Under a Waning Sun

Ivy squinted into the casing, trying to gauge how much oxidizer she could fit in it after everything else was in there. It had taken forever to hollow out and sand down all the branches, and almost as long to find ones with the appropriate diameter before that, but it was paying off beautifully now. She had dozens of perfectly sized firecracker casings, waiting and ready to be assembled for the perfect surprise.

"What color should this one be?" she called, lifting the tube up. "We can do red, blue, yellow or green!"

"Oh! Oh!" Ramona leaned over Ivy's shoulder to see. "Juni likes blue, right? Let's do blue!"

"Blue it is." Ivy grinned, uncapping a small vial of copper salts. Adonis had told her the other month that some materials glowed with certain colors when heated, and when he confirmed having some of them, she just knew she had to use them for the firecrackers. "It'll match her tattoo!"

Ramona watched in rapt fascination as Ivy sprinkled a small amount of copper into the casing, nodding with a wide-eyed smile.

"Brilliant! She'll love it! Blue to match the blue!" she cheered.

"She will, but she can not find out about this, though," Ivy said, looking up with a grin and wagging her finger at all of them. "It's a secret until the last moment, okay?"

Ramona put her hands over her mouth, and Saoirse held a finger to her lips. Caelan just shrugged in agreement, Silas nodded, and Ossie agreed with a hearty: "Of course!"

"Fantastic." Still smiling, Ivy set down the copper, keeping the firecracker upright as she held it out. "Ossie, can you fill this about halfway with flash powder? It's that yellow dust over there. We need to form some kind of assembly line."

"Oh," Ossie hesitated, but he picked up the dust anyway. "Flash powder? Isn't that... explosive?"

"It can't hurt you," Ivy assured him. "It takes heat and pressure to ignite, and there's no fuses or matches around here to start it. You'd have better luck rubbing your hands together if you wanted a fire."

Ramona's eyes lit up and she furiously began rubbing her hands together. Caelan, who sat beside her, rolled his eyes. Silas curiously looked into the bag of powder Ossie was holding.

"So you fill it like this?" Saoirse asked quietly, holding up a firecracker with powder she'd put inside.

Ivy squinted at it, then nodded to confirm. "Yep. Make sure it's packed tight, though. If it's too loose, it won't go off properly."

Saoirse shoved it in tightly with her pinky. Ramona glanced over at her with wide eyes before reaching over Caelan's head for the vial Ossie held.

"Give me some!" she said.

"Wait your turn," Caelan said, pushing her away as Silas stepped protectively in front of Saoirse. Ramona backed off with a sigh.

"We'll share," Ossie said, handing the vial to Ivy to distribute.

Ivy took it back, passing it back to Ramona. "Maybe you want to do the colors, Saoirse?" she suggested brightly, holding up the sodium compounds that would produce yellow light. "I think that's a little more fun than the firestarting in some ways, honestly. Orange flames are so last year."

A small smile came to Saoirse's lips. "I'd like that."

It felt weird that that was the most enthusiasm she'd seen from her recently, Ivy reflected, as she scooped up all the salt vials and handed them over. She would've expected the idea to be met with some teasing remark, maybe a comment about how fire had been orange by default since its discovery and was not subject to some ever-changing fashion trend. Where had that gone?

Well, it was strange. But this was a celebration-- at least, a preparation for one. The mood really had to lighten a little, so this wouldn't do.

"Okay!" Ivy clapped her hands together, then narrowed her eyes playfully at Silas. "Silas. What do you want to do?"

His eyes darted around at all the different supplies. "Don't know how much longer I can stick around," he said.

Ivy tilted her head. "What do you mean? Does Morgan need you again?"

Silas nodded, throwing a nervous glance at the window. "He's getting weaker. Got lots of orders to fulfill."

Why would there be a uptick in orders? Ivy knew it wasn't hunting season, and Silas had spoken of that being the busiest time for a blacksmith-- people came in wanting a brand-new crossbow or knife, even if they had one already. That was kind of silly, considering they could only use one weapon at a time, and wasn't it expensive to replace them every year? It helped Morgan and Silas, so it wasn't like it upset her, but the practice had always struck her as strange. Even stranger, though, was this level of ordering happening for a different reason all of a sudden.

"Business is booming!" Ramona said cheerfully, lifting a firecracker-work-in-progress.

"Well-- hopefully not like that," Ivy added.

Ramona's smile flickered. "Only in a metachoracle sense," she said.

"Metaphorical," Caelan murmured under his breath with a sigh. Ivy huffed disapprovingly at him. So what if he could spell? Big deal. She could too, and she wasn't mean to anyone about it like that.

"It's good that Morgan's smithy is doing well," Caelan spoke up louder, looking to Silas. "I'm sorry you have to pick up the slack."

"It's alright," Silas said, readjusting the bandana on his head. "I hope Juni enjoys the party."

Ivy had been about to say she hoped so too, but he seemed so forlorn about it that she could only blink at him, a little confused.

"You're leaving?" Saoirse asked, staring at him. Ossie glanced up too from the ground, where he'd been tapping his fingers absent-mindedly against the floor.

Silas gave her a pained look. "I need to."

Something unspoken passed between them, and Saoirse nodded in agreement. Ivy felt a rush of something almost like frustration in response. There was something here that she just wasn't getting, and she wanted to be in on it. How could she get in on it?

"Well, we'll miss you," Ivy said. "You know that, right?"

"Right." Silas' face was flushed with sudden color. "Me too. I mean - I'll miss you all too." He dipped his head in an awkward nod and headed out the door.

"Byeeeeee!" Ivy called after him. "Say hi to Kyle for us!"

"Go make some swords!" Ramona added with a big wave. "Have fun slaying the dragon!"

They caught a glance of Silas' embarrassed smile as he went by the window.

Ivy hoped he'd be back soon. She hoped Saoirse would cheer up too. She knew everyone had their bad days-- usually, other people seemed to have way more of them than she did, although she still knew those were a thing. But this... didn't feel like that. If a bad day became a bad week, and a bad week became a bad month, could you still keep calling it after a period of time? Or was there a different word for that-- one that actually captured the meaning of a darkness that refused to go away?

After a long pause of all of them watching him leave, Ossie turned back to Ivy. "What else do we need to do?"

"Hmm?" Distracted, Ivy looked back to him, then shook her head to clear it before she grinned playfully at him again. "Oh, there's plenty left. Who wants to learn how to string a fuse?"



When the sun sank down below the horizon-- although the desert heat was not so quick to leave-- Ivy hurriedly packed up her supplies as she said her goodbyes to her friends. The job wasn't complete, but she'd gotten a lot more done than she would have all by herself, and there was still another week left before Juni's birthday.

Her older sister was going to be nineteen. Would Juni be too cool to hang out with an eleven year old like her anymore? Ivy hoped not. She never wanted to lose that relationship. Maybe it was all the more important this firecracker display went well-- if Ivy pulled it off right, Juni would find her cool for the rest of time.

Ivy let out a little snort of laughter to herself, shaking her head as she shoved the last vial back into her bag. Who was she kidding? Juni had always thought she was cool. That wasn't going to change from one day to the next.

As she stuffed the bag into the hiding spot in their kitchen cabinet, she heard the door open. Praying Juni wasn't about to catch her in the act, Ivy poked her head above the counter with wide eyes. To her relief, it was just Adonis, entering with a smile flashed her way.

"Still at it?" he asked amusedly.

"Not a word," Ivy said as she stood, pointing her finger at him like she was trying to threaten him, but her grin made it clear she wasn't. "You've been entrusted with a tremendous secret. Do not give it away."

Adonis laughed, taking off his shoes at the door before going over to give her a hug. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Hey, watch it, you have ink on your hands," Ivy protested, squirming at first, but then giggling as her dad adjusted his embrace so he wouldn't get her messy.

"Do I really?" Adonis let go of her, squinting at his hands before shrugging. "Look at that. I do have ink on my hands."

Honestly, Ivy hadn't even seen his hands. She just knew he'd been working, so there was an eight-out-of-ten chance that meant they had ink on them.

"What have you been working on?" she asked curiously.

"That's top secret, kiddo," Adonis said apologetically, walking over to the stove to start a fire. Dinner was just around the corner, then. "I can promise you it wasn't particularly exciting today, though."

"Did any of them have silly names?" Ivy asked. That was their deal-- whenever he couldn't share any details of his work because it was too important, he'd tell her if the people he was forging letters between had ridiculous-sounding names or titles. Which happened a lot, surprisingly, because important people liked to be extravagant for some reason. Why that was, she didn't know.

Adonis hummed. "Without saying who, the newborn son of a nobleman has been named after a kind of fish. His father wanted to boast about that to a friend as if that were some point of pride."

"A fish?" Ivy repeated. "Was it a good fish to be named after, at least?"

"I don't think any fish makes for a good name," Adonis admitted. Try as she might to come up with one that could be acceptable for a person, Ivy was forced to recognize she simply didn't know that many fish. That was the problem with living in the desert and not caring about most things that didn't explode with pretty colors.

"That poor kid," Ivy said with a shake of her head. "He's going to grow up hating his parents."

"I hope not," Adonis said with an amused huff, as he set a pot of water over the stove to boil. "But I would certainly understand some resentment."

"Juni and I might be named after plants, but at least they're good ones," Ivy pointed out. "There's much worse options out there. Can you imagine Juni walking in that door and you saying, 'Hey, Milkweed, you ready for dinner?'"

Adonis chuckled. "I was not imagining it before, but I certainly am now, and I agree it would not make for a good name or a pleased child."

"Thought so," Ivy said, grinning before glancing at the door. "Where is Juni, speaking of? She's usually back by sundown-- I was so sure she'd catch me and my friends while we were still working."

Adonis followed her gaze, and she could tell he was wondering the same thing as her.

"She's probably just out with her friends," Adonis guessed. "I'm sure she'll be back any minute, stomach rumbling."

"Maybe she'll come back earlier if you make something she likes," Ivy suggested.

"Hey," Adonis protested, putting a hand to his chest. "Juni likes all my cooking, thank you very much."

"Hmm," Ivy said skeptically, although she did know this to be true. "Better make the goat cheese pasta just to be safe."

Adonis turned, narrowing his eyes at her playfully. "That's your favorite food, not hers."

"No it's not," Ivy said innocently.

"You're gonna have to get better at the fibbing, kiddo." With a chuckle, Adonis turned back to the pot of water, then shrugged. "But you did ask at the right time-- I got a fresh batch of goat cheese earlier today. Let's see if we can summon Juni back."



The water boiled, releasing its steam as clouds that alerted Adonis back to the stove. Plates were set out, three filled with food, two eaten. Chairs were sat in, then pushed back against the table. The door never opened, despite being unlocked, despite the sister supposed to return at any second, clamoring about how starving she was.

Juni wasn't home. Still wasn't home.

Ivy didn't even realize she'd been staring at the door until she felt the weight of a hand falling on her shoulder. The touch, although gentle, felt like it carried the snap of an electric shock. She looked up to see Adonis watching her tenderly.

"It's late," Adonis remarked. "You should probably get some sleep."

"It is late," Ivy agreed, sweeping her hand toward the entrance. "And she's not back."

"I was just about to go out and see where she's at," Adonis said. "But I don't know how long I'll be. You probably shouldn't wait up for us."

Ivy said nothing, turning her head back to the door. It should open any moment now. Why wasn't it opening?

"Ivy," Adonis said, a little softer. "You'll feel better if you get some sleep."

Ivy wasn't sure about that. For starters, she wasn't even sure what she was feeling, except that the emotion was living in her stomach. It was a heavy emotion, one that pricked into her sides with each deep breath. She felt it sting when she shook her head no.

"I won't make you," Adonis said. "But there's no point in sitting around worrying-- especially when I don't think there's anything to worry about. I'll get her back. Promise me you'll at least try to rest?"

Ivy managed to nod, although she wasn't sure if she was being honest. She wasn't sure if Adonis thought she was being honest. But something about the motion must've been enough, because he offered her a slight smile and pulled his hand back.

"Alright," Adonis said, moving for the door. "Then I'll see you in the morning. Love you, kiddo."

"Love you, dad," Ivy murmured, though she wasn't sure she'd said it in time before the door closed behind him.

The house was quiet in his wake. Too quiet. It was then that Ivy realized she really hadn't meant her promise at all.

She folded her legs up to her chest, eyes trained on the door, and waited. And waited.

Osmond Ferrer

The blue meat tasted like nothing he'd ever had before. Every bite exploded a new wave of juices in his mouth, and Ossie groaned in satisfaction, feeling red liquid drip from between his lips, with a steady drip, drip, drip onto the floor. His mom sat on one side of him, and his step-dad on the other, and everything was perfect in a way it had never been perfect before.

"Do you want more?" his mother asked, giving him a gentle smile that sent ripples of joy through Ossie's body.

Ossie shook his head and forced a big swallow. "We gotta save some for Beau and the girls, right?" he asked.

His step-dad, Kyle, started to laugh, and then his mom started to laugh, and then Ossie started to laugh too, even though he didn't know why they were laughing. "Osmond, you're the funniest kid I've ever known," his step-dad said through big bellows of laughter. "The smartest too."

"The smartest and funniest and bestest kid in the whole world," his mom agreed heartily, her laughter echoing off the bright-blue walls. "Here, let me get you some more." She slopped a big spoonful onto his plate, and it splattered red all over him, but Ossie didn't mind.

On his plate, the blue meat oozed, as if it were laughing too. "I don't need anymore," Ossie said again. "I wanna save some for them."

"But aren't you hungry?" his mom asked.

And suddenly, he could feel it--his stomach growling and rumbling, painfully biting at itself like that would dissolve the hunger. "I am," Ossie said hesitantly, "but I wanna wait for them."

"Oh, you'll be waiting a long, long, time, then," Kyle said, before he burst out into a new round of laughter.

"Hurry up, now," his mother said, standing and moving to pick up a pan off the stove. "If you finish up Mabel now, we'll have enough time for dessert later."

Ossie felt his heart stop. "What?"

She tilted the pan towards him, and suddenly, the blue meat had a face, distorted, permanently stuck in an agonized cry-- Beau!



Ossie woke with a gasp to the sound of wheezing. His heart hammered in his chest and he sat up frantically, wiping the tears from his disoriented eyes as he looked around the room. Next to him, Beau lay gasping, the corners of his mouth turning blue. Ossie desperately picked him up, patting him on the back quickly, and nearly collapsed with relief when he felt Beau take in a big gulp of air.

Shaking, he worked his way through the darkness towards the door, out of the room and onto the porch, hoping the chaos hadn't woken either of the girls who slept only a few feet away. Leaning against his shoulder, Beau's breaths rattled, and he mumbled incoherently in his sleep. Ossie rubbed circles on his back absent-mindedly as he walked to the edge of the porch, contemplating sitting down, but deciding he was now too wired and panicked for it.

If he kept himself moving, maybe it would keep his mind off the dream, and off the blue lips, and the blue paint, and the blue meat, and the blue everything. Ossie began to walk aimlessly, Beau falling into a slumber again against his shoulder as he weaved his way through buildings and alleyways. He'd walk away from home, then back toward home again, then away again, over and over and over.

He thought of his conversation with Adonis only a few days ago--the reassurance that he'd given. You aren't the same person as in your dreams, he reminded himself. You aren't the same person as in your dreams.

"You aren't the same person as in your dreams," he mumbled, and didn't even realize he'd said it outloud until it hit his own ears. He wouldn't be a bad person if he kept caring about the people he loved. That's what Adonis had said, hadn't he? Ossie hadn't believed him then, and he wasn't sure if he believed him now, but the need to believe was frantic, building and mounting. He didn't want to be a bad person. He didn't want to be a bad person.

Beau shifted on his shoulder, and Ossie realized he'd sped up, until he was practically jogging with the speed of his thoughts. He took in a deep breath and bit his lip, forcing himself to slow down again. Slowly, after what had to be a dozen circles, his mind's panic gradually faded, the shot of adrenaline wearing off and his deep-night sleepiness replacing it instead. His thoughts slowed, like they were being weighed down and held by tar, sticky and unforgiving.

"Not the same person," he mumbled to himself again, only this time, a feeling of molasses peace spread throughout his chest at the words. He didn't believe them, but somehow, it was soothing nonetheless, like candlewax dripping onto a wound. It would hurt to take off, but it was covered for now. Melted away and temporarily put at ease.

Ossie sighed. He could already feel himself growing tired of walking, now that the adrenaline had worn off, but Beau had only just begun to snooze on his shoulder, and he'd hate to get all the way home and have him wake up again. His mind continued to wander as he roamed the streets aimlessly, looping and weaving around the same couple of blocks over and over again. He thought about Ivy, and how her wavy hair fell past the curves of her shoulders now. For some reason, the thought sent a buzzing feeling through his head, and his cheeks heated, a feeling of embarrassment washing over him. He wondered if her surprise for Juni had gone as planned. They'd spent all afternoon on it, but he hadn't gotten to stay to see the results. He hoped it had been spectacular. Juni deserved it.

He shifted Beau to his other shoulder as he continued walking, rounding one dark corner, then another. He didn't want to venture too far away from home, but literally walking in a circle was somehow way more exhausting, so ocassionally, he'd turn down a random street to make things interesting, trusting his internal navigation to lead him home when the time came. As interesting as random streets could be, anyway, which wasn't saying much.

Ossie hoped that, by the time they got back home, he wouldn't have another nightmare. That was his only wish, really. That he wouldn't have another nightmare, and that Beau would breathe through the night. Those didn't seem like huge things to wish for, did they? Not too much to expect?

He sighed again as he rounded yet another corner, except this time, a figure loomed immediately in front of him. Ossie stumbled back so hard that he tripped over his own feet. His arms tightened around Beau protectively as he struggled to get back his balance and not yell at risk of waking the neighbors, though he couldn't stop a little yelp from rising in his throat.

Towered over him with a shadowed face, Hoss stood with Juni in his arms.

She hung limply, and her face was turned towards his chest. There was something hollow in Hoss's gaze as they stared at each other until his chin lowered, and the rim of darkness from Hoss's brows obscured his eyes.

"You should be at home, Osmond," Hoss said.

"Beau couldn't sleep," Ossie said, stumbling over his words. His eyes drifted down to Juni before quickly looking back at Hoss' face. He felt his heart speed, but he didn't quite know why-- something was just filling him with dread. "Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going. I don't usually see people out here this late."

Hoss didn't respond for three seconds. Each tick that passed became more harrowing.

Something was wrong with Juni, and it wasn't just her motionless state. She and Hoss never got along, and she would never willingly be seen with him, even at this hour. It looked like she was asleep, but something was off.

"Go home, Osmond," Hoss said again.

His voice was rigid, cold, and unfeeling.

That was when Ossie realized Juni's chest was not moving.

She wasn't breathing. Her face, tilted away from him, lay covered by her hair for the most part, but the edge of her lips, just peaking the curve of her silhouette, sat pursed, unmoving, a solid, unforgiving blue.

Ossie knew he needed to move away. Something inside him was screaming that he needed to get away from Hoss as fast as possible-- but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Juni, who looked more wrong the more he looked at her. Her arms were covered with cuts and bruises, and Ossie couldn't tell if it was just the darkness, but her skin looked paler than he'd ever seen it before. Drained, almost. Sickly. Dead. He stared at the side her face, turned away from him, her lips, and felt nausea rise in his chest.

His eyes trailed past her lips, up to her eyes, then to the side of her head, and his breath caught in his throat. Part of her ear was missing. Dragons above, dragons above...

"Osmond," Hoss said again. This time, demanding his attention. Ossie's eyes snapped to his. "Today, learn the most important rule of the Sticks: 'Mind your business, and hold your tongue.'"

The world around him felt like it was spinning and tilting, and in the unstability of it all, he hugged Beau to him tighter. He swallowed and nodded quickly, taking a step back, then another, trying not to trip over himself again. He looked back down at Juni, then up at Hoss, then back at Juni. And then Ossie had rounded the corner, and he wasn't backing up slowly anymore, he was running, stumbling across cobblestone and dirt and skirting around weeds in the dark as he raced back home, feeling his heart slamming in his chest with every beat.

At a full sprint, Ossie held one hand tight against the back of Beau's head to keep him steady, and the other under his torso, terrified at the sudden realization that Hoss could be following him, waiting until he was back home to kill him. What if he threw a knife, or used an arrow, or shot him from behind?

He weaved his way through the streets and blocks of houses and ran to his house so fast that he couldn't stop himself from crashing into the fence-post surrounding the porch, stumbling and falling with a loud, harsh thud. His knees scraped against the wood, sliding with the wet feeling of blood, and he knew it would likely leave a stain-- one he'd have to explain in the morning, if his parents noticed it at all. If I'm alive in the morning, he thought, and his panic spiked anew. He hugged Beau to his chest, gasping for air as he climbed to his feet and swiveled around. He surveyed the darkness, as if he'd be able to see Hoss from this far, as if that could stop himself from being shot.

Ossie shuddered, feeling tears free-fall down his face. His entire body trembled and he couldn't make it stop. "Ossie?" Beau mumbled on his shoulder, and Ossie nearly jumped out of his skin. "Ossie, you okay?"

Beau broke out in a fit of coughing, and Ossie, on an impulse, pressed his hand against Beau's mouth, hand shaking as he silenced the noise abruptly. Beau's body spasmed with the cough, and still, Ossie's hand didn't move. "Shh, shh, shh," he whispered, voice slick with tears, paranoid eyes scanning the horizon. "Shh, shh."

He stared out at the distance, not daring to blink, jumping at even the slightest movement of a cat slinking by, or the wind rattling leaves in the trees. Should he wake his mother? His step-father? But Hoss had told him to keep his mouth shut--and Hoss might kill him if he didn't. He might kill me even if I do.

After several minutes, he retreated slowly into the house, never once turning his back to the darkness of the yard and the expanse beyond. He could feel blood sticking the ripped fabric of his pants to his knees, could feel the coagulation with every backwards step he took. Finally, he was fully inside, and he closed the door with shaking hands.

In a trance, he set Beau down on the bed, then sunk onto the thin mattress next to him. He stared blankly at the entrance of the room, wide-eyed, and no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he couldn't control anything anymore--that it was out of his hands--he couldn't bring himself to lay back down, or to wash the blood off his knees, or to even move from his frozen position.

So Ossie had gotten his wish: he didn't have another nightmare that night. He didn't sleep a wink.

Ivy's home didn't have a clock. Right now, she wished they did, because then she might've been able to tell how late it was-- or at least had something to look at.

She'd settled for lighting one of Adonis's candles, setting it next to the sink and watching it from one of the kitchen stools with her elbows resting on the counter. Its orange light made shadows of everything in the room other than itself. There could have been something ominous about it, even scary, if she wasn't so used to looking at fire. Even so, she felt no excitement at the sight of it tonight.

Ivy's sigh stirred the faint flame, making its glow on the wall flutter.

She could go out there and look herself. She could even bring Ramona-- she might like the adventure. But the feeling she'd now identified as dread lingered in her stomach, telling her nothing good could come of anything she did. And so she waited, until the thin stub of candle wax melted down until the flame suffocated in its own smoke. Then it was just her in the darkness.

She didn't know how much longer she stayed there in the kitchen, about to doze off at any moment. Just when she was about to give up and try sleeping, the door creaked open.

Ivy lifted her head, watching as a silhouette separated from the backdrop of the dimly-lit night she could see outside and entered the house. It was obviously Adonis-- it would've been too dark to see his face, and he probably couldn't see her either, but his height and build were that of her dad. She could hear the sound of his breathing from the kitchen, which was a little strange. She kept an eye on the door, waiting for a second shadowed figure to join him. But no one followed. It was hard to tell with such little light, but Ivy could've sworn she saw his hand shake when he closed the door behind him.

