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There are things that happen to us that were never supposed to. Ripples and echoes of things that happen in one world, often reach into another, taking hold in unpredictable ways. As far as we know, it’s only the things that people do, not the things that happen to us, that have the power to cause these shifts in other worlds. That might be a good thing, because otherwise it would be an endless chain of cause and causation. Unfortunately, the things that people do that find their way into other worlds are rarely good things.I wasn’t supposed to die.I was seventeen the summer the first big ripple struck. It had been a quiet summer, like most of them were, and I was picking herbs from my family’s garden. An easy tune danced off my tongue and kept me company as I stooped for the next plant, just a couple feet past the last. My momma always had great lists for me whenever anyone called on her. I thought it was a bit silly when the twins were old enough to help her out, but she insisted that I did it anyway so I did.Sebastian and Sophia were thirteen that summer and deeply preoccupied with their own shenanigans. They were nearly always together, as twins so often are, and the effect was almost humorous. They had the same pale skin and slight build but that was where the comparison ended. Sebastian had raven black ringlets when his hair was long, but he always kept it short and it topped the crown of his head like the softest storm cloud you could think of. His eyes were chocolate brown and somehow he seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to smile, like he just knew you were about to do something wonderful.Sophia was rambunctious and her icy blue eyes had a twinkle that made it clear she was the mastermind behind most of their plots. She looked at the world around her like a puzzle or a riddle and she could usually figure out some way to shape things a bit more to her liking. She had ringlets, too, but they were the color of burnished copper, a fact that matched the flames she often let drip from her fingers.They’d been born the other way around; the doctor had said Sophia was a boy and Sebastian was a girl, but they knew very quickly that that wasn’t right for either of them. One day, they started using the other person’s name and everyone seemed to exhale at once. It had been clear that something was wrong and when they figured it out and did things the right way around, it was much better for all of us. Except that they still didn’t help Momma with the chores much.Sebastian ran past me just as I collected the last of the herbs on the list and Sophia walked by a moment later, shaking her head. “He always runs,” she commented wryly. “He doesn’t get that I’m still just going to walk and now he has to wait for me.”I raised an eyebrow at her and pointed to the budding shards of ice that crackled along the ground behind her. “Unless he makes you run away from that,” I suggested.Sophia’s eyes widened with shock at first and then with pleasure. She loved to see Sebastian use his magic because he did it so rarely that it always meant trouble when he did. “Today’s going to be a good day,” she called over her shoulder as she darted away from the ice and towards the other side of the yard where Sebastian had disappeared into some bushes.I shook my head and turned away from the scene, back towards the front of the house. I’d like to say it was modest accommodations, and maybe it was. It felt like it growing up but I didn’t know any better until much later. Our house was brick, with white shutters and a decorated white framing at the gable over the door. The door was also white and offset by neat iron sconces on either side. My father made the best glass, sometimes with Sophia’s help, and it was clearer than anything anybody else could make.He had carefully crafted the iron and glass lanterns that hung from the sconces with soft glowing orbs inside. The lanterns didn’t have doors like some people’s, because he’d carefully crafted the orbs to last as long as he did. The lights would not go out.I hopped up the front stairs and across the simple wooden porch, about the only simple thing about our home. My heels thudded against the floor in that familiar way your own footsteps do when they land against the floor of someplace you know well. There was no sense of urgency in my stride and I can look back now and laugh at that.The softness of my home has stayed with me although the details have faded some. My momma liked to change the furnishings and decoration as often as she could manage, which was fairly often, and nothing remained the same for long. Except, of course, the layout. My father wasn’t a man to favor the grandiose, and the front door didn’t open into a parlor or a foyer like some of our neighbors’ did.Instead, a wide hallway led guests past the kitchen, where any maids or servants we had at the time would be laughing and chatting as they worked. The work wasn’t hard and my parents weren’t strict. The hallway emptied into a sitting room, like a river opening its mouth to kiss the sea. My favorite rooms, however, were off the hallway. Father had been careful to design the house so that guests would see the most important things, but his kids all knew better, and spent time behind the sturdy walls, in our rooms or the library. The latter seemed to peek into the living room, hidden as it was behind a passage off the hallway just before it ended.The staircase upstairs was through the kitchen, tucked away so that most guests wondered at the size of the house without realizing they couldn’t easily traverse its floors. The servants could access us and my parents easily and we couldn’t go more than a few hours without seeing the work they were doing. Father was adamant that we never grow arrogant in our good fortune, but I couldn’t help it sometimes.Our servants didn’t have magic, and that’s usually why they took jobs with us. I didn’t understand that and still catch myself in that mindset sometimes now. It’s better, of course, since the Ripple though. When the first dragon anyone can remember hatches for someone without magic, it makes you look at them all a little differently.I didn’t take the whole hallway to reach Momma. She was kneeling beside a bed in the first room to the left. Like the other doors, this one was hidden just slightly behind the lip of a shelf against the wall. By the time you’d passed the shelf and noticed the doorway, you’d already be looking ahead at the sounds coming from the kitchen. Besides, nobody would want to see into this room, where a wide bed most often held a sick person. More people died in this room than anywhere else, and most houses had a room like this.The birthing and dying room, where Sophia, Sebastian, and I had all been born and where more people than I could count had died, including a fair few other siblings that hadn’t made it, was a comforting place for me. My momma’s magic brought us to Hagen when we heard they didn’t have any healers. She never could say no to someone who needed her help and if that meant moving long distances, massively pregnant, with her young husband, then that’s what she would do. And she did.I didn’t need to knock on the door when I walked in, she could hear my footfalls and knew them just as well as I did. She didn’t look up when I approached, only reaching for the basket she knew I’d collected her herbs in. I didn’t pay attention to which ones she grabbed—it wouldn’t do me any good anyway—and allowed my eyes to drift to the face of her patient.Without meaning to, I waved a hand in front of my body, instinctively casting a basic protective charm. Feeling bad just as soon as I’d done it, I tried to play it off by adjusting the buttons on the front of my dress. The man on the bed, however, just smiled knowingly. His red eyes glowed with a faint sense of humor and the scales that covered his face split wide to reveal a cracking smile.