I hate it when he bosses me around, but for some reason, I listen.
Callum returns before I can change my mind, hopping on one foot as he shoves the other into a white sneaker. He’s holding a baseball cap, which he tosses to me as he says, “Your hair looks like shit.”
I grunt and slide it on my head.
Neither of us speak as Callum leads me to the kitchen.
He starts a pot of coffee, and we both watch the steaming liquid trickle down. It covers the bottom first, andeach additional drip sends a tiny ripple outward until the coffee laps rhythmically against the curved glass walls.
Once it beeps, I drag my eyes away from the pot and grab the creamer from the fridge. French vanilla. Basic as fuck and exactly what I need right now. I dump a hefty amount in the silver tumbler Callum presses into my hand and secure the lid.
We’re officially out of distractions.
“Maze?” Callum mumbles.
“Sure.”
We walk outside without exchanging another word. There’s no one in the courtyard besides the gurgling marble fountain. Once inside the maze, we take a few turns until we reach the small bench Mom installed a few years back. Cal points at it and grunts. I grunt back.
Then we’re sitting, and I know I can’t be quiet any longer. Words are piling up in my head, but none of them make sense. I try to run my fingers through my hair but bump the brim of the hat instead.Idiot.
Callum waits, oddly patient while I try and fail to wrangle my thoughts.
“Do you ever feel like... shit, like you aren’t actually you?”Wow, that may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever said out loud.Callum’s going to roast me for that. It didn’t even make sense to me. I brace for the teasing, but he surprises me.
“Do you mean that you don’t exist or you’re scared to admit that you do?”
I blink down at my feet. One of my shoes is untied, the white strings dragging in the gravel and dirt. “I don’t know,” I admit.
Cal takes a sip of his coffee and shifts his weight on the bench. “Growing up, there was a lot of focus on who we should be, and not enough focus on who we were. It’s—” He sighs. “It’s disorienting.”
“They loved us,” I mutter. “I know that.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Callum nod. “They did. They also loved their legacy.”Gods. There it is.The reality that tore the Casanell family apart, not all at once, but via a million tiny tears spread over years.
I gulp, and the truth tumbles out, rocks rolling downhill. “I thought if I could be what he wanted, that you wouldn’t leave. That if I worked hard and my nightmares were strong enough; he’d be excited to have sons who manifested differently.”
Callum makes a wounded sound. “You were a kid, Ciprian.”
“So were you.”
“But I was older,” he insists. “It was my job to think the best of you, instead I decided you were doing it on purpose to make me look bad. It seemed easy for you. I... gods, I had to get away.” He gestures around us and swallows hard. “From Dad, the compound, and the whispersthat followed me everywhere: ‘there goes Callum Casanell, the only incubus demon in the Hall of Nightmares.’ I didn’t think about how it would affect you, and I’m sorry for that.”
I clear my throat, my knuckles turning white around the metal tumbler. “And if I had asked you to stay?” It’s the question I’ve been tormenting myself with since the day he and Gideon left. I was fourteen years old at the time, but eleven years hasn’t erased the pain. I can still picture it clearly: Callum’s fists clenched at his side. Dad’s face purple with rage. The tears Mom wouldn’t let fall.
The world was ending—my world at least.
A phantom ache runs the length of my jaw, exactly how it did when I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming as he drove away without me.
“I wouldn’t have stayed,” Callum says. “But I would have figured out a way to bring you with me. I swear, I would have. I’d have gotten Starfall Academy to admit you early or found us a place and waited to enroll until you were old enough,too. I didn’t—fuck Ciprian—my life was falling apart. You asked me if I ever felt like I didn’t exist, but it was different for me: I existedwrongand I hated it.”
A tear rolls from the inner corner of my eye and drips off the tip of my nose. I wipe it away with the back of my hand. “Don’t say that,” I hiss. “Don’t ever say that. You were my hero.”
Callum makes a choking noise and bumps his shoulder against mine. “I’m not going anywhere this time. I want... shit, I don’t know how to explain it, but I don’t want to make Dad’s mistakes.”
“You want to be brothers again?”
Two birds rocket out of the hedge, chasing each other into the sky and loudly bickering. I watch them disappear into the mist. It’s bluer now than when we first sat down in the dull, heavy grayness of early morning. I’ve always thought this was the most embarrassing time of day. Getting out of bed before the sun is rude, like showing up at someone’s house unannounced and using their hide-a-key to let yourself in before they’ve had a chance to brush their teeth.