Shaking. That was what his breathing was doing.

Baffled, Ivy watched as her dad slowly sat down on the couch, raising his hands to cover his face. The house was silent for several heavy seconds. Then his shoulders rattled, and she heard the tremble of his breath again, but louder. And there was another sound nestled in with it.

Tears.

She recognized it, even though she'd never heard it from Adonis before. It wasn't an uncommon sound to her-- her friends cried, when they got a skinned knee or fell out of their favorite tree. Some did it with more vulnerability than others, or more often, but it was something she could say she was familiar with. Not this kind. Adonis's sobbing was quiet, like he was trying to keep it to himself, and yet it hit harder than any of the times Ivy had seen someone cry before.

She felt cold, silently watching from the darkness. Something told her she should stay hidden. Another voice in her head demanded that she get an explanation. The latter won over.

"Where's Juni?" she whispered.

Adonis seemed to flinch, and she knew she'd surprised him, but he didn't look up or lift his face from his hands. He shuddered again, and she heard a sniff from him.

"Juniper is--" he croaked, but didn't finish his sentence.

That wasn't what her dad sounded like. Not his voice, not what he called Juni. Ivy felt a shiver travel down her spine.

"Why isn't she with you?" she insisted, leaving the kitchen to sit on the couch in front of him. "You were supposed to get her. Where is she?"

Adonis finally looked up, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. She could see his eyes glistening with more tears in the pale moonlight that seeped in through a gap in the curtains.

"You know what Juni does for the suns?" he said hoarsely, after a long silence. "Stealing, mostly? Running errands?"

Ivy nodded, though she felt like this didn't really answer her question. They both knew what Juni's work was. This felt more like he was beating around the bush, stalling to keep her away from the information that really mattered.

"She's good at it. I worried about her safety when she was younger, just about your age, but I recognized before long that I was only making a fool of myself. She was just fine without my protectiveness." Adonis was talking faster now-- words cutting into each other, fighting for space in the tremor of his voice. "I figured she'd always be just fine."

"Is she not?" Ivy pressed.

"No one's immune from making mistakes. Some mistakes happen in safe settings, where it's alright to try again. But a mistake for Juni isn't so forgiving." Adonis shook his head, swallowing thickly. "So, she got caught by whoever she was stealing from today."

"Caught," Ivy echoed. Her head was spinning with scenarios she was only just now daring to imagine. "So she's in jail, right? Can't we go get her out?"

She'd known of someone in her neighborhood who'd gone to jail. A year ago, a neighbor down the street-- a man in his fifties she'd known as Gray Andrew-- had gotten arrested in broad daylight by militia guards accusing him of sheltering mages. She and her friends had watched in shock from a distance as they'd bound Gray Andrew's hands behind his back, thrown him unceremoniously in the back of a carriage, and drove off. Later, when she'd asked Adonis where they were taking him, he'd explained to her that people caught committing a crime could go to somewhere called prison, a place of tight rooms, barred windows, and locked doors. There had been something sad and heavy in his voice, eyes filled with pity for their former neighbor, and Ivy had understood it was not a good place to be. She'd vowed that day that if she ever started breaking laws, she'd never be caught.

Had Juni decided the same?

Adonis shook his head again, and she heard another shuddering breath from him as he wiped more tears from his eyes. This wasn't normal. That was becoming more and more obvious, and it only made Ivy feel colder.

"I don't know the whole story," Adonis admitted, voice faint. "I know she got out of it, eventually. But she had to talk to them first."

"But that's good news," Ivy said, a little desperately. If Juni wasn't in jail, why was he acting like this? "Right?"

"No." Adonis blinked, taking a deep breath. "No, Ivy, that's not a good thing."

"Why not?"

"The Blue Suns... have a rule." Adonis's shoulders sank. "They have many, in fact, but this is the most imperative one. You can't talk to authorities."

"Juni wouldn't do that," Ivy insisted. "She's brave. She's stubborn. She isn't the kind of person to fold under pressure."

A heavy silence passed between them. Adonis seemed to recoil further into the darkness.

"I know," he whispered, quieter than she'd ever heard him speak before.

Ivy still couldn't imagine it. What would it have taken for Juni to break? To her knowledge, there was nothing out there that could do it.

"So she's working late," Ivy said, reasoning her way through this. "As punishment. How long until she's back? Tomorrow?"

Adonis closed his eyes, expression growing more pained.

"Longer?" Ivy breathed worriedly. "Two days? A week?"

"Ivy, let's talk about this tomorrow," Adonis said weakly, and his voice caught halfway through the sentence. "It's late-- I can't--"

"How long until she's coming back?"

"Ivy--"

"How long?"

Ivy didn't notice she'd risen to her feet until she realized she was looking down, not ahead, at Adonis. Her hands hurt, and she glanced down to see she'd balled them into fists at her sides. Uncurling them revealed slim crescents dug into her palms by her nails. She clenched them again.

Adonis opened his mouth, but no words came out. A tear slipped from his cheek and splattered on the floor.

"Juni's not coming back," he whispered at last.

Ivy stared at him, certain she'd heard him wrong. Or at the very least, misunderstood him.

But Adonis had always been the clear-spoken type.

"She always comes back," she said quietly, hearing doubt creep into her voice. It didn't belong there.

"Not this time, Ivy."

"But she wouldn't run away," Ivy breathed. "She wouldn't do that to us."

She waited, waited for him to tell her that maybe she was wrong, that Juni would behave in ways neither of them could have predicted. But he didn't. He just hid his face in his hands again, his knuckles curling and tense like he was trying to claw something out of the air.

And that was worse, because that meant there was another option.

A firefly, motionless on its back with its legs shriveled inwards on itself, had been behind her house the other day, just inches away from a small but clear puddle of water. Ivy had wondered, as she sprinkled arid dirt over its body, if it had been on its way to drink from there. Some things didn't make it to safety, but not for lack of trying. Sometimes the clock stopped early.

She'd just realized it-- just started to feel the cold settle in throughout her spine-- when Adonis finally spoke.

"She's with your mother now." The crack in his voice had become a canyon.

Was it cold? Ivy felt something else now, and it wasn't still or quiet. It was not the hushing numbness of ice.

"It would've been over quickly. She wouldn't have felt much pain."

No, this was fire. For someone who worked with it so often, she should've recognized the slow, aching burn making its way through her ribcage sooner. She didn't care to put it out.

"She likely didn't even know she was getting punished."

Ivy imagined the fire extending outwards, past herself, past their home, until all of Sticks felt it. They should. They needed to know how she was a second sun right now.

"Who put her there?" She didn't even realize she'd spoken until she heard her words fall from her lips.

"Ivy--"

"Who killed Juni?" Ivy demanded, seeing the world shake. Or maybe everything else was still, and she was the only one trembling. How dare it not feel this with her?

Adonis's sob, cut short by a desperate breath for air, sounded like something had torn in his throat.

"Hoss," he breathed.

Ivy clenched her jaw as the shudder ran down her spine. Part of her knew the answer didn't matter, not when there was no getting Juni back regardless-- but not enough of her. Not enough to put out the flames, not enough to keep her from running for the door.

"Ivy!" Adonis pleaded, but she didn't look back.

She didn't notice the ache in her lungs or her legs until she'd found herself at the top of the tree they all played in, the one Juni had taught her to climb in. The desert night wind was stronger up here, chilling her to the bone, but somehow it only stoked the red-hot rage tearing its way through her chest.

Ivy curled up against the trunk, finally allowing the tears to fall as she squeezed her eyes shut.

The Blue Suns would burn. Hoss would burn.

They'd all burn for this.

The morning after Juni died, Hoss was the first to tell her. He said Juni had done something terribly wrong: she'd broken the rules, and for that, the Suns punished her harshly. Before Ramona could open her mouth, Hoss said if ever there was a time to hold her tongue, it was now. She was too insensitive. She asked too many questions, and she shouldn't pester Adonis or Ivy with them. They were grieving, after all. Grief was a fragile thing, and if you weren't careful, you could shatter it.

It made sense, she supposed. Ramona didn't understand much about death, and some questions were always left unanswered. All that Ramona knew for certain was that death meant Juni wasn't around anymore, and she was never coming back again.

If she only thought about it like that, though, it made it seem like Juni had just run away.

But she didn't run away. She was gone.

Momma said "sorrys" never did any good for sadness. So, without questions, Ramona was left with nothing to say. It would be selfish to miss Juni too much because she was Ivy's sister, and saying so would probably make things worse, and she was always making things worse, according to Hoss. Even if Ramona had liked Juni more than her own siblings, she didn't get to choose. So she didn't get to miss.

She had Ivy. That was enough.

"Your hair is getting so long," Ramona said, weaving strands of Ivy's hair as Ivy sat at her feet on Adonis's front steps. She always liked braiding Ivy's hair. She never got to do it for her brothers, and it helped her practice.

Ivy hummed like she hadn't noticed, shrugging one shoulder. She'd been holding perfectly still this whole time, which made Ramona's job easier, but it was because her vacant stare was trained on some distant point directly ahead.

"Is it," Ivy said, not quite making it a question.

"Yeah," Ramona said. "One of the great things about it is that it's so soft and wavy and perfect for braiding. It's really pretty."

"Thanks," Ivy murmured, barely above a whisper. It was like she hadn't really heard her.

That was happening a lot lately: Ivy, not hearing her. It didn't stop Ramona from filling the silence.

"I think I'll do double braids this time," Ramona went on. "Maybe I'll even make one curve to the side, and they meet at the shoulder, like this!" She brushed Ivy's loose hair to one side. "That would make you look like a princess! Like the ones in the stories. Right, Caelan?"

Caelan glanced over his shoulder at the book he was reading on the bottom of the steps. It was hard to tell if he was interested or not, or if he'd even heard what she said.

"Depends on the story," he said. "But I suppose so."

Which wasn't really the answer Ramona was looking for.

"What do you think, Saoirse?" she asked instead.

Saoirse had been sitting with Silas and Kyle the goat in the dirt, where her little brother Ron was making dirt piles. Kyle was helping.

"Dunno," Saoirse said, shrugging. She seemed more focused on the dirt piles than their conversation. "Maybe after the dragon shows up? Your braiding's kinda messy."

Ramona tried very, very, hard not to shoot Saoirse a dirty look because Ivy was there, and Ivy liked Saoirse, and she didn't want to make Ivy upset.

So, instead, she laughed.

"I guess so! Nothing wrong with looking like a warrior princess," she said with a smile, tying off the braid and pushing it over Ivy's shoulder. "There! All done."

Ivy plucked it up by the tip, staring at it for a minute as her gaze slowly refocused. "It's cool," she said finally. "Thanks, Ramona."

"I think it looks nice," Ossie offered quietly, fiddling with his hands as he sat behind them.

He would have to go home soon.

His parents always took him away too soon.

"Looks bada-" Saoirse started, then glanced at Ron. "It looks cool."

Ron looked up at Saoirse and gave her a long, blank stare. Unsurprisingly, he said nothing as usual, but there was something unnervingly knowing behind his empty eyes. Ramona was glad Saoirse stopped herself short but knew Ron had heard much worse in their house. If he said 'badass' her mother would probably congratulate Ron for speaking, because he hardly spoke at all.

"What's that word say?" Silas murmured, looking over Caelan's shoulder.

"Im-por-tant," Caelan sounded out.

Silas muttered the syllables under his breath. Ramona had witnessed this little dance a few times now. It was kind of funny, watching Caelan -- who was probably half Silas's size -- teach him how to read.

"Sounds like an important word to know," Ramona joked. She tapped the side of her head.

Silas bowed his head in embarrassment with a weak grin. Saoirse looked at the dirt. She visibly resisted the urge to throw dirt at Ramona, and Ramona smiled innocently in return.

"What's the book about?" Ossie asked curiously.

Caelan shot everyone a glance. "Oh. It's... about forgery."

Ivy finally looked a little more alert, leaning over to squint at it. "Did my dad give you that book?" she asked, though she sounded like she already knew the answer.

"Yes," Caelan admitted.

"That's really nice of him," Ossie murmured.

"Do you want to be like Adonis?" Ramona asked.

Caelan huffed, looking flustered to suddenly have everyone's attention. "He's good at what he does, isn't he? I'd want to be good at it too."

"He is good," Ivy said distantly, looking back at the ground. "Pretty sure you'd have to be a Sun to follow in his footsteps, though."

"Maybe you could ask Hoss to singe you," Ramona said, reaching over and punching Caelan's arm. "Not that I'd want to have to talk to him for you or anything because I hate his guts, but--"

"You don't have to do that," Caelan said, closing the book.

Silas deflated a bit, though. While they'd kept talking, Silas had been reading.

Caelan got to his feet. "I should get going," he announced.

"Me too," Ossie admitted sadly.

"Hold on, where do you have to be?" Ramona asked, pointing an accusing finger at Caelan.

Silas got to his feet, too, but everyone knew he was working for Mr. Morgan around the clock. Caelan didn't have a job, though. All that boy did was read.

"It is getting late," Silas said, tilting his head to take Saoirse with him.

Ramona stood up, watching half her crew starting to disperse like scattered sand.

"Hey!" she shouted at Caelan, who was just walking away like he hadn't heard her. "You didn't answer my question!"

And he continued not to, like the annoying nerd he was. She was about to run after him when Ossie put his hand on her shoulder, silently keeping her back from starting something. Not that she would've.

Well, maybe she would've.

With a pout, she sat back down and huffed.

In seconds, Silas, Saoirse, Caelan, and Ossie all left to go do things she didn't get to be a part of, and she was left on the steps with Ivy.

And Ron.

Ron was always there.

There was a moment of silence before Ivy suddenly and unexpectedly asked, "How does singeing work?"

"Hm?" Ramona tilted her head. "Oh. I guess it's kind of like a game of tag? Hoss got singed by one of his older friends, if you remember that scary guy, Jake. Basically a sun tags you and says, 'you're it,' and you have to do something for them. If you do it right,t they'll introduce you to another guy, and you do another thing, and another guy, and another thing, and eventually you get invited to be a sun. Or something like that. Hoss isn't good at telling stories and leaves a lot out, so I'm just puzzling that together."

"So it's a test," Ivy said. "You're proving your worth to them."

"I guess that's a better way of putting it," Ramona said. "You have to prove you're useful. If you can't pull your own weight, they don't want you."

Ivy was silent for another minute, folding her arms over her chest as she stared at some distant point again. Finally, she said, "I could do that."

Ramona paused.

There was something weird about this, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Did Ivy want to be like Juni? Did she want to prove herself... and be better than her sister? Was that what this was about?

"Is that something you want to do?" she asked. "You want to be a sun?"

Ivy shrugged. "Why not? It's not like there's much else to do around here, my dad already is, and I'm getting pretty good with firestarters. Surely that's useful to them."

Ramona brightened a bit. It was nice to see Ivy with some ambition, and this was something they could look forward to. Plans were good. It was good to have plans.

She put her arm around Ivy and pulled her into a half-hug.

"Well," she said. "If you're gonna be a sun, then we can be suns together!"

Ivy managed a chuckle, leaning her head against Ramona's. "Really? You'd like that?"

Ramona beamed and hugged Ivy a little closer.

"Of course," she said. "I'll do anything if I get to do it with my best friend."

And she meant that with all her heart.

The walls at home were paper thin. You could hear somene cough in the other room, and you could hear every hushed whisper when you held your breath. If your heart ceased from beating and silence filled your ears, you could hear everyone else's lungs, and the rhythm of each inhale, like the house was a machine. Ramona had come to know that nothing was secret and nothing was sacred: if you wanted that, you went elsewhere, behind doors that would shut the world out. But Momma's house let the whole world in, and let their whole world out.

It was normal, until it wasn't.

Shouting carried down their street, and she recognized it before she looked.

Momma's voice had a hoarse ring to it when she was angry. And right now, her voice was dry as sand. Ramona looked over to Ron, who stood with her at the corner of Adonis's house. His sandy hair was dirty, and she didn't know from what. He needed a bath, and so did she. His fingers were muddy, and dirt was caked under his nails, and his sour smell made her afraid to ask him if he'd accidentally peed his pants without telling anyone. Again.

He was always getting so lost in thought he'd forget to go to the bathroom. It made it easy to leave him self-occupied, but then it caused problems like this.

Ramona sighed. She didn't want to bother Adonis or Ivy any longer, and they needed to go home. She nodded for Ron to follow.

Trudging with her on bare feet, Ron became her shadow as she slid past their neighbor's houses and made herself flush with their outer wall. Now that her ear was pressed against the plaster, the words formerly muddled with distance became clear.

"Take it somewhere else!" Momma said, her voice rasping. "I'm done pitying you, Simon!"

"My love--" Simon said, but there was a loud slap that cut him short.

"I owe you nothing," Momma hissed. "I don't care how you got into so much debt but you have to crawl out of it yourself this time. Or can't you ask any of your other bedfellows for money?"

"Oh, you've been waiting to use that one," Simon growled.

"How about this?" Momma went on, her voice raised. "Maybe if every woman on the godsdamned street won't give you handouts, it's time to ask your children! You've got plenty of those, and you're clearly not above begging!"

"Fuck you!" Simon shouted. Ramona heard a thump.

Someone got shoved.

"No!" Momma shouted back. "I'm not done with you yet!"

"I'm done with you!" Simon shouted back.

Another thump. There was a struggle. Ramona held her breath, and her heart began to race inside her chest as the movement came closer to the front door.

"You deadbeat-- worthless piece of--" Momma huffed out.

"You know, maybe I will ask my children," Simon said, and the stomps of feet came to a stop. "Who's the easiest? The little one? Your precious baby girl?"

"You bastard," Momma barked.

"Should I ask Kris's little boy? What was his name again? I'm sure he'd roll over like a dog," Simon hissed like a snake, making Ramona's skin crawl.

She frowned deeply, realizing she knew who Simon was talking about.

Kris. That was Ossie's mom. Momma talked about her sometimes, but never very fondly.

Was Simon talking about Ossie?

Someone got shoved into the wall, and Simon said: "Fine. I guess it turns out I wasn't meant for this 'dad' thing. And what a mother you turned out to be, hm? Your son's a dick, your daughter's an idiot, and your baby's braindead. Can't say it's enough to make a father proud."

The door flew open.

"Goodbye."

Ramona's eyes went wide as she slipped back into the darkness, pulling Ron away with her into the alley between their home and the next. With one eye perched around the corner of the house she saw Simon march out the door and slam it behind him. The hinges were always loose, and the lock poorly latched, so the door flung back open from the force and hit the outer wall before creaking inward, still ajar. Silence filled their street as the sun hid behind the tree-line, and darkness passed over them.

The light in Momma's window was faint. They only had one lamp to their name, and watching its light flicker felt as unstable as holding her breath.

She couldn't hold it much longer. Just as she let herself sigh, her mother began to cry.

It started out soft, and slow, then grew louder.

Ramona hated that it was the only thing she could hear as the last of the daylight vanished under the horizon. She slumped back against the wall, glancing over at Ron, who was drawing in the dirt again. Over and over, he was just drawing circles. Circles like suns.

Ramona frowned at him, but Ron wasn't paying attention to see. He hardly payed attention to anybody, really.

She wondered how long she should wait before letting Momma know she was there, but it felt like her crying went on forever. Maybe it would never end, if she didn't stop it. Did that mean something, too? Momma never cried in front of them: and this was her first time hearing it. It felt like she wasn't supposed to.

If she was honest, she hadn't realized Momma could cry.

Swallowing, Ramona began to get to her feet but quickly changed her mind. She saw Hoss running down the street with his fists white and clenched. Too afraid to meet him in a state that was becoming too familiar, Ramona ducked her head and held her arm out in front of Ron, just in case he wandered off in his own little world. She couldn't have him getting them in trouble.

Well. She couldn't have him getting her in trouble. Because Ron never got in trouble.

Hoss stormed through the open door.

"Where is he?" Hoss demanded.

Momma's cries came to a cutting halt, but she said nothing.

"Don't play dumb with me, woman," Hoss said lowly. Something about his voice made Ramona freeze up.

"It's not your business, Hoss," Momma said quietly.

"Why do you defend him?" Hoss asked harshly.

"I'm not defending him," Momma said, a little louder this time. "I'm protecting you from yourself."

Hoss spat. Ramona didn't have to look to know it was probably in Momma's face. It made her wish she was smaller, so she could hide even deeper in the shadow.

"The man you're defending is a leech, mother, and he'll bleed you out unless he dies first," he said.

To that, Momma had nothing more to say. There was a long stretch of silence, and Ramona didn't want to imagine their faces and what was said in them. Before long, Hoss made his exit out the door, fists still balled in rage like when he first came. The only thing that felt different from Simon was that he spared their door a beating.

But Ramona didn't know where he'd be going off to.

From how it sounded, he was going to look for Simon. Ramona decided she didn't want to know why. All she knew now was that Hoss was big enough now that whatever he wanted to do, he could probably do it.

Ron tugged on Ramona's sleeve.

"I'm hungry," he said.

Ramona stared at him. His hands were caked with dirt. She felt the life leave her eyes as she sighed and grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Let's get you cleaned up first."



She hadn't seen Hoss in two days. Something inside of her dreamed that maybe he was dead, too. It seemed like a nice thought, though it was one she knew better than to say aloud. Momma would have her head for that: worse than Hoss would, even. She didn't really want another whopping for something small, so she decided it was better just to think that Hoss would never come home at all. Besides, maybe then she and Ivy could share in something: having older siblings who'd never come home.

There was a lot that they didn't share, though. Like a father, apparently.

Though now, Ramona didn't know if she could even be sure of that. What she did know now was that Osmund was, apparently, her brother.

Or her half-brother, as Momma put it. She said half-brothers didn't count, but why call them brothers in the first place? In fairness, Ramona had asked at a poor time: she'd just finished cleaning Ron up, and Momma had been making food while her eyes were red. She didn't seem interested in answering any of Ramona's questions.

Just like Hoss said: maybe it was better not to ask them. People didn't seem to want to talk about the things that needed answering.

So, Ramona decided to go right to the source. Not Simon -- Ossie.

Ossie was always up at night trying to get Beau to sleep. It was predictable, and Ramona knew she could reliably find him outside his house, walking the kid around until he passed out on his shoulders. After that, Ossie could still be seen walking around so that Beau didn't wake back up again.

So, Ramona stayed up late, and when Ron and Momma were dead silent in the night, Ramona crept out of the house in the way she'd always practiced: the corner floorboards wouldn't creak if you curled your toes in on the edges. The window was better than the door because it didn't squeal. If you pushed it out while putting just a little pressure down on the hinges, it'd be silent, and you could close it just the same. If you lowered yourself to the ground from the edge, you could reach it with your feet, and there would be no noise from jumping.

Unnoticed and invisible, Ramona stole away into the alley until she weaved behind Ossie's house.

Just as she thought, he was there, rocking Beau on the front porch chair.

She snuck up to the side, peering through the porch rails to watch him for a moment.

In the faint moonlight, Ossie looked older. The circles under his eyes were dark, and he looked a lot like his mother did: tired, and vacant. It made her wonder if there really was any of her dad in him at all, and it was weird to think of it like that, too.

Their dad.

Did Ossie already know?

Ramona whispered a whistle. It was one that she'd always sing-song down the street, in imitation of the blackbirds that hung over Mr.Morgan's smithy. It was also the song she'd sing to announce her presence, when she wasn't working on other impressions.

Suffice to say: Ossie should know it was her.

