Son of Flame

by Nausika_Universe

Summary:

Being the son of the Fuhrer and then first-ever elected president of Amestris, Roy Mustang, sounds like the coolest thing out there. But 12 year old Lucien knows it's a lot more chaotic than people would think...

Notes:

Hi everyone! This is the sequel to Expecting the Unexpected, which isn't necessary to know for understanding this story. Just how Royai got here :)

English isn't my native language, so if you find mistakes or if something's unclear, don't hesitate to let me know. All kinds of reviews are very welcome!

Without further ado, hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Son of the President

 

 

"… the way he holds his pen."

Snickering behind me distracts from the equation on the blackboard. I briefly shut my eyes. Just one lesson more. You can do it.

"Another pen and he's ready to scoop up rice."

They cackle. I adjust my grip slightly, unsuspiciously. They only snicker more.

I want to hurl the fork in my lunchbox at them. Yes, I eat with cutlery, not chopsticks. And yes, I hate my hair. So what, it's black? There are plenty of people in Amestris with black hair who have nothing to do with Xing! And what's so bad about Xing anyway? Sure, their music sounds weird and there was this one representative wearing some kind of bathrobe at a diplomatic event… But in his culture, it would have been perfectly normal!

I think. Mum says so.

Harris starts commenting on my eyes next, even though they're fine.

"Mr Browning, no talking in class." Mrs Wallace cuts in. Harris shuts his stupid mouth for precisely two seconds.

"Did you see in chemistry? He cheated, I saw it."

"No way!"

"Think that's how his father won the election? Both cheaters. Must be so proud."

I stand. The chair scrapes noisily across the floor. All eyes fall to me but I turn away. Mrs Wallace has her mouth open, another tired reprimand on the tip of her tongue, but all I hear is Harris' taunts and all I see is Harris' jeering grin and my fist lunges on its own, smacking him square in the face.

 

---

 

Headmistress Denver taps her pen impatiently on the desk. I don't have to focus my zoned‑out vision on the censure in front of me – I could recite it in my sleep.

"Turn, ducky," Harris' mum tells her son. He cringes, eludes the handkerchief she licked to wipe away dried blood on his lip. "Oh, poor thing."

"This is an imposition! I demand that the teacher attends this meeting!" Mr Browning continues to yell at the headmistress. "She is to keep the children in line and prevent," he gestures wildly, then at me, "this."

As in, prevent me? My eyes flicker up to him from below where I sit but he's busy, this time harassing Headmistress Denver about rules in school and, not for the first time, that women shouldn't teach if they can't keep the children in check.

He fails to remember that last time, it was Mr Anderson who couldn't get us apart.

"Stop it." Harris swats his mother's hand away. She clicks her tongue but that's about all the consequences he has to suffer. I can feel his glare bore into me from the side, our chairs right in front of Mrs Denver's desk. He scoffs quietly. "Dirty immigrant."

"I'm not," I mumble. I know he's just angry because he flunked chemistry, but if I tell him it's cause he sucks, his father will shout even louder.

It's a miracle Harris hasn't brought it up yet. He can't prove I cheated, I guess. An accusation would be bad enough though, drawing attention to me in chemistry. I'm not terrible at it, but I'd like to see him bring a C home to a certified former State Alchemist!

"… impossible to maintain order if a woman—"

The door opens in our backs. Mr Browning interrupts himself. He takes a step back from the desk.

The new presence demands order.

Headmistress Denver melts with relief. "Ah, Mrs Hawkeye. I'm terribly sorry that I had to call you yet again." She reluctantly slides the censure closer to the edge of her desk.

Mrs Browning gets to her feet, and Harris uses the susurration of his mother's skirt to whisper, "How's it feel to get spanked by the president himself?" He snickers.

Mrs Browning chokes lightly. Mr Browning is frozen, and so is Harris' voice a second later. A dark aura looms over him, robbing his breath.

I'm holding mine too.

"Mr Harris Browning." Mum's voice promises pain. "I must have misheard, but are you implying that the president uses violence to discipline his son?"

Harris gulps audibly. He doesn't dare look up, even though she commands that respect with every fibre of her body. I sneak a glance at Harris' dad, but even he has his eyes glued to his shoes. Lets his son sit it out, the coward.

Harris clears his throat. He ducks so lowly, he's merging with the chair. It's one of those cheap chairs where the backrest is on stilts above a free space. His back is pushing out into that space like a snail trying to squish its boneless body into a shell.

Mum waits.

The silence is an invisible weight, hanging like a massive freighter over our heads.

"Only as a joke…" Harris croaks. He doesn't have the guts to lie.

Neither do I; not to her. I can only pray she will never ask me directly if I cheated.

"I see." Mum's tone cuts his throat in icy fury. "It is not prohibited nor unwanted to critique our regime, seeing as this is a democratic country now. But the president is not merely our chief of state but my husband, and I do not take insulting my family lightly."

Harris shrinks further, so far that I think his body's been sucked dry like a wrinkly raisin.

Her words linger, the implication clear.

"Sorry, ma'am," he squeaks.

"Write that down when you actually mean it." She takes the sheet that's supposed to admonish me and hands it to Harris' father. "I want your parents' and the headmistress' signatures on it."

Headmistress Denver stares, then nods avidly. Mr Browning's lips furl but he says nothing, neither when Mum turns on the heel and leaves – back in business mode. I hurry after her. I'm glad she didn't say something to me. Anything can be turned against you in the vicious, merciless halls of secondary school.

The car buzzes to life. In the legroom of the passenger seat, I kick my bag lightly, boredly.

I wait for the red light to turn green and for the car to pick up in noise before I mutter, "Can we keep this a secret from Dad?"

"No."

I slump into my seat. We pass Central Headquarters – now the parliament building – but don't stop. I look at the time. Still half an hour until class would have ended, one hour until tennis practice. She must have rushed out of work to come to school, maybe even left a meeting, and now she doesn't go back.

We do that sometimes, go to the office when school's finished earlier. The guys are nice – Jean, Kain, Heymans. Vato too, but he retired a while back. I love hanging out with them. I guess we're avoiding Dad by not going there and I couldn't be more grateful.

Or perhaps I could be, I realise when Mum pulls up in front of Han's Wok, my favourite restaurant chain. I almost decline – it's Xingese. Harris' words ring in my ears. But then the scent reaches me and when I see Mum clandestinely studying the menu, Harris vanishes to the back of my mind.

