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“It means we protect our own. It means we may hate each other, yes, but the Folotto clan under Damen—our fucking cousins are not included in that—have unwavering loyalty to each other. That was the one thing our father drilled into us from the moment we could understand words. Blood first. Blood binds us, and each one of us would die for the other. Venetia included. No matter that I think she’ll eventually destroy all of us, she’s still one of us.”
My head snapped back. “So you’re a cult?”
“Call us what you will. But the Folotto family has ruled the malefics for eons. We don’t intend for that to change. And your presence here—you’re interfering with that.”
We turned to the left again and I nodded to myself, walking a few steps in silence. He didn’t want to kill Venetia, even if he hated her—I believed him on that score. For that alone, I had to rein myself in. Venetia needed all the allies she could get in our twisted world. “You said you’re his eldest, correct?”
“Yes.”
I looked up to him. “You are to take over the reins of the family when Damen decides it is no longer for him?”
“You mean when he dies?”
A question that would normally raise the hackles on my neck, but Leo was much like his father. Death was always a part of the malefic world, and they had a much more comfortable relationship with the grim reaper than most panthenites did.
“What if your father didn’t die? What if he just wanted to be done? Done with leading the malefics?”
Leo’s jawline tightened with a twitch. “That is exactly why I’m here. There is no retirement for him. We still need him. We need my father in power, leading the way.”
“Who exactly iswe?”
“The family.”
My brows drew together. “You are not ready to take over?”
His eyes lifted to the sky. “What I am ready for is irrelevant. But to answer your question, yes, I am ready to take over.”
We turned another corner. “Then why not do that? If you think he’s distracted by me to the point he cannot lead, why don’t you just officially take over?”
He strolled for a few steps, his hand lifting and rubbing along his jawline. Contemplating. Taking measure of me just as I was taking measure of him.
He glanced at me. “Do you know much about hermit crabs, Ada?”
Topic whiplash.
My forehead furrowed, I looked up to him. “Hermit crabs? Whatever for?”
He stared at me in silence.
“No, I don’t know much about hermit crabs other than they are the token trip souvenir for ten-year-olds vacationing in Florida. That is the extent of my knowledge on them.”
“They are odd little creatures.” He nodded, his stare going onto the evergreen hedge we were approaching. “When a new shell perfect for their mushy little back ends washes up on shore, they gather in a horde, all of them checking it out. Measuring it up. Determining if it’s the next size up for them. Then the one that needs it the most, that has deemed it the perfect fit for growing bigger, lines up next to it, ready to pull its fleshy little body out of one shell and slip it into the next shell.”
My shoulders lifted. “Seems right.”
“That’s not the fascinating thing about hermit crabs. It’s what the rest of the horde does behind the one that is about to move into its new home. They line up in order of size behind the biggest one. There is jostling, of course. Who is bigger and where they should all be in the order. But eventually, there is a tidy little line behind the leader. Biggest to smallest. The big one doesn’t make a move into its new shell until that line is solid, ready. Only once all the crabs are in place behind it does it make its move into the bigger shell. That transition has to be quick, for a crab like that can’t afford to be out of a shell—its main defense—for more than a quick second. They’re too vulnerable otherwise. Tail out and into the shelter of the new shell as quickly as possible.”
We stopped at the intersection of a three-way branch. I pointed to the right and we kept moving.
Leo continued on. “Once the leader makes a move into the new shell, then right behind it in the line of succession, the next crab quickly moves into the shell vacated by the leader. And so it goes down the line. One after another. A new, bigger home for everyone. Every crab wins, and the predators looking to eat them in their moment of weakness lose.”
He paused, shaking his head as his look went to the grey sky above us. “Fascinating creatures, those little crabs.”
My right cheek lifted in half a smile. “Your crabs are not in order, are they?”
His feet stopped and he turned fully toward me. “No. Far from it. I’m working at it, waiting, trying not to force my siblings into position, but there are too many vulnerabilities along the line right now. I need my father to be present, to be the leader we need him to be. He is stability. And the malefics need stability right now.”
I puffed out a sigh that crystallized into a tiny cloud between us. “And you need him to not be distracted by the likes of me.”