Should, because she wasn't good enough just yet to be mistaken for a bird without fault.

Ossie's head snapped up, and he looked around in the darkness, squinting. "Hello?" he whispered, hugging Beau tighter to him.

"Is he asleep?" Ramona whispered back.

Ossie's gaze trained on her direction and he nodded, visibly relaxing as he shifted Beau's head further up his shoulder. "What're you doing?" Ossie whispered.

"I want to talk to you." Ramona crawled under the porch rails.

"Are you okay?" One of Ossie's hands absent-mindedly rubbed circles on Beau's back as he squinted at her.

She was tired of asking questions that people rolled their eyes over, so she decided to just say it.

"Simon's your dad," she said.

Ossie watched her for a moment, before his face turned away and he shifted Beau on his lap. In the moonlight, his hair reflected redder than normal. Maybe there was some of Simon in him, after all - she just wished she saw less of him in her.

"You knew," she whispered in the knowing silence.

Ossie bit his lip, but he nodded his head. "My mom and step-dad told me," he said finally after a moment of silence. "But they only told me just the other day, and they said I wasn't allowed to tell anyone."

Ramona frowned deeply.

What was that about? Why did something like that have to be a secret? So many people kept secrets in walls everyone could hear through. Secrets didn't matter if they got out one day, so why have them at all? Ramona knew that Simon wasn't a good man, but she found it hard to reconcile the truth that she had to find out this way, or that she might have never found out at all. Her eyes dropped to her feet, and she wondered what was better and what was worse: knowing, or not knowing.

She wasn't happy to know Simon was her father, but he didn't act like one at all. She didn't care about him. When it came down to it, she was only scared of him in the same way that she was scared of Hoss when he'd curl his fingers or narrow his eyes. At this point, they had almost the same face, but for Simon what made her fear spring up was his lilting voice when he licked his lips.

If there was any silver lining, it was this: Ossie was her half brother.

But if she was honest, he had been her brother already in every way but name. That counted for more than parents and the blood they shared with their kids.

"That's stupid," she said, but it felt like the wrong thing to say. "Why wouldn't they want you to be related to me?"

"I don't think it's that," Ossie said quickly. "I think it's just--" He stopped. "I don't know," he said finally. He sounded tired. Really tired.

And Ramona found herself tired too. Tired of everyone being tired. But that wasn't very nice, was it? She folded her arms and huffed.

"So we're siblings, then," she said instead. "What's that mean?"

"I dunno," Ossie said. "You were already basically another sister."

She thought the same thing, but for some reason, when he said it, it didn't feel the same.

She was just 'another sister.' And Ossie already had too many.

"Yeah," she said, moving a hand to her hip. "That's what I said. It doesn't change anything. We were already brother and sister anyway. We just... have a really mean guy who..."

She realized she didn't know enough about how children and parents worked, and her brows furrowed when she tried to think of it.

"Yeah," she said quickly, before her brain could hurt, or she could say something stupid. "He's just mean. Who cares about Simon anyway? He's a loser who begs for money from kids. Forget about him, right?"

"Yeah," Ossie echoed, his eyes trained on some distant point before he frowned and glanced at Ramona. "Also, I don't mean that it doesn't change things," he said seriously, looking straight into her eyes. "I mean, it does but it doesn't. I think it just means I've gotta make sure protect you," he pondered. "I mean, I would've before, but also since you're my sister now."

Ramona pressed her lips into a line and looked out at the street.

Protect her, huh? That was what Hoss said, too. Was Ossie just going to be another Hoss, now?

"Then I guess my job is to annoy you and set your hair on fire," she joked.

She'd been hoping for a laugh, but Ossie was too tired to laugh.

"I don't wanna stop being friends," he said quietly instead, going back to looking out at the empty street.

Ramona didn't know why that made her sad.

"We won't," she said. "Obviously."

She reached across the distance and tapped his shoulder with her fist, just enough to feel it. She couldn't commit to a full punch with Beau right there, though. She wasn't dumb enough for that. Even if she was an idiot.

Ossie looked at her again, and this time, he smiled--a full one, the type she now realized she hadn't seen in a while from him. When had that happened? He used to smile big all the time, didn't he?

She found herself staring instead of smiling back, and when she finally mustered one up, Ossie's was fading like a dying star.

"Hey," she said. "Think of it this way. We get to be friends and siblings. It's like the best of both things, because you're actually a good friend, so you'll be a good brother."

Ossie bit his bottom lip again. "Thanks. You're a good friend too."

Ramona felt an itch in the back of her throat. She couldn't help but ask: "Do you mean it?"

Ossie frowned. "Of course."

Then why didn't it feel like it?

Ramona let out a quiet laugh. "What am I saying?" she asked the air. "You're the truthiest truther I know. Nothing better for a brother to be."

She swung her leg back over the railing.

"I'm bothering you, aren't I?" she continued as she climbed down. "That's my bad. You need to sleep, and I can't wake Beau. At least, I shouldn't, because that would be bad for everyone, and I wouldn't want to get you in trouble - because that's what a good sister would do, right? Well, I'll get going now. Bye, brother-friend-Ossie-mund. May the night take you to the sleep realm quickly."

She ducked down into the darkness, giving no more thought to what she said so that the itch in her chest wouldn't spread. Leaving Ossie on the porch was the best thing she could do for him, because it was clear now that no matter what she did, everybody saw her as a burden to carry.

Hoss said so. Ossie said so. Momma said so. Everyone was always giving so much, and she'd take and take and take. Didn't that make her just like Simon? Did that mean she'd grow up to look like him, talk like him, and leave all her children?

Maybe it didn't mean anything. She was, after all, just one of many sons and many daughters left behind. Nothing about here was special enough to keep Simon around, and why would she want him to stick around anyway? What made him so special?

No matter. No matter.

Ramona found the window again and flipped the latch gingerly. Just a little love, and it'd open up quietly, just like she wanted it to.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be.

No one deserved anything. Not apologies. Not questions. Not fathers. Not mothers. And all of it could be taken away in an instant, so what did she have left? Who would she be?

That became her rising mantra as she lay back down on their sleeping mat, neighbor to Ron's muddy feet.

What would she be? She would be who she wanted to be.

That was exciting.

The sun was blazing hot and blinding in the sky, but Caelan had grown used to the feeling of intense heat trapped in his skin and beads of sweat dripping off his face and rolling down the hollow of his spine. He had found, as he had continued working at his construction job for the past couple of years, that his skin grew browner over time and that keeping his hair long and letting it cover the tips of his ears (but tied back off his neck) made the rays a little more bearable. He had grown stronger, too.

But most importantly, he was beginning to meet more people who he was able to charm with his looks or his behavior and he was making money.

Caelan and one of the other construction crew members were using a two-person saw to cut a large wooden log beside the latest house the crew was building an addition for when they heard shouting behind him. The other man paused and glanced past Caelan's shoulder with very thinly veiled interest. "Oh boy," he muttered.

Caelan wiped his forehead with a rag he kept tucked at the waist of his pants and turned to see what was going on. The head construction worker was arguing with the man who owned the house. The owner of the house had grabbed the worker by the collar of his shirt, while the worker's fists were clenched at his sides, as if he could raise them to strike at any moment.

"I told you, this is the only way for us to build this part," yelled the head construction worker.

"But it isn't what I asked for! I'm not about to have you do whatever you want to my house!" The home owner waved his free hand at the beams behind him. "If you're going to act this way, I'll hire someone else to do the job."

"You want to have a house that looks nice to you but will need constant repairs, or, even worse, that will fall in on itself while your family is inside? Or you can listen to me and have something with some structural integrity."

"Excuse me?" screeched the homeowner. "I don't know about all that 'structural integrity' or whatever, but you're not going to just threaten my family like that!"

"I never--"

Caelan brushed off his hands and hurried to their side. "Whoa, whoa, sirs, hold on for just a moment," he said, keeping his voice mild as he carefully pried the two men apart.

The homeowner looked Caelan up and down with suspicion at first, then seemed to relax a little after he had finished scanning him. Caelan had found that most people seemed disarmed after looking at him--he guessed it was because he was handsome. "Who are you to talk? You're just one of the workers," said the man, sniffing, though his tone had lost most of the edge it had when wielded against the head construction worker.

"Caelan, you need to mind your own business and get back to work," said the head construction worker, pushing him away.

"I would, sir," began Caelan, then he paused as if he were hesitating. "But, in a way, this is our business. To build the addition to this house that both parties can be happy with." He could see the other workers nod around them.

The head worker grunted. He didn't have an argument against that.

Caelan stepped forward again and dipped his head at the homeowner. "My name is Caelan. Like you said, I'm one of the people who is working on your house. What seems to be the problem?"

"You people aren't following the plan that I agreed on. Your boss is saying that we can only build it like this, but that doesn't fit my idea. It'll look ugly."

"Why you--" The head construction worker's fists began to shake.

"Sir," said Caelan soothingly, putting his hand on the head worker's arm to keep his fist down. "We can figure this out." He turned back to the homeowner. "My boss means you no offense. He takes great pride in our work, you see, and that includes making buildings that are sturdy for years to come and safe for those who will be using them. What he meant earlier was just that. He must have discovered that what was agreed upon before actually couldn't be built safely in the end."

"Well, I can understand that," admitted the homeowner, crossing his arms. "But that doesn't solve the problem of the way I wanted it to look."

"Would you tell me what your vision was?" asked Caelan.

After the homeowner finished his spiel (and Caelan had stopped his boss from launching himself at the man and shaking him for prattling on for so long), Caelan put on a smile. "Why, sir, that's an easy solution! You see, it's all a matter of decor and your furniture arrangement later." He gave the man some suggestions, glad that he had spent so much time in the Lowe mansion in the past and had familiarity and an eye for rich-people furniture and decorations. Though, of course, there were very few who were as rich as the Lowe family in Sticks.

"So, sir, you can have a safe and reliable addition to your house that is still beautiful and fits your standards," he concluded.

Both the homeowner and the head worker stared at him. Then the homeowner grinned. "That is a brilliant idea! Why didn't I think of that sooner? All right, let's do it your way." He slowly extended his hand to the head worker, who shook it. Though he grimaced and looked as though he wanted to wipe his now-dirty hand, his smile did not fade as he went back into his house.

The head construction worker clapped Caelan on the shoulder. "I didn't know you had it in you, lad, but I owe you one today. You really are a smart one."

Caelan smiled again and shook his head. "It's all thanks to you, sir. I was only doing my part to defend our work. We are the best construction crew, after all, led by an incredible visionary like you."

His boss laughed heartily. "Well, we'd better get back to it!"

After another couple of hours of work, Caelan was exhausted and his muscles were aching when the boss dismissed them for the day. As he untied his hair and picked up his satchel, he felt a tug on the bottom hem of his sleeveless shirt. He glanced down to see the homeowner's seven-year-old daughter standing there with her hands behind her back.

He immediately smiled and gave her a flourishing bow. "How may I help you, miss?" As he grew older, he found that there was a part of him that actually really liked children. Most of them were very cute and amusing.

The little girl bashfully pulled out a wreath of delicate wildflowers woven together and held it out. "You look like a fairy prince," she said, her eyes wide.

Caelan laughed, though he made sure not to laugh too hard. Only kids could look at a sweaty man, handsome though he may be, and see a prince from a fairy tale. (But then, Caelan was Caelan.) Though some of the other men were watching, he lowered himself onto one knee before her and said softly, "So you've made me a crown, have you? It is fit for a king. It would be perfect to wear to the grand spring revelry in the fairy court."

All of his make-believe role playing with Cassia was quite helpful after all.

"Will you help me to put it on, fair maiden?" He inclined his head toward her, and she giggled, nestling the flowers in his hair. He took her tiny hand in his and softly kissed the back of it. "Thank you for the lovely gift."

Giggling even harder, the girl practically flew back into her house, clutching the hand Caelan had kissed to her chest. He laughed again and hefted his satchel onto his shoulder. "What?" he said to the others staring at him. "I thought she was a really sweet little girl." When they merely shrugged, he shrugged back and headed home, still wearing the flower crown.

As he walked, Caelan reviewed the lesson he would go over with Silas in his head and wondered if it was time to give him another proficiency test since he was quite advanced in his ability now. He was considering which book he should have Silas read out of for the test when he heard someone whisper loudly, "Oh my goodness is that Caelan in a flower crown ahhh he looks so gooood!" Then there was a chorus of whisper screeches and giggling.

"Shh! He's looking!" a girl screeched, and Caelan barely caught the shadows of three girls ducking into the alley behind him. He had to fight the smug and amused grin that threatened to appear on his face and instead put on his most dazzling and innocent smile that worked on just about everybody.

"Hey, are you three running from me?" he called out in a light, teasing voice. "Am I that scary? I don't bite, I promise."

One by one, three heads popped out on top of each other, peering out from behind the wall. On the bottom was Daisy, whose hair was curly, and so blonde it was nearly white. Above her was Andy, whose black curly hair was braided back into a bun. Abover her was the tallest one: Nina, who had chopped her hair short that summer. Shorter than Caelan's.

"I like the flowers," Nina said, her tanned cheeks flushing.

"Did you make it?" Andy asked, smiling to reveal the gap between her front teeth.

"Now you just need a crosage," Daisy added.

"It's corsage," Andy corrected, smacking the back of Daisy's head. Daisy blushed in embarassment.

Caelan managed to not laugh. He glanced up and touched the flowers. "Oh, you mean this? Thanks. The daughter of the man who is our construction crew's latest client gave it to me. She was such such a sweet little girl. She said I looked like a 'fairy prince'--isn't that cute?" He chuckled.

The three girls sang out an "aww" in unison. The stepped out to approach him, skipping up. Daisy hung back with her hands behind her back, more shy.

"You do look very princely," Andy said, more forward as she playfully tapped his crown.

"But you always do," Daisy murmured, looking at the ground.

"What if I made you wings?" Nina smirked.

Caelan laughed. "Please, I don't think I actually look like a prince." He gestured at himself in his sleeveless, tight-fitting shirt that showed off his toned muscles.

"Pah!" Andy laughed. "Have you seen yourself?"

"Says the best-looking guy in all of Sticks," Nina drawled with a smile and a roll of her eyes. "Show off."

"Princes don't need to have crowns to be princes," Daisy mumbled, digging her toe into the ground.

Caelan shrugged and put up his hands. "All right, if you say so. I can't win against you three."

"Well, since you surrender, Prince Caelan," Andy said with a slow wink. "Every prince needs a princess."

"Dragons above, Andy!" Nina hissed, punching Andy's shoulder.

Meanwhile, Daisy's whole face turned red at the mention.

"What! Come on! You have to like somebody in this town, right?" Andy asked, looking at Caelan. "Who is it?"

Caelan's mind whirred for a moment, plotting his next move. It had to be vague but also satisfactory to them. He then lightly cleared his throat and looked down, letting his long, dark lashes hide his eyes. Then he looked to the side. "Well . . ."

At that moment he almost froze as he saw Silas, Ramona, and Ivy all staring at him. In the next moment, he let out a small gasp.

"Goodness, look at the time," he said. He looked at Daisy, Andy, and Nina with an apologetic look. "I'm late to giving my friend reading lessons. I'll talk to you later?"

A chorus of disappointed "awws" followed.

"Well there's your answer!" Andy huffed, pointing at Ramona and Ivy -- it was unclear who -- in defeat.

She led the other two away with a wave of her hand, and they trudged off. In response, Ramona darted ahead of Ivy and Silas and spread out her arms, going in for a tackle.

Caelan took a step back so she wouldn't knock him onto the ground, but with her momentum, she practically threw herself into his arms. Then she reached up and hooked one arm around his neck, giggling like a maniac, the other hand raising in a fist.

But before she could dig it into his head and give him her usual noogie, Caelan ducked and spun out from under her arm and grabbed her wrists. "Not today," he said with a smirk.

"Silas!" Ramona called in frustration. "Help me give him a noogie! You're good at this!"

"I need my tutor's head all in one place, thank you very much," Silas replied, grinning.

"But look how stupid his head looks!" Ramona said, pointing at Caelan's crown in accusation.

"There's cooler plants out there," Ivy teased. "Not being biased or anything."

Caelan looked down his nose at them. "So you're telling me that you think that this precious gift from a sweet seven-year-old girl is stupid and not cool? Okay."

Ramona plopped her hand on her hip and looked to Ivy with a smirk. Then, she exploded into laughter as she threw her head back.

"Sweet seven-year-old girl!" she cackled. "Those don't exist!"

"That's what you'd think," retorted Caelan. "You definitely wouldn't know."

Ramona's laughter disappeared in a second as her face fell flat. She pressed her lips into a line to stare at him, unimpressed.

He laughed. "It's just a joke, Ramona. Lighten up." Then, in a flash, he grabbed her in a headlock and rubbed his fist hard into her head.

"Wow, this is fun!" he said. "Should've tried this on you sooner."

Ramona screamed and grabbed his arms in her claws. She threw all of her weight forward, trying to pull Caelan off his feet, but her strain was met with his resistance. She flailed.

"You're really trying your very hardest," said Caelan, laughing louder now. Silas was laughing too.

"It's not fair!" she squeaked, now kicking like a cat held by its scruff. "Let me go!"

"Nope," Caelan practically sang out, and he locked his arms around her torso, picking her up and spinning her around wildly.

"IVY, HEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEeeeeee!" Ramona screeched, clawing at the air.

"I'll think about it," Ivy said thoughtfully. "This is really fun to watch, you see."

That was when Ramona fell limp in Caelan's arms, flopping over with a heavy sigh.

"I vow to get vengeance for this treachery," Ramona said in monotone. "Your actions will not be forgotten and your mischief will be repaid ten-fold."

Caelan grinned wide. "Sure, little kitten. Let's see what you can do." He dropped her and stepped back.

Ramona landed on her hands and feet, just like a cat. Then she turned around and flipped him the bird.

Caelan just laughed and then he turned to Silas. "Well, let's get to it, then. Fun is over." He sat under a tree and opened his satchel, considering the three books he had stowed in it for their lesson.

Silas peered into the satchel and visibly swallowed. "Why are those books so big?"

Caelan raised an eyebrow. "Big? They're nothing you can't handle, Silas. You've made good progress for all this time." He settled on the book called War Within the Shores.

"Classic literature it is," he declared. He rifled through the pages and set it in Silas's lap, pointing to the left of the open pages. "For today's proficiency test, read from here to here." He moved his finger to the middle of the right page.

Casting a shy glance at Ivy and Ramona, Silas nodded and cleared his throat. "Chapter Seven," he began. "On the eve of Moons . . . Moonskip's Ba... Ban-ket?"

"Banquet," Caelan clarified.

"On the eve of Moonskip's Banquet," Silas continued, "Arthur was called away by his uncle, leading - leaving - his . . . his what?"

"Mermaiden," Caelan said.

Silas groaned. "I'm on the first sentence and they've already made up three words," he whined. He kept at it, although "scintillating scales glimmering iridescent" at the halfway point almost made him chuck the book into the mud.

"Not bad," remarked Caelan. "You didn't mess up too badly and your vocabulary has increased exponentially since a few years ago. I'm impressed. You've done well."

Ramona and Ivy slid up on either side of the tree.

"Yeah, Silas's vocabulary is better than yours," Ramona said.

"Ha, nice try. It certainly is better than yours," said Caelan.

Ivy-- who also knew how to read, but had learned from Adonis instead-- peered over Silas's shoulder at the book. "Interesting choice of book," she said. "Isn't that one a tragedy?"

"It is," said Caelan. "It's about a sailor who falls in love with a mermaid. He tries to find a way for them to be together, so he builds a tank for her to swim around in on land, but the mermaid eventually suggests that instead of her coming on land, the sailor should live with her in the water. The sailor grows increasingly mad with love throughout the book, and he agrees at the end because he is so desperate to be with the mermaid. He doesn't realize that he's drowning in the water until it's too late, and he dies."

"Poor guy," Ivy remarked. "Although it's kind of on him for forgetting that he very much does, in fact, need air to survive."

Caelan replied, "The sailor's descent into madness and obsession is a representation of humanity's propensity to pride and greed, especially for beautiful, tempting, and dangerous things--that's what the mermaid symbolizes. Humans tend to forget themselves and fall because of their hubris. But yeah, I did think he was dumb to try living under the water. He's a sailor--he should know how to swim and therefore realize that he needs to breathe when in water. But I digress." He sat back and let out a long breath.

"You should've digressed earlier," Ramona said. "That's a long story just to say 'don't be stupid.'"

"Glad you got that at least, Ramona," said Caelan. "But it's obvious that you can't appreciate classic literature. Too bad."

Ramona stuck out her tongue.

Caelan smirked back. He looked at his companions, thinking about everything that had happened in the past few years. Ivy's face, though not quite as carefree as before, showed little sign of how Juni's death affected her now. It was quite obvious in the days right after it had happened, but now, it was difficult for Caelan to deduce what she was thinking sometimes. That fact unnerved him when he thought very hard about it.

Ramona seemed very little changed since their childhood days, still trying to prank him and show him up despite coming off as highly anti-intellectual. Poor, poor Ramona. It was easy for Caelan to manipulate her, though. It was also surprising that Simon Ink hadn't come to bother Ramona's mother in a while, as she seemed to be his primary target for killing with class and keeping chivalry alive for generations when he needed something.

Caelan was proud of Silas's progress in literacy--and his own hand in making it happen, of course. Though he only had the one addle-brained goat left, he was always working hard with Morgan while being diligent with his studies on the side. Caelan respected that. There was always something about Silas though--something almost lone wolf-ish. Caelan wasn't sure if it was just because Silas seemed to be so quiet and alone working, or it if was something else.

"I guess Saoirse and Ossie didn't care to join us again today," he commented. "Though after Ossie's little brother--well, I guess he always has to be the responsible one for his remaining siblings. I can't say I'm upset Saoirse's not here, though."

Silas cast a frown Caelan's way, but didn't defend her.

"She's always catching rats or whatever," Ramona said.

"And Grace is sick," Ivy pointed out. There was something hinting at seriousness in her voice, something that felt like it didn't belong. "Of course Ossie would see to her."

"Of course, I wasn't saying otherwise," replied Caelan. "I respect that." Though he couldn't relate at all, being an only child.

He brushed off imaginary dirt from his lap and said, "Well, I'd better be going. Adonis is expecting me." He took War Within the Shores back from Silas and gently placed it back into the satchel with his other books. As he settled it on his shoulder, he glanced toward his own house and his stomach clenched.

It was his mother. She was carrying a basket overflowing with laundry, which wasn't even the heaviest of things that he remembered seeing her carry before, but somehow it looked like a ton of bricks in her arms. Her face looked strained with the effort to hold onto the basket. Then she began to cough violently, and she almost lost her grip on it. Caelan took a step quickly forward without thinking, but stopped himself as she recovered and lowered the basket to the ground. Then she slowly sat on the bench by their door. She seemed to be trying to catch her breath, with her head lowered and her elbows resting on her knees.

Caelan gritted his teeth behind his closed lips, and he felt his jaw muscles tighten.

Sophie Rhett, whom he had always believed to be like an immovable tree throughout all of their hardships when he was a child, was now a shadow of her old self. Though his mother had never been the most outwardly affectionate toward him, she had always taken care of him and made sure his needs were met. And she had always urged him to make a better life for himself, somewhere away from the cesspool that was Sticks.

But what about her life? What Caelan had managed to do so far for her was not enough.

He cleared his throat and schooled his expression as he glanced back at the other three. "See you in a couple of days for our next session, Silas." He walked away, waving without looking back to give off a semblance of nonchalance, but he wasn't sure if he had succeeded this time.