Back in the car, I dig in. The spring rolls crunch, hot, grilled vegetables squelching into my mouth. I gulp in cold air, steam rising.

"This," Mum says, pilfering a pawn cracker from the bag on my lap, "we can keep a secret from your father."

I grin. She flashes me a smile from the corner of her eye.

 

---

 

I wiggle my toes inside my trainers. I left the tennis racquet in the entrance but the urge to swing it is still there; hit something with it. Preferably something loud and shattering.

Dad hasn't looked up once since I came into his office. Of course he's working even now. His dinner is balancing on one of the countless stacks of drafted bills and cabinet protocols. If I left my plate halfway uneaten like that, I'd get a ticking-off from Mum.

Sometimes I wonder if Dad knows his way around the estate or if he only ever makes a beeline to his office. If he finds the bedroom by chance when he finally decides that sleeping is something his body needs.

I strain to hear whether Mum is already in my sister's room, ready for bed, but they're still in the bathroom, the door open. No way I could sneak past them. Dad wouldn't notice if I snuck out, but Mum has a sixth sense for disobedience.

I puff out a breath.

"How was school?" He's still not looking up.

"Great." I roll my eyes. "Harris insulted me."

"Mhm…" He slowly turns the page he's reading, eyes dwelling on the last paragraph for another second.

"I punched him."

"Good, good…"

My gaze falls to his black hair. I glower at it. The only thing we have in common. It bothers me to no end. Everyone wants to be like Dad – handsome, successful, witty. But when you actually look like him, you're suddenly Xingese. You're not HIM is written across their faces. I didn't ask to be his son, is what I'd like to reply.

"And how was archery?"

"Tennis."

"Ah." He notices – finally – but no, no, he doesn't. He goes back to the front of the page and makes a little annotation. "Did you get your homework done?"

"Dad, I punched someone today. In class."

His eyes flicker across the page one last time before he raises his head. There's a frown on his forehead as if he has to translate what I said.

"He called me a dirty immigrant."

Dad sighs under his breath. "Which is very rude of him, but we've all been there."

The urge to break something rises again, surges through the pit of my stomach. "But he—"

Dad holds up his palm. "Do you see your mother throwing a tantrum over what they write in the news?"

"Am I Mum?" I blurt. "Is that what this is to you? I'm just some extension— a collective called 'family' where everyone's supposed to smile and shrug it off just because you don't care?"

His frown creases further. I'm panting. I'm sweltering, my cheeks flaming and my chest aching. He hates it when I shout and so do I.

"I think it would be best if you slept on those words," Dad says. The way his gaze momentarily flashes down to his desk almost makes me cuss. "We'll talk in the morning. Off to bed now."

I storm off before I can say anything that will really upset him. How is this impulsive or immature, but someone offending me in class isn't? That's what his eyes said: you don't mean it, calm down first.

I slam my fist into my pillow, then take the pillow and smack it against the headboard over and over. Dust whirls up. I curse under my breath and rummage through the sheets without success. Tossing the blanket aside, I still find nothing. The heater. I walk to the now empty bathroom and sure enough, Mum put my pyjamas over the heater to warm them up.

A stuttering sigh builds in my chest. I let it out, close my eyes. My body stops burning. My heart needs another moment to stop racing. I let the gentle warmth of my pyjamas settle over me. Only Mum can make you feel hugged without actually hugging you.

Changed for the night, teeth brushed, I return to my room. I'm only just sitting on my bed when her shoulder thuds softly against the jamb.

"He's being strict to toughen you up," Mum gently defends Dad. She changed too, having put her long bathrobe over her pyjamas, hair loose over her shoulders.

I tsk. "No, he just doesn't care that I'm being picked on."

"You know that's not true."

"It feels like it though!" I drop onto my back. The bed squeaks in support of my exasperation. The darn black hair falls into my eyes, so I blow it away, more noisily than necessary.

The mattress sinks next to me. She doesn't say anything, which means it's my turn to talk – not because she pressures me to do so, but because she's listening.

"It's like… like it already doesn't matter anymore. I get what he's doing – he wants that I don't care about some petty insults, but they hurt, okay?" I turn away from her, mumbling, "Just because they won't bug me at some point in the future doesn't mean they don't bug me now."

Mum strokes my hair. I don't move. She's been doing that for as long as I can remember and I love it.

"You should tell him that."

"He'll only say I'm being emotional…"

"But you know that you aren't."

"Who cares?" I sit up brusquely.

"I do."

"I know!" I throw my arm up – only one because I don't want to hit her and make her to take her hand away from my hair. She likes my hair, she really does, even though I hate it with all my being. "You care, even Granny Chris gets it. She always says I'm just like Dad was, so why can't he—"

"Who're you calling 'Granny'?"

I flinch. A grin creeps onto my lips.

Grandma appears in the doorway, giving me an evil squint. Her infamous stink eye. It makes her feel old when we call her Granny, but I mean, she is old.

Now that's a thing I should never even think of voicing out loud.

"Is it just me or were you imitating Roy-Boy arguing with me again?" She raises a brow at me. Not her too! I'm not like Dad! I have feelings.

She steps away where she was blocking the light, and my brightened mood dies out. Dad is coming. He's still in his suit and tie.

Granny Chris pats his shoulder. "I'll leave this to you. Sounds to me like you got some apologising to do."

"What for?" He sounds like a child, unbelieving that his mother still tells him what to do. Grandma tuts, wrinkles around her eyes telling of a smile before going downstairs. She's gonna plunder the fridge, I know it.

Mum sighs.

"What?" Dad sulks.

"You didn't have to say it like that."

He crosses his arms with his hands tucked away. "Like what? I'm not the one who hit a boy at school."

"Sir."

"Can you guys stop that?!" I get up, stomping angrily. My arms flail, too upset to care anymore if I slap someone. "Why can't you be normal like others? Why can't you just call him by his name?" I point at Mum, then at Dad. "And why can't you be mad or disappointed or anything but indifferent about me being violent?"

"That's not how I heard it happen."

"And if it had?"

"You wouldn't have, you're above that." Dad shakes his head slowly. I curse this time. He starts to admonish me but I hurl my pillow at him.

"Next time, I'll beat Harris to a pulp. Then you'll have to believe me!"

"I trust you," Dad says. Mum gives him a displeased look. He hems and haws, the pillow in his hands.