“No need to take your clothes off for me,” he said, nodding at my hand. I dropped it, blushing. “But really. There is no need to be afraid. I’m quite useless at this point anyway.” His voice was softer than I expected, like the sort you might expect deep in the woods from somebody trying not to disturb the natural quiet there. It was rough, though, and scratched against me in a way that made me feel vulnerable.I stared at him with even eyes as he lifted the hand on the opposite side of my momma into the air. Well, he lifted his arm. His hand had been cut off at the wrist and thick bandages were wrapped around the end of his arm. I grimaced, imagining the pain. My momma was a great witch but even she couldn’t have made that feel good. I glanced at the other hand and realized it was the same, but cut off at the elbow.“’I’m sorry for your loss’ doesn’t seem quite right,” I offered, stepping closer in an effort to appear more comfortable. “But I suppose it’s true regardless.”He laughed at my poor attempt, and his open mouth revealed a forked tongue. His head tilted back and I saw deep slits on either side of his throat, like gills, although he didn’t appear to be a water-dweller. Despite my discomfort, I found myself smiling, enjoying the man’s sense of humor.“I’m Brant,” he finally announced when he was finished laughing. He didn’t say it like an introduction, though, and I got the sense that he didn’t care whether I introduced myself at all. He was in my home and that is who he was and that was enough for him. I nodded and noticed a gleam in his eye when I didn’t offer my name.“And you are very lucky,” my momma grunted, straightening up and leaning away from his other hand. It was fully bandaged then and there were watery green fingerprints from where the herbs and poultices had rubbed off of my momma’s hands and onto the wrappings. She scowled at them and they disappeared.“Why’d you do all this with him awake?” I asked, suddenly realizing why the whole scene seemed so odd.Momma and Brant both looked at me then and I suddenly felt very small. I wasn’t sure if I’d said something rude or stupid or both, but they both looked like they were as prepared to laugh at me as anything else and I shrank inwardly a bit. Another flicker of my protective charm danced in front of my chest and I wondered if I’d ever manage to get that under better control.“She hasn’t seen a jilocasin before has she?” Brant asked my momma out of the corner of his scaled mouth.I held back a scowl again, finding that I hate to not know things. This time, however, my momma scowled for me. Turning to fix the man with a cross expression, she folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.“Of course not, sire, you’re the only one who ever has. All I know myself is that the race is dead and gone. Except, apparently, you.” She managed to raise the eyebrow even further, turning her expression into a questioning one. My momma has a soft voice but it’s a stern one and Brant seemed to think it was funny.“Oh, I suspect there’s more than just me,” he laughed. “Although I’m not sure many of us can still do a full transformation.”“You won’t be able to for a good long while,” my momma added, pointing at the man’s ruined arms as she stood up.Brant’s face changed then, and he suddenly seemed much more dangerous than before. His face seemed elongated and his tongue curled from his mouth like a snake’s. “I wouldn’t count on that, madam,” he replied. Just as suddenly, the change disappeared. I wondered for a moment if I’d simply been frightened by his strange appearance and imagined the whole thing, but I had been careful not to blink and I doubted I could’ve imagined anything like that.Momma’s expression was stony then and she suddenly looked more like a mother than a healer. Her long arms, so easy to wrap around her three children, seemed to ache to do just that and she stepped naturally towards me. The force of my desire to have her safely by my side was evident when her one small step was enough to bring her across the room and she looked sidelong at me for having done the magic to get her there. I stifled a shrug.“Get yourself some rest, sire. You’ll be much better off with some sleep,” Momma said, stepping back and pulling on the back of my skirts to encourage me to retreat from the room with her.The man laughed again and I was sure I wouldn’t forget that sound by then. He was so prone to laughter that I wondered for a moment what his rage would look like, although I was certain it would be terrible. He stretched his arms out to the sides and pointed his toes, yawning before he responded. “A good hibernation would do me best, madam. But I suppose some sleep will do fine.”We had made it to the hallway by then and Momma closed the door without responding. She sighed quietly and turned to face me, looking at me properly for the first time since I’d gone out for herbs.“Is he going to live?” I whispered.She pressed a finger to her lips and shook her head, beckoning me towards the kitchen. The sound of our footsteps on the hard floors together suddenly seemed very important then and I wondered how good a jilocasin’s hearing was. I suspected it wouldn’t be the only one of my questions that would go unanswered for a while.As usual, the kitchen was full of warm smells and golden flavors, and Momma grabbed us a half loaf of bread to share with some butter. The servant who’d given it to us had been eager and even offered to fetch some wine for us but Momma declined, insisting that dinner would be soon and we would have some then. She kissed the other woman on the cheek before grabbing the bread and butter and leading me out the back door and into the yard.The distant sounds of Sophia and Sebastian playing drifted towards us on a lazy wind. Daisies waved in the grass that sang songs as it rubbed together and the gentle rustling of plants made me think that maybe they were as excited to see the sun as I was. My momma led me away from the back of the house, towards a weeping willow. Spiders tangled their webs between the branches, but never for very long because the next wind was sure to break apart their work anyway.We ducked under the tree and sat near its base, enjoying the shade it provided and the privacy it practically guaranteed. Momma insisted on tearing up the bread and using it to scoop out the butter before we could talk, and I was several bites into my portion before she finally began.“What do you remember of jilocasins?” she asked quietly, her eyes remaining fixed on the next bite she was about to take. She was eating slowly, contemplating her actions as much as whatever pawed at her mind.“Remember of them?” I asked, almost laughing. “Nothing. What’s there to remember? You said yourself I’ve never seen one before.”“No one has,” she replied sharply, her eyes darting to my face for a moment before dropping again. “I thought they were extinct.” She said this last part more to herself than anything and I waited several more minutes before she said anything else.My momma was a patient woman, which always surprised me. It’s easy to forget that not every witch needs to know the same things. My momma had to know lots of things about all sorts of people and places because she couldn’t help anybody with their ailments if she didn’t. In this case, it was probably helpful to know what a jilocasin was before attempting to help one with their amputated arms.My magic has little to do with people, however, and she knew that. I could tell you from looking at the man that he weighed between 175 and 200 pounds, slight for a man that tall, and I could tell you that the friction it would require to move him through the air would be less than another human, because the reflective scales all over his face—and presumably his whole body—would help reduce drag. My mother didn’t need to know these things because she was not telekinetic.“Momma?” I finally pushed, having finished my bread. I was concerned and a little impatient. I regret that now but can’t do much to change the past.“Baby girl, do you know what a dragon is?”