Caelan burst through the door of Adonis's house, feeling a whirlwind of emotions within him. Without preamble, he said, "Singe me."

Adonis looked up from his latest letter, fingers stained dark with ink. The concentrated expression on his face broke into concern as he set his feather pen down on the counter.

He didn't ask what was wrong, even though he knew something had to be. Instead, Adonis opted for the much more neutral question of, "What's going on?"

Caelan let the question hang in the air as he replayed the vision of his mother, so worn and growing poorer in health, over in his mind. He balled his fists as he came closer. "I'm tired of feeling helpless, like I can't do anything. Things aren't going the way they should, and I can't--" His voice broke on that last word, and he was startled to find a lone tear running down his cheek.

He, Caelan Rhett, crying? He couldn't remember the last time he had been so weak. Why was it that he always felt so vulnerable in front of Adonis? He swiped the tear away and clenched his jaw as he took a deep breath and hardened his gaze.

"I have to protect what's mine. And my people." He mostly meant person, but it didn't hurt to sound a little more generous and considerate of others. Adonis was the sort who acted like an adoptive father to just about every kid on their street, after all.

Adonis abandoned the counter, setting a strong but gentle hand on Caelan's shoulder. Its weight was barely there, as if he thought Caelan would pull away, and yet he could tell Adonis was trying to keep him in this time and space.

"I always had the feeling you needed more than this space could offer you," Adonis said softly. "And I fully understand. But I hope you'll forgive me for telling you what you already know by saying that joining the Suns is a choice you can't take back."

Caelan swallowed hard. He had already considered this many times. The one downside to using the Suns as his step up to leaving Sticks would be the escaping. In the eyes of the Blue Suns, there was no leaving. Until death, that was. But he was determined, and he knew that with meticulous planning and playing his cards just right, he could get out of anything.

Out of Sticks, and even out of the Suns.

He squared his shoulders and looked Adonis in the eyes. "I know," he said. "But I have full confidence in myself that I can hold my own."

Adonis was silent for a moment, as something heavy clouded his face. Caelan had been seeing that expression more from him lately, but only in hints. It hadn't been this transparent in years.

"Juni told me the same," Adonis said quietly.

At this, Caelan did find it hard to maintain eye contact. He could imagine what emotion and thoughts were running through Adonis. There was a small pang in part of his heart as he considered that what he was asking of the man was forcing him to relive the pain of losing one of his daughters.

Would Caelan's mother be so devastated if Caelan were to ever die before she did?

But that wouldn't happen. Caelan would make sure of it. She would have a good life--one that he would provide for her. Regardless of how deep or shallow her love for him was. He owed her that much. It was something he could do to repay her.

Sorry, Adonis.

"I'll prove it to you," he said, lifting his chin. "This is only the beginning of what I'm capable of." He cracked a small smile. "How can I fail when I've got all the things you've taught me as my foundation?"

Adonis managed a faint smile, although it seemed mostly to mirror Caelan. The sadness in his eyes hadn't faded, and it couldn't be any clearer that Adonis thought he was looking at a son right now. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Then Adonis slowly broke away to return to the letter. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand as if he, too, were contemplating the choice before him as well. Just as Caelan wondered what he meant to do, Adonis brought the letter to the flame of a candle resting nearby, watching as the paper caught fire before letting it fall into the wastebin at his feet.

With a deep breath, Adonis turned back to Caelan.

"You know I'm proud of you," he said, sliding a sheet of blank paper. "Which is why I'm sure you'll have no trouble with this test-- you're forging a letter to none other than Mayor Barlowe of Ruddlan herself."

Caelan stared down at the paper. Of course Adonis couldn't just make it easy. But on the other hand, "I'm proud of you," echoed from his brain down into his heart. There was a strange feeling that grew in his chest as the words seemed to settle there.

He pulled the paper toward himself. "Who am I writing as?"

"That's the right question to ask, kiddo." The smile on Adonis's lips was just a touch brighter as he set the pen and its ink bottle in front of him. "You're General Varr of the Moonlight Kingdom, writing an apology for a missing shipment of weapons and other goods that were lost to a griffin attack-- in reality, it was reposessed by the Suns."

Caelan hummed in his throat, analyzing his approach to the letter. "General Varr," he murmured, remembering previous letters that Adonis had forged in his name in the past, with every particular curve and flick of the pen that made his handwriting unique. But he wanted to make sure to get it exactly right. "Do I get a handwriting sample for reference?"

"Just the one letter. You could use my book, but..." Adonis turned around to grab what must've been the original letter, and there was something faintly teasing in his gaze when he faced him again. "Well, you like a challenge."

Allowing a smile that bordered on arrogant to spread on his face, Caelan took the original letter. "This is all I need." He was fairly confident that he could do a good enough job even without the letter, but he wouldn't go as far as to say that in front of Adonis. He studied the letters and the writing style, letting the words of his new letter form in his mind. Then he set the original to the side and picked up the pen. He let the top rest on his chin as he visualized how each sentence should fall on the paper. Then he began to write. Adonis moved away, giving him space as he turned to some other task in the kitchen, but Caelan knew his attention was never far.

When he was finished, he set the pen down and pushed the newly written letter back towards Adonis. "How's this?"

Adonis leaned over it, reading it once, then twice. There was pride in his eyes as he looked up and said, "Impeccable."

Caelan grinned. "I learned from the best."



Caelan's skin stung. He could feel the sensation over the side of his right ribcage as he moved about and did his work. But he couldn't help but smile when he thought about it. Once, when he was alone by the edge of a small pond on his way to his next destination, he couldn't help but lean forward and lift the side of his shirt to admire his tattoo in the water's reflection.

His new two-rayed Sun tattoo. The freshly inked second ray was still red and it was the source of the pain, but it was like a badge of honor and pride to him. Besides, the stinging and the redness would go away, just like when he had gotten the sun center and the first ray.

Other Suns members had whispered among themselves that it was truly remarkable how fast Caelan had risen up in the ranks. It was unprecedented for a new member to reach Two so quickly. Some even said that he might reach Three sooner rather than later. There were some Suns who were evidently jealous of him, and Caelan heard them whispering that he must have cheated his way up to his position.

But Caelan knew that he was different from the rest. He worked hard at forgery and any other jobs thrown at him. He ingratiated himself with the higher ups, related to and made himself as likable as possible to his peers, and charmed people left and right to achieve his objectives and missions. He did have his own sense of pride, but he was not above bowing and scraping or acting shameless when he needed to. He made himself whatever others wanted him to be, so long as it worked in his favor.

At the end of Caelan's work day, he rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms above his head as he strolled down the market street, contemplating what nice things he would buy for dinner for himself and his mother. Perhaps a chicken--he knew his mother liked it, and it could make a nutritious meal. She needed her strength.

A whistle caught his attention from behind.

When Caelan turned around, Andy - one of the girls who'd fawned over him more than once, now - approached with her hand on her hip and a sway in her steps.

"Looks like the hard work is treating you well," she flirted. Her eyes traveled brazenly up and down his body.

Caelan, his arms still half-raised, glanced down as if he didn't realize what she meant. In fact, he knew exactly what had caught her attention. It was the shirt he was wearing, with its shorter-than-average bottom hem--or, rather, what it revealed when he lifted his arms. He had chosen it on purpose, knowing that it would show off brief flashes of his tattoo, his toned abominal muscles, and his defined waist. It had done exactly what he had intended--for girls to go crazy over the sight.

"Oh," he said, and he lowered his arms and folded one in front of his stomach, acting shy. In truth, he still wasn't used to showing off that much of his body, but he was shameless enough to do it if it benefitted him. He let out a small laugh. "Yeah, work has been good. How about you, Andy? Are you working at your father's shop right now?"

"Well, not at the moment," Andy lilted, walking around him. "I can take a break here and there."

"Well, that's a shame," said Caelan, shrugging. "I was hoping to buy some potatoes for dinner, you see."

"Potatoes," she said with a waggled brow. "Then you've found the right person." She beckoned for him to follow her and she sashayed toward her father's shop.

When they entered the shop, Caelan picked up a few pounds of potatoes and set them on the counter along with some coins for payment. Then his eyes fell on a small box on the table behind Andy.

"Are those stickers bars?" he asked, gesturing at the box.

Andy glanced over her shoulder. "I might've snagged a few. Why do you ask?"

Caelan leaned forward onto the counter until his face was inches away from hers. "Just curious. We could never afford them when I was younger, so I've never gotten the chance to try one." Actually, he had tried a stickers bar for the first time after joining the Suns, but she didn't need to know that. "It would be such a treat to be able to share some with my mother. I'd love to do something, even something small, for her after all she's done to raise me all by herself for fifteen years." He looked down and let his long eyelashes flutter lightly as he reached his hand forward and let his fingers brush against Andy's.

Andy's cheeks flushed and she cleared her throat, looking to the side as her normally cocky mask fell for a moment.

"Well... if you wanted two, I'm sure I could spare some," she said.

Caelan looked back up, his eyes round and wide and as innocent as a deer's. "Really?" he said, and he straightened up, taking her hand in his as if in earnest. "That would be so kind of you." He smiled and ran his thumb over her knuckles like an absentminded habit.

Andy smirked and let out a light laugh. She turned around and pulled out two stickers bars, wrapped in wax paper. She slid them over alongside the potatoes.

"They're not for free, though," she said with a goading grin.

Caelan raised an eyebrow, feigning confusion. "What could I give you in exchange?"

"Just a little kiss," she said tapping her cheek with a growing smirk.

Some girls really were audacious. This one, in particular. And he knew that she enjoyed her perception of him as an innocent and bashful guy who was unaware of his own charms. Charms that she believed that she could make hers.

Caelan had mastered the skill of blushing on cue many years ago, and so he did, letting the flush spread over his cheeks and the tips of his ears. "I--a kiss?"

"One kiss, two stickers bars," she said. "I think it's a fair trade, don't you?"

Caelan hesitated, then replied, "Well . . . Just one kiss." He leaned forward to give her a peck her cheek, but at the last moment, Andy turned, grabbing his face in her hands. She planted her lips firmly over his.

The strangled, surprised noise that came from Caelan's throat was genuine. That was a move he somehow had not considered from her, though he now reflected on the fact that it was very like her. He instinctively tried to pull away, but she held on for a few more seconds before letting him go with a smug smile.

Caelan allowed himself to stare at her. "What--"

"Excuse me? What is going on here?"

Caelan turned at the sound of a deep voice. It was Andy's father, the shop owner. He stood with his arms crossed, anger on his face until recognition registered in his eyes when his gaze fell on Caelan.

"Caelan Rhett?" His voice was incredulous, and his expression changed to one of concern.

Caelan pulled back, far away from Andy. "I'm so sorry, sir," he said in a panicked tone. He contemplated bringing out the crocodile tears, but he figured it would seem too fake to her father. "I was just here to buy some potatoes for dinner, and then I saw the stickers bars, so I was asking your daughter about them. And then I guess one thing led to another, and then--"

The shopkeeper raised his hand, and Caelan grew silent. The man stalked forward to face his daughter. "Andy, what do you think you're doing? How could you do such a thing to this poor young man?"

Andy opened her mouth in shock. She stammered, "I--Well--"

"I know Caelan would never kiss a girl in such an improper manner. He's far too respectful. But I sure didn't teach you to act this way, either!"

"But Dad--"

"No buts!" The man slammed his fist on the counter. Andy flinched. "Apologize to him at once."

Sullen and humiliated, Andy turned to Caelan again. "Sorry," she muttered, not meeting his eyes.

The shopkeeper put a hand on Caelan's shoulder. "I am sorry my daughter put you through that. The potatoes are on me today. And Andy will be giving you all of the stickers bars." His voice turned to iron at the last sentence.

Andy's mouth dropped to the ground. But she didn't dare to say a word and she handed the box to Caelan.

Goodness, this was awkward. But certainly not awkward for Caelan, not when he was getting this much free food. "Thank you," he said in a soft voice, keeping his head lowered.

"I hope you will still come back, Caelan. I promise this will never happen again," said Andy's father. He gave Caelan a pat on the shoulder and walked to the back of the store.

Caelan closed the box of stickers bars. He hoisted the sacks of potatoes over his shoulder and slipped the box of candy under his arm. "Cheer up," he whispered to the downcast Andy, flashing his best shy and sweet smile. Then he winked and exited the store. He didn't bother seeing what her reaction was, but when the door closed behind him, he couldn't help a pleased grin and a laugh that bubbled up from his chest.

How fortunate he always seemed to be, regardless of circumstances. He actually didn't care in the end that he had been forcefully kissed on the lips. He had gotten a steal out of it, after all. It sure paid to flirt with the daughter and act ultra-respectful to the father.

There was a spring in his step as he made his way home after a quick stop at the butcher's. He was surprised to see none of his companions out and about on their street, but he quickly pushed that thought away as he imagined his mother's pleased expression at the good food.

Now just to make sure she still didn't find out he was in the Suns.

"I'm home," said Caelan, pushing the door open with his right hand hand while holding his food sacks with his left.

His mother glanced up from where she was sitting at the table. She had a hint of suspicion in her eyes as she looked him and the sack over. "Welcome home, Caelan."

"I had an idea for dinner," began Caelan, fishing in his pocket. He pulled out a small pouch that clinked as he dropped it on the table with as much nonchalance as he could muster. He also set the box of stickers bars down next to it. "I got some fresh potatoes and a whole chicken, so we could roast them for a nice meal. Then we could boil the bones to make a broth. What do you think?"

Sophie was silent as she reached forward to untie the pouch and poured out its contents onto the table. It was a pile of hefty coins. "You're bringing home so much money and good food these days. And stickers bars?"

"Work has been good," said Caelan with a casual grin. "There's been a lot of business. My bosses all trust me with bigger tasks, so I get paid more nowadays. So why shouldn't we eat well if I can afford it?" He turned to place the sack on the small table next to the stove, and he rinsed off his hands and dried them.

"We could barely afford more than a few potatoes at best before," said his mother. "But pounds of potatoes and a whole, already cleaned chicken and stickers bars on top of this much money? Caelan, I'm not a fool. I know your construction job and your helping Adonis and teaching Silas to read don't add up to that much, even if they've been giving you more projects or responsibility. Tell me the truth. How did you get all of this?"

"Relax, Mama. I'm not doing anything extremely dangerous." Caelan shrugged and put the ingredients on their wooden cutting board. He peeked at his mother over his shoulder.

Her eyes narrowed, though there was some unidentifiable mixed emotions in them. "You haven't called me Mama since you were just a few years old."

Well, maybe that had been overkill. He had hoped it would work to make her stop asking. He turned back to the ingredients in front of him and he began to cut them into smaller pieces. "I just want you to not worry about me. I'm fine, really. I just want to be able to provide for you like you have for me all this time." He twisted a couple of chicken bones apart with a loud crunch. Then he glanced about him for a moment before sighing.

"Great, I should've grabbed another bowl first," he muttered. He felt like he was always forgetting minor details ever since he had started cooking in the last several months, and he hated feeling incompetent at anything. He reached up above him where their cooking bowls were sitting on the high self.

His mother stood, staring, and she was next to him faster than he expected. She grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and yanked it up to reveal his Suns tattoo.

Caelan sighed and pulled away from her grasp. Maybe he shouldn't have worn the slightly cropped shirt that day. Now, it was what outed him as a Blue Suns member in front of his mother.

"I knew it," she said, her mouth set in a straight line.

"Mother, I can explain--"

Suddenly, there was a violent thud on their door. There was a series of heavy pounding that came after it, and it was almost like the walls of their hut shook at the force.

"Who is that?" muttered Caelan. He wiped his hands on a rag. "I'll get it." He moved toward the door, making sure that he was firmly between it and her.

The pounding grew even harder and more rapid. "I'm coming! Stop banging on the door already," shouted Caelan over the noise. Whoever it was, it wouldn't be anyone he was concerned about offending.

He pulled the door open, and he recoiled as a staggering man almost fell against him. He wrinkled his nose and his lip curled in disgust as he took in the sight and horrid smell.

"Simon," he just about snarled. "What a surprise after four years."

The man was a mess. His eyes were hollowed out. His fingers were tinged purple, and he looked sullen, ragged, and filthy. He smelled of his own stench, and his pupils were dilated, dark and wide.

"You must be Sophie's boy," Simon said with a rotting smile. "It's been so many years since I've seen you. Is your mother home?"

Caelan resisted the urge to look back to see his mother's expression. "Why do you need to know?" He wouldn't bother to play nice with Simon like he had in the past--not if he showed up looking like a wreck while high on lumshade.

"Oh, you know that it's been so long," Simon said. "And I've missed her dearly. I just wanted to say hello."

"It's never just that with you," Caelan growled, but he felt a trembling hand on his back.

"It's all right, Caelan," said Sophie. Her voice sounded strong. She was putting up a front so she wouldn't seem weak, he knew. "We can hear him out, at least." She stepped out from behind Caelan and looked at Simon. Her eyes filled with loathing.

"Why hello, Mr. Ink," she said, not bothering to disguise her dislike for once. "Fancy seeing you here after four years. Deep in your lumshade, are you?"

"Oh, sweet Sophie," Simon crooned. "Your beauty never fades. You know how harsh the Sticks can be. There's no shame in a small escape from it, you know."

"Sticks is harsh, but I have to disagree with you about this particular kind of escape," answered Caelan's mother. "You can't see how it has destroyed you and everyone else who has used it?" She scoffed. "I must say, your beauty is nowhere to be seen. Thanks to the lumshade, no doubt."

Simon's smile turned pleading. "Please, Sophie, I just need a little help," he said, leaning in. "You couldn't spare any? Any at all?"

Caelan tensed and put out an arm in front of his mother to shield her from Simon getting too close. But he waited for her to respond.

"Tough luck, Simon. We have nothing to spare for you. Never have, and never will." Sophie's smile grew mocking as she said, "You know, there is one thing that I absolutely cannot abide. Guess what it is."

"Oh, come on, Sophie," Simon said. "For all the favors I've done for you over the years, you owe me."

"I don't owe you a thing. You really think you were doing me favors? I would say that is rather adorable of you to believe, but I don't find anything appealing about a man who has lost himself in a lumshade addiction, you see."

Simon's nose wrinkled in contempt. "You act all high and mighty," he spat. "But just five years ago, if I had more money to my name you would've whored yourself out for a copper piece, and you know it."

Caelan's fists clenched. He felt hot rage growing deep within him. "You try saying that to my mother again."

Simon huffed and turned away.

"Useless," he muttered, glancing at Sophie, over his shoulder. "I never should've wasted time on you and your pretentious prick of a child. I hope you're happy that you've gone and made a haughtier version of yourself. Except that one--"

Simon's bony finger pointed at Caelan, and he squinted his eyes in a smile of condescenscion.

"Hm," he laughed in his throat, dropping his hand. "Well, it's like looking into a mirror."

He turned away with a scowl and stormed off.

"My Caelan will amount to much more than you ever did!" Sophie called after him. "Don't bother coming back."

"I'll kill you if you try to harass my mother again!" roared Caelan, taking a step past the threshold of their house. But his mother's shaking hands on his arm and her legs threatening to buckle under her snapped him back to himself and he held her steady in his arms and shut the door before Simon could look back.

She felt as delicate as an injured bird, like he could snap her bones more easily than he had pulled the chicken's apart. "Mother?" he whispered, afraid that raising his voice would hurt her more.

She took a shuddering breath and coughed, hand pressed to her mouth. When she pulled it away, there was blood smeared on her lips and her palm.

"No," breathed Caelan. He felt a bolt of fear strike through him. "No, no, no. What do I do?" He forced himself to take a few deep breaths. "You need a doctor." He scooped his mother up and prepared to open the door again when she shook her head.

"You know just as well as I do," she gasped, "that there are no real doctors in this forsaken place." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I just need to rest for a bit."

Caelan brought her to her bed and set her down gently, propping up her lumpy, straw-filled pillow behind her back so she could sit up. He gently wiped her mouth and her hand with a moist cloth. She sighed and closed her eyes.

He found it hard to swallow as he watched her. It was like she was withering away before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He could feel a prickling sensation of tears at the corners of his eyes, and he covered his face with a hand as he turned away. "I'll make you that chicken soup now, I guess."

His mother must have sensed that something was off in his voice. She said, "Caelan, come here."

He stopped in his tracks, but he refused to turn around with a shake of his head. He did not dare to try his voice anymore. His tears had broken past his defenses and were streaming down his face. He felt his chest trying to heave, and he tamped down the urge to sob that was welling up, threatening to erupt in his throat.

How had everything gone so wrong in such a short period of time?

Maybe things had been ever so slowly changing and crumbling around him for a long time, and he had just been too stupid to notice. Too selfish.

"Caelan," said Sophie again gently, though her throat was raspy. "Dinner can wait. Come here, my son."

Caelan flinched at her last two words. She had never called him like that before. He felt his resistance melting away, and he trudged to her side, sitting on the edge of the bed. He tried to keep his face covered, but his mother tugged at his hand until he lowered it. He stared at her blanket, shame and sorrow rolling over him.

"Silly boy," whispered Sophie. "You can't hide from me." She tried to wipe at his tears, her fingers shaking as they skimmed over his cheeks.

Caelan grabbed her hand and held it tight. "Sorry," he choked out. "Sorry, Mama."

Sorry for everything.

"None of that now," said Sophie, some of her former fierceness coming back into her voice. But now she was crying too. "You are my son. You don't have to apologize for anything." She sniffled and took a deep breath before continuing.

"I don't care if you're in the Blue Suns or you flirt with every woman in Sticks. You are a smart boy, Caelan, and I know you think carefully before you act. But don't you ever use lumshade. Selling it is one thing, but using it is completely another. It will ruin your life and your chance to leave this place." Her gaze darkened. "It destroyed the man whom I thought I would build a life with. Your father. He betrayed me with that vile, vile lumshade, and he paid for it with his life."

Caelan's mouth went dry. His mother had never spoken of his father before. He doubted that she would say more. But she clearly regretted her relationship with the man, which had resulted in Caelan.

"You're thinking foolish thoughts again." His mother shook her head and seemed to muster up her energy to say one last thing. "Caelan Rhett, you are the best thing I ever did. And I--" She broke off, blinking rapidly. She sighed and closed her eyes. "And I love you."

In those few words that he was hearing for the first time, Caelan felt the weight of many other things that his mother had not voiced. In his heart, he knew them all.

He curled up as well as he could beside her and lay his head on her lap like he was a child again. And he wept.

She stroked his hair without another word. Caelan knew that she was not long for the world, that she would probably leave him sooner rather than later. But she loved him, and he realized that that was all he really wanted to hear.

His breathing had grown quiet again, and he murmured, "I'll make it out of Sticks and have a good life. I promise."

"I know you will."

Ossie had learned not to cry. It was a skill he'd grown quite proud of over the last several years. He knew he'd always been viewed as soft and emotional when he was younger, but he'd decided to craft a new image. He'd decided to be mature, like a man was supposed to be. It had been a long time since Ossie had cried, and even longer since he'd cried about anything except Beau.

It had been four months.

Four, since the final breath.

The shudder.

The blue lips.

Ossie's dreams had ended then, just as Beau did. He didn't dream of having killed his siblings anymore. It was real life now.

He should have gotten him the medicine. He'd tried, but he hadn't tried hard enough. Beau had paid the price, and now, Grace was following in his footsteps. At eleven, she'd begun waking up with coughing fits too, and though they hadn't become as severe as Beau's yet, they were still enough to startle Ossie awake to check on her.

