“I would’ve talked him out of it.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “He never listened to you.”
“He trusted me, because I never told anyone about the chapel.”
My wounded hand flinched a little.
We’d all wondered. The chapel was old, and that summer had been blazing hot. Aunt Iris had never found any evidence of accelerants. But it had burned so swiftly, and Peter had played with matches before he could read.
“You’re sure?”
“I confronted him,” Sebastian said, “while it was still burning. Grabbed him and smelled his hands, expecting kerosene. But he smelled like potato chips.”
“Potato chips?”
“It took me a while to figure it out—those fat calories burn hot and clean, till there’s nothing left. All you need is a big enough pile. Remember how he used to walk into Upper Falls on Fridays, to buy snacks?”
“Bitter lemon drops,” I said softly. He’d brought me a box every week—until he stopped, that same summer.
Sebastian shuddered. “Those things. Your tastebuds have always been mutant.”
“Why did you keep this a secret?”
“As long as Peter was around, I felt safe.”
I wanted to pull away, but Sebastian’s needle was still in my flesh. “Safe from what?”
He drew the last stitch closed, and finally looked up at me. “You don’t know what it’s like, missing the target ten times in a row, failing a startle test, picking the wrong mushroom. Always wondering if this demerit is one too many. With Peter around, at least I knew he’d go first.”
I stared at Sebastian. “Cousin. You were a prodigy.”
“I started way too late. You were almost done with your curae when I showed up.”
“Exactly. You’d never held a bow before, but it all came so easy.”
“Nothing feels easy, Jess, when your adopted family turn out to have a special graveyard for problem kids.”
“You were one of us right away. You loved being a Morton.”
He stared at me a moment, like I was the one talking nonsense. “It was fun at first, climbing, learning how to fight. Playing with adult toys—cars, knives, poisons. Even pain resistance was clarifying.”
“Uncle Cyrus never made you cry.”
“Butterfly clips were nothing after my birth dad. But the Little Graveyard was always there, reminding me what happened to those other Sebastians.”
I shook my head. “We don’t do that anymore.”
“Tell that to the adopted kid.”
“Grandmother Elizabeth was adopted. So was—”
“They arrived as babies. I was eight.”
“Sebastian.” We Mortons were more than genetics, more than a name. We were a tradition, an idea.
We were certainty.
I reached across to take his hand. “You’re a true Morton.”