I copy Grandma's squint. Whenever I capture it well, he'll shrink a little, seeing his foster mother in my evil eye. "You don't think I could."

"No," Dad sighs, "you're my son, so I know very well that you could." He lowers the pillow.

I lower the one I was prepared to throw next. Is he actually admitting to having been like me? Like this?

"I've punched my fair share of boys to protect someone dear to me."

"What your father is trying to say—" Mum cuts in before brawling becomes an accepted standard. She stands, ignoring the fond twinkle in Dad's eyes. She's the someone – the one dear to him.

He offers me the pillow. I don't take it.

"What I'm trying to say it that you shouldn't let them tempt you unless it's to protect someone who can't fend for themselves."

"So defending myself isn't allowed because I'm not worth it?"

"The less you openly care about what they call you, the less they'll do it."

"That's not an answer to my question. Are my feelings not worth defending?"

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. "I blame you for his straightforwardness," he grumbles in Mum's direction.

"Blaming me will not save you from answering, love," she says dryly. It's like tailwind in my back while at the same time taking the wind out of my sails. She can do that, shoot you down without disagreeing with you. She never undermines Dad, not with others around, but at the same time, she supports me.

Dad sighs and sits down on my bed. I keep standing.

"When I was your age, there was a whole group of boys who would pick on me."

This is the moment where I should roll my eyes, but I don't. I love hearing stories about when my parents were young, and I love that they already knew each other back then. I hope Mum will be in this too. Her father was a little shit from what Grandpa tells me so I like that at least Dad was her friend.

"They would call me a pimp and my sisters whores," Dad says. Mum shuts her eyes, barely withholding from chiding him for his language. "I gave each of them a piece of my mind and received plenty of theirs – and by mind I mean fist. I'd come home with a new black eye before the previous was gone."

I want to ask how Granny Chris reacted but I don't. I'm not ready to be buddies again just because he's sharing. Who knows what kind of a lecture he's weaving into this. I'll ask Granny later. That deeply unnerved exhale of smoke she does when I ask about Dad's youth is pure comedy.

"Whenever I told my sisters that I had defended their honour, they would laugh and shrug it off; tell me to see the fun in it."

"What's so funny about being called a whore?" I cross my arms, hands tucked away. I feel hot and powerful using coarse language without getting scolded.

"That they weren't," Dad says. "It didn't make sense to me for a while either, but then I would catch them joking about it. When they came by school and saw one of the boys, they would purposefully hike up their skirts or toss their hair and then break into giggles among themselves.

"They weren't affected because they knew it wasn't true." He meets my eyes. I follow his hand patting the mattress with my gaze and refuse wordlessly.

The tension in my body loosens though. Mum comes to stand next to me, running her hands along my shoulders as if she can read it off my forehead. Sometimes I think she can. Oftentimes.

She sits on the bed. Her eyes are steady, pervasive.

I relent, dropping the pillow on the ground, flopping down between them.

"You know for yourself that you have something special here," Dad says as Mum's fingers comb through my hair. "That whatever jackass Browning says isn't true."

I grin inwardly. Okay, maybe the corners of my mouth tug upwards a little too. He does remember.

"You can let him believe whatever he likes, knowing he doesn't have a smidge of the trust we have as a family."

"Or the power," I argue.

"Envy is a terribly ugly emotion," Dad agrees. Mum shares one of those glances with him. Like the one they exchanged when I asked about the scar on the side of her neck. "So is wrath and revenge…" Dad mutters. Mum puts a hand on his knee.

Must be Hughes. We really are a trusting family, because they told me about Dad's rampage when confronted with his best friend's murderer.

It used to give me nightmares. Not Dad's rage, but the murder. I stayed away from Dad's office for a year, and I haven't even glimpsed at his desk ever since. State secrets are only so interesting if they can cost you your life.

I would have really liked to meet Maes. Dad isn't an emotional person, but I can tell he still misses him.

"I learned that lesson the hard way," Dad confirms my thoughts. "I wanted to spare you the pain of having to find out for yourself. I'm sorry if I made it sound like I didn't care." He offers a smile. It's a little crooked, a little awkward. The one I return must be too. "Could I make it up to you with a visit to Han's Wok?"

I don't reply immediately. The soy and ginger sauce noodles are still in digestion. My lips curl, gaze averting.

Dad looks at Mum who has her expression in check. He catches on anyway.

"Riza!" Now he really sounds like an indignant six‑year‑old.

"Well," I cautiously pipe up, "I think I would feel a lot better if I had a brother to giggle and toss hair with."

"That can be arranged." Dad doesn't miss a beat, wiggling his brows.

"Good night." Mum gets up. We laugh.

Dad stands and captures her by the waist before she can escape. "You got to treat our son to Xingese food, I get to grant him a wish too."

"We are not having another child."

"We could at least try for one – repeatedly."

"Ew." I scrunch up my nose. Dad says that to have a baby, it's first gotta get worse than snogging. I've seen Mum and Dad snog, and once is already one too many times. Still, I'd like a baby brother, I tell them. Someone who's always on my team. "A pack of siblings like Dad had his sisters, only I'll be the eldest and ringleader."

"Where do you get this kind of vocabulary from?" Mum asks, then glares at Dad. It's rare she becomes this flustered.

Another reason for a baby brother. I want to experience 'pregnancy'. This time I'll pay attention, lot like with Eliza. Dad says pregnancy requires extra care, and since I can't remember a single time when Mum let sickness chain her to bed, always taking care of us with such abandon, I want an opportunity to be there for her too.

Dad lowers his voice, drawling coaxingly in her ear, "Riza…"

"A baby with forty-six?"

"That was uncalled for…"

"It's a fact." She smiles teasingly. He drops his face into her shoulder. Her hand comes up to stroke his hair. "Poor old man."

"Hey!" Dad fumes, then even more when I laugh. His pout is comically big; I could balance a coin on it.

"You're going to wake your daughter."

"I already have." Dad's grimace is audible.

Eliza rubs her eyes. She shuffles her fluffy socks towards my room. She's seven, but she still carries her dog plushie around the house. "Why is everyone here and I wasn't invited?" she yawns.

Mum weaves out of Dad's arm. "It's nothing, my love. Go back to bed."

"We're going to have a baby brother!" I cheer.

"Really?" Eliza's eyes grow, wide awake.

"No." Mum shoots me a look.

From Eliza, she receives a most pitifully quivering chin. "Why not?"

"Baby brother, baby brother," I chant.