Ossie had also learned not to ask others for help. He didn't trust the Suns, not one bit, but that was something he did admire about the older boys he saw--they always stood on their own. They didn't ever have to lean and crumble against somebody else. They also didn't ever cry. Ossie didn't like all the horrible things they did, and he knew in his heart they were bad people, but a small, twisted part of him still watched the boys from afar with wide, discerning eyes, like if he studied them enough, he could learn to mimick the way they walked, the way they moved.

He'd begun to bulk up too, which was something he was proud of, though he tried not to think too hard about the extra food he was getting from one less mouth to feed. With extra free time during the day, he'd found himself with nothing to do. The working out had begun as boredom, but had quickly transitioned to a hobby, and then a goal. Ossie had never had either of those before, and the newfound freedom was both exhilerating and unsettling.

Even now, as he walked down the street on his third lap through the neighborhood, his head spun through possibilities of danger, and feats of strength he could use to get out of them. He imagined a man attacking Mabel, and then imagined the way he'd shove the man away, then kick him while he was down. It wasn't the gentlemanly thing to do, but Ossie didn't really care about that, as long as it kept his family safe.

He imagined kicking the man over and over again, until he doubled over and coughed up blood. He grimaced a little at his own thought, and paused on the side of the street, blinking a few times like that could wipe it away. He stared at the ground beneath his feet, then bent and grabbed a handful of dirt, running it ritualistically through his hair, like he could hide the red--the violent parts of himself.

"Osmond!" a man's voice called after him, reaching him from the end of the street.

Ossie turned suddenly, his thoughts interrupted abruptly. The man, now hurrying towards him, had skin that looked hollow, with fingers stained dark at the tips, a frame that seemed more skin-and-bones than person, and tall, whispy hair, red and dead-looking, like it was deteriorating in the dusty wind. He wasn't sure he knew the man, but the hair alone gave him a sinking feeling, and Ossie subconsciously rubbed his dirt-covered fingers against each other, suppressing the urge to pick up another handful and rub it into his hair just to try to hide the reddish hue. "Can I help you?" Ossie asked cautiously, taking a nervous step backwards.

Simon's mouth turned up into a wide smile, and for all the changes his body had borne, Ossie still saw his smile in his father. It made Ossie want to recoil, but he restrained himself.

"Oh, my boy," Simon said with unwarranted affection. "Yes. I need you to do something for me."

"Your boy," Ossie repeated.

"Yes, my son," Simon said with more earnest. "I know we haven't spoken much, but I'm sure your mother's already told you. You're a smart kid."

A stone sunk in Ossie's chest, heavy and pressing. "Thanks," he said, frowning.

"Now," Simon said, bending over to meet Ossie's height. "Why don't we talk over here, shall we? I know you've been getting bigger and more responsible lately. I think you'd really like this growing opportunity."

Simon's breath stank of rotting meat, and it spread and twisted through the air like poison in a water well-- it was also currently engulfing Ossie, and he struggled to bite down a gag. He couldn't stop the faint grimace though. "Over where?" Ossie asked, pulling away as Simon's spindley fingers wrapped around his shoulder and tried to pull him to the side.

Simon gestured down the street.

"I'll show you," he said.

"I'd rather not," Ossie said in a soft voice, glancing around, becoming aware for the first time in the conversation that he wasn't seeing anyone else anywhere nearby. Somehow, even out in the open, he was beginning to feel trapped.

"Oh, it's not that serious, Ossie!" Simon whined. "Come on. You want to make money, right?"

"You want to get me money?" Ossie said doubtfully, glancing again up and down the street, as if that could magically manifest somebody new who could help ease the sudden rising tension and dread in Ossie's stomach.

"No, Ossie," Simon said with growing condescenscion. "I want to get us money."

"I don't really know--" Ossie began nervously.

"I know you need the money, Ossie," Simon said with a little laugh. "You need to take care of your siblings, don't you?"

He froze, feeling his heart speed. The dread expanded and bubbled as he thought of Beau, and now of Mabel. "I don't need your money," he said in an unsteady tone.

"Alright," Simon said slowly, his smile waning. "Sure. But... Ossie. I need you."

"Why? You haven't ever needed me before." Maybe it was the thought of his dead brother, or his dying sister, that sped the words out of his mouth before he could think to bite them back. Either way, they hung in the air now, solid and grounding, like stones set on the edges of a leaf to keep it from blowing away in a storm.

"I need you to understand something, Ossie," Simon said, his voice starting to tremble. "You only exist. Because of me."

Simon reached out to grab Ossie's shoulder again.

"You owe me this much," Simon went on, as his mouth twitched into a wide smile again. "Don't you think you owe me this much?"

Ossie took a step backwards, watching him. Inside him, the dread pushed farther up his stomach, towards his throat. "I don't think I owe you anything," Ossie murmured, even though the words made him sick.

"But Ossie," Simon said, inching near again. "Every child owes their father. Especially when they're a bastard son. You have to prove yourself, Ossie. A child's greatest purpose is to be their father's hands and feet. You are only worth as much as you care for your family. Especially the least desirable."

Ossie stumbled back farther. He thought of Hoss' words from several years ago-- the warning to stay away from him. That he'd try to get whatever he could out of him, no matter the cost. Still, the words hit him in the chest like a punch, and his mouth now felt dry like sand. "I..." He took an unsteady gulp, then gathered everything inside him to say forcefully, "I'm not getting money for you."

Simon's smile dropped, and he stood up straight again. His hollowed out eyes narrowed as he let out a scoff, puffing his rotting breath in Ossie's face.

"Then you're of no use to me," Simon said. "And you're just as heartless as your mother."

Ossie felt his breath catch in his throat. He found that suddenly, he'd lost all his words, and had nothing to say. Simon smirked, and turned around to walk away. Ossie wished he had the bravery or ability to confront him, like Hoss probably did. He wished he could tell him to go to hell, or say, "You're wrong"-- but he couldn't even do that. Because he was right, wasn't he? Ossie hadn't been able to save Beau. He'd let him die, and he'd been a coward and not been able to confront Hoss, or tell Ivy, and he'd had dreams of killing his siblings which miraculously stopped when Beau died, and that wasn't a coincidence, was it? It meant something about Ossie-- something evil, something dark. And wasn't he heartless? Wasn't he the least desirable, the one his parents would choose to throw away in a heartbeat? The most boring friend, the one people wouldn't want to be with alone, the burden on everyone, on Adonis, on his mom, on his step-dad, and he was so horrible, he was so terrible, and Simon, even in his wrongness, was right about all of that. Simon was right.

It made Ossie sick to know it. He couldn't tell if the sickness was from Simon, or from the correctness of it all. He'd turned him away, and why? Simon was probably the only person Ossie would've ever been able to help, and he'd done what he'd always done, and he'd let another person down, and--

Ossie's breaths came in soft pants as his heart seized in his chest. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe.

He turned and stumbled his way home, a numbness beginning to seep across his mind and pervade every inch of his body. Even as he couldn't breathe, he detached further from his body. It was farther away now, less him than it had been before. Everything looked weird, foreign, a little strange, like there was something a little wrong with the world.

Ossie didn't know how long he sat at the edge of the porch before his step-dad found him. All he knew was that he heard his name spoken softly, like butter melting in a pan, like cheese burning. He could almost smell it--his soul frying at the edges, crisping up and crackling. "Osmond?"

Even though it was the first time he heard it, he knew somehow it had been repeated several times. Had he heard him say it before, and just hadn't moved? Even now, he could hardly force himself to blink, let alone look at him. He couldn't bear to be seen by someone right now--for someone to see him as him right now. "I killed Beau," he whispered, and the words fled him like a passing wind. It almost felt as if they didn't even come from him, but from something deeper and truer.

"What?" he could hear his step-dad say. "No, no, you didn't kill Beau. A sickness killed Beau."

"I killed Beau," Ossie repeated dully, staring at the street stretching out in front of him. It looked like it went on forever. He hoped it did. And suddenly, Ossie was holding back tears, holding them back with all his strength, because what would happen if someone reached the end of the street? Would they just have to turn back around? Where did they go then? Were they someone with nowhere to go? Did they go wherever Beau went, wherever everybody went? What if the street just ended with no warning, and then it was gone, and he could never find it again?

The wooden flooring creaked beside him as Kyle knelt down next to him, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder. "Osmond, are you feeling alright?"

Ossie pulled his knees to his chest, feeling the muscles in his arms contracting and loosening as he gripped and then let go of his legs. His eyes felt glassy, but he couldn't make himself look away from the street, because what if he blinked, and it was gone? What if he blinked, and it was all over?

"What's going on?" His mom's voice. She must have also just arrived home from work, then.

"I'm not sure, he's not--"

Ossie tuned them out. He didn't want to be distracted. He wanted to watch the street and make sure it didn't leave him, make sure he didn't let down someone else, let someone else disappear.

"Osmond?" He heard his mother call suddenly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, we're going inside. Come with me." She pulled him, but he didn't move. "I'm not strong enough to move you, Os, you've got to help me move."

Slowly, he let his legs sink to the wood, away from his knees, before he followed the pull of her arm into the house. He looked at everything, but all he really saw was the road--burned into his brain, like Beau's blue lips.

A hand brushed hair away from his forehead. He hadn't felt something like that, something motherly, in a long time. Years? The hand came to rest on his cheek. "What happened?"

After what felt like an eterrnity, Ossie built the energy up to murmur, "He wanted me to get him money."

"Who did?" his step-father asked.

"Who do you think?" his mother snapped. "What else did he say, Os? What did he tell you to do?"

"I killed Beau," Ossie said suddenly, eyes snapping into clear focus as he looked into his mother's face--tired and worn, covered with a semblance of worry. "Didn't I? I killed him."

"Did he say that to you?"

Ossie could see behind the deflection, though. He was smart, wasn't he? Simon hadn't been wrong about that. His mother hadn't answered-- so he had killed him. It was his fault, in the end. Everything was.

This time, he chose to shut down. He pulled his long legs to his chest again, and rested his head on his knees, and closed his eyes, and stopped listening to what they said. He let the inner world drown out the outer one, until he was covered with so much water and waves of dizzying thoughts that he had no more breath to take, just like Beau. He didn't cry though-- he stayed mature, like a grown boy should.

Saoirse slipped out of the house before the sun began to rise. It was easier this way, leaving before her sisters or step-father woke up. Her brother was already gone – away on another weeks long fishing trip.

Saoirse missed him.

She knew the feeling was mutual. As emotionally constipated as her family might've been, her brother rarely had an issue saying what he felt. He just never said it to Saoirse. No, she had to overhear him talking about how worried he was.

It had hurt but Saoirse could see his point. She hadn't exactly been the picture of health. It worried her too.

Not that she didn't worry for him. As much as her brother tried to reassure her, Saoirse wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the boat he worked on. The thing was a death trap. Home might not have been the best but at least it was on dry land.

Emphasis on dry – it’d been a long time since they’d last had rain. They’d had worse droughts, but even still. Saoirse was already seeing the effects. The trail was dustier than it usually was and each step she took just stirred up more. It settled on her clothes and skin, a sickly paste of sweat and dust and dirt.

On the bright side, her traps should be nearby -- unless someone had found them first. It wasn't entirely unlikely. Times were lean and people were hungry. Saoirse hid her snares as best she could, but it wasn't always enough.

She walked along the footpath, keeping her eyes and ears peeled. There weren't any tracks. Nothing fresh, at least. Just a few scuff marks she couldn’t identify.

This part of the trail skirted along the edge of some Suns' territory. Saoirse was always careful to stay outside the border. It seemed her prey had all had the same idea -- this section of snares was empty. Saoirse reset them and continued down the footpath, grumbling to herself. Annoying, but at least everything was still intact.

The trail took her down a steep hill. Saoirse tread down the side of it carefully. The loose dirt had nearly gotten her last time she'd been out here. Too much of a tripping hazard. Saoirse wasn't risking her neck (or ankles) like that again.

One of her snares was set along a nearby patch of grass. Saoirse could see the rabbit it'd caught from across the hill. She looked around to check that she wasn't being watched, then went across to grab it.

It was a large rabbit -- large enough that Saoirse might be able to process and sell the pelt. In theory, she could process most of her catch's pelts. But she was still learning and she made mistakes. It couldn’t really be helped. Wasn't like Saoirse had a proper teacher.

She disarmed the snare and took the wire with her, carefully spooling it and placing it in her bag. She'd use this spot again. Just not yet.

The next snare was empty. The one after that had another rabbit. This seemed to be the extent of things today -- a good haul, all things considered. Saoirse turned and headed back the way she'd come, keeping an eye out for any promising spots for a future trap.

In the distance, footsteps. It could be a million things -- another hunter or a patrolling Sun who'd wandered outside their bounds. Saoirse wasn't going to stick around to find out. She held her catch closer and picked up the pace, all but running down the trail.



It was late when Saoirse returned home. The sun was setting. The cicadas were out, filling the night with a near electric hum. Her neighbors argued in the distance -- something about a donkey? Besides that, it was an unusually quiet night.

Saoirse walked up the path to her house in silence. She opened the door and stepped inside, shucked off her boots before one of her sisters could lecture her about tracking dirt all over the floor.

Her sisters' work took up most of the main room. Rows of clothes in various stages of laundering and repair. Ciara sat at the table, stitching up a hole in a pair of pants. Saoirse didn't see Máire. Must've been washing more stuff out back.

Ciara looked up when she walked in. "Hey."

"Hi."

"How was today?"

"Better than yesterday," Saoirse said. She gave a wry smile. "Caught two rabbits. They're pretty chunky too, so--"

Ciara was already focused back on her sewing.

Saoirse sighed and walked past. She put the rabbits in the kitchen next to a clump of foraged greens. There was enough of both that she could share tonight -- maybe she'd pay Silas a visit. She picked one of the rabbits back up.

It'd be nice to actually be able to talk to someone. She'd sleep and cook her portion when she got back.

Or, Saoirse mused, someone else could. It wasn't like the rest of her family was incapable.

Not that she could ask them. The fact was that everyone else worked a 'normal' job that brought in consistent, if pitiful, cash. Saoirse had her carving and her hunting but she wasn't well enough to really contribute.

No, her job was the cooking and the cleaning and basically anything else that her family didn't have the time for. Her brother helped when he could. Not like he was around enough for that do mean much.

It wasn’t any help to dwell on it. Saoirse was tired and annoyed enough already. She walked back to the main room and and put her boots back on.

“Hey.” She turned to look at Ciara. I’m gonna-- I should be back in a bit.”

“Just be safe.”

“Yeah," Saoirse said. "I’ll try.”



The smithy was closed up, as expected, so Saoirse went around back to see if she could find Silas. Kyle was there, face buried in a fresh trough of grain, but there was no lanky kid to be seen. She'd learned that if she stood on the back step and called for him in a low whisper, it was just loud enough for Silas' werewolf ears, and just quiet enough to slip past Morgan's old man ears, even if he was right on the other side.

"I have a rabbit," Saoirse added as incentive, even though she didn't need to.

The smell of the wrapped meat behind her back would meet his nose faster than her words did.

But, strangely enough, there was no reply.

Saoirse knew something was wrong. Another moment passed, and the relative silence that stood between her and the back door became a wall. A shadow passed in the window, distinctly too large for Silas, and her heart sank to her gut. Silas wasn't home, and these days, she didn't want to run into Morgan.

That meant she had to track him.

She traced the path to the door on light feet, looking for Silas's imprints, and finding the soles of his feet. Bare, toes digging deep, heels barely touching. The marks of a sprint, not a walk, and Silas never fled from the back door for recreation.

Crap. He told her he'd been losing control, but she didn't think it'd happen in broad daylight. Saoirse hurried, pursuing his trail.

Running always made her light headed, and even at a light jog, her vision began to spin. She had to slow down when vertigo sloshed the stability of her head, like a dinghy in a whirlpool. When the footsteps turned to paw-prints, her feet stopped.

She went rigid, and her mouth coated with bile. Flashes of red streaked the ground, the floor of the hall, and the face of her mother. Sweat beaded her face and the palms of her hands. She found herself trembling at the edge of the forest, too aware of the threat in the trees, and no matter how many times she tried to impose Silas's face over the wolf, she couldn't see him. She tilted her head back.

The world was still spinning.

All she saw was the dark coat, shifting with open jaws.

What was she doing, pursuing a werewolf? The thought passed through her head in her brother's voice. Riley was always trying to "talk sense into her" these days, but she never felt the need to heed it until now.

Saoirse took a step backwards, but it was too late to abandon the hunt.

Something snapped in the trees above her, and the black furry beast came tumbling from the sky, landing awkwardly on his side and scrambling to his feet. Saoirse jumped and landed on her butt in the dirt.

"Silas?!" she said through her teeth.

She had no way to recognize him in this form. She barely remembered him as a pup, and yet, she knew she shouldn't fear him. He was already so scared of himself.

The wolf whirled around, eyes wide and golden and panicked. His ears flattened against his skull and he began backing away, slowly, tail tucked between his legs. Saoirse lifted her hands slowly, holding up the meat.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Saoirse said slowly.

But in her head, she felt for her hunting knife on her hip. She refused to reach for it.

The wolf's ears perked up for just a moment, and she saw his nose twitching. Wolf-Silas looked behind him as if scanning the area for any more dangers, then looked back at Saoirse, head low. She noticed then that he was favoring one of his front legs. Her brows pinched.

"Who hurt you?" she asked sharply, getting to her feet.

Silas shook his shaggy head a little bit, which even in the tense moment looked a little funny. He glanced pointedly at the trunk next to them. The bark was ravaged by scratch marks. Something had climbed it. Wolf-Silas had climbed it?

Saoirse raised a judgmental brow.

It almost looked like the wolf rolled his eyes in return. "I can explain," he said. As soon as the words left his muzzle, Silas clamped his jaw shut and stared wide-eyed up at Saoirse.

A moment of silence passed between them.

"This is weird," Saoirse blurted.

"I can speak?!" Silas said, more shakily this time. It was unmistakably Silas' voice, coming out of a wolf's body. "You can hear me?"

"This is so weird," Saoirse said. She wondered if his voice would crack in wolf form too. Did werewolves howl? Saoirse wasn't sure. She didn't want to think about what that might sound like.

"Why doesn't the werewolf book say anything about this?" Silas wondered aloud, staring cross-eyed down his nose as if he could watch the words leave his mouth.

Saoirse didn't say anything to that. She wouldn't know. She couldn't read much. Between her mom's murder and her own illness, there hadn't been much time to practice her letters.

There was an awkward, tense silence.

"Were you looking for me?" the wolf finally asked.

"Yeah. I. Um. I brought a rabbit?"

Not that Silas couldn't see that, couldn't smell it. The carcass hardly smelled like roses. Even Saoirse could tell it stunk.

"I'll, uh. Drop it back at the smithy." She moved to turn away, then stopped. Hesitated for what she hoped was only a second. "Are you gonna be okay?"

The wolf looked at her, tilted his head. He'd have looked timid if not for all the teeth.

"You're limping," Saoirse said. "Usually you just--" she waved her free hand as she tried to find the words. "You move different, I mean, after."

Duh. Saoirse hadn't asked but she doubted that shifting was comfortable. But even still, she knew there was a difference between pain you were familiar with and pain you weren't.

Saoirse shifted the rabbit so both hands carried the weight. Her wrist was getting sore. "All I'm saying is I can make a splint. Out of that tree, if you want."

Silas gingerly put weight on his bad leg. "I wonder if it'll still hurt when I shift," he said.

"Why don't you try?"

The wolf shook his head. "It isn't so easy. I can't shift just like that."

Saoirse felt a stab of fear. Did Silas really not have that much control? She shoved the feeling down. Silas was her friend; he wasn't going to hurt her.

Still, she didn't like the idea of it. Uriah had been in control and that had been horrific enough.

"Is there something I can do to help?"

Silas thought on this for several moments. Saoirse didn't know how to read wolf expressions, but there was something distinctly sad about his posture.

"You should go," Silas said. "Don't want you to be seen with me."

Saoirse scanned their surroundings, anxious. The woods were quieter than she was used to. It was more than a little unsettling. "But your leg..."

"It'll be fine," Silas reassured her.

"Fine." Saoirse said. "Okay. Just let me know if it's not-- if you need anything for it later." A pause. "D'you want the rabbit? I can leave it at the smithy too but the coyotes might get to it first."

"I'll take it," Silas said. "Thanks, Carver."

"No problem." Saoirse said, placing it on the ground. She turned to leave and didn't wait to see that he'd taken it -- the sound of his teeth wasn't exactly subtle, even if they weren't aimed at her. "I'll see you around."

A shiver ran through Saoirse, involuntary. She walked home in silence and tried not to think about Silas or Uriah or the scent of iron and fear.

Ramona's favorite thing was to be invisible. There was something thrilling about becoming one with the shadows, staying still, and watching the world move around you like you weren't even there. She learned by watching Ron that if you kept to yourself, no one payed you any mind, and she learned by watching her mother that when you stopped moving, people would just forget about you.

Momma hardly left the house anymore. Ramona didn't know what kept food on the table, but it wasn't for anything Momma did. Ramona remembered the days she used to leave the house late into the night and return hours later, tired, spent, and angry. That stopped a year ago. Now, she sat in their small house staring at the floor just like Ron would when he was five, looking for something in the grooves of the wooden flooring. Maybe a picture. Maybe an answer. Something worth seeing.

Ron was getting out of his shell. He would leave the house for hours on end and come back as quietly as he left. Ramona didn't know what he did in his time away, but Momma stopped asking and so did she. He was probably making friends like Ramona did at his age, but she didn't know. They didn't talk anymore. None of them talked anymore. When they did, it was only to yell.

That's why Ramona liked being away.

Outside of her house there was plenty more to listen to besides silence. For an hour, she'd listened to the scratching of quill tips cutting across paper surfaces, like the rhythm of a song. Adonis wrote like a musician. Each letter was a note in a song, and Ramona could get lost in it, tucked in the alley by his home, under his window, where no one looked for her.

It was nice that he left the window open on sunny days like this one. Ramona closed her eyes and visualized the breeze rustling his greying hair as his tired eyes scanned the pages.

What was he writing in there, day after day?

Ramona liked to imagine it was love letters. Letters on behalf of others, and Adonis was just the messenger, giving words to their passion, enabling love triangles within the Blue Suns that crossed the bridges of Sticks into Banden, and Shortskull, down by the rivers that fed into Lake Harmony. Ramona imagined crystal waters framing the perfect scene for forbidden lovers to hide away and escape. He was a four, she was a six, and their paths were destined never to cross again because she had too much responsibility. Thus was the story of two Suns and their blue skies, clouded by reality.

Ramona let out a dreamy sigh as she leaned her head against the wall beneath the window sill, but she nearly bumped her head against it when Adonis's front door slammed open from inside.

Going rigid, Ramona froze as stomping feet stormed into Adonis's workspace.

"Adonis Mylonas!" a feminine voice cut in with a furious urgency.

Ramona recognized the voice. It was Ossie's mom, Kris. The one Hoss hated.

The scratch of Adonis's pen came to a sudden halt.

"Kris," Adonis said, his tone measured, but not without concern. "What's wrong?"

"That bastard Simon is back!" Kris seethed. "And now he's harassing children! My children!" A pause, then a sigh. "Did Osmond talk to you?"

Silence, then a thud. It sounded like a fist hitting the counter.

"That motherfucking scumbag," Adonis muttered. "Thought that son of a bitch might've finally wised up and stopped poking his fucking head around, but-- he's back? Back?"

Ramona's eyes widened with a strange fear and fascination. She's never heard Adonis curse, ever, in her life.