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A gust of flames followed Sophia as she ran past us then and I waited for her Sebastian to follow after her before responding. Even when they’d gone, it took me a minute to put together a response. My instinct was to say ‘yes of course,’ but something told me that I was missing something. I stared at my momma for a while, the way she held my gaze with wide eyes and the way her mouth flattened into a stern frown.“Massive beasts with wings and scales that breathe fire and eat cattle?” I offered.“Massive monsters,” she corrected me quietly, finally breaking eye contact as she swept her vision across the yard and into the distance. “With wings that block out the son, scales that block out arrows or magic. They breathe fire that consumes all in its path and they eat anything with a beating heart.”I could almost picture what she said as she said it but the level of fear in her voice made it hard for me to imagine what kind of destruction she was thinking of. “But they’re gone,” I responded. “Long extinct and deader than anything else.”Momma looked uncomfortable then and almost guilty. She shot a glance at the house, this time more pointedly, and I wondered who she was looking for. Or looking out for.“Dragons come in many forms. Wyverns and the strict draconids are extinct, yes. For now. But jilocasin are still around. There aren’t many of them, but there are a few. That man in there is a jilocasin, one of the last.”My face must have hardened then because my momma glanced nervously at the branches of the weeping willow hanging around us. I certainly had a better grasp on my magic than Sophia or Sebastian did, but it was still prone to uncontrolled bursts when I was feeling anything particularly strongly. As it was, my irritation and confusion boiled into a blast that wasn’t enough to do damage, but enough to swing the branches of the willow around us a little more harshly than the wind alone might’ve done. My momma looked at me with a softer expression then and I knew she understood.“That man’s a dragon?” I asked, putting my confusion in my tone.“A jilocasin is a shapeshifter. Like most shapeshifters, their humanoid forms bear marks of their non-humanoid form.” Her tone had shifted to that of a lecturer and I remembered long mornings learning by her side growing up, and longer afternoons learning from a book as she explained the denser passages to me. I resisted the urge to laugh at this change in her demeanor, and listened as she went on. “I think you might be able to guess from what you’ve seen, but a jilocasin’s non-humanoid form is a draconid. So he’s a dragon part time.”I remembered the man’s face elongating menacingly before we’d left the room and wondered if he’d begun to transform before changing his mind. “And a dragon without his arms,” I murmured quietly.Momma frowned. “A dragon without his wings,” she replied. “But that particular jilocasin has more pressing concerns.”I raised an eyebrow. A headache was forming behind my right eye and I couldn’t help wishing I was talking about almost anything other than dragons at that moment. My eyes had apparently shut as I scrunched up my face and when I opened them again, my momma was smiling at me.“What?” I asked.“His concerns are not your concerns. Get yourself washed up, it’s time for dinner soon.”We stood together and I surprised her with a hug. I always appreciated that she took the time to talk to me about things, even if I hated it. I supposed it was her way of treating me like an adult, regardless of whether I felt ready to be one. I’d seen the stack of letters on my father’s desk, many of them requesting the hand of his eldest daughter in marriage, and I hated the idea of leaving my family for some strange man’s home.I gathered my skirts then and ducked under the branches of the weeping willow, leaving my momma behind. She had that faded twinkle in her eye that told me she needed a moment alone, and I suspected she was going to take the time to heal the grass that Sophia had scorched before coming in. I went around the side of the house instead of going in the back, to give her a bit more privacy; whatever she did as she took some time to herself, I’d be able to see her from the kitchen windows.The herb garden was looking well, still, and I smiled at the fact that I’d managed to pick the herbs my momma had wanted that morning without damaging any of the neat rows my father had set up there. He was so careful to keep everything in neat order, something which surprised most people who came to visit. We made decent money selling those herbs, and of course from the use my momma got out of them, but she never had a hand in growing them. The only thing she did was make requests to my father and heal the occasional spread of disease among them. Otherwise, the garden was my father’s project.He was a skilled magical builder and I suspected that the house itself was more alive than any of us really knew. A man who could grow plants and herbs as well as he could certainly didn’t seem likely to chop them down to build the wooden walls and floor inside our brick house, and I couldn’t help thinking he’d simply grown some local fauna into the shape of a house. It was too ornate for me to really believe that but sometimes, when I visited another house with their creaky floors and careful walls, I had to question it. The glass, of course, was strictly built and didn’t feature any of those plants my father loved so much, so I suppose it was possible he’d done the same with the house.I made my way past the windows, careful not to peek into Brant’s room, and back to the front porch. Sebastian and Sophia ran up behind me before I could turn around to call for them, and I shook my head at the state of their clothes.“Sophia, you can’t keep doing that. Father’s not going to keep making you new clothes everytime you scorch yours off,” I told her firmly, smiling despite myself.Sebastian was in neat order, his hair apparently having moved only slightly with the wind as he ran through the yard, but Sophia was a mess. In a tattered dress, she beamed up at me from beneath her curls of tangled hair.“I don’t need new clothes,” she replied confidently, bristling at the suggestion as her skin turned the faint glowing red that meant she was burning underneath it. She did this often, enjoying the party trick of flames for blood, and it was no longer so startling to me. “I’ll just hide inside my fire and no one will know it’s me.”“Except it couldn’t be anybody else,” I reasoned. Putting a carefully guarded hand on her shoulder, I pushed her gently past me and into the house, guiding Sebastian with my other hand. His skin was icy cold and I was sure Sophia hadn’t been the only one playing with her magic. “Get inside and get cleaned up, dinner’s on soon.”They nodded their heads in acknowledgement and tramped off down the hall, much quieter than their ruckus would make me expect. That’s when I realized they were barefoot, and I shook my head again. “Father’s going to have a fit,” I murmured to myself, looking down to check the state of my own shoes as I stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind me.“Why’s that?” a strained voice, rough like stones sliding together, asked from close by. I turned to see Brant standing in front of me, his tight eyes revealing the pain I wouldn’t have been able to read in his strange face.“Why’s what, sir?” I asked, forgetting what I’d been thinking about before his appearance.“Why is your father going to have a fit?” He took a step towards me and then stopped just as suddenly, his eyes widening with mischievous surprise. I’d seen the same expression on Sophia’s face earlier and it made me think that Brant was probably just as excited to find trouble as she was, a tendency that is more frightening in a grown man than a young girl. “That’s some potent magic if you can get me to shove off,” he added, enjoying my discomfort.“I don’t appreciate you making me use it, sire. We’re happy to have you here and to help you, but you mustn’t be so forceful.” Both of my parents had instilled great strength in me when I was little, a dangerous trait for a young woman to have. Regardless, I didn’t plan to get married so I wasn’t so worried what young men thought of me, and it worked out rather well.“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” Brant replied with a much softer voice. He sounded almost whispy then and I narrowed my eyes. “The lady is as beautiful as a summer rose, and I can’t help thinking she as tragic. For the petals of her face distract from the thorns of her magic.” He laughed again, a jovial sound, and I caught myself with my eyebrows together and my mouth open.