"Baby brother!" Eliza chimes in, waving her plushie.

Mum turns to Dad with a help-seeking glance but he laughs. She groans, "Urgh, you're all impossible," and leaves.

"She's trying to flee!" Eliza calls.

"Get her!" I charge, Eliza on my heels. Mum shrieks No! but we don't stop, so she runs. We'll tackle her to the floor if she doesn't get to a bed in time, she knows. Choosing hers and Dad's room, she aims for the adjoined bathroom to lock herself in. Eliza dashes with lightning speed, faster than me, faster than Mum, latching around Mum's leg before she can get to the door.

"Reinforcements!" Eliza squeals with delight.

I nearly knock Mum over with a flying hug. She catches herself only just so, gasping, arms flailing. She staggers but stands.

Until Dad comes in.

"Roy—" She sounds hopeful, at least as if she wants herself to be hopeful. She must know that she's lost.

Dad smirks mischievously.

Before she can say another word, he scoops her up into his arms – Eliza and I included – and dumps us all on the bed. The mattress creaks and bounces, making us laugh. Mum scrambles to at least save her face from getting squashed into the sheets – she will complain that she has to tidy it up again.

We don't have servants like Grandpa when he was Fuhrer. There are the gardener, Clara, Alma and Albert who come twice a week to dust and wipe the marble floors, beat the carpets, iron the laundry. They're never late and they must be done at a set time to guarantee our family privacy. It's why Granny Chris can walk in and out of here as she pleases, through the secret tunnel.

Mum gasps for air with me braced around her torso. She struggles, turns halfway, hoping to lose us by crawling over the edge of the bed. She doesn't get that far. A knee plants itself next to her hip. I look up from where I had my face pressed to her neck. Dad's face hovers right above Mum's, pinning her to the spot.

"Check."

Eliza and I tighten our grasps. "Checkmate!" We sing in unison.

Mum deflates with a grunt of defeat. Eliza is overcome with a mad set of giggles, breathless by the time she's climbed up to Mum's arm. She slings her arms around it like she did with Mum's leg, nestling into her side. I use my chance to do the same on Mum's other side.

Dad gets up. Click. He turned off the lights.

"Roy!" Mum chides. I can feel his grin in my back.

His belt buckle clinks, his suit rustling, but he doesn't bother to move us off his sleeping shirt under the sheets. Crawling over, he playfully flicks at the hem of Mum's bathrobe.

"Are you going to sleep wearing that?"

"Do I have another choice?" she growls.

"No," I whisper.

Dad drops onto his side, but is immediately scolded for not yet having brushed his teeth. He hesitates, then drags himself out of bed again. Eliza and I giggle. Mum doesn't undermine him, but he in turn can't elude setting an example for us.

By the time he's back, we're snuggled up under the blanket. Eliza's breathing is deep and rhythmic, her grip adamant. I loosened my grip to feign sleep. My back brushes Mum's side with each inhale. I almost drifted off when she retracts her arm. Her hand finds my hair, strokes it fondly.

Dad's steps swish on the carpet, around the bed. "Where am I supposed to fit?" he grouches quietly. "Why do they get to cuddle you and I don't?"

He lies down behind Eliza because there's no space anywhere else. She doesn't wake when he rubs her back. I almost forget to even out my breathing when he reaches over and rubs my back too. Down the spine, over my shoulder blades. I want to arch into the touch.

Dad's hands are huge. They're so strong despite swords once having impaled them. He could always catch me, and he would. He also always knows where to loosen sore muscles.

His voice is hushed when he speaks, close to Mum. "Do I fail as a father?"

I strain to hear.

"It's something you could work on."

Dad makes a choking sound. "The honesty," he croaks, "the pain."

"Don't wake them."

I smile.

I can hear that Dad does too by the way he murmurs warmly, "I was thinking of going on a holiday. Just the four or us. But only the children who don't fake being asleep can come."

I wince. Dad chuckles. The mattress squeals softly as he leans over to kiss my temple.

"That's a great idea," Mum says. Dad kisses her too, I hear, and then Eliza before lying down for the last time.

 

Chapter 2: The Day I Lost my Sister to Pizza

I wake up colder than usual. My head is thick with sleep, so I hardly register that it’s Mum and Dad’s room that I walk out of, my feet shuffling me to the bathroom on their own. I meet Mum on the way back. She’s already dressed and headed for her room – to wake Eliza, I realise.

Did we really manage to sleep through the night with the four of us cramped into one bed? Used to do it all the time, but when Eliza and I were smaller.

Also what time is it? Eliza is always up early. At weekends, when I go to the loo and then slip back into bed, I can already hear her playing or singing in her room. Sleeping in Mum and Dad’s bed is the only thing that will keep her past seven. It can’t be that late now; it’s a school day.

Mum takes my face in both hands and presses a kiss to the crown of my head. Her thumb strokes my cheek. She knows I skipped washing my face – I’m still sleep warm.

“Did I miss breakfast?”

“Your father is making breakfast today.”

I gasp. Suddenly wide awake, I dash into my room to get dressed. I’m midway through the sleeves of my school uniform when I reach the bottom of the stairs, flying across the hall, through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Dad only ever makes breakfast on birthdays or special occasions. Very, very rarely at the weekend too. Today is Wednesday.

Oh, I can smell the bacon before I open the door. I take a deep inhale, filling my nose with the briny scent, treating my tongue to a first taste.

Dad is pouring egg and milk into the pan. It sputters invitingly. “Right on time.” He smiles over his shoulder, beckoning me with a jerk of his head. I zoom over to the stove. “Would you like to do us the honour?” He moves aside, handing me two spatulas.

“Would I?” I laugh. My eyes fix on the liquid, watching it whiten, becoming firm and intransparent. I wait for the perfect texture to scramble the heck out of it. That’s the best part when Dad is making breakfast – joining in.

The second‑best part, I secure hastily before Eliza can get it: the crispiest strips of bacon. I shovel two into my mouth, hustling another three from the plate in the middle of the table onto mine. They are buried under steaming bits of scrambled egg a second later.

Dad divides the rest of the egg between Mum’s and Eliza’s plate, then sets the pan back on the stove and turns off the gas. He clacks with our lunchboxes in my back. I never hear him click them shut – he must be waiting for Mum to do the final checkup; see if he forgot our fruit or something.

He’s in charge of the country, she’s in charge of the family. Knowing Dad and Eliza, her job is the more taxing one.