"He tried to get money out of him," Kris snapped. "But of course, that's all he would tell me. So let's just cut the pleasantries, alright? I know he goes to you more than he does his own fucking parents. Did he say anything to you? Did Simon hurt him?"

Even though she was asking questions, it still seemed like she was accusing Adonis of something. Ramona wondered if Adonis and Kris had history. Were they old friends? Old lovers? What was there to be mad at Adonis about? He was just a father -- though he had been less chipper ever since Juni died.

That was years ago, now.

It was good to hear him speak with some vigor!

"He didn't tell me. If I'd known that fucking failure of a human was back, let alone hunting him down, I would've fucking--" Adonis drew in a deep breath, audibly attempting to compose himself, but it didn't sound like it had worked very well. "Kris, if I ever learn of him even looking at Ossie again, that piece of walking shit is going to be missing his eyes."

Ramona stared up at the windowsill with a wide-eyed smile, captured by the image of Adonis jabbing his fingers into Simon's face. It would be just like the teen brawls the young Suns would get into by the fountain after midnight. The battle would be legendary: Adonis the noble, blinding the scumbag who didn't deserve to see the light of day.

Literally.

A moment passed.

"These poor kids," Adonis said quieter, but his voice was still shaking with anger. There was something else there, though-- a heavy, aching sadness she'd never heard from him before. "They go through too fucking much already."

Ramona's colorful fantasy of eyeballs rolling across the fountain's cobblestone and Adonis flexing his muscles while Kris fawned at him disappeared like a burst bubble. Her wide smile dropped and she felt a strange sting of pain in her chest, like a wasp had crawled into her shirt and raged against her for wearing clothes it chose to get trapped in.

Were she not as quiet as the void, she'd have said "ouch." But there was no wasp, and there were no words -- only the ones that Adonis said that felt like ones she wasn't supposed to hear.

These poor kids. Sure, they were all broke as hell, but Adonis's tone felt like a hug that was meant for someone else.

Like Ivy.

"Well your pity's not doing him any good, Adonis," Kris muttered. "And shit's going to keep happening in this dragons' forsaken town. I'd like to see you follow through on your word for once and gouge his eyes out. All that anger's wasted on you."

"You think I don't know that?" Adonis let out a hollow, humorless laugh. "Well, I fucking know that. But I have people-- young people-- who depend on me, and I learned long ago that you don't get to destroy yourself when you are someone else's only support. I don't have the luxury of anger and vengeance, Kris. I don't get to be a vigilante hunting down every person or thing that's ever hurt one of these kids. Not while they still want me, or believe I'm better than that. All the things I wish I could listen to myself on and do-- all that wasted, bottled anger-- that comes second to their safety and wellbeing."

The stinging felt more like a burning that turned to an ache. Ramona found herself wondering what it would be like to be Juni, sitting across from Adonis as a teenager, able to have a conversation with him, face to face.

Was he always this honest? Something about it was so compelling, Ramona wished to be in Kris's shoes. She wanted to know what it was like to have a father with spirit. Who cared, and kept caring. She wanted to know what it was like to be Ivy, sitting by the hearth, knowing Adonis was looking out for her. Knowing that he wouldn't let anger ball his fists like Hoss, whose anger made him a puppet.

Longing turned to bitterness, and she winced at the knot in her chest.

Dragons above, what was this feeling?

"It must be nice to think you're better," Kris spoke like she was brandishing a knife. "Pretending to be good so your kids don't see the worst in you." She laughed in annoyance, then continued, "I remember when you had to prove yourself to get the ink in your skin, drinking the poison just like everyone else."

"There's nothing nice about it," Adonis responded, his plain tone just barely underscored by bitterness. "Because I never thought that."

Kris scoffed. "Well, I've never tasted it, so I imagine you must've found something to like about drinking blood," she said. But it felt like Ramona was listening to a wolf, digging in its teeth.

For someone who didn't like the taste of blood, Kris knew how to draw it. Ramona made a note to write that down as fodder for the stage play she was about to write where Adonis and Kris were long lost siblings and "lost" was just a metaphor for being in the Sticks.

Scratch that. She'd work on it.

"We've both lost people and years of our lives to the same fucking things, Kris." Adonis sounded weary. "You're not a fool. Think of me with whatever scorn you please, but you know how much those kids mean to me and what I'd do for them. I'm not the threat here."

"You're one of them," Kris hissed. "You're as close to a threat as it gets." Ramona heard her take a deep breath before she continued in a calmer voice, "You know, Ossie is too trusting for his own good. I've told him not to mess with the Blue Suns, you included. I have no idea how to make him obedient. He turns into the worst child for you, and you encourage it."

Adonis's dry laugh floated through the window again, but it was more pained this time. "You're giving me credit for a process I don't even believe is happening. Why don't you go home and spend more time with him? Clearly, you're not seeing enough of him."

Ramona heard her steps receding.

"Keep your girl away from the scum," Kris droned, the edge of her voice sharp as it dimmed by the door. "I hear he likes them young these days."

Ramona stared at the wall of the adjacent house with her hand over her chest, finally finding the word for what it was.

Envy.

It hit Ramona when Kris left. She knew what it was like to covet money, and food, and better clothing. Often, she yearned for the comforts of the Lowe family and their fancy manor, or the wealth of every four and five that walked their streets. She fantasized about having extra coin to toss around at her every whim, and she knew what it was like to look through the baker's display window, tasting the fresh bread through the glass as it melted in her mouth in a daydream.

This was the first time Ramona envied someone else for an experience, and it wrung her heart out of water, leaving it dry. Ivy deserved the world, but why didn't Ramona deserve a father, too? Ramona used to say Adonis was her dad when she was younger, but that was when every kid on the street said the same. She stopped saying it when it stopped feeling special. She stopped saying it when she realized no one could have that many kids. She stopped saying it when she realized caring parents were rare, and there weren't enough parents to share. People's hearts weren't big enough to hold that many little hands, and no one's arms were big enough to carry that many burdens.

Children were burdens. Fathers were a special commodity in the Sticks, and by all means, Ivy was spoiled sick. It made Ramona sick; not just with jealousy, but with the fact that she could be jealous of her best friend.

It was horrifying. It was wrong. She tucked that feeling into a box, and she sealed that in another box, and she buried that box in the chambers of her soul with a lock, a chain, and a sign that said "danger." Danger to all who enter. Danger to all who feel it.

She heard no reply from Adonis as the door slammed shut. Only a low, frustrated growl. It didn't last long before becoming a weary sigh.

Ramona had the thought to pop her head over the side of the window, but she didn't. In her head, she pictured his face brightening with a smile: a full one, like he used to wear when she was little, like a favorite hat. She knew that he'd hung that hat up long ago and all she'd get was a tired one -- just like Momma, just like Hoss, and just like all her friends who pretended to laugh at her jokes so no one felt awkward.

That was all it was. She was certain. Everyone was playing pretend, and they played pretend always, and the only person with any real soul she could trust was Ivy.

Unfortunately, Ivy was rather busy these days, making things.

Ramona wasn't sure what kinds of things, but Ivy made them sound too complicated for her to understand, so Ramona stopped asking. All she needed to know was that Ivy was brilliant, she had a father, she had a future, and she was going to shine like the sun in its full strength.

Ramona waited many moments more before Adonis closed the window. It left her with nothing more to listen to, so she slowly crept out of the alley into the street, waiting for a breath in the flow of feet. It was a familiar rhythm, now. She was learning how to flow with the heartbeat of Sticks, and she was just one drop of blood in its body.

She flowed back to her house to grab something to eat, but stopped short of entering when she saw the redheaded man standing outside of the door with purple-tinged fingertips and bloodshot eyes.

Ramona turned around, but the unseen overlords of the Sticks showed her no mercy.

"Ramona," her 'father' Simon said, like he was just remembering her name.

She spun back around on one foot and planted her hands on her hips.

"That's me!" she said. "And you're, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh--"

She was going to drag out the "uh" much longer, but he cut her off.

"Simon," he said through a bug-eyed, clenched smile.

He held out his hands in front of him like he was offering them to her, both empty. She stared at them with a joyless smile that matched his own, having no idea what his sickly hands were presented for.

"You remember me," he said quietly. "Oh, it's so good to see you again. I missed you."

When he stepped forward and swooped in for a hug, Ramona laughed. She ducked to the ground and swiveled to the side, popping up behind him like it was a game. It was a game -- because she was making it a game. Simon turned around with gritted teeth still showing, and his wide eyes looked more desperate and annoyed when she pirouetted a few steps away.

"Wow!" she said. "You're a fast mover! I bet I get that from your side."

Simon's grabby hands held the air and then dropped to his sides. His ensuing laugh was well-humored, but he shook his head and his smile waned.

"It's more than that, I'm sure," he said as if he were talking to himself and not to her. His eyes lingered on her like he was contemplating something, and they both looked each other up and down in assesment. Just two grown folk, taking each other in.

He looked a lot more haggard than when she last saw him. Holes had been carved around his eyes, his eyelids were stained purple like his fingers, and his chiseled jawline looked more ghostly than dashing, in an unremarkable, underfed kind of way. Ramona set her hand on her hip again and wondered what turns of fate had stolen his luster, and what lack of luck had made him so gaunt. Surely, this was not the handsome father who'd stolen her mother away in their youth with many others. This was not the Simon of aforementioned infamy and chivalry, detested by every other mother and every other father, envied by chaste men.

This was the look of a man who'd crawled out of the belly of death and come up barely breathing, looking for any signs of hope in his daughter's eyes.

Gods, his clothes even hung over him, like they'd grown larger, when in fact, he'd grown smaller.

It had been three years, and this was what had become of him? It was hard to believe it, for all of the stories Hoss told her (and boy, could he tell a story -- only when it came to Simon).

"Please," Simon said. "Your mother's turned me away again. I only seek a helping hand. Something, to help with the pain."

Ramona's carefree aura was sucked away by Simon's begging, and her grin fell from pity.

"You... need help?" she asked with something of a wince.

Simon's eyes widened in earnest, and he approached her once more, grabbing both her shoulders as he bent to one knee.

"Yes!" he said. "Yes. I knew you'd understand. I see so much of myself in you, you see? We can form an agreement -- no, an alliance -- and oh, your mother musn't know of it, can she?"

Ramona bit her lip and looked at her house, wondering how loud she'd have to yell for Momma to come to the door. Would Momma even come if she called?

"An alliance," Ramona tested the words on her tongue, teasing the idea. "Who are we at war with?"

Simon laughed, but Ramona could feel his sticky hands tremble from the effort. She would've thought he was ill, but she'd seen things like this before in the muddy alleyways of Sticks, under bridges, and in tents out in the woods by their town.

Simon was a user. A lum-bum, as Momma called them. A customer, as Hoss said. A purple, oxygen-denied-finger-having slave to the Suns, as she liked to say. It was strange to accept it, though. To see it in Simon's eyes. To see it in a face more ragged than her own.

"Oh, we're not at war, dear," Simon said, brushing her shoulder like a pet. "I just need you to get daddy some money."

Ramona blinked. "I don't have any money."

"We can change that!" Simon said, getting to his feet. "That's the attitude of a quitter, if I've ever heard it. Come on--"

He pulled away, then offered her his hand.

"I have some ideas," he said.

Ramona stared at his hand for two solid seconds before she smiled up at him.

"I do too," she said, unmoving.

Simon's eyes fluttered, and he waved his hand in a loose, finger-waggling gesture as it fell away. "Sure, sure," he said. "And I'd love to hear them, but--"

"This morning I dreamed about breeding turtles and cats," she said. "And making a new animal called a turtlecat, and marketing them as housepets that would eat your scraps and eat your mice, all while being slow enough to never leave the house and get eaten by dogs."

The smile Simon once had dropped with his mouth half agape. He stared back at her like she'd just told him she was going to sell his underwear.

Not that it would sell for much. It'd be gross.

"I'll consider it," he said with hiss-like laughter. "But I was thinking I'd introduce you to some friends--"

"Wait!" Ramona blurted, making Simon's eye twitch.

"Yes?" he asked through his teeth.

"I'll make an alliance," she said, extending her hand to him. "But I'll get you money my way. You tell me where to find you."

Simon's smile came back just like that. Easy peasy. She knew it would, because it always did when he got what he wanted, and that's why he never smiled around Momma except in his asking, because he was never getting.

"I'll find you," he said instead with squinted eyes, and Ramona realized she really didn't like that arrangement.

She also couldn't change it, because she wasn't well versed in making deals with lum-bum fathers who exploited their children. So instead, she saluted him.

"Yes, sir!" she said, darting into her house.

The door swung shut behind her on loose hinges, and Simon disappeared behind it as it bobbed back and forth. It slid into place, and she found Momma on the couch like a stone in a quarry already smashed to pieces by her father who'd hovered outside like a vulture waiting to feed on the dead. Maybe now that he'd tasted fake food, he'd fly off and Momma would rise up, freed of his many hammers.

Doubtful.

Ramona opened the door to the kitchen cupboards, scraping around for food. She found half a loaf of bread and took it out, cutting off a slice on the end, too lazy to bother with a cutting board. The counter wouldn't mind another beating.

"Hey, Momma?" she called out, looking past the sink to her mother, who still laid unmoved on the couch, crowded by the kitchen table.

Dolly looked up, vacant in her stare.

"Do lum-bums go to war with the Blue Suns?" Ramona asked.

Momma's forehead creased, and her lips turned to a frown. "I don't know what that means, 'Mona."

Momma's voice was tired from existing. Ramona nodded as she sliced away.

"I was just thinking of becoming a double agent," she said. "You know, like in the game I used to play with Ivy, where we--"

"What is this about?" Momma interrupted.

Ramona set down the knife and wrapped up the butt end of the loaf, leaving it on the counter.

"I'm just dreaming is all," she said, sticking one of three slices in her mouth while she held one in each hand. "Mmf mf mmf!"

As expected, Momma didn't reply again, and Ramona climbed out the back window, dipping back into the shadows from whence she came. While Momma dreamed of staying still, Ramona dreamed of moving; moving into something bigger, and finding a place within the body of Sticks that would serve her, more than being a shadow under its skin. She began to dream of money in her pockets, coins between her fingers, and better food for her and Ron. She dreamed of purple vials, gouged eyes, and blue ink - finding it on her brother's skin, and on her own. She dreamed of matching suns: one on the back of her hand, and one on the back of Ivy's, and when they shook them together, they'd be matching. A sun meeting a sun. A sunny hand-wich.

She dreamed of sisterhood, and showing their hands to a father with matching rays, and everything, everything, glowing in the sun's light.

Now she had something to ask of her brother, of whom she never asked anything, and because of all her dreaming, he'd have to say yes.

"Singe me," she said, standing at the end of their three-foot hall when Hoss entered the doorway. His shoulders brushed the sides.

He was a four now, and he dressed like it. Well-woven cotton threads adorned his boxy frame as underappreciated knightly robes, but nothing about him was royal, and he looked like a goon. All suns were goons, and she too wanted goon-hood, but it was only despisable when it was her brother -- on principle.

"What the hell is your problem?" Hoss asked as he closed the door behind him.

"I'm fourteen now and I'm very big and grown and I think it's high time I picked sides," Ramona said boldly, unmoving as she blocked his way.

Momma sat up on the couch behind her, but didn't speak up.

"That's cute," Hoss said with no smile. "What's your real reason?"

"I hate being poor," Ramona said straight-facedly.

Hoss's eyes flicked back to Momma.

"They'll eat all your gumption," he said.

"I have gumption to spare!"

"You'll never get out," he said again.

"Of the suns? Why of course not!"

"I meant the Sticks," he said more firmly, but she realized he was actually taking her seriously when he didn't shoot her down. Normally, he never entertained her playful banter.

"You think I could actually do it?" Ramona asked, straightening up and holding her hands at her sides.

Hoss sighed and wiped his forehead, clearing it of sweat from the sunny day.

"I need to recruit someone," he said plainly. "And you'll do."

Ramona rejoiced and jumped several feet in the air to tackle her brother, who was never affectionate once in his life, but she clung to him like he was -- like he could have been. Her arms hung around his neck and he lifted her up in disgust, tossing her down like a cat from a tree. She landed on her feet and perked back up.

"So you'll singe me?" she asked brightly.

"Was Simon here?" Hoss asked instead.

Ramona rolled her head back and groaned. Hoss was so obsessed with him. It was unhealthy! She glaned back at Momma who shook her head, but it was hard to tell if she was saying yes or no, so Ramona answered for her.

"He stopped by," she said. "Quote: 'Momma turned him away again,' unquote."

Hoss's hands became red rocks of rage.

"I told him to never come by here again," Hoss seethed.

"I don't think he will," Ramona said, sweeping her foot in front of her. "I scared him off real good."

Hoss scoffed, but then looked her up and down like she was a possession at risk of being stolen.

"What did you do?" Hoss demanded, lowering his voice as he leaned forward.

"Ohhhhh scary," Ramona said as his shadow fell over her. "Coming to beat me up again? Won't that be new and exciting! That's never happened before!"

But this time, he did not strike her. Momma had come up behind her, leaving Ramona in a family sandwich, trapped within the hall.

"Oh. Momma," she murmured, trying to remember the last time she saw her mother look so alive.

"What did you promise him?" Momma whispered.

Ramona felt the unnerving stares of her mother and brother lock onto her in anticipation, and the space between them grew smaller. It felt like she was going to be swallowed up by them if she didn't move out of the way.

"I told him I'd breed turtlecats," she half-fibbed.

Hoss grabbed the collar of her shirt and pinned her to the wall.

"I told him I'd give him money!" she admitted. "But I didn't mean it! It was just to get him to go away!"

"Ramona, you can't do that with him!" Momma pleaded.

"You're an idiot," Hoss spat, letting her go.

"A very capable idiot!" she retorted, watching Momma rake her hands down her face and crumble back onto the couch while Hoss ran his hands through his thin, choppy hair.

They were taking it very poorly, and Ramona was losing her patience.

"So what do I need to do, Hoss?" Ramona asked, tapping her foot.

"You can't singe her," Momma pleaded, head in her hands.

"You're the reason she's like this," Hoss accused their mother, and then he looked back at Ramona like she was detestable.

She was, of course, but he didn't have to be so obvious about it. She continued to tap her foot until he gave her an answer. Hoss let out a long sigh and tapped the wall behind him with his fist.

Caving, finally.

"I need you to spy on Riley Carver."

It wasn't working.

Well, the bomb was working. It just wasn't working the way Ivy liked. It was powerful, it was precise, and it went off reliably. There wasn't anything she could name that was wrong with it. But the longer she stared at the canister on the worktable, its compartment filled with the explosive and still unlatched, the more she felt like there was an opportunity she was missing.

It was fine. She still had a few hours to think of it.

Ivy hummed an airy tune under her breath as she rolled up her sleeves, closing the latch of the bomb. It clicked shut, locking in place. The only thing peeking out of it was a thin metal cord that led to the charge inside, ready to go off when the wind-up mechanism had completely unraveled. She'd designed this one to detonate after five and a half seconds; she had ones that could delay for up to half a minute. This time, she didn't want anyone holding their breath for something to happen, though. This was a spectacle.

And so was Ramona.

Covered head to toe in flour, Ramona looked like she'd fallen into a baker's bowl and narrowly escaped becoming a bun. She stumbled into the shed, deflty bouncing over the trip wire without a hello, breathing hard. She slammed the door shut behind her with a growing grin.

"Shh!" she said, putting a finger to her lips.

Ivy blinked, looking up from her work with an amused raise of her eyebrow.

"Nope," she said. "I have questions."

"Just wait a few minutes!" Ramona whispered. "At least until--"

There was a loud thud on the door and then, a moment later, a set of much quieter, polite knocks. Ramona leaned against the door in a panic, to keep it shut, and her eyes went wide.

"Okay, who did you make a mortal enemy out of this time?" Ivy said with a grin.

"Ivy, I need you to let me in." Caelan's voice came from the other side of the door. He was breathing heavily. "I know Ramona's in there, and we have some unfinished business."

Ramona's hands came together in prayer as she silently pleaded to the ceiling.

"A tempting proposition," Ivy said thoughtfully, deciding to draw it out for a second.

Ramona's silent prayer became visibly faster and increasingly incomprehensible. Oh, this was fun.

"You know what? It's been a slow day." Ivy darted around Ramona before she could abandon her futile worship and tugged the door open.

There was a Caelan-sized print of flour on the outside of the door. There was also the one and only Caelan, equally dusty and white, standing in front of it in the greatest example of environmental storytelling she'd ever witnessed. Ivy stifled a laugh. Ramona ducked behind her shoulder and didn't hide her snicker. Flour caked Caelan's face and hair, but now there was an imprint missing from the impact.

"I think it's an improvement," Ramona said.

Caelan sighed, and he swiped at his face, clearing some of it away in streaks. He scowled and slowly pushed a hand through his hair. "Couldn't say the same for you, gingersnap," he ground out.

Ramona reached over Ivy's shoulder, making a heart-shape with her fingers. "The flour is rancid," she said with a smile in her voice.

Silas appeared, then, jogging over with a wide grin on his face. He stopped and looked Caelan up and down. "Saw you two running by. Did you rob a bakery or something?"

"Worse," Ivy said. "Caelan got on Ramona's bad side."

"Wasn't he already?" Silas asked.

To be honest, Ivy could never tell these days. There was... something strange in the air between them, and she wasn't sure she liked it. "She has a secret double bad side. He got upgraded, evidently."

"I'll agree to a ceasefire," Ramona offered.

"How generous of you," drawled Caelan. A tight smile drew across his face as he fluttered his long, flour-whitened eyelashes. "What could I ever do to thank you, O instigator of this entire ordeal?"

Okay. Ivy had made up her mind. She didn't like it.

"If you hit the door one more time and left an imprint like the ones they draw in the dirt where people--" Ramona suggested.

"You guys just had to show up covered in a dry, flammable powder to my workshop the day I'm building my largest bomb yet," Ivy interrupted, with a shake of her head like she was deeply disappointed with them, as she watched the flour sprinkle down to the floorboards. "Your timing is beyond measure."

Although... footprints could be seen in flour. A distracted intruder wouldn't notice a sprinkling of it by the door.

She just might have a new way to protect her workspace.

Ramona ducked under Ivy's arm and immediately put herself behind Silas.

"Sorry, Ivy," Ramona said, a little more sincere.

Caelan put his hands in the air and took a step back from the threshold. "Sorry."

Silas looked noticably more pale than he usually was. "Should we, uh... not be here right now, then? With all the flour?"

"No need. I was getting ready to head out anyway." Ivy rounded the worktable, staring fiercely at the bomb. "It just needs..."

It had all the firepower she needed. It was bright enough to put on a show. But she wanted people to feel it, too. She wanted it to burn so hot that even those standing at what they thought was a safe distance would sweat in the heat. Not enough to burn them. Just enough to know that if she wanted to, she could.

In a haze, she reached for the vial of one of her exothermic salts, a reagant that would release energy in the form of heat, and sprinkled it in. It wouldn't do anything to make the explosion itself stronger, but that wasn't the goal here. No one would be leaving this feeling underwhelmed.

"...that," she said, flicking the compartment shut without further explanation to her closely-watching friends. "Okay. Let's hit the road."



The sun was high in the sky as the four of them set out, and the air was unnaturally dry, especially so soon after a heavy storm. Strong winds and rain had battered the vale until finally, a rock that all of Sticks had thought immovable had rolled down the muddy slope, settling firmly in the way of one of the main roads leaving town. For the last two days, a crowd had congregated in front of it, murmuring discussions of what to do next. A few had brought shovels. Many had not. Without any solid plan to move forward, a few holes had been dug in the earth in what seemed to be at random locations, and the crowd was no closer to being rid of the boulder than when they'd first started.