“They’re poets, too,” my momma said, startling me as she stepped through the door behind me. “Poets and pranksters.”“And I was only moving towards you to point out that you hadn’t shut the door all the way,” Brant added, smiling. His red eyes were still discomfiting but I found that they were so full of humor that it was difficult to be terribly frightened. He seemed to see this realization play across my face, and winked.“Go help get things ready for dinner, I’m going to help this one get ready himself,” Momma told me, putting an arm up to lead Brant back into his room. “Are you quite well to sit up? We’ll have you eat in the dining room with the rest of us if you are.”“I’d quite like that,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder at me.I expected some sort of lewd expression there, the sort that most of the other cocky young men in our village offered. Instead, I found a playful, conspiratorial glance that made me realize he wasn’t trying to trick me, he was trying to play a trick with me. I raised a hand to wave at him and shot off a little burst of magic, effectively shoving him and my mother carefully back into his room and out of sight. His booming laughter followed me down the hall.Sebastian was in the kitchen when I made it there, and his wide eyes were fixed on dessert. He was an eager helper when Sophia wasn’t around, but nothing would entice him quite like the promise of a good apple crisp or berry cobbler. In this case, he was staring at a lemon pie and faint wisps of ice crackled in the air around him.“Calm down, you’re going to freeze dinner and then you won’t get any dessert at all,” I told him, making my way around the island to wash my hands. I wouldn’t always bother, but I still had dirt and butter on them. I was sure my skirts were in quite a state, too, but didn’t care enough about those to change before dinner.“No, if I ruin dinner then we’ll only have dessert left to eat,” Sebastian responded in an elated voice, crackling more dangerously this time.“Wrong-o, kid,” I told him, carefully charming the pie out of his reach. “The rule is ‘no dessert until after dinner,’ so what will you do if you can’t eat dinner?”Sebastian frowned and it turned into a pout as he followed me to wash his own hands as well. “No dessert,” he moped.“There you go. But don’t wash your hands yet, I don’t want you freezing the taps.”He nodded and began rubbing his hands together, eyebrows curved in concentration, just as Sophia rushed down the stairs. Although her skirts were less charred than before and she’d found a bodice without the black soot of her previous one, Sophia hardly looked tidied. Her eyes glimmered with the sort of mischief that she got whenever she witnessed somebody else doing something dastardly. Sebastian didn’t look up, careful to avoid being enticed into doing something that might keep him from getting dessert.“Guess what I saw in the yard?” Sophia demanded excitedly, beaming up at me with a broad smile.“A place to wash your hands, I hope,” I replied, frowning. “You shouldn’t eat dinner like that, Sophia.”She scowled at me but only for a moment. It seemed that whatever had caught her attention in the yard was too exciting to bother with anything else. “I saw a ripple,” she breathed, her skin glowing again.Something in my stomach dropped and my chest tightened painfully. Usually, ripples weren’t bad. Small things, like a new tree in the yard that grew flowers no one had seen before, or a newborn who suddenly didn’t have the magic they’d been born with. The latter was tragic, of course, but wasn’t the worst that could happen, and usually the parents were just grateful the baby hadn’t disappeared altogether.Sometimes, ripples were much worse than that, though, and having a baby only disappear would be a relief. I remembered too vividly when a woman from a nearby village had brought her infant to my momma for healing, scorching tears on the new mother’s face. Somehow, the infant was still alive, but all momma could do was put it out of its misery. A ripple had shaken the area and the baby that had been put to sleep the night before was turned inside out the next morning. It was a terrible sight.“What happened?” I heard myself asking. I didn’t mean to ask, but it happened. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know. The question was hardly off my lips before I began whispering, casting every protective force around my brother and sister that I knew. I thought of Momma and Father, but was afraid that trying to cast anything around them without knowing where they were would cause problems. Regardless, it was probably too late. The spells were more for my own comfort.“Hey!” Sophia grumbled as a sharp pull suddenly dragged her towards me. I apologized and focused again on her face as she opened her mouth to answer my question. Before she could, however, Sebastian pointed out the window, his eyes wide.“Look at Momma,” he whispered. I wasn't sure how she'd gotten outside again and my headache was back with force and I had to blink several times to clear it enough to focus on what was happening through the window.Wanting to gain some time, I moved quickly for the back door instead, throwing it open just in time for my momma to come barreling up the steps and inside. The servants were watching now and several jumped out of her way as she stormed through the kitchen and into the hallway. She was clutching a large round stone in her arms, and I couldn’t help comparing it to the only other substance I knew of that color: blood.“Stay here,” I told Sophia and Sebastian, the force of my command locking them both firmly out of the hallway. Without another word, I turned and followed Momma, the sound of her footsteps as easy to pursue as the flash of her skirts as I rounded the corner into the hallway and towards the front door of the house.Momma’s voice was hollow and strangled, ringing through the air with the sort of dangerous echoes that only came when she was on the very edge of using her magic the wrong way. My momma was just as capable of healing as she was of destroying, another reason she stayed out of the gardens, and in that moment I was quite sure which one she wanted to do. When I caught up to her, she was standing in the doorway of the birthing and dying room, glaring fiercely at the jilocasin.I hoped that maybe he wouldn’t find this situation so amusing but when I moved to stand nearer my momma and could see inside the room, I realized how wrong I was. Somehow, the man seemed to find this situation even funnier than any others so far, and he laughed from his belly as my momma practically snarled at him. Hoisting the stone above her head, she seemed about to throw it on the floor. I wondered at that for a moment; if it was a stone, that wouldn’t do any damage except to the floor.It dawned on me suddenly that the other color comparison I had available to me was the man’s eyes as he kept a level gaze with my momma. He seemed to be laughing more forcefully now, as if he was only doing so because he refused to do react any other way.“You were supposed to be the last one,” Momma told him, and I realized she was crying. At the same time, she was practically begging, and the broken tone of her voice made my heart skip. The pain in my head was desperate then and I could feel hot tears stinging in my eye as I watched the scene unfold.Instead of throwing the stone, my momma sank to her knees and lowered her arms, allowing it to roll onto the floor. Brant watched her and was quiet for the first time.“I am,” he said softly, his eyes still glowing. He didn’t seem half as remorseful as I thought he should’ve, although I wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. “That’s a draconid.”Everything seemed to make sense all of a sudden and I waved a hand. The egg, for I realized then that it was an egg, was in my arms before I understood what I was doing, and then the floor rushed up to meet my knees as I sank beside my momma. I traced the veins of whites and blacks that seemed to fracture through the egg from a single point on the top, as if it had been kissed by lightning and filled with flames from the heavens.“It’s a dragon,” I heard myself say. And then the floor rushed up to meet my head as well, and everything was black.