I’m midway through my egg and bacon when Dad slides a plate over as if by accident.

My mouth is flooded with saliva, so the sight alone makes me drool down my chin. A pancake. Dad’s pancake. The Roy Royale, fluffy and smooth and immaculately round, like a cloud of yumminess with a touch of vanilla. It’s still warm.

“Didn’t fit in the boxes.” He shrugs regretfully.

I swallow without chewing, nearly choking, flushing egg and bacon down my throat with orange juice while my free hand blindly fumbles for the pancake plate. My palm lands right on top of the pancake but I couldn’t care less. I grab it right then and there and rip out a big bite. I add butter with my fork, right into my mouth, and after a second bite I add jam.

Still no sign of Eliza. Can’t let that lull me into a false sense of security.

I’m almost done suffocating myself with the second half of the pancake when I see Dad move to the door.

“Fo you alfeady hafe to leafe?” I ask between chewing.

He hesitates. His eyes dart to the clock above the door, a grimace forming on his face. “Not yet,” he lies.

I smile, then even more when he sits down at the table. He looks funny with an apron over his suit, hair slicked back, ready to go.

His fingers drum on the table, and he stills them with a stern frown. “It’s not like I want to see General Armstrong’s face first thing in the morning…” he sighs, full of self‑pity.

I grin. “That’s what Mum is for.”

“She is.” Dad’s voice turns warm. I also like that Mum is the first person I see every morning. “Who are you desperately looking forward to seeing today?”

I snicker, still eating like a horse. “Mr Deighton for sure.” I roll my eyes. “He always picks me because apparently no one else in class knows a thing about geography. He’s just too lazy to answer questions – I’m being exploited.”

“Remaining in his favour might balance out a bad grade elsewhere,” Dad strategizes. “Like your English assignment.”

So then he does know. He only ever seems to know where I mess up though.

I pause stuffing my mouth, lowering my voice. “I shouldn’t have let Mum help me with creative writing…”

“What did you expect?” Dad asks very, very softly. He’s more afraid than I am. “But if you have to retake it, I could help you.” He offers, almost at a normal volume again. I raise an incredulous brow. He sits up straight. “I used to write poems day and night in my youth.”

“Ha.” Mum stands in the doorway.

Dad shoots her a look when she chuckles. A tiny blush tints his cheeks, but his chest refuses to deflate, puffed defiantly more than proudly. “They were brilliant.”

“Were they?” I ask Mum.

Her eyes drift to me, stoically unimpressed. “I thought you weren’t going to consult me on creative writing anymore.”

I gulp.

She pours herself a cup of tea. Her voice mellows over the soft gurgling of hot water. “They were… they got better.”

Dad pouts.

I nudge his arm. “Poems?”

“Letters,” Mum says. She sips her tea, leaning against the counter. She is ready to leave too, skirt and blouse ironed to perfection, hair up, but she hides her hurry a lot better than Dad.

His fingers are drumming again, now quietly on his thigh. “They were marvellous and swept you off your feet. Just admit it.”

“I admit that they were… charming.” She tilts her head pensively, index finger tapping her cup. “In their own unique way.”

“Unique is good enough to let me pass,” I chime in.

“A-ha!” Dad exclaims in triumph. Only then, he notices we’re both picking on him. “Hey!” he complains to me, clattering with the empty pancake plate to regain favour. I pat his hand consolingly. “Traitors,” Dad tuts, but I can see he’s smirking by the time he gets up, trapping Mum against the counter with a hand on each side. “They were brilliant and you loved them,” he purrs. And then something I don’t understand.

She holds her hot cup between their faces before he can kiss her.

“If you don’t want General Sherman to dump half an hour of story time on you from when he was late in his days,” they both groan under their breaths, “you should get to the car.”

“Havoc is here?”

“Jean is here?” I leap up from my seat.

“Why didn’t he come in? He could’ve let me know he was waiting,” Dad says.

Mum sets down her tea. “He might have gotten caught up in pigtail duty.”

Of course, I should have known! My eyes narrow. That’s why Eliza didn’t come to snatch away my bacon – she’s impeding Jean. Darn it, he loves doing hair. Says anything’s easier to tame than Rebecca’s. But I still have to show him my underhanded serve!

I grab my tennis racquet from the corner and rush into the hall, just in time to miss Mum and Dad kissing. Phew. The look on Dad’s face tells me that this is going to take a while. Which means more time to show Jean my tennis moves, I cheer to myself. I do a little jump and then again when I see that he’s done with Eliza’s hair.

He’s kneeling. She whispers something into his ear, giggling. A grin forms on his lips. In a flash, he’s hoisted her up with so much momentum, she flies for a second, squealing with delight. Luckily, our ceilings are very high.

He lets her ride on his shoulders when greeting me. I knock into him in a half‑hug, half‑wrestle. He ruffles my hair. His eyes go a little wider and they shine a little brighter whenever he sees me. Gosh, I love Mum and Dad’s friends. If Jean were still in a wheelchair, I swear I would push him anywhere he wanted to go, even uphill!

“Your game isn’t ‘til Saturday, Ace,” he comments the racquet. He comes to every game. He even once left Dad waiting to be picked up after a meeting to see me play. Heymans says Jean jumped a red light trying to get Dad to last year’s graduation ceremony.

“Are the twins coming too?”

“You bet they are. The way you ran that kid into the ground last time – they still talk about it.”

My face glows. I smile so broadly my cheeks ache. The twins are younger than Eliza. They’re already part of my gang, but I’d really like another boy. I glance to where Mum and Dad are coming into the hall. Held hands could be a good sign. Mum’s ‘no’ yesterday sounded pretty final though.

“Uncle Jean, are you going to have another baby?”

Jean chocks on his spit.

Eliza laughs, swaying back and forth, hands around his forehead. “Baby brother, baby brother!”

“My, my,” he coughs. Dad pulls a face. Mum doesn’t meet his eyes. “Are congratulations in order? And aren’t you a wee bit old, sir?”

Dad growls. “Just get behind the wheel.”

Jean laughs. He picks Eliza off his shoulders and twirls her around before setting her on her feet. The he ruffles my hair again. “Promise me a match before the game?”

“Yeah!” I wave them goodbye.

Dad gets into the passenger seat, not the back. That means talking. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose when the engine starts, but I can see he’s smiling as he speaks. Then the tinted windows go up.