Ivy could see Ossie and Saoirse among those gathered. Saoirse seemed glad to see Silas, as usual.

Ossie stood when he saw them approaching, stretching out to his full height. He'd been called in as extra muscle for the digging, which made sense, because somehow, his arms were bigger now and more defined-- when had that happened? Ivy didn't know. He smiled shyly at Ivy as he walked towards her, wiping dirt from his hands onto his pants and rubbing his shoulder against his cheek, like that would help with the sprinkling of mud that had smeared there. Ivy found herself smiling a bit as well, despite the seriousness of the situation, and she realized she'd never told him her plan. He'd understand, though. He had to.

"How's it going?" she asked in a low tone as they stepped away from their bickering friends.

"It's going alright," he said, glancing back at the rest of the group before turning to look at her. Whenever Ossie talked, it felt like she had his entire attention. His eyes didn't leave her face, and he always watched her like he really wanted to hear what she had to say. Recently though, he'd also had this... mystery feeling, like there was some sort of secret that he would only tell if someone did a lot of digging. Some days, Ivy wanted to reach for it. Maybe today was one of them. But every time, she always found a reason not to.

Today, that reason was Saoirse and Caelan arguing a little too loud, a little too close. She pressed down against the wave of regret swelling in her chest.

"You look..." With a slight smile, she waved at her face, then paused. "Hold still."

Without further warning-- although she probably should've given it-- she reached out, wiping the smudge of dirt on his cheek with the side of her thumb. Ossie froze, his brown eyes staring into hers. In that moment, Ivy felt a flutter of something anxious-- was this badly received? Was his skin crawling at the contact? Was he trying to pull away, or draw closer? She didn't like the feeling. It was unfamiliar, uncertain. She tried to hold his gaze for a while longer, but found it more comfortable to break away, drawing her hand back once the smear was gone.

"There," she said, although it felt like she was really trying to say, I'm glad to be near you.

"Um - yeah - thanks," Ossie said, running his words together. But now that the mud was cleared, she saw the flush to his cheeks.

Ivy smiled again, though there was no relief in it this time. That feeling was tying itself into uncomfortable knots in her stomach, and she didn't like how tight it made the rest of her chest feel. She'd once been normal about this, hadn't she? About them?

Maybe she'd changed. Maybe they both had. Or maybe she was just listening to her thoughts more now.

"So," Ivy started, daring to look Ossie in the eye again. "I might be able to... well, help."

In case it wasn't clear what she meant, she held up the bomb canister for him to see.

Ossie's brows raised. There was a knowing look in his widened eyes without her explanation, and then, a small, hesitant smile.

"I don't know why they didn't ask you first," he said, even though they both knew: she had yet to gain a reputation outside of a few childhood fires.

Ivy let out a chuckle, though her fingers curled around the canister. If this went right, those wouldn't be coming to mind for anyone who thought of her after this. When this went right.

"It's hardly the conventional solution," she admitted, with a glance around at the townspeople, who hadn't stopped in their work to pay them any attention. "I don't know that they'll let me try."

Ossie glanced over his shoulder at the group still digging.

"At this point, I think they're willing to try anything," he said, turning bashful. "And... I'd vouch for you."

Ivy hesitated. "You think you could get them to clear the area?"

"It shouldn't be too hard," Ossie said with a small frown, like he was thinking hard about it. "Especially if we tell them it's gonna blow." Then, he flashed a small, playful smirk towards her.

Ivy's smile grew a touch as she released a deep breath, rolling back her shoulders. "Can't argue with that."

Ossie's shy but steady smile lingered as he took a step back, his gaze remaining on her a moment longer before he turned and walked to a man who was calling out directions in an attempt at coordinating. The two of them exchanged some words, and as the man glanced back at Ivy with a mix of doubt and curiosity, Ivy dared to raise her chin slightly at him. The hint of a challenge must've been enough, because the man gave Ossie a nod, before clearing his throat to address those gathered.

"Everyone," he called. "Move away from the rock and take your shovels with you. Adonis's kid has got an idea to try."

The workers exchanged looks, peering at her uncertainly, but complied and left with their tools. Ivy saw Ossie offer her an encouraging smile, and she tried to return it, but she wasn't sure what her face did.

Ivy felt everyone's eyes on her as she approached the boulder, bomb in hand as she examined the rock's size. From behind her, she heard a scoff, then a chuckle from some of the workers. She didn't turn, gripping the wind-up mechanism on the outside until the skin around her fingernails turned white.

"...You all need to stand much further back than that," she said.

Many seemed doubtful, but when she made no move to trigger it with them still there, everyone grudgingly shuffling away until they were outside of the blast zone. Ivy took a deep breath as she backed up a little further herself, her examination done. Five and a half seconds to detonation after she turned this dial. She had the urge to murmur a prayer of good luck, or at least say it silently in her head, but she silenced that nagging voice. Luck wouldn't push her to success.

Only skill would.

The dial spun in her hands, and she threw it underhand, like it was an offering to the town. The bomb seemed to fly in a slow-motion arc, its mechanism softly ticking back to its steady state. For all her calculations and measurements, Ivy's heartbeat was her only gauge for how fast time was truly passing-- and even that must've been off. The sound of her pulse was a roar in her ears.

For what felt like far, far too long, that was the only thing she could hear. Then a click, sharp and faint-- before the snap of metal and howling of flames.

The heat and light was so intense that Ivy couldn't keep her eyes open in the face of it. She stood her ground, gritting her teeth as the burning air rushed over her skin. The inferno raged, and for a moment, she wondered if maybe it had been too powerful. Maybe it wouldn't go out on its own. Maybe it'd use her as fuel first.

But just as she thought it, the heat died down, and the light through her eyelids winked out. Drawing in a deep breath, Ivy opened her eyes to stare blankly at the field of rocks littered across the road where the boulder had once looked. Some stood up to her knee. Others were hardly larger than gravel or pebbles. Each one of them could be moved by human hands.

The ringing in her ears subsided, and the silence from the townspeople came into full focus.

Then one person let out a cheer. Another. A third.

Before Ivy knew it, the entire crowd was celebrating behind her. She turned around with a slapped-on smile to face their applause, feeling pinned under their gazes. Everyone's faces were bright with joy and relief, but there was something bordering on fear in their eyes when they looked back at her. It was like they knew she could've been holding back-- and that if she wasn't, it'd only be so long before she outdid herself.

For some reason, the sight of that feat was what allowed the smile on Ivy's face to turn genuine.

She didn't look to check if it was reflected in her friends' expressions as well. That didn't matter. Today, she'd taken her first step down a long path.

Ivy dusted her hands clean of gunpowder, staring at her palms until she was sure it was all gone. According to Adonis, she always smelled like burning now, and she didn't want to carry that home. There were worse things to smell of, she knew, but he always laughed like the fact pained him whenever he pointed it out to her.

She wasn't sure why that was. That mystery tugged at her.

Red dirt clouded the air around her boots as she left the workshed, closing the door behind her with caution. The late afternoon sunlight felt heavy on Ivy's back. There was something that seemed different about this summer, but she couldn't name it. Maybe it was the first one where all her friends seemed to be figuring out where they were going.

Where did that leave her, then?

Ivy took the shortcuts back to her house, ducking between alleys and side roads like she knew Ramona had a habit of doing. The doors and windows were closed when she arrived, meaning Adonis probably wasn't home. For obvious reasons, it was unwise to leave your house unsecured in Sticks when you weren't around, but it was unbearable to have it closed up in the middle of the day's heat. Ivy reached for the keys on her belt to unlock the door.

Doing that was unnecessary, she realized a moment later, as the door swung open as soon as she touched the handle. In the same heartbeat, she realized her assumption had been wrong. Adonis was inside, standing in their living room, and he wasn't alone.

Standing in front of him, tall and imposing as ever, Uriah was in her home.

Suddenly cold, Ivy straightened, hovering in the doorway and wondering if it was too late to run as the two of them turned to her.

"Ivy!" Adonis said, tone surprised but pleasant as he gestured inside. "You're back early. Why don't you come in?"

Ivy put on what she hoped was a bashful smile as she stepped in, closing the door behind her as she tipped her head to Uriah. "Afternoon, sir," she said politely.

Uriah turned around with a charming smile.

"If it isn't Miss Ivy," he said. "Adonis speaks so highly of you."

Uriah extended his hand, holding his smile wide. "I'm honored to finally meet you."

Ivy shook his hand without thinking, keeping the smile plastered on her face. She knew if she did think about it, her blood would start to boil. It was all she could do to force a calmness over herself that she hoped her racing heart wouldn't betray. If her heart did race, she could blame it on anxiety. Anxiety was a normal reaction to the leader of the Blue Suns being in your house.

The seething anger contained in her bones was not.

"Really?" Ivy asked uncertainly, allowing some interest to slip into her voice as she took her hand back.

"Someone as highly lauded as you?" Uriah said. "I'd be a fool not to be."

"But you're the most important person in this town," Ivy said. "Everyone knows the mayor doesn't really run this place."

Uriah released a caricature of a laugh, holding his hand over his chest like she'd just told a joke.

"At least you've given her a proper education," Uriah said to Adonis.

"I do my best," Adonis said. "Though the gods know she's outpaced me in certain subjects."

"Indeed she has," Uriah said. "And that's what's brought me here today."

Uriah turned to Ivy fully, as if Adonis no longer existed. Giving Ivy his full attention, he bowed his head. Even though it made looking him in the eye easier, Ivy wished he wouldn't. It only made her feel smaller.

"I've heard of your recent work," Uriah said. "The impressive rockslide that it caused, and the service you did for the town. Anyone can see you have great potential, and I'd like to offer you an opportunity: do me a favor, and join the family business."

Ivy realized in the sudden silence that her heart wasn't racing after all. It was slowed-- or maybe it was everything else that had slowed. The room was tunneling in her vision, cutting out Adonis, the kitchen, the door to the room she'd used to share with Juni until all that was left was that smile of his. It felt more like she was looking at a brandished knife than a show of friendliness.

"You want me for the Blue Suns?" she asked, and her shock wasn't faked.

"I do," Uriah said firmly. "And if you accept, I have a task for you."

How long was she supposed to hesitate in her answer? Ivy knew what she was going to say-- she'd been waiting for this moment-- but she hadn't thought she'd be walking into it unexpectedly. It meant something that he'd looked for her instead of the other way around, at least. She'd wanted attention. Here it was.

Ivy let a radiant smile creep to her face as she rolled back her shoulders, standing as tall as she could.

"It would be an honor, sir," she said. "What do you want me to do?"

"You know that explosion you caused to clear the road?" Uriah asked.

Ivy nodded, listening closely.

"I'd like you to make another one," Uriah said. "But this time, rig it as a trap."



The small house was quiet for hours after Uriah left. Afternoon had slipped into evening, and evening into dusk, and Adonis had broken out one of the candles so they could both continue their work. That was one of the things Ivy liked about their relationship: neither of them said anything about the other working too late. They both understood that they couldn't choose when inspiration struck.

That was why she was surprised when the rhythm of her pencil and his pen scraping over paper was interrupted by a sigh on his part. A sigh that had words behind it.

Ivy looked up from her sketch of a trigger mechanism to see her father staring defeatedly at the kitchen counter. With a frown, she set her pencil down.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You know, there's plenty of demand for technical skills around town," Adonis said, looking up. "I don't think anyone would doubt you have what it takes for one of those jobs."

Ivy blinked. "...I do know, yes."

"They pay well," Adonis added. "And they're well respected. No one would look at you wrong."

Ivy's frown deepened. They were in no need of extra money, with it being just the two of them and him being a Four, and she knew that he knew she didn't care about what other people thought of her. This wasn't about either of those things.

"You don't want me doing this," she said, hearing her surprise reflected back in her own voice.

Of course it was surprising. Why say something now, after the offer had been extended, when he knew what she'd been gearing up for these last few years? He hadn't done this back when...

The thought was swatted away as soon as it'd formed.

"Ivy, it's not--" Adonis hesitated, his expression turning pained. "I want you to do what you want to do. Part of that is being sure you know what's involved."

"I do," Ivy said. "Better than most, actually."

"And you're fine with it?"

Ivy could only nod slowly, staring back with full seriousness.

Adonis was silent for a second, looking back down at the counter. Had she disappointed him? She wasn't used to that. But the longer she thought about that, the more she realized it didn't really bother her. Not when it was about this.

"You want to learn how to use a gun?" Adonis asked out of nowhere.

Ivy's mouth hung open. "What?"

"If you're going to do this, learning self-defense is important," Adonis said. "You're going to need to know how to fight back against danger."

She saw his point, but the suddenness of the idea still slowed her thoughts. "Wouldn't I be able to use explosives, potentially?"

"You could," Adonis agreed. "But everyone expects that of you. It's never a bad idea to have more skills than others think."

Ivy let out a thoughtful hum. Okay. This was more like it. The less predictable she made herself, the better. Being more trouble than anyone bargained for was one way of doing it.

And then no one would catch her off-guard in the dead of night with a shot to the head.

"Alright," she said. "I'd like to learn."

"Alright. I'll teach you when you're done." The strain wasn't gone from Adonis's face, but there was pride in his smile nonetheless.

When she was done. Ivy smiled back, and the two of them returned to their work. The sounds of writing and sketching continued well into the night.



The forest curled around Sticks like a crescent ring, enclosing it from most sides. It wasn't a very impressive forest: at parts, the trees were thin enough that you could easily see from one edge of the woods to the other, and the branches rarely saw much traffic from wildlife. It felt more like a gathering of plants that had made the most of the little water in the area, wishing to grow tall in arid soil that wouldn't let them. But it provided cover for Ivy, and that was enough.

She shifted on her branch, leaning back further against the trunk. Up here, she was hidden by the green of the leaves, but kept a decent view of the road. A thin metal wire dangled through her fingers, spilling down the tree before snaking across the road, almost invisible among the loose gravel. It would trigger the bomb hidden in a nearby bush when tripped-- unlike the last one, there would be no carefully timed delay. The flames would spring out of nowhere.

There was only one thing that could feasibly go wrong, and it was the possibility of someone else arriving before her intended target.

It could be a different caravan, or someone wandering out of Sticks on a walk. The wire wouldn't care who tripped it, only that it was. Fire and shrapnel would engulf the path regardless of who stood there. Ivy would have to watch, helpless to intervene from above. She'd walk home reeking of smoke and failure.

Subconsciously, her grip on her end of the cord tightened as she wrapped it around her branch to keep it taut.

It had to work. The alternative was not an option. She hadn't worked this hard just to fail now.

Ivy took a deep breath, allowing herself to look away from the road to focus on the notebook open in her lap. The spread of pages revealed was her diagram of the wind up bomb design, fully labeled and depicted. Adonis had once told her the importance of protecting her work, and so every word was written with the aid of a cipher. In the case of drawings, whose meaning could possibly be understood without the need to crack the code, she'd hidden the pages by attaching them together to have them look like a single one. It was Ivy's most prized possession, and she took it everywhere.

It was also the only place she felt safe enough to put her thoughts.

The crunch of stones reached her ears, soft and distant, and she sat up with alarm. Heart racing, Ivy squinted at the path as far ahead as she could see through the foilage. It was a continued, steady sound, which meant something was approaching on wheels, not by foot. But that didn't tell her whether it was the right wagon.

She forgot to breathe until she spotted the color of the caravan's roof-- a deep, saturated green. Just like Uriah had described. Air filled her lungs again.

Ivy shrank against the tree, watching the wire hang so perfectly still, even as the wheels rolled closer and the gravel of the path shuddered. The wagon was inches away now-- inches away from destruction. It was an action she could not take back.

Her only choice was to own it.

She heard the explosion before she felt it-- the heat followed the roar of splintering wood and metal as the bomb tore through the wagon like a wildfire. Someone screamed, and all Ivy knew was that it wasn't her. She'd never sounded that scared. Ivy knew she should plug her ears, or at least close her eyes, but she did neither. She watched with wide eyes as the caravan-- hardly recognizable as one anymore-- screeched to a halt, consumed by flames her younger self could have only dreamed of starting.

She should be feeling horror right now, probably. Or regret.

And yet, all she could find in herself was a sort of awe.

There was something strangely beautiful about the scene of destruction, how it felt like it came straight out of a painting. That left her as the artist.

Quietly, even though there was hardly anything to be subtle about now, Ivy climbed down from her tree, landing lightly on her feet. Uriah had said the only other thing she needed to do was ensure the cargo had burned to the point of being unsalvageable. The back door had fallen off in the blast, and it didn't take long to determine she'd done her job right. If she hadn't known the shipment was dried lumshade flowers, she wouldn't have been able to tell what it once was through the smoke and fire.

Ivy breathed a sigh of relief, although she nearly regretted it after the smoke she inhaled scraped at her lungs. She was about to turn around and run to the base when a groan nearby made her freeze.

It was a horrible sound, strangled of air and hardly human. The scream from earlier... Caravans didn't travel alone. Of course they didn't. And yet, she'd forgotten all about that until now.

A crazed-eyed man staggered out of the front end, sinking to the ground with another guttural moan. Ivy almost screeched, leaping backwards a step in shock. His arms were outstretched in her direction in a plea for help, but she couldn't take her eyes off the spreading river of crimson spilling from his neck. His neck...

Dragons above. A piece of shrapnel-- one she could recognize as being from the bomb's canister-- had impaled itself in his throat. The dull gray of the metal now reflected redder than Ossie's hair.

"Please," the man rasped, reaching towards her again and failing.

Eyes wide, Ivy took another step back, almost stumbling in her haste to get away-- and that moment of panic was all she needed to turn tail and blindly sprint through the forest.

Run to the base like you were told to do, a voice in her head screamed over her racing heart. Ivy listened, choking on her own air as she darted through trees.

You're victorious. You did what you were supposed to do perfectly. You've earned what you've worked so hard for, and it'll all fall into place now. The voice went on, and Ivy knew it was right. Everything was fine. Uriah would be pleased, and by the end of the day, there would be a blue ray on her upper arm, right where Juni had gotten hers. She'd be one step closer to putting out the fire raging in her bones.

But gods, she'd never forget the smell of that smoke.

If Ramona got to eavesdrop for the rest of her life, it'd be worth it. She hadn't considered the career potential of listening until she was asked to do it for sport. If she was rewarded for something she already enjoyed, it was like getting cake for dinner.

And that's what spying on Riley had been like. It was a piece of cake.

"He said Saoirse was sick!" Ramona said, sitting beside her brother at the kitchen table.

Hoss's pen was moving quickly across the paper. Not in her whole life had she ever had his ear, and now, he was eating up her every word. Writing it down, no less! She'd never felt a rush like this in her entire life. It had her hooked.

"And he said he was worried about her health," Ramona went on. "I heard Riley talking to their dad about something chronic, I guess she's had it all their life. She gets weak and needs to eat meat. Isn't that kind of freaky?"

"No commentary," Hoss snapped.

"Sorry," Ramona backpedalled. "He also alluded to someone in Banden -- the town between the lakes! Apparently Saoirse's dad lives there! Did you know she has two dads?"

"Are you really that stupid?" Hoss asked, flicking her hard in the forehead. She winced and leaned away, rubbing her face.

"Her real dad is in Banden," Ramona said, frowning. "Her 'dad' here is Riley's real dad, though. Kind of like with Ossie."

Hoss stayed quiet and kept writing, finishing out a sentence with a pointed dot for the period.

"Was there anything else?" he asked. "Anything about her mother, or--?"

"No, all they really yapped about was Saoirse," Ramona said. "Riley sounded really concerned. I guess she's not at home much these days. Even I don't know what she's up to half the time. I think she still hangs out with Silas a lot, though, when we're not all together. But these days we don't get together as much because--"

Hoss slapped his big, meaty hand over Ramona's mouth and leaned in to meet her eyes.

"I. Don't. Care," he said.

Which was a tone she knew well, these days. It was the rising pitch of a man who would use violence at the drop of a hat if it suited him, when it felt right, and when he wanted. Ramona knew better than to test the hands that shaped her - more than her own mother, or father - and she knew better than to push him. She'd accomplished the task, and that was enough, but he was the kind to renege on a promise if she irked him too much and performed too little.

He pulled away and she snapped her mouth shut. Hoss folded the paper over and put it neatly in an envelope that he sealed with his spit. He pulled a new piece of paper out of his pocket that was crumpled and ruddy, stuffed inside in a hurry. He handed it to her with a cold stare that cut through her, and she took it with steady hands.

"One last task," he said. "Then you'll earn it."

Ramona uncrumpled the paper.

It was a map of the town, with an alley circled in the space behind the Lowe Mansion.

"There's a package that needs to be picked up, hidden in the tree in the Lowe's backyard. It should be small enough to fit in your pocket. Pick it up unnoticed, and bring it and this envelope--"

He handed the report he penned to her.

"And bring it to the base."

Ramona's eyes widened.

"The... the base?" she asked.

No one was allowed near the base if they weren't a sun. That was cardinal law. Everyone in sticks knew that without a tattoo you'd be shot down with no apologies if you were inside the base's radius. Was Hoss trying to trick her? She couldn't go in there. She'd die!

"Just outside of it," Hoss said. "The man who'll pick it up will find you."

"This is such a cryptic, ominous invitation," Ramona said. "Perchance you should--"

"And don't talk like that to him," Hoss snapped. "Show him respect."

"Him! It's a he!" Ramona rejoiced, though she realized Hoss had already divulged as much by saying 'the man.'

Hoss seemed quite done with her idiocy, and he showed it by rolling his eyes and getting to his feet with a snarl, not unlike an angry dog. He marched out of their house without another word, leaving marching orders with his most annoying soldier. Ramona sat on the edge of the table and twiddled her feet together as she looked at the map once more, knowing well the streets she grew up in and which paths to take, unseen. It made her giddy at the thought, sweeping through town like a ghost, climbing up the tree like a cat, and leaving the town as a shadow. It all went just as she pictured, too: the Lowe's didn't see a thing, nor did their house staff, and leaving the town borders felt like a leap of faith.

This was Ramona's step into adulthood, and she could feel the thrill of growth, the challenge of responsibility, and the chaos of the unknown calling to her with open arms.

She was going to be the best Sun there ever was.

She was determined to be the favorite, if it was the last thing she did.

Skipping out into the forest, Ramona danced between the trees, floating around the dead underbrush. The bright blue sky peered through the treetops overhead, and just beyond her was the beaten road she'd betrayed that led straight to the base.

Ramona had determined that, if her brother was right, not a liar, and meant for her to live, that if he said: "the man will find you," he meant "the man will find you," no matter the circumstance. She couldn't, after all, know exactly where to meet him in the many miles that ran around the base, or which tree was more tree-ful, and which grass was most meeting-place-er-ly. That meant she got to choose -- and what a wonderful gift it was to have a choice! She liked making choices, and when she found a very nice pine with a suitable thick trunk, she leaped into its branches with lithe grace and waited, mimicking the occasional bird call for the birdy exchange.

She knew she'd picked rightly when a man stepped into view through the trees, sharp and clean, with sleek black hair combed back around his angular features.

It took Ramona a moment to take it all in: this was the Six of the Sticks, the 3/4 Sun, the man whose name was legend in every tavern, home, and street corner. It was none other than Uriah Pretorius himself, roaming the property of his base to greet her. And who better to find her, like a cat, in a tree? He was cut from the same cloth. Everything Ramona knew of him was that he was smart, sly, and cunning. He was charming, and people liked him. Respected him, even! The latter was something she could glean from: something she craved, but it was too much to bear her whole soul to the man as a mere messenger.

