Jack nods, but there’s an odd look on his face, one that I don’t know how to interpret. He looks like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t have.
“He’s reading them,” he continues.
Quite often I’m bemused by people. They never say what they mean or mean what they say, and this occasion has me entirely confused. So, of course, I push past him into the room to see whatever Jack’s doing a terrible job of hiding.
The door swings open to a little living room, with a broken sofa at one end and a rotting window seat beneath the huge bay window. And I immediately comprehend what he was trying to tell me. My brother Kit is reading the pile of newspapers, and books that Jack brought him. In itself, that’s not unusual. After all, he’s a man who’s curious about a lot of things.
The issue is that he’s reading all of them. All at once.
Kit has laid out the pages and plastered all over the floor while he’s sitting in the middle of a circle of them, like he’s a witch trying to absorb their knowledge with a ritual.
“Kit? How are you doing there, fella?” I ask, pulling off my sodden coat and leaving it to drip dry over the door before kicking off my boots.
He doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s too lost in working his way through the pages, turning them at a frantic pace and muttering under his breath.
And, well, I’m not used to being the more lucid brother.
Even before the labs, Kit was always better at coping with the world. I still recall the look on his face when he was raising the alarm and getting me out of that cell. Kit had somehow got himself loose and confused the shit out of the idiots holding him, and then he came for me. He stood there and, with one touch, left the sadists testing on me pissing their pants in the corner.
Then he tore their memories clean out of their heads, cursed the land, and everyone of those fuckers who knew what they’d done to us.
If it weren’t for Kit, we probably wouldn’t have got out.
“Kit?” I crouch down beside him, but his eyes are totally focused on the pages in front of him. “What’s happening here, fella?”
Glancing up at Jack, I earn a sheepish grin. “He’s been like this for hours, ever since I gave him the bag. Doesn’t seem to hear a word I’ve said to him.”
“It’s late,” I say to the room at large, because that sounds like a thing someone should say in this situation. “Jack, you’ve been flying for hours. You should head to bed.”
“Are you sure?” He hesitates, but now that I’m looking at him, I notice he looks a little haggard.
“Sure as sure can be,” I tell him. “Get yourself to bed.”
He nods and then potters off out the door, leaving just me and my brother.
My trousers are sodden and sticking to my legs, but I plop down onto the floor beside Kit anyway and reach for a page. Scanning it, I grab another and then another before chuckling to myself. The pages all focus on King Wildrake. His likes, dislikes, his family history. There’s even a story from his latest gardenparty, complete with an artist’s rendering of what it might have looked like.
“Seems there’s a running theme here,” I say. “Have you taken a new special interest in the bastard king?”
“We need to find out what he likes,” Kit mutters. “Because what if he only wears embroidered underwear? What if he doesn’t wear anything under his trousers at all?”
I blink at that. “And why have you suddenly taken a special interest in that man’s underthings?”
“Know your enemy,” he says. His eyes flick up to meet mine for just a second before returning to the page. Silence falls between us as we both flick through page after page of newspaper stories and history books, even one book that’s entirely dedicated to Wildrake fashion.
“We’re not going back there,” he murmurs after a little while. “Not joining his war for him either.”
“I know we’re not. He’ll die first,” I say. “What’s going on here, my man? Are you missing your shop?”
Maybe that’s what this is about. Maybe he’s creating a new collection to replace all the stuff he’s had to leave behind back home.
Kit grunts and I grunt right back. Usually, you can’t get him to shut up, but right now it seems like all of his focus is on reading.
“How’s your lady love doing? Is she a fan of the house?” I continue.
“She’s fine,” Kit replies quietly. “Adapting.”
“And are you going to tell me what all this is about?” I wave a tentacle to illustrate all of... this.
