7Raphael Valette suddenly stood up from his chair and went to the window. The sky was nearly black, with clouds roiling up behind the line of trees, a stiff breeze whipping the branches. He put his palms against the glass, listening.
He heard his son in the corridor outside his door—his mind was not clear on many things, but he knew the sound of his son’s footsteps as well as those of the other members of the household. Raphael spent most of his time in his room, listening with a troubled intensity to everything that went on beyond his door, and it had not taken long in the new house before he was used to the sound of the creak on the third step, the way Chloë skipped whenever she went down the long stretch of the corridor, how Violette barely made any sound at all.
He felt lifted up by