Delivery girl at her post, she spun out of the tree and landed on her feet, presenting the package and the letter with her hand on her hip and a winner's pose.

Uriah met her eyes with a smile.

"There you are," he said, approaching her.

"I have your very important package! Sir, yes, sir!" she barked, moving to kneel as she held it up for him.

Uriah towered over her and took it from her hands with ginger fingers. The weight lifted from her hands and she looked up, watching him tuck the small paper-wrapped package -- that could fit into his palm -- in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He looked down at her with a smirk.

"So," he said. "You're Hoss's sister."

Ramona got to her feet but flopped over in a bow. "That is I, your grace!"

Uriah smiled down at her, and for a split second, Ramona wondered if this was what it felt like to have a proud father, a proud father, or any kind of proud parent to look at you with eyes that saw potential.

Potential, and not just a burden.

She felt seen.

"Welcome to the family, Ramona," Uriah said. "You passed."



Ramona's heart was leaping inside her chest as she ran through the streets. Her stomach burned from the ink carved inside it, but the sensation was invigorating. She wanted to share this more than anything, and it propelled her forward, bumping into neighbors and lum-bums, thrashing through the streets like a wild horse with no cares, only thinking about one thing that would be no secret: she was a Blue Sun.

She and Ivy would be Blue Suns. They would get to do this together.

She never ran through the streets anymore, but this was a day to be seen. This was a day of celebration like no other.

She landed at Ivy's door. The door of her work shed, rather, and she knew that Ivy was in it because of the tells.

Ivy was inside if the window was cracked for ventilation. Ivy was inside if there was noise. Ivy was inside if Adonis was at home mulling over something silent, brooding, and making another letter confessing forbidden love.

Her fists rapped on the door in unison, making a raucous beat.

"Ivy! Ivy! Ivy!" she chanted, high on validation.

She heard a chuckle from inside, and footsteps rushing her way before the door flew open.

"Did you get it?" Ivy asked eagerly.

"I got it!" she said, lifting her shirt to show the tattoo on her tummy. She bounced on her feet. "Look! Look!"

"Woah," Ivy marveled, grinning at it. "Looks cool!"

"We can both work together, now!" Ramona said. "Or, at least, well actually--"

Maybe that was presumptuous. She knew she wasn't going to be her own boss, making the calls.

"It's like being in a club together!" she said instead.

The most exclusive, dangerous, really-big club that half the town was in. But it was still special!

"Right," Ivy agreed. "One we'll be in the rest of our lives."

"Uriah said: 'Welcome to the family,'" Ramona said with a dance of her feet. "So it's kind of like we're family now, more officially."

"We always were," Ivy said. "But it's definitely true now."

Ramona pulled Ivy into a big hug, squeezing her tight.

"Oh, I love this!" she gushed. "I'm so excited. I can't wait for all the adventures to come."

She twirled Ivy around and then pulled away with a big smile.

"What's your assignment right now?" Ramona asked. "Is it secret? Can I know?"

"Uriah wants a new bomb," Ivy explained, gesturing inside to her workspace. "He didn't say what he wanted in it-- he just said to 'surprise him'. He also wants more of the wind-up ones I've already designed."

Ramona's eyes lit up like stars. "Ivy, that's perfect! That's just what you love to do! This is like your dream job!"

"Yeah, I'm getting paid for the stuff I already do full-time. It's great." Ivy laughed. "What about you? What are you doing for them?"

Ramona's eyes dimmed, but she kept her smile.

"Oh! I'm uh-- well how did they put it--" she posed her fingers on her chin like a frame and tapped her foot.

"I'm in charge of delivering precious cargo between the Lowe residence and distributions to the public at large," she said, mimicking her brother's voice, though his words were much more boring.

'Drug Dealer' made it sound so dirty. That was an adult's job, and she was only sixteen! This made it sound more important.

"I take the thing, I hand out the thing, I get money for the thing, and ka-ching-ching! You know what I mean?" She pumped her hand in the air and gave Ivy a wink.

"I get the gist." Ivy chuckled. "That's good for you, too. You know how to get around here really well."

Ramona rubbed her hands together with a maniacal grin.

"And I shall'st become even betterer of a get-arounderer," she said, waggling her brows.

"I believe you will," Ivy said with a bow of her head.

Ramona wrapped her arm around Ivy's shoulders and pulled her in close.

"So, what should we do to celebrate?" she asked. "Any ideas?"

"You know, I made some fireworks the other day," Ivy mused. "New design. Want to test them out?"

Darting into the shed, Ramona skipped over the trap triggers with light feet.

"Let's watch 'em blow!!!"

Silas nestled a U-shaped piece of iron into the bed of glowing embers and began pumping the bellows, squinting from the sudden gust of heat as the fire swallowed it whole. Flipping the iron with a pair of tongs, he waited until the metal turned a bright straw-yellow, then carried it over to the anvil.

"Don't you ever make fun things anymore?" Saoirse asked from her perch on the stairs.

"Like what?"

"I dunno, like. Goat figures?" Saoirse said. "Or knives. Or goat figure knives."

Silas lifted the hammer and snorted.

Clang.

He stopped, wincing. The sun was extra bright today, the fire was extra hot, and the sound of metal striking metal was unbearable - it felt like his head was about to explode. He dug around in the apron pocket and pulled out a wad of sheep's wool, tucked away exactly for this purpose.

"Are you even listening to me?" Saoirse said, louder than was really necessary, as Silas plugged his ears with wool.

"Goat figure knives, huh?" he said. "I'd love to see that."

"Never realized you had ear hair." Saoirse laughed quietly. "Looks stupid."

Silas stuck out his tongue at her and turned back to the anvil.

"You know what's not stupid?" Subtle Saoirse leaned forward dramatically. "Another knife. You should tooooootally make me one."

Silas' reply came between hammers. "I think." Clang. "You have." Clang. "Plenty." Clang. "Miss Carver."

Now it was Saoirse's turn to stick out her tongue. "Boo, no fun."

Once he was satisfied with the flattened shape of the horseshoe, Silas pocketed his earplugs and raised the rapidly dimming metal to his eye, checking for imperfections. Good enough. Dunking it into a barrel of water, it hissed like the juicy rabbit meat Morgan cooked for them last week, courtesy of Saoirse's snares.

His hearing no longer muffled, it was very easy for him to pick up on all the conversations going on around them. Across the street, Ayda was bartering with the apothecary. A drunken Pieter was talking to his horse (again). And just outside the bakery, Mrs. Jones was gossiping with Miss Lidia about—

"Hey Silas," Saoirse said, "I was thinking . . ."

"Shhh!" Silas raised a finger, cocking his ear towards the bakery.

Saoirse stiffened and, thankfully, fell silent.

"Well, I heard she's barren," Miss Lidia was saying. "Uriah resents her for it."

"Poor thing," Mrs. Jones said. "And with her sister gone, too."

"I'm not sure that she cares. Things were always tense between those two, even when they were teenagers. I heard she wasn't even wearing black after Celia died."

Mrs. Jones clicked her tongue. "I know the Carvers never liked the Suns, but was it that bad? Celia should've known better."

"Get this," Lidia said, lowering her voice. "There's a rumor that Celia poisoned Delia, and that's why the Suns went after her."

"Dragons above," Mrs. Jones whispered.

"Think about it. When was the last time you saw Delia outside the base?"

"Oh, it's been a few years, at least."

The pair began strolling down the street, carrying their loaves and their voices with them. Silas strained to catch their last few words.

"That's just it!" Lidia agreed. "I think she's sick. Still hasn't recovered from whatever Celia did to her."

"That reminds me, I was visiting the miller's wife the other day, and . . ."

Silas sighed, but really it was more like a shudder. He snatched the dripping horseshoe from the barrel and tossed it into a pile with the others.

"What was that all about?" Saoirse asked.

"A couple of ladies, talking about my mom," he said, feeling a bit sick himself. "And yours."

"Oh." For a moment, Saoirse looked like she was about to cry. Then her gaze hardened and she almost looked angry, as if the tears were somehow at fault. Silas turned away so she didn't feel like she needed to hide anything. It was a moment before she spoke again. "What did they say?"

Silas picked at the scales of rust on the tongs. "They were saying that they . . ." He searched for the right words. "That they didn't get along. Is that true, Saoirse?"

"I don't know." Saoirse frowned. "Again, I don't really know anything about her. She never came to visit, and it's not like my mom ever talked about her."

Silas nodded and looked away. "I can't believe my . . . I can't believe Uriah would do that to his own family. How did my mom let that happen?"

Saoirse shrugged and kicked at the ground. Silas knew she'd been wondering the same thing for years. "I don't know." She said. "It just makes me so angry. I don't know if she could've done something or even if she would've wanted to."

"I'm sure she would've," Silas said. He was still holding out hope that one of his parents was a good person. It didn't seem too far-fetched, especially if she was anything like Aunt Celia. But what kind of person could endure Uriah's evil for that long, even after he murdered her sister?

And . . . could she be good in any real sense, if she chose to give away her only son?

He pushed the thought away and grabbed a raw shaft of iron.

"I hope you're right." Saoirse muttered. She kicked at the ground again, flinging a stray chunk of charcoal across the smithy. It smacked against the wall and crumbled. Dust and bits of debris settled onto the cobblestones.

"It just makes me so angry," she said. "People don't even know what they're talking about but they still keep saying she deserved it. That it's better that she's dead. And then they look at me and it's like they think I'm gonna snap if anyone gets too close."

Saoirse shook her head. "I wish I would. Not like anyone else is going to."

Silas wished he'd lied about the ladies' gossip. Said they were discussing the latest Blue Suns tattoo trends or something like that. It frightened him to see Saoirse's blood boiling like this.

"You wish you would . . . what, exactly?" he asked, inserting a casual lilt to his tone.

That seemed to snap Saoirse out of it. She looked down, almost ashamed. "I should go," she said, picking up her things. "I need to check my traps."

Disappointed, Silas wanted to probe her further but decided it wasn't the right time. "Stay safe, Carver," he said.

In the immediate vacancy of her presence, he started to feel a familiar tightening around his lungs.

No. There was no tightness. He was imagining it.

He stuffed his ears with the wool and kept his head low. Forge. Bellows. Hammer. Forge. Bellows. Hammer. Forge. Bellows. Hammer. Barrel. Hiss. Repeat.

Saoirse said she wished she would snap, because no one else would. What did she mean by that? Stand up for her mother, and challenge the Suns? Stand up against Uriah, knives against fangs?

No option he could think of sounded safe. The sick feeling in his stomach gurgled again.

He wished he and Saoirse had some money to flee the Sticks together, once and for all, and find a safe little town to live, far away from Uriah's grasp. Silas would build his own smithy, and Saoirse would be a huntsman and sell pelts. They'd buy more goats so Kyle would have friends, and they'd enjoy endless cheese and butter with Saoirse's grilled rabbits and herbs. He'd learn to get the whole werewolf thing under control again, and she'd learn what to do with her bitter anger.

The wool felt hot in his ears. He didn't like to keep them in for so long because it left him unalert to his surroundings. Unalert to his father. But he just needed to get through this day. Shut out all the voices on the street and maintain control.

Clang . . . Clang . . . Clang . . .

Before the accident, Morgan whistled when he hammered. He said it was important to keep a good rhythm, otherwise the warping of the malleable metal would be unpredictable.

Silas had told him he didn't see the point in whistling when he could hear the rhythm of his own heartbeat just fine. Morgan had given him a quizzical look but didn't bring it up again. So that's what Silas did. Hammered to his pulse.

Today was no different, but he became uncomfortably aware that his hammering was getting faster.

So be it. He'd finish the farrier's order sooner.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

No, he was getting sloppy. Even Saoirse, were she here, would notice that the end of the U tapered at an awkward angle, breaking symmetry.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he carried the horseshoe back to the coals and pumped the bellows. This time, the whoosh of hot air made him feel dizzy.

It wasn't just his nose and pimpled cheeks that felt hot, it was his whole body, inside and out, suddenly feverish and trembling, with a ringing, buzzing sound growing in his ears.

Silas stumbled backwards and clutched at his ears, and the tongs tumbled over the lip of the furnace, flinging sparks, and crashed like a thunderclap on the stone floor. The ringing in his head screeched in anguish and Silas wanted to scream too, but no sound escaped his throat.

Amidst the feverish heat overwhelming his senses, a sudden, ice-cold arrow of dread struck him in the chest, and from then on it became very difficult to breathe.

He was vaguely aware of the door swinging open and Morgan rolling down the makeshift ramp in his wheelchair, yelling something. Silas was bent over the anvil, gripping it white-knuckled, gasping for air, when he felt something touch him on the shoulder, and reflexively he jabbed his elbow. There was another loud sound, and Silas didn't know what was happening but he knew that he needed to get away, somewhere quiet and dark and safe, now.

Sprinting across the Sticks without air in his lungs was not an easy feat. In wonder of his speed, he found himself checking his hands and feet to make sure they hadn't turned to paws. The encroaching blackness around the edges of his vision made it nearly impossible to locate Ivy's hideout, but against all odds, he was soon fumbling with the rusty knob and thrusting the door open.

Safety.

Well, not yet.

Wheezing in desperate impatience, his eyes darted around the dark hallway, locating points of interest: a strand of twine, stretched end to end, ankle-high; a thick sheen of grease coating three floorboards; and dangling above the doorframe, hanging down by the ceiling by the same tripwire, a small explosive with the pin ready to pull out at the slightest motion of the cord.

Heaving a short, rattling breath, Silas pulled himself together just enough to step in mostly the right places. He'd never done this alone - normally he'd be following Ivy or one of the others, matching their footsteps as if they were crossing a stream's slippery rocks.

He was stepping shakily over the grease when there was a brilliant flash of white light, and for a millisecond he feared he had done it - he'd tripped over something and this was the end - but then he remembered something from the werewolf book: the creature's shift is marked by an explosion of white fire. So, just like that, he found himself halfway through the booby-trapped hallway on all unfortunate fours.

The wolf scrambled for purchase as one of his back paws slipped on the grease. By some miracle he escaped the hallway, tumbling snout-first into Ivy's workbench.

Whimpering and panting, Silas shook himself off and did a quick scan of the room, bumping into more furniture to as he rotated his bulky form to make sure no one else was there. His surroundings were bluish now, and the windows cast a sickly yellow glow.

Shifting wasn't anything new to him anymore, and not just because of the book. Close to a dozen times now it'd happened unwillingly at night after Morgan was asleep, and once with Saoirse when he'd climbed a tree to hide in. Wolves do not belong in trees, they'd learned. Nor do they fall from them very well.

When it happened at night and he would need to stay absolutely quiet, he'd decided that the best thing to do was lie down and place his paws over his muzzle and take deep breaths. He did this now, shutting the eyes that were much too far apart and saw much too clearly into the darkest corners of the room, and waited for it all to be over.

The werewolf book said that wolven humans lost all control and became ravenous, like sharks smelling blood. He didn't feel that way now, but maybe that was just because there were no humans around. If Ivy chose this unfortunate moment to come in to work on her explosives, he might be no different from his father on the Carvers' front porch.

Hopelessness threatened to strangle him. He couldn't keep on living like this. Sooner or later he'd fulfill his monstrous identity and with a flash of white teeth meet his end at the hands of DAMG.

Well, unless Uriah intervened. He wasn't sure which would be worse.

Restless and miserable and still struggling to catch his breath, Silas got up and dragged himself into a corner to hide. Tucking his nose under his paws again, he willed himself to daydream about the peaceful village he and Saoirse would live in soon, where they'd start fresh and figure this all out.

Turning back into a human was like falling asleep. The harder you try, the less likely it'll happen.

So he meditated on that village, absorbing each and every litte detail - the creak of the miller's water wheel, the scent of smoked ham, the soft grass between his toes.

There was a second flash of light, and Silas was human again. And just in time, too.

He jumped when he heard the creak of the door, then soft footsteps. He could do little more than scoot himself back into the corner before Ivy entered the room. Ivy hummed a quiet tune on her way to the table, pushing aside nails, wires and other small metal items to clear the space for her to work.

Then all the sounds from her paused. Silas waited in dreading silence before he finally heard her murmur, "Weird."

The flour.

It came back to him now. Ivy had mentioned off-handedly that she'd sprinkled flour in some parts of the hideout to track footprints. Idiot! How'd he forget?

Ivy was smart. Real smart. She'd put two and two together in no time and run home and tell Adonis her friend was a monster. Better yet, she might just nick the tripwire on her way out, vanquishing the beast in one heroic boom.

He'd better come up with something, quick.

Sitting up, Silas wiped the sweat from his brow with his bandana. "Oh, hey Ivy."

Ivy startled a little, turning her head directly to him. While she was clearly not expecting to find him there, she seemed content to see him.

"Silas!" she said. "What are you doing over there? You picked the dustiest spot in the room."

Silas forced a laugh. "Sorry. I was taking a nap. Chasing that dog all day really tuckered me out."

"Wait, so there is a dog," Ivy said, chuckling as she stood and pointed at the flour-- where, sure enough, pawprints had stamped through the white powder. "You know, I knew I shouldn't have used grease at the entrance. Probably attracts a ton of wildlife."

Encouraged by her reinforcement of the story, Silas nodded vigorously. "Exactly. He was hounding Kyle earlier, probably looking for his next meal. I chased him all the way over here, and somehow he snuck in. I was afraid he was gonna blow the whole place up!"

"Yep, the grease is definitely going," Ivy said, snatching a rag off a shelf overhead and darting back to the door to fiercely rub at the floorboards. "The only thing worse than this place spontaneously exploding would be is if it exploded and killed a puppy."

"Glad to hear you have your limits," Silas chuckled, remembering the time Ramona had set one of the goats' tail on fire.

As she was kneeling, Silas noticed a mark on her upper arm. Was that . . .?

"Ivy!" he said, standing and shrugging off a wave of dizziness to get a closer look. "You got singed!"

Pausing in her work, Ivy looked up to meet his eyes, then nodded with a small smile as she rolled up her sleeve to show the blue ray in full. "I did! That was just earlier this week. Isn't it cool?"

"Not long after the explosion, then." Silas noticed her skin was red around the edges of the ink. "Did it hurt?" he asked, instinctively rubbing his own upper arm.

"Definitely a bit," Ivy said. "I'm sure it would've been a lot worse if it were the whole sun instead of just one beam at a time. Thankfully, that's not how it works."

"So you're one of them now," Silas said, more out of wonder than of spite. It made sense Ivy would become a Blue Sun. It was a family thing. "Following Juni's legacy," he added outloud.

Ivy's lightheartedness dropped in a heartbeat, falling into a flat scowl as she resumed her violent scrubbing. Her eyes were calm, but for a second, it looked like she was taking something out on the floorboards.

"I'm not following anyone," she said. "I'm just taking my skills where someone can pay me for them. There isn't much demand for what I can do outside of the Suns."

Silas was quick to reassure her. "Oh, absolutely. Your skills are way different." He was cognizant enough to know he'd struck a nerve, but too emotionally exhausted to wonder exactly how. "The Suns are lucky to have you," seemed like the right thing to say.

Somewhat appeased, Ivy nodded and kept on scrubbing, though her smile didn't return. Silas sensed that a change in subject would be appreciated - doubtlessly Ivy was stressed from all her new Blue Suns duties - but he had one more question that was nagging at him.

"Who singed you, anyway? Was it your dad?"

"Hmm?" Ivy looked up, folding the rag into a neat square as she stood again. "Oh, not him. Weirdly, he wasn't the most thrilled about the whole thing. No, it was Uriah himself."

Under other circumstances, Silas would have been struck with a lightning bolt of panic, but as it was, his well of anxiety was all dried up. He was left with only a profound fatigue, deepened further by this charade of pleasantries with Ivy, and this terrible news did nothing but hit him with a new wave of exhaustion.

Silas saw stars, but managed to catch himself on the edge of a cabinet before he crashed to the floor. "Uriah himself," he repeated dumbly.

"Yeah," Ivy said, and there was something he couldn't read in her voice. "I'm kind of surprised, too. I meant to get attention, but I didn't think I'd be getting his."

It was only a matter of time, Silas thought, before Uriah told his newest protégé about his long lost son. And Ivy was smart. Real smart.

"I should go now," Silas said, abruptly. "I'm sure you have a lot to work on."

Ivy blinked, and he could tell he'd confused her with his suddenness. But after a moment or two of silent assessment, she shrugged. "I mean, I don't want to kick you out," she said, "and you're welcome to stick around if you want. But yeah, there is a lot to do."

Silas felt a pang of guilt for mistrusting his friend so easily. "Thanks," he said, hugging himself and nodding. "See you later."

Ivy managed a smile in return, and although it didn't have the same vibrancy he knew to expect from her, it was nevertheless still genuine. "See ya, Silas."

The setting sun flicked between gaps in the houses, blinding him on his walk home.

So Ivy was a Blue Sun now. Not only a Sun, but Uriah's personal explosives expert.

Silas had been careful the last few years, ever since learning about his dad, but careful wasn't going to cut it anymore. That little wolf adventure he'd had today almost got him killed. He needed to get the shifting thing under control. Now.

There was a page in the werewolf book about a drug called lumshade. DAMG used it to control mages and werewolves, effectively hindering their ability to use magic. But where was he going to find any?

Silas didn't know much about lumshade, but he'd picked up on a few things, mostly from eavesdropping. He knew that the Suns passed it around, and he'd seen his fair share of "lumbums" - miserable folk with purple fingertips, enslaved to their addiction. He'd never ever let himself get anywhere close to that point, he'd just have a little here and there to keep the wolf away. The only problem was that lumshade wasn't easy to come by.

Ivy was a Sun now . . . maybe she would know where to start? Or Caelan, who was already a two?

Silas knew he couldn't trust either of them anymore, but he didn't know who else to turn to.

Silas went around back to check on Kyle before going inside. That's when he heard Morgan's voice, soft and urgent.

"I'm fine," he was saying. "The ramp buckled and I fell. We'll get it repaired tomorrow."

Silas paused. The ramp broke? How?

In reply came the voice of the doctor lady, the one who told Morgan his hip was busted and he'd have to spend the rest of his life sitting down. "And what, you fell right into someone's fist?"

Morgan breathed a long rattling sigh. "There are plenty o' things to bang your head on in a smithy, Miss. Might've been a crate or something."

Silas paled. In the frazzled memory of that afternoon, he recalled the momentary weight of a hand on his shoulder while he was bent over the anvil, wheezing. What had happened after that? Had he hurt Morgan without knowing it?

"Didn't that orphan boy see?" the doctor asked.

"Silas wasn't there."

The doctor clicked her tongue. "I don't like the look of that welt. If I find out that Silas boy is to blame for any of this, I'm letting the authorities know."

There was a loud bang on the kitchen table. "That boy is the only reason I still have a roof over my head."

A pause.

"I'll check in on you in a couple weeks," the doctor said, primly.

Silas waited a few minutes after the doctor left before going inside. Morgan was, thankfully, shut away in his bedroom. He checked the ramp outside and, as he feared, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

With an exhausted sigh, Silas collapsed onto his straw mattress and squeezed his eyes shut, his head swimming between Saoirse and his mom, Ivy and Uriah, Morgan and lumshade.

Morgan and lumshade?

Silas' eyes flew open. That was it! He would use Morgan as his excuse.

He'd tell Caelan or Ivy that Morgan wasn't feeling well, and he'd gone out to find him some relief.

Silas didn't mean to fall asleep with the sun still out and supper uneaten, but, for once, peaceful dreams came easily.

WC: 3954
Collab with @Corvid & @Silvern