<b>Chapter </b><b>125 </b>


    I stared at theet until my chest felt less crowded. It helped. A little. Not enough.


    “Mace?” I whispered.


    Her eyes didn’t open<b>, </b>but her eyebrows did a question. That counts.


    “I think my real family might be looking for me,” I said, the words small and big at the same time. “Like…my same kind. Maybe same blood.”


    She made an encouraging “mm,” then nudged Fergus toward me so he could hear properly. Half–asleep Macey is very generous with her staff.


    “I don’t know if they’re nice,” I went on, because if I didn’t say all the pieces, they’d keep rolling around. “The threads said kin and child. Levi says they’re Soul Eaters like me. Maybe they’re just trying to see if I’m real. But what if my family here doesn’t like them? What if my family here hurts my… maybe–family?” Thest bit tasted wrong together. <b>I </b>swallowed and tried again. “What if they hurt you?”


    Macey’sshes fluttered. “You’re right here,” she mumbled into the nket, very practical. Then, like she just remembered, her hand fished out from under the duvet and patted my cheek twice. “Two hands,” she dered.


    I turned my head. “What?”


    “One for old family,” she said, holding up a finger without opening her eyes, “one for new family.” Second finger, very wobbly. “If one hand is mean, you put it down.” Both fingers dropped onto the nket to demonstrate. Then she found my palm and set her small


    hand there. “This hand is for me.”


    That helped more than theet.


    “I don’t want anyone to bite anyone,” I said, which was true, even if the picture of Layah snapping at a rude thread made a satisfied ce in my chest purr.


    At the foot of the bed, Layah’s tail thumped once without her lifting her head. Correct.


    “I think there was a little boy,” I whispered, because the words wanted out even if she wasn’t fully listening. “Before Marcus<b>. </b>I think I held him when he cried and told him it


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    <b>13:35 </b>Wed, Sep 3 <b>C </b>


    was okay, and it was. He might be my brother.<b>” </b>


    93%


    Macey shifted closer until her forehead touched my shoulder. “Do we like him?” she asked


    the nket.


    “I hope so.” The hoping tugged something sharp and soft inside my ribs. “I don’t know him enough to miss him. But my body remembers him and gets sad about it.”


    “Okay,” she said, decisive and drowsy at the same time. “If we find him and he’s nice, I


    will share Fergus.” A pause, enormous sacrifice measured. “Sometimes.”


    “Sometimes is generous,” I said solemnly.


    “If he’s mean,” she added, practical as a judge, “he doesn’t get Nana cake. House rule.<b>” </b>


    “Good rule.” I squeezed her hand under the covers. Her fingers were warm and a little sticky because half–asleep children are mostly glue. “What if my maybe–family wants me to go with them?”


    Macey’s hand tightened around mine, small and fierce. “You can’t leave me…but I can’t go with you either.”


    Hearing her bossy little voice put the chair back under me. “Right,” I said. “Right.”


    “Also,” she added, because diplomacy had just urred to her, “if they’re scared, we give


    practice cake. Not Nana cake. The other one.”


    I snorted and tried to turn it into a cough. “Practice cake is excellent policy.<b>” </b>


    She hummed agreement and tucked Fergus under her chin, leaving his felt paw in my direction like a high–five. “You’re Elliot,” she said, already sliding toward sleep again.. “You’re mine.” Softer: “I’m yours.”


    Something in me stopped trying to be in two ces at once. I rolled onto my side so I could face her and still look up at the sky. Over us, theet blinked like it was taking notes. The music turned down a notch. I slid my free hand to the wall and fed the ward a little breath the way Levi and Envy taught me, nket, not re. The room purred. <i>Got </i><i>him</i>, it said. <i>Sleep</i><b>, </b><i>small</i>.


    “<b>Be </b>kind or be far,” I told the dark, not loud, not scared. I put it next to the other rule and


    13:35 <b>Wed</b><b>, </b>Sep <b>3 </b>


    they didn’t fight. Macey’s grip loosened as sleep pulled her under. I kept holding anyway, <b>because </b>sometimes the job is to be the person who stays awake long enough to make sure the small person doesn’t drift away. Layah inched higher until her back pressed against <b>my </b>feet and pretended she meant to all along.


    “Hey,” I whispered after a while, in case the universe was still taking requests. “If the little boy is real, and he’s mine, let him be the kind who says it’s okay and makes it true<b>.</b><b>” </b>


    Theet winked like it had written it down. The room warmed the floor another fraction. The marbles in my head finally stopped cking and stacked into something like a bridge. Curious is allowed. Leaving is not. I tucked that beside Macey’s hand and let sleep find me, two truths sharing a nket, Fergus on guard, Layah breathing slow at our feet, the kingdom’s heartbeat steady under the bed, our family building a vestibule in the dark where words have to tell the truth. If the little boy with jam hands is real, he’ll know


    it already.


    Dreams slide open like a door I didn’t have to knock on. Grasses first, always: buttercups painting my knees yellow, bees bumping the world gentle. The sky is close and forever. Augh spills into it, hers, bright as a handful of coins. Freckles, sun in her hair, the shadow of a braid tickling my cheek when she leans down. “Elliot!” a man calls, and the namends steady, the way a handnds between shoulder des so you don’t tumble. Leather, pine sap, bread. He has a nick in his knuckle from fixing something that was stubborn. He expects me to reach. There’s a smaller weight tucked under my chin, jam–hands, bruise–knee, the little puff of breath that hups when crying forgets itself. My palm circles a tiny back. “It’s okay,” I say, and feel truth click into ce like a bead on


    a string.


    ? ?


    We are four shadows in wide light. A nket that smells like line–dried cotton. A wooden cow with one ear, carved wonky and beloved. A tin mug. The woman ties a red thread around my wrist and another around the small boy’s. “So I can find you,” she teases, but her eyes say keep close.


    Names float near and won’t settle. I catch scraps:little star, my boys. The man’sugh is a low river; when I bnce on the fence he stands nearby, not catching, trusting. Wind lifts the field and turns it into a sea; the boy ps and yells “boat!” I hoist him like a mast. He smells like sugar and dirt. A song drifts, a luby that hums the same three notes my


    room now sings<b>. </b>


    Dream tries to end. I hold thest frame: four shadows, threads bright on two wrists, the


    path home a red line only we can see.