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Married three times, the woman who took the first swing from the gallows was an easy target for the scared and the lost. She was elderly by then, and not so different from my momma. She had a loud voice and a louder temper, unpopular traits for a woman in seventeenth century America.I count myself lucky to have met Bridget Bishop, the first victim claimed in the Salem Witch Trials. Of course, those who accused her would say she’d taken or ruined the lives of several others before she died. But Bridget was strong and bold and I admired her for that.We spent a lot of time laughing about marriage when we met. I never had the opportunity, not that I considered it one of much good fortune, and she’d tried it three times with little luck.“Thomas was the worst of them,” she told me, recounting tales of her first husband. “But looking back, it seems so long ago.” She wasn’t quite sad. None of us were sad then, but it’s easy to look back on the life you had lived and think of all the things you could’ve done differently. Or maybe we couldn’t have. Who’s to say what we could or couldn’t have done, given the circumstances we faced? Regardless, it’s easy to see what we should’ve done.If I’d been Bridget Bishop, I don’t think I would’ve been so brave. She had an apple orchard and a beautiful daughter. She had a house and land and a whole slew of stories to tell. She was hated and reviled and more people said she was guilty than anybody else.When she faced the rope, she faced it bravely, and a ripple sent a spasm into my world. Soon, she was dead, looking back on a world that had done her no favors. At the same time, my momma went into the yard after helping a jilocasin with his dinner clothes. She’d remembered that she’d left the butter dish in the yard and wanted to retrieve it before dinner. She took the long way past the herb garden and just a heartbeat after Bridget Bishop’s neck cracked in the noose, the air cracked in front of my momma and a draconid egg from a time long forgotten was spit into the grass.I opened my eyes to find that I was still on the floor and the egg was still in my arms. It had been just a moment. My momma was leaning over me, whispering spells that I’d heard her use before. Tears were drying on her cheeks and I forgot for a moment why they’d been there. Then I remembered that I still didn’t understand.I sat up too fast and everyone in the room gasped at once. Somehow, in the short time it had taken me to wake up again, both Sebastian and Sophia had made their way into the room, evidently free from my spell once I’d passed out, and one of the maids from the kitchen had followed them. Brant was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his ruined arms crossed delicately in his lap, and my momma was still preening over me. I didn’t look for father; he was still in town I was sure.My stomach seemed to harden again when I realized that that meant I didn’t really know what had happened. There’d been a ripple and there was no sure way to know what had happened to father. Often, when something from the past finds its way forward, there are other things that get sent back. I could only hope it was anything other than my family.“It’s not meant to be here,” I said of the egg, holding it out with shaking arms. Brant licked his lips, restraining himself from taking it from me, although I couldn’t tell why. “It’s supposed to have died.”Momma’s eyes were sad but she didn’t respond. “I know, baby girl.”I glanced up to see Sebastian and Sophia, to make sure they were okay. I knew they were, but I needed to see it with my own eyes. Sophia’s eyes were still dazzling but she didn’t seem so devilish now. Instead, she was a worried child with a fierceness that rivaled my momma’s when she tried. Beside her, Sebastian looked almost bored, and I wondered if his mind was still on that lemon pie. The thought made me laugh, a reaction which momentarily concerned my momma before apparently calming her down.It was clear I wasn’t injured and that was enough for her. I wondered how much magic she’d applied to wake me up, and waved a hand towards her, offering a firm pressure on her sore muscles. I always knew which muscles were sore because of course I did, and she smiled gratefully, if sadly.The room remained quiet for a moment, and I noticed that Brant’s eyes never left the egg. He seemed hungry and it was a terrifying expression for him. Of course, I wasn’t sure whether I was reading it correctly at all. The scales on his face made it difficult for me to tell what he was thinking or doing, although some part of me wanted to try to get to know him better and find out. I wasn’t sure where the desire came from and pushed it aside. He seemed to notice, though, and pressed his lips together.“Shall I have the others postpone dinner, madam?” the maid finally asked, interrupting the static tension in the room. Everyone seemed to exhale at once, and, as if we’d been holding all the air in the room in our lungs, the tension was broken.“No, I’ll do it,” Momma responded, pushing herself to her feet. “Sophia, Sebastian, you come with me. Would you mind helping her put that someplace safe?” Momma gestured vaguely at the egg, not wanting to acknowledge it in specific terms.“Absolutely, madam,” the maid responded.Her name was Mercy and she was probably the closest thing I had to a friend. We were about the same age and she was much prettier than me. I always admired the little twist she put in her black hair and wondered if my own rust-colored waves would do the same thing. Somehow, I could never get it to work. She had a soft countenance and manner, and seemed to move through the house almost like a ghost, which unnerved some people. I loved it, though.The headache that had been bothering me so much that day was not unusual, and it was wonderful to spend time around somebody that made as little noise as Mercy did. She also didn’t have magic, which made me feel better about my own when I so often felt impotent compared to the rest of my family. Mercy never cooed over me though, and it was nice to be treated like a person rather than anything else.She took a step to the side as my momma led the twins out of the room. Sophia cast a glance back at Brant but his eyes were still fixed on the egg and he paid her no mind. When they’d gone, Mercy stepped towards me. Momma had left me on the floor to gain my bearings back and I appreciated not being coddled over. Preferring that be continued, I passed the egg to Mercy instead of my hand when she reached towards me.She dipped her head slightly, acknowledging my decision, and took the egg. I felt cold without it and Mercy’s eyes widened as though she gained the warmth I’d had. I was suddenly afraid of the egg then; I was afraid of what it meant and what it could do. If someone with no magic was as impacted by the egg as I was, what did that say about the potency of the creature inside?I pushed myself to my feet and smoothed out my skirts, ruffling the bottom with a wave. When I glanced up, Brant was still staring at the egg but then he was smiling. Knowing that my momma would still offer the man a place at the dinner table, regardless of her shouting, I turned to face him more squarely.“Are you well enough for dinner?” I asked, trying not to sound too stiff.I was surprised at how quickly his gaze moved to meet mine and his eyes flashed with humor again. Whatever had drawn him to the egg was passed and he had returned to the more jovial creature I’d first met. “Ah, lady indeed, the pleasure is mine,” he began, smirking. “But I’m afraid, I’ll need help to dine. I’m sure that you’ve noticed, but my arms they are gone. You seem nice, won’t you feed me? Tell me I’m wrong.”I wanted to glare at him and to be irritated but somehow I couldn’t manage it. He looked as surprised as I was when my response was to laugh and close the distance between us to help him out of bed. “Come then,” I told him. “Dinner is served.”Mercy smiled, too, although her eyes were sort of glassy. She was holding the egg as if it were something very precious and it seemed to me that Brant was doing his best not to look at her or it. She stood by the door, quietly waiting for us to leave so she could follow. It wouldn’t have been proper, I suppose, to leave me alone with the man, nor particularly safe, but she couldn’t do much to help either.