"Well, you can't unkill the cousin, but we can definitely use the library." The afternoon light is doing something devastating to his cheekbones and I should probably stop noticing that. "Would it help if I was more concerned about the murder?"
"No. Yes. I don't know." He runs a hand through his hair, messing the perfect style into something more human. "You make everything backwards."
"Or maybe everything was already backwards and I'm just highlighting that." I should step back. Create distance. Instead, I stay exactly where I am, watching him struggle with deserving comfort. "Tell me something true."
"What?"
"Something true. Not Shadow King true. Just true."
He's quiet for so long I start counting dust motes. Forty-seven before he speaks. Should really clean those windows. When? With what? Do we own a ladder?
"My parents died when I was fourteen." The words come out carefully. "Guild war. Wrong place, wrong time. They were just walking home."
"I'm sorry."
"They were good people. Boring people. My father sold books. My mother made jewelry. Nothing special." He looks at his hands, and I notice they're shaking slightly. "I was supposed to be with them. Skipped out to meet friends. Came home to bodies."
I don't say anything. Sometimes words just make things worse.
"The shadows came that night. The magic. Like they were waiting for me to be alone enough to notice them." He flexes his fingers, shadows responding instantly. "Sometimes I think they killed my parents. To get to me."
"Magic doesn't work like that."
"Doesn't it? You painted one portrait and seventeen people died."
"That wasn't the painting's fault. That was people deciding violence was the answer." I turn to face him properly, and his shadows move with me. "Magic doesn't make us anything. It just makes us more of what we already are."
"I was fourteen. I wasn't anything yet."
"You were someone who survived. Who found a way to continue when everything ended." The afternoon light shifts, and I know I need to share too. Fair's fair. "My parents died when I was twenty-one."
He looks at me sharply.
"Six years ago. Not a guild war. Just... they were protecting me. Someone found out about my magic. Lightmagic, unregistered, in a family that wasn't supposed to have any magical lines." I wrap my arms around myself because this still hurts to tell. "My father tried to reason with them. My mother tried to fight. Neither worked."
"Who?"
"Does it matter? They're dead, my parents are dead, and I ran." The afternoon light feels too bright suddenly. "My brother died getting me out."
"You had a brother?"
"Arthur. Four years younger than me, but you'd never know it. Always acted like the older one." I smile despite the tears threatening. "He was eighteen. Just eighteen. Had his whole life planned out. Was going to marry this baker's daughter, have completely normal children, live a completely normal life."
"What happened?"
"He stayed behind to buy me time. Told me to run, to hide, to never use my magic where anyone could see." I wipe my eyes with my sleeve because I never remember to carry handkerchiefs. Should buy some. Where do you even buy handkerchiefs? "I found out later he held them off for almost an hour. They said he died protecting someone who wasn't there. Never gave them anything."
"He saved you."
"He died for me. There's a difference." I look out at the garden, seeing other possibilities. "He would have loved this house. Would have made jokes about pretentious architecture while secretly planning where to put a reading chair."
"What was he like?"
"Funny. Too smart for his own good. Always reading these terrible adventure novels then critiquing their sword fights." I laugh, remembering. "He had our mother's eyes. This exact shade of green that looked different depending on thelight. And he had magic—water affinity—but kept it secret. Even from me, mostly. Said it was easier if everyone thought he was normal."
"Water magic?"
"Weak, he said. Barely enough to fill a cup. But he was always so careful about hiding it, terrified it would put us in danger." My throat gets tight. "Turns out hiding it didn't matter in the end."
