His brother?
No. Not his brother. Not his sibling.
Not like the citrus and pearl dust scented one or the trickster. Those were his siblings. He would do anything for them. He would die for them. This boy? This boy was a danger to them. A danger to his mother. This boy would be the death of them all.
His mother’s face crumpled like a wad of tissues clenched in her hands. Her lips trembled and tears slipped free as she stared at the boy’s freckled cheeks.
He looked at her face and began to cry, his arms trembling as he reached out to her.
“I can’t . . .” she whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t do it. Someone . . . if only someone would do it for me.” She stared at the cracked ceiling and dropped the knife. “I won’t kill you. Fate will have to do it for me. I have to protect my children. I have to . . .”
She glanced at the baby. For a moment, it looked like she’d touch his shiny hair or press a finger to his freckled cheek. Instead, she turned and hurried from the apartment, sealing it in illusion. She locked the door and locked all sound inside. No one would find the dead man. No one would find the child. Not for weeks, months—a long, long time.
She meant fate to be time.
But the musician didn’t know. He only knew his mother was in danger, and his siblings too. He only knew if his mother wasn’t strong enough, he’d have to be strong for her. Just like when his sister wasn’t strong, he was strong for her too.
He twisted his hand and threw his cloak free. The baby stopped crying and hiccupped. It stared at him with wide, solemn gray eyes.
“You hurt my mother,” the musician whispered.
The freckle-cheeked boy reached out to him.
“I won’t let you hurt her anymore.”
The musician wasn’t very big. He was still a little boy himself, barely into his power. Still, he was strong enough to pull the chubby toddler free.
The baby sniffed and whimpered, and the musician began to sing him the song about the rabbit and the woods and the adventure, but in the end, he left out the part about the mother.
The freckle-cheeked boy rested his head against the musician’s chest.
“Mama?” he asked.
“No,” the musician said.
He carried the baby, cloaked in illusion, far, far north, walking until his legs burned and he stumbled over cracks in the sidewalk. The baby—not really a baby—was almost as big as he was. They weren’t really very far apart in human years.
At the tall, black iron gates, the musician asked for the rocklike one. When the rocklike one saw him, he laughed.
“What have you brought me?”
“A mistake,” the musician whispered, frightened but pretending he wasn’t. “Take it.”
“Is it your brother?” the rocklike one asked, tasting the baby’s blood.
The musician glared at the rocklike one. “No.”
The rocklike one laughed. “What if it dies?”
The musician’s lip quivered. “I don’t care.”
“All right then. I’ll take it. What do you want in return?”
“To never be bothered by it again.”
The rocklike one tilted his head. “Hmm. Never is a long time. How about twenty years?”
To the musician, who was still a child, twenty years sounded like an eternity. “Okay.”
