the breakup, Fola,” Octavius suddenly said, his voice gravelly, his eyes shining.
Fola’s heart squeezed in her chest, not liking the way he was looking at her now in an ironically sober fashion.
“But yesterday morning you said—” she began.
“I know what I said, but thingschanged, didn’t they? Things got worse.” He rubbed his already-red-rimmed eyes harshly, and she could see nowhowhe’d probably acquired those bruises around his eyes in the first place. “And now our father is d-dead,” he continued, and Fola flinched at the worddead.“This whole thing is sofucked, Fols,” he said louder than she would have liked. “I… I don’t want to do this anymore,” he continued, saying the last part in a choked-up way that broke her heart.
She didn’t know what to say. She was usually the one with all the answers, but for the first time in a long time, Fola was completely at a loss for words. She hadn’t been paying enough attention, too caught up in her grief and her strategizing. Her brother smelled so strongly of spirits, like he had this morning, and yesterday morning, and like he had months ago when she’d visited him at his boarding school. He looked sick,he was sick,she should have realized sooner. He had been fighting personal demons this entire time. Ones she did not know about.
“Tavi…,” she began softly, reaching out to place her hand on his shoulder.
He shook his head. “Fola, I think it’s too late, I think—”
Loud banging interrupted him. “Is everything okay in there?” The police chief’s muffled voice made them jump. And then in an instant, Octavius was doubling over.
“Tavi?” Fola said again, then a silent question.What did you do?
But it was one that would go unanswered. Because one minute Octavius looked like he was about to pass out, then the next he was throwing up.