“It’s alright,” I told her, noting the way her eyebrows came together with concern as I moved the blankets back from the man’s legs and helped him to his feet. He didn’t seem to need more than a little encouragement, but I knew dinner would be harder for him and he was undoubtedly in a lot of pain.I waved a hand behind his back, quietly supporting him with the same sort of pressure I used on my momma’s tense muscles. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything, leading the way out of the room and into the hallway. He only paused for a moment to make sure he knew which way to go, and I almost laughed before nodding confirmation. The hallway led only to the front door, or to the kitchens, and we certainly weren’t going back outside.Like many of our neighbors’ homes, the kitchens and the sitting room were the most important parts of day-to-day life. However, the dining room was also a necessity and in our home, it was set between these other two. Not accessible from the hallway, the open archway to the dining room was off the kitchen instead, and this arrangement had begun a tradition for us all early on; we served ourselves.We weren’t one of the lavish homes teeming with servants to answer every beck and call, but we weren’t lacking either. However, our servants typically ate with us, and every meal was full of laughter and banter. Dinner, in particular, was one of my favorite meals, and as I followed Brant into the kitchen, I was reminded of why.Somehow, despite the ruckus throughout the day and the most recent blowup, our staff had managed to put together an extravagant meal of meats, potatoes, squash, and various other vegetables. Summer was a special time, too, because an array of fruits were available. I was excited about these dishes in particular, so it struck me as odd at first when Brant only served himself meat. I supposed that it made sense, but something about it seemed sad to me. Roasted banana and baked apples were some of my favorite foods, and I hated to think that this man wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of it.I say he served himself, but understand that we all served him. He just gestured and spoke in quiet tones to whomever was willing to help at the time. Mercy had disappeared, presumably to put the egg someplace safe, so Sebastian offered to help instead. He served the man a massive plate and Brant tried to stop him at first.“That’s too much, boy, I can’t possibly be such a burden,” he insisted, waving his arms.Sebastian fixed him with a suspicious glare, sizing him up for a moment. “Are you going to have dessert?” he asked seriously. “It’s lemon pie.”Brant actually grimaced at that, and I decided maybe it wasn’t so sad for him that he couldn’t or wouldn’t eat such things. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said.“Then I’ll eat your serving of dessert and you can have my serving of meat,” Sebastian responded brightly, loading another slice of roast onto the man’s plate.Brant stared for a moment, surprised, before bursting into laughter. Momma had heard the exchange, too, and came over to interrupt.“You can have as much meat as you like, sire, we’re happy to provide you with accommodations while you’re healing. But Sebastian will need to eat to, won’t he?” she said, raising an eyebrow at her son.He scowled but nodded, and pulled some meat onto his own plate as well. He usually liked meat, but I suspected that he was more eager to get through dinner than to enjoy it. Brant laughed again and this time he caught me watching. His eyes flashed and he winked, a gesture that was becoming all too familiar now. I shook my head, hating myself for the smile that crept across my face, and focused on serving my own meal.Mercy didn’t come out for dinner, a fact that I only noticed after everyone had finally sat down and I saw the empty seat. Although she and I were nearly friends, we rarely sat together at meals, and I was several bites into my food before I realized her absence. I glanced around the room, thinking maybe she was standing off to one side for some reason, or perhaps still collecting her own portion from the kitchen. Momma caught me looking and shrugged, shaking her head. I frowned, but my thoughts were interrupted when Sebastian and Sophia’s conversation suddenly grew louder and I was drawn into the engagement.“If you were going to be pickled,” Sebastian asked carefully, raising his voice when he realized others were listening. Quiet though he may have been, he was nothing if not a showman. “Would you want to be a vegetable first? Or just be pickled as you are?”He was asking Sophia the question but others turned introspective as they considered it themselves. Between bites, a few people murmured their answers but no one gave much more than that. Sophia smirked at Sebastian, knowing he was playing the crowd, so to speak, and carefully didn’t give her answer just yet.“Pickled as is,” Brant declared, swallowing a piece of meat my momma had fed him. She took the opportunity to turn to her own meal and for a moment, she seemed less concerned with the egg. Her brow was still furrowed but her mouth formed a smile and she listened as Brant went on to explain himself. “At least then you’d get a good bath out of it.”Several servants laughed and Sebastian and Sophia erupted into a joint chorus of “eww” and various disgusted sounds, giggling all the same. A swirl of warm air and a swirl of cold air rushed through the room together, a clear sign that the twins were being genuine.“You wouldn’t fit in a pickling pot,” Sophia decided then, enjoying the puzzle. “You’re far too large. I don’t even think I would fit!”“Mrs. Tauman could make you fit,” Sebastian responded.“That’s our neighbor up the road,” Momma explained to Brant. “She has a way with potions and mixtures.” Brant nodded, understanding.“Mrs. Tauman couldn’t make you fit into a regular pickling pot,” Sophia responded to Sebastian. “She would just get a bigger pot!”Everyone laughed again and the conversation went on, turning to everything from the neighbors to magic to the meal itself. Everyone was talking about everything that didn’t matter, and the laughter it brought was well worth the shallow conversation.The meal was nearly done and Sebastian was perked up eagerly when we were interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming open. Momma turned sharply, pushing herself to her feet, and I mirrored her movements, preparing to move her out of the way if need be. She was sitting nearest to the kitchen and thus nearest to the hallway; whatever was coming in would get to her first.Heavy bootfalls sounded in the hallway and the strides were long and fast; someone was running. To my surprise, Brant, Sebastian, and Sophia also took up defensive positions. It was the first time in the case of the twins and I felt a momentary flare of pride before imagining all the terrible things that could happen if ice magic or flames got out of control, and cast a quiet force around them each to contain the magic they might use.By the time I’d finished, just a second after the door had slammed open, my father burst into the kitchen and into sight, closing the distance towards us into the living room with just another few steps. He was sweating and panting and in his arms, he carried what seemed to be a bundle of fabric slimy fabric.