I join Mum and Eliza in the kitchen where Mum hands us our lunches. Eliza still has to eat breakfast. Mum hasn’t touched her plate. I remain quiet, else she might want to see my schedule and ask about chemistry. She doesn’t ask though; she’s studying some file that Dad must need later today. Eliza and I wordlessly agree on sharing Mum’s cooling bacon.

 

---

 

I’m in the bathroom, flossing, when Mum exits Dad’s office. He brought home a pile of paperwork so big, Heymans and Alma had to help him carry it upstairs. Guess he won’t come say goodnight…

Mum sends me a tired but proud smile as she passes the bathroom. As if it’s anything out of the ordinary that I spend an eternity in here.

Unlike most of my classmates (if not all), I like visits to the dentist, because it’s the only time where I receive straight A’s, in a way. Mum and Dad are very careful when it comes to Eliza and me in public. We don’t give comments, we don’t appear on photographs, we are not the subject of Mum’s or Dad’s interviews. We are not used for campaigns or serve as a remedy in the public eye when something went wrong.

But there was this one time when a paparazzi had gotten a shot of me where I was laughing. They made up some dramatic story and said I was screaming, not laughing, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part by far was that in my open mouth, caries was visible, a tiny black spot, something that every child has, but something that is inexcusable in the mouth of the son of the president.

The press went wild about poor dental hygiene or child negligence. A couple of classmates were making up stories, stuffing their mouths with chocolate brownies that would stick to their teeth and then grin at me with these black smiles of mockery.

My eyes and cheeks had never hurt more from crying. It was a milk tooth, so it goes without saying that the next day, it was gone.

There too, the press then ripped their mouths apart with false claims of Dad punching his son for disobedience until the damn tooth would fly out. Of course, we couldn’t tell them that it was me wiggling the darn thing all night until the roots crunched off of my gums.

This is why dental hygiene is not just a necessity for us, it is vital to our very survival. Eliza and I never ever skip brushing our teeth, and we never stay under seven, sometimes fifteen minutes. This is the only thing in which I am never a seasonal worker, where I don’t just spend a little extra time on my teeth before a dentist appointment, but something that I always take lots and lots of care of to do properly every day and every time.

So yes, I like going to the dentist. They always praise me for my diligence – diligence that is for once also reaping good results (unlike school). When the twins sleep over, they always watch us, confused and a little in awe when Eliza and I floss.

“It’s early. Did you want to read together?” Mum’s voice carries from Eliza’s room. We leave our doors open to invite Mum in. Or Granny. Or Dad, unless I’ve had a row with him again.

Eliza’s bed squeaks under her excited wiggling. “Read, ooor you could tell me a story…? Please?”

“A story?”

“The story!” Eliza exclaims. God knows she can trade sugar for sleep and party on another twenty-four hours, no problem.

I rinse my mouth, trying not to roll my eyes. Not this again… I can picture her tucked under the blanket, an angelic shine in her eyes.

Mum humours it. “You know the story by heart.”

“I like it more when you tell it,” Eliza begs.

Mum gives in. “Lucien?”

“Doing homework,” I call on the way to my desk. Not really, and she knows, otherwise there would be questions. It is early; it’s not illegal to be catching up on homework at this hour. (And it’s not like I don’t have some to finish but I’ll ask Joss if she wants to do it with me during recess tomorrow.)

Eliza’s bed creaks when Mum gets up. I don’t lift my head when she enters, but my writing in my homework diary pauses when her hand strokes through my hair and she kisses my crown. “Very proud of you,” she says. “You can always ask me for help.”

I nod, smiling to myself.

Once again, Eliza’s bed complains with a squeal. Eager shuffling ensues. A kiss to her crown settles her down somewhat.

“How do I begin?” I hear Mum, back on the side of Eliza’s bed.

“With spring.”

“Right. It was early spring,” Mum says. “The forsythias were coming into bloom and the trees were growing back their foliage. I was attending my first wedding, and the first religious wedding I’d ever been to.”

“What religion?”

“I don’t remember. There were plenty of small faith communities in the countryside, very similar in belief and practice. They were so small, they mostly didn’t have their own churches or civic centres, so the wedding took place at my school’s auditorium.

“It was exciting to be there, but I also felt out of place. The family of the bride’s side had spruced themselves up to no end, while the rest of the village hardly owned more than their good Sunday clothes. The bride wore a stunning but unfathomably complicated dress – white with a huge tulle skirt, embroidery on the bodice, lacing in the back, twisted straps.”

“A fairy tale dress – like yours, Mummy!”

Mum makes an indecisive sound. “The girl’s dress was more… voluminous. And open.”

“Did it have lace sleeves?”

“I don’t think it had any sleeves.”

“When I grow up, I want a dress just like yours!” Eliza swoons.

I catch her in Mum and Dad’s room sometimes, staring at the picture of their wedding on the dresser. She must have made a hundred drawings of the dress. She’s obsessed with it. Dad doesn’t like it when she changes the neckline in her variations. Other than that, he’s always happy to rave with her.

It’s unfair. She can barge in at practically any moment, interrupt his work, and then be invited onto his lap to talk about how pretty Mum was. Is, he’ll emphasise. Is and always will be. As if it’s news to anybody.

“You won’t want a ceremony like the girl had though, because your favourite part of the story is about to happen,” Mum continues.

“Yesss,” Eliza hiss-cheers to herself. “Daddy barges in.”

“Do you want to tell the story instead?”

“No, you do it!” Eliza’s sucked-in breath tells of her lips clamping shut.

Mum chuckles. She pauses. I do the same.

Dad’s voice from behind the office door just stopped – he must have ended his call. She’d better hurry.

“We were all seated after the bride had walked down the aisle between the rows of chairs. I was in the very back since I wasn’t a relative. I heard someone rattle with the doors when the couple had exchanged the rings and the minister asked the most important question.”

“‘Will you take her to be your wife – in sickness and in health,’” Eliza recites importantly.

Like I said, obsessed.

“Just then, the doors of the auditorium flew up and your father stormed in. He was seventeen back then. He panted from the long run to the school – maybe from an even longer search around town. I’d told him I wouldn’t be home until later, but I think he forgot. He interrupted everything. He saw me, said my name—”

“And when the groom yelled at him that he didn’t have permission to be there he said ‘I do!’”! Eliza laughs. “To you!”

“Not exactly,” Mum chuckles, “but it sounded that way to the guests. It was very embarrassing, but then even more when—”

“Oh, no.”