“Helen,” he muttered desperately, calling my mom to his side. The doors in the hallway were opening and closing, a rare demonstration of my father’s magic out of control. Brant was between me and my momma and I noticed him take several steps to one side of the room, where he’d be less noticeable in the hustle that ensued. I wondered, too, if he wanted to be out of the way of whatever anger might come towards him next.My momma and I stepped forward at the same time, though, and I stopped paying attention to our first patient when I realized we had a second one. Father lowered to his knees and deposited his burden onto the floor. The movement in the hall stopped as he took a steadying breath.One of the servants to my right gasped sharply as the bundle came into clearer view for him and I hurried forward to see what it was that was so shocking. Laying on the ground, in a heap of her own dresses, sticky slimy goop, and fragments of what looked like broken red slate, Mercy was unconscious. In her arms was a tiny baby dragon.Now, I can look back and wonder at that. I wonder at the way the slimy creature opened its small wings and batted them uselessly and I wonder whether Bridget Bishop would think it funny that this maid’s life was so changed by her death, when a young girl of the same name had been part of the cause of it.Bridget was notorious for wearing such garish colors as red when she was alive, a fact that strikes me particularly odd. Colors like red weren’t so frowned upon in Hagen as they were in Salem, I suppose, and she certainly wouldn’t have experienced such things had she lived where I lived. But isn’t that the point of it all? These things were never supposed to happen.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Mercy was smiling, despite being unconscious. It stood out to me then and it hasn’t left me since. As Momma went to Mercy’s side and began care for her, father started explaining his side of things. Apparently, Mercy had been in the hall still, holding the egg. Father wasn’t sure whether she was just so distracted by the egg that she didn’t move far from where we’d left her, or if she’d heard noises from the egg, or if perhaps the sounds of his arrival outside drew her attention. Whatever the case, Mercy had been in the hall when the egg suddenly exploded in her arms, evidenced by the shards shell and strings of slime on her dress and the walls where she’d been standing.None of this explained why she was smiling, or precisely what had knocked her unconscious. I suppose that anyone might faint if they were suddenly finding themselves to be holding a dragon, but that’s neither here nor there. Whatever happened, Mercy wasn’t going to be giving her account of it for a while. Momma seemed concerned at first, but less so when she realized there were no external signs of damage.“She’s not been struck by anything and her eyes look fine,” she explained to the room of onlookers. Brant was still in his chair, remaining a safe distance from the goings on. “She’s either fainted or it’s something much more terrible than any of us can imagine.” Her voice was ominous and she looked around the room at her children, husband, guests, and servants, before cracking a smile. “But she’s probably just fainted.”I wondered if that was true.It seemed odd to return to our meal as if nothing had happened, so we focused on cleaning up the mess the egg had left behind and taking Mercy to a more comfortable spot for when she woke up. The dragon fluttered its wings nervously as Father picked Mercy back up off the floor, and it hopped to his shoulder. Momma looked shocked but Father just chuckled at it before carrying both Mercy and the dragon upstairs. Momma stayed by her side and I made my way to the kitchen with another servant, Thomas, to collect water and rags for cleaning.“Do you think she’ll be alright?” Thomas asked me as I placed a bucket in the large sink in the kitchen and he turned on the tap. “Or he?”I turned my head towards him, surprised. “You don’t mean Mercy?”He looked equally surprised then, and I tried to think whether I’d missed something obvious. “Mercy’s not a ‘he,’” he replied, confused. “I meant the dragon.”Anger flared in my stomach, but I managed to control it for the most part. He swayed in place but I didn’t push him further away than that with whatever little burst my frustrations had sent at him. I was beginning to hate this dragon. In its egg, it had been warm and powerful, and now it was detrimental.“I’m sure Momma will be able to make sure Mercy recovers soon,” I told him. “Go get the rags.”He pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything else, and I watched him go with narrowed eyes. He was well-built and strong, and I knew Mercy had always fancied him. It irritated me that even in a state of medical emergency, he didn’t pay her any attention. I made a mental note to tell her that when she was recovered. Perhaps it would be enough to get her mind off him and on to someone else.Father passed us on his way back downstairs and I watched him go by without a word. I realized, then, that I was assuming Mercy would recover. It seemed likely, according to Momma, but there was always a chance she wouldn’t. Momma had even said so herself, really.Even in a world of magic, we usually knew what we were up against. It strikes me as interesting, now, that in Bridget Bishop’s mundane world, people were supernatural, and scared, worried about things they didn’t have answers for. They would’ve been so scared of my family, although I didn’t know that at the time. Instead, I only pondered the fact that there were things in my world that couldn’t be explained in the usual ways.Thomas returned with the rags after a moment, interrupting my train of thought, and I stood for what seemed like a long time, just looking down at our tools. We were going to be cleaning the remnants of an exploded dragon hatching off the walls and floor of my family home; how could I be sure anything was going to be okay anymore?Brant was in the hall outside the kitchen when we finally emerged and I looked at him with a sense that I was seeing him for the first time. His red eyes seemed brighter and I wondered if it was excitement or fear. His forked tongue flicked, like a snake’s or a lizard’s does when they’re tasting the air for signs of danger. I supposed dragons probably did the same.“I want to help,” he said before we could approach. His voice was rough again and not the jovial tone he’d used earlier when he’d been inventing poetry. “I have to help,” he murmured.My eyes moved from his expression to Thomas’ and I saw the same sort of guarded look in both their eyes. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, as if I was only doing it so they could see that I was considering.“What can you do?” Thomas asked sharply, surprising me. He wasn’t one to speak up so quickly, a fact that Mercy found particularly endearing. I added it to my list of things to tell her about later and grimaced inwardly again at the thought.Brant’s eyes flashed. “Are you really worried about these arms, stringbean?” he asked, his tongue flicking again, more dangerously. The difference between his stature and Thomas’ suddenly seemed very obvious to me as Brant loomed several inches taller, and much broader. There was a strength in Brant’s chest and shoulders that Thomas could only dream of, despite the hours he spent washing and cutting wood.Thomas’ jaw clenched and I wondered what he was thinking of that made him decide to stay quiet instead of responding. Perhaps he remembered that it was my decision, as part of the family he technically served. Perhaps he wanted to show me how level-headed he could be, although the angry pulsing of his temple sort of spoiled the effect.Finally, I nodded to Thomas, who stared at me a moment before sighing. He begrudgingly passed the rags into Brant’s arms. For his part, Brant was silent. It might have been due to sheer concentration though, as he was likely still in pain and had to quickly come up with a method for crossing his arms to receive the rags. Thomas scowled for a moment before wandering back into the kitchen. I wondered if he was going anywhere in particular.Brant watched him go as well and his expression changed dramatically once he’d gone. “He hates me,” he said, almost smiling. His eyes were too tight to make it look like a truly cheerful face, but he was certainly less harsh than he’d been a moment before.“Why would he?” I asked, shifting the weight of the bucket of water to my other hand and leading us down the hall. My father was kneeling on the floor, picking up the last of a shard of egg shell and placing it onto a plate I’d seen Momma use when someone had debris in a bad injury.“Thank you,” he said sincerely, nodding at me. Father wasn’t a suspicious man, and didn’t seem to consider Brant’s presence particularly strange. He wasn’t the first guest that had been integrated into family life during their stay and I doubted—or hoped—he wouldn’t be the last. Father took the opportunity to return to my momma’s side then, knowing the cleanup of the hall would be handled.