I startle when Dad’s voice is suddenly very close.

“No, no, we’re not rattling that off again.” He stomps into Eliza’s room. “Riza.” He half scolds, half pouts.

Eliza laughs. “Daddy proposed at someone else’s wedding! You loved Mummy, you loved her,” she chants.

I drop my pen with an exasperated sigh. They’ve been married for, what, twelve years? Fifteen?

“I didn’t do that,” Dad grumbles. “Riza,” he complains some more, but she sounds unimpressed. Eliza shrieks with delight at what must be a fruitless tickle attack on Mum. Mum knows how to keep Dad at an arm’s length – literally – and although his arms are longer than hers and he can reach armpits and ribs, she won’t so much as blink.

She does when he retreats and takes aim elsewhere. Her weak spots.

“Roy, no. Remember last time. It’ll be hard to explain another black eye to the public.” Her tone heightens and quickens. She is ticklish at the waist.

Dad is insanely ticklish under his feet. So am I. Mum told me that when I was five, Dad and I would have tickle fights and tickle each other’s feet until we both had cramps from laughing. She had to make sure I didn’t get hurt from reflex kicks and such. She can’t exactly protect Dad from her own deadly elbow when he assaults her though. His black eye was all the papers talked about for an entire week.

“Roy!” Mum gasps.

Eliza squeaks, but there’s no laughing and no pained choking. So then what did he…?

“This is the last time I’ve had to hear this story. Good night, sweetheart,” he adds more mellowly to Eliza. Then he marches off.

I don’t remember getting up from my desk, but I duck behind my open door when Dad passes my room to go to his own. Mum’s annoyed muttering makes me poke my head out. He’s slung her over his shoulder. I sneak after them to see Dad dumping Mum on their bed, then himself.

She takes a breath to chide but he’s already flopped off her and onto his side, pulling her with him.

“That was uncalled for,” Mum says.

Dad only winds his arms further around her. He shuffles his face closer. She’s about to evade, when he’s nosed his way past her, below her, acting as what looks like the most uncomfortable skull-on-skull pillow ever for her head. Mum frowns, though not as much as me. Is he hiding?

Mum’s tone softens. “The Council wasn’t ecstatic about your draft?”

“I feel like ‘tired’ has become a part of me. Like I’ll never get rid of it, even if I had enough time to sleep.”

“We’re not sleeping in our day wear.”

“Just let me,” Dad tightens his arms, “charge up for a moment. She’ll be here any minute to claim you back.”

He does sound tired. It’s hard to tell sometimes if he’s actually tired or just tired of people’s crap. As in school, there are way too many nitwits in the government.

Mum brings her hand around his back. She trails down his spine, lingers whenever he evades some painful knot. Her other hand slips around his neck, fingers entangling in his hair as she massages his scalp. It lures out a guttural groan from Dad. His back expands in a big, big sigh.

The hand on his spine comes to the front. She retreats with her head, lifts off him, and he’s about to strengthen his embrace to force her back when she cups his cheek. Gently, she kisses him. “Better?”

“Urgh,” Dad manages. She pecks his lips again, and this time his grunt sounds more affirmative. “Much,” he rumbles. Their noses brush, rub together, up along the bridge until their foreheads meet. It relaxes his grasp on her. “I want someone like Grumman had me. A trained-up successor; someone who will let me sleep calmly; who isn’t an idiot. Don’t go there.”

“I wasn’t.”

She was. She’s got that first-stage smirk twitching its way up the corner of her mouth. Hearing it in her voice makes him smile too. He is her idiot, and she’d call him out any day. Eliza’s favourite story proves it.

“I also missed this today.” A gentle ferocity returns to his arms – to his legs too, tangling into hers, bracing her to him like a pair of scissors snapping shut. “Why do we have to be so professional when others are not?”

“The governor wasn’t unprofessional, he was being inappropriate.”

“Why can’t I be inappropriate with my own wife?” Dad’s muttering nonsense at his point. His words slur, desperate to fade out and become snoring instead. “I hated how he treated you as just a secretary.”

“I am your secretary.”

“I said just a secretary. And he treated the others just as poorly. Who voted him anyway? I should’ve kept autocracy running for a little longer…”

Mum doesn’t reply. She’s back to stroking his hair. With her other hand, she nudges him.

Eliza’s coming.

I retreat into the hall. Dad gives another groan. He’s both tired and tired of that governor, so it’ll be exciting to see whether he puts up to fight to soak for a little longer or give in right away.

I swallow my question what’s taken so long when I see her.

Eliza dug out Mum’s old uniform. There is no way she could have made the trousers fit, so she has only the waistcape swishing after her, fastened with one of Dad’s belts that’s way too long for her. She could wrap it around herself twice, maybe three times. The top of the uniform goes down to her thighs. She’s keeping  the sleeves from swallowing her hands with pegs that run all the way up her arms.

“Hey!” I snatch the military cap off her head. “That’s mine!” Dad gave it to me.

My anger dries out when I see that she’s wearing her woollen hat underneath like a helmet. She prepared well. Sticking out her tongue, she marches to the door. “I’m freeing Mum,” she declares. From behind her back, she produces a red and pink party horn. “You’re either with me or against me.”

“Don’t use that thing.” I shove her hand down and the party horn out of my face. “Dad’s tired.” And he can’t stand the sound of those things. Very smart on her part.  A harmless yet effective weapon.

“Good man,” Dad raises his hoarse voice. “Hold her off and I’ll promote you to pizza on Friday.”

Eliza freezes. So do I. The door frame is suddenly becoming a whole lot slimmer. Her eyes fire against mine.

“Don’t pit your children against one another,” Mum scolds.

I don’t look away from Eliza when I ask Dad, “Can I bring Joss and Simon?”

“Deal.”

And so, on that Wednesday night, I lost my sister to pizza.

Chapter 3: Revelation of the Unplanned

I can hear them whisper.

The hall seems endless. The door to the dining room lies beyond my field of view. Tick, tock, the grandfather clock lulls the twins into a false sense of security. I counted to thirty with my eyes to the wall, now I stand and keep counting in my head. Seven, eight, nine, ten. They whisper again; so impatient. This’ll be a piece of cake.

I sneak down the hall, the thick red carpet swallowing the sound of my steps. Rebecca’s voice reaches me from the parlour. She’s noisily stirring her tea. I know it’s her because neither Mum nor Jean put sugar in theirs. Also at this point, only Rebecca would be stirring – she can down five big mugs of tea in half an hour, no problem.