“He hates me because he thinks he knows who I am,” Brant said casually as I set the bucket down. He dumped the rags into a pile nearby where I could easily reach them, and stood awkwardly, apparently not sure how to help without his hands. His tongue flicked again, and I guessed that he was frustrated.“Father does? Or are we still talking about Thomas?”“Is that the lad from the kitchen?” I nodded as I dunked the first rag into the water. “Then yes, Thomas.”I considered this information for a moment as I started scrubbing. I wasn’t sure whether it interested me more that Thomas thought he knew something about our inpatient jilocasin, or that whatever he thought he knew was apparently cause to hate him. Of course, there was also the possibility that Brant was lying, but somehow, I doubted it.“What does he think he knows?”Brant smirked and I got the impression he was pleased with my inquiry. “That jilocasins are raving, insane beasts who spend their long lives roaming the countryside to find willing maids and men and leaving dangerous remnants of themselves behind.”I laughed at the thought, dunking a slimy red rag in the water again. “What part of it is wrong?” I asked, trying to imagine this creature before me as a raving beast. He seemed far too poetic to be dangerous.“None of it,” he replied, laughing from his belly.My moving hands stopped then and I glanced up at Brant, raising an eyebrow. He had managed to find a way to sort of cross his arms, and he was leaning against the clean wall opposite me. His smile was impressively wide and I realized then that he could stretch his mouth much further than other humanoids I’d seen, revealing nearly his entire set of shining white teeth.“None of it?”“Nope. Not a word.”I was tired and irritated and had much more pressing concerns at the time, so I returned to my cleaning as I pushed for more answers. “Then what’s the problem?” Brant seemed to find this amusing, too, and he was still chuckling when he answered.“It’s not a bad thing,” he replied. “What’s wrong with finding willing maids and men to share the company of? Consent is crucial to us, for lots of reasons, and what’s wrong with being a little insane?”“’Leaving dangerous remnants of themselves’ doesn’t sound like a good thing.” The coating on the floor was mostly gone and I resolved to get another bucket of water before attempting the walls, so I pushed myself to my feet and turned to look at Brant, who hadn’t answered by the time I was standing.“Everybody’s dangerous. You’re dangerous with that magic you keep so tightly wound inside your chest, waiting for the opportunity to let it go just one time.” His eyes had darkened and he was frighteningly serious. I heard myself gasp as his words resonated with me, although I wasn’t quite willing to accept that they were true. “Your mother is dangerous with her power to destroy and the knife she keeps tucked in her skirts. All of you are dangerous. What’s so wrong about leaving a little bit of yourself behind, if only it means someone might help you take care of it?”Silence expanded between us and I realized I wasn’t looking away. Instead, my eyes were fixed on his and I felt like I was searching his face for something. “Does Thomas think you’ve left something here?”The sound of footsteps coming down the hall towards us interrupted our conversation but neither of us dropped our gaze. Instead, Brant simply winked at me. “Atta girl,” he whispered, just a heartbeat before Sebastian and Sophia arrived behind me. Brant moved his eyes first, finally breaking contact and glancing at the twins over my shoulder. His eyebrows drew together.“We picked herbs!” Sophia announced, out of breath.“I picked herbs,” Sebastian corrected her. “You caught herbs on fire while I picked the ones you missed.”“And you said the funny colored plants were purple after I’d burned them,” she responded.My eyes widened and I turned to see Sophia rub a hand across her chest, grimacing. The distinct purple flowers of foxglove were clutched in Sebastian’s hands, well away from the fires Sophia could conjure so easily.“They are purple!” Sebastian held up his collection for proof, his eyes moving between myself and Brant for confirmation.Sophia dropped to the ground then, and vomited fiercely before collapsing on the floor. Sebastian watched in shock, and I jumped forward to grab his wrists. “Don’t freeze these herbs, Momma needs them. Take them to her now. Go.”My face was close to his and I forced him to look at me as I instructed him. He calmed down a little bit and I gave him a careful push out of sight. It felt good to use my magic so much that day, and I wondered at Brant’s words. I didn’t have time to think too much about it though. When I turned to see Sophia, she was already in Brant’s arms.“How did you- ?”“It doesn’t matter. Do you want to save her life?”I grimaced and nodded. We ran then, through the hall after Sebastian, into the kitchen and up the stairs to where Momma was treating Mercy. By the time we arrived, Momma already knew what had happened, and her eyes were stern. Her hands were grey-ish, the faded color of a woman who has nearly exhausted herself for the day.Downstairs, forgotten, a bucket of slimy red water spilled across the floor where we had kicked it in our hurry. It was gone when we returned for it.For a moment, I considered that another servant, or even Thomas, had wandered by, seen the job undone, and gone to fetch clean water and more rags. There were bootprints in the water that made me think it was a man, and there weren’t many of those available that would’ve been able or willing to help. I thought again of Thomas, and my eyes narrowed.“You’ve been with me the whole time,” I told Brant, thinking out loud. “I know this wasn’t you.”“Well, let the lady know, that the lady does know best. But what the lady doesn’t know, is anything that’s left.” I put my hands on my hips but didn’t look up. “Did the lady think that I might be concerned about my guilt? Or at least about her thoughts about my very same old guilt?”“Please stop doing that.” He only laughed, but he did stop so I didn’t say anything else about it. “It doesn’t matter what happened,” I decided, dropping my arms and turning on my heel. “We’ll just have to start again.”Thomas was in the kitchen when we arrived, filling the bucket of water we’d recently been using. I nearly smiled then, although I was still irritated with him.“You spilled this,” he told Brant, not looking at me. “Don’t make things harder than they need to be.”Brant raised his brow—I’m not sure his scaly forehead could really be described as having “eyebrows”—and smirked. “It’s fun, though. Do I make you hard?”Thomas did a double-take then, a comedic one really, and I laughed despite myself. Brant noticed and his smile turned more sincere.“Oh come on, Thomas, he’s just joking—““I’m really not joking.”“—don’t worry so much. Humor is important when so much goes wrong all at once.”Thomas scowled and returned to his task, although I was sure he would’ve liked to tell me exactly what he thought was going wrong. The bucket would take time to fill, though, and I didn’t feel like giving him another opportunity so I gestured to Brant to follow me and headed up the stairs again. It seemed like I’d taken them more times that day than most other days, and I grumbled at the effort as I made it to the top.Brant was close behind me and I realized how warm he was. I supposed being a jilocasin, and enjoying all the firebreathing side effects of that, was wont to raise one’s body temperature, but in an enclosed space like the staircase, it was overwhelming.“I didn’t know you had a sense of humor,” he remarked, following me to the room where the most noise was coming from. I figured that my momma would be spending more work healing my sister than our servant, either because of the dire-ness of their ailments or because of her relative love for them, and trusted that I’d find Sophia there.“I didn’t know you could be funny,” I responded. “Any excuse to see Thomas uncomfortable is worth it for me.”“Even hanging out with the raving, insane dragon-person?” he teased, stopping outside the doorway to where my sister was being cared for. I appreciated the gesture and smiled.“Even that.”