I once tried drinking lots of water for health benefits, as she claims. Got to know the last cabin of the boys’ loo at school really well, which – self-evidently – got me off drinking so much very quickly.

I’m halfway down the hall when I hear Celia and Lily hush each other. They didn’t even leave the hall to hide. I stop to scan.

Even huddled closely together they wouldn’t fit behind the chest of drawers. The green tapestry with the Amestrian dragon bulges from the wall. Black tin peeks out from underneath. The umbrella stand. So then they thought of a diversion – not bad.

I twist around and throw open the closet with our winter coats. Celia and Lily screech in shock, then with delight as I tap them each.

“A hide-out with no way of escape? You guys have become sloppy.”

They grin. They grin like something’s up.

Oh, no…

“Tag!” Eliza jumps out from behind me. She stumbles, the umbrella stand clattering dully onto the ground, umbrellas and Grandpa’s back-up walking stick spilling out. She was inside it! She hid her feet by stepping into the stand. The diversion was a double-diversion! I should have known – the twins are an easy prey, Eliza never is.

The curtain rod where the tapestry is attached moans as Eliza staggers out from it. She slaps my shoulder anyway. Running off before assessing any damage caused, she laughs and skips. Sometimes, she’s too confident.

I dash after her. She shrieks and laughs, barging right into the parlour.

We rush past the couch, around the bookshelves and into the butler’s pantry that connects the parlour to the downstairs library. Eliza leaps over the small serving trolley as if it were a vaulting box from gym class. It rattles dangerously.

I use the noise to cover a hasty retreat into the corner. The twins will have to pass through here. I can at least tap them and then I’ll have fulfilled my duty of playing and can go back to reading. Maybe talk Jean into playing some badminton or tennis with me. He’s not in the parlour anymore. And where did Dad go?

“Remember when they were little?” Rebecca is saying.

I’m behind the door, so I can watch Mum on the opposite couch through the gap between the door and the frame. She’s sipping her tea. Her brows rise over the rim of the cup. Her glance wanders meaningfully from the stampede of Eliza and me back to Rebecca.

Rebecca shrugs. “The nights were shorter, sure, but even just after birth, they were quieter. What peaceful times.”

“I remember.” Mum braces her tea with both hands as the twins storm through the parlour, giggling and babbling. I ignore them racing blindly into the library and keep listening. It’s not forbidden – else they’d close the door. Mum always likes an open door to know we’re okay. She replaces her cup on the saucer. “You were relaxing at home seven weeks before the due date while I was at work, a four-year-old on my arm and a nine-month watermelon in my belly.”

“She was so heavy, I thought you were also having twins.”

“She still is.”

“You carry her at this age?”

“No, she bowls me over on a regular basis – literally.”

“You guys are wild,” Rebecca laughs. “Where do you get the energy?”

“She does that with Jean too,” Mum says as he enters the room. “And I’m so sorry every time it happens—”

“Hey, it’s no biggie.” He rubs her shoulder, then encircles the coffee table to sit next to Rebecca. “That’s what a parent is – a living playground.”

“A father, maybe,” Rebecca notes. Mum sighs helplessly, making Rebecca cringe half apologetically, half mischievously. “Most of them anyway.”

Her gaze goes up to where Dad comes wandering in. She must have heard him coming, I realise, the last comment not meant for Mum at all. I suck in a breath.

Dad crosses over to the cabinet with the fancy glasses. His stride is pointed. He heard.

It’s Sunday, so he isn’t wearing one of his usual suits today, only a three piece for working in the office and lunch on the terrace. How he isn’t sweltering in so many layers when we sit in the sun is beyond me. Now it’s almost time for dinner and he’s still sticking with the waistcoat. I can’t decide whether I want to follow in his footsteps with how much dedication he has for proper attire, or swear to never ever don formal wear on my days off.

Considering how much work it is to iron dress shirts, the latter. Although I do want a butler. And a chef.

Dad opens the cabinet and inspects the first bottle of what must be whiskey. His voice stabs like an icicle plunging from a roof. “Any more ‘advice’ from you on my parenting philosophy, Lieutenant, and I—”

“It’s Captain!” Rebecca interrupts. His eyes dart to her without him turning his head. “Mr President, sir,” Rebecca mumbles, lowering her gaze.

Dad tuts. Mum gives him a displeased look but neither of them starts an argument.

Rebecca is sour because in all her years since the Promised Day, she only climbed a few ranks. Dad says she should count herself lucky that the military let her rejoin with her former rank after four years of maternity leave. He always says that no promotions mean no opportunities to earn promotions, which means quiet times – quiet times are good, he says.

Sneaking clumsily, the twins and Eliza re-enter the pantry. I find myself agreeing with Dad. Quiet times are good but rare.

Rebecca sees the three through the open doorway and clears her throat.

“Anyway, holidays. We’re so in.” She cups Jean’s hand on his knee. “Lake, mountains, whatever you feel like. Oh, just, uh, one thing – we’ll do the booking this time.” She leans forward and lowers her voice, though barely. Her eyes swivel from Mum to Dad where he is arranging the fancy glasses on a tray, back turned. “Last time Roy chose the hotel, the showers were so small, Jean couldn’t stand.”

Jean pulls a face, his glance also shooting to Roy. “It wasn’t that bad.” He hastily says.

Both he and Rebecca wince when Dad growls without turning around, “The showers were fine and above average size.”

Rebecca grumbles to herself, “Bet your feet are above average size too.”

“Rebecca!” Mum gasps. She shoots the twins and Eliza a look – and me, which makes me wince. Of course she knew I was here. Not sure what’s so bad about small feet, but it even upsets Jean.

“That was uncalled for,” he chides Rebecca.

“I’m sorry, I know, I know, that was low. And I’m sorry. Honestly,” she says to Dad.

He only scoffs and takes the tray with him – to the kitchen, I’m guessing. I can smell dinner all the way into the pantry.

Rebecca fumbles with the hem of her blouse. “It’s just…” She grimaces towards the door, but Dad is already gone. “I’m a little jumpy and, you know… hormones.”

“Hormones?” Mum’s expression shifts even more drastically.

Rebecca attempts a grin.

“Does she have to go to the hospital?” Eliza asks loudly, poking her head in. The twins copy her, the three of them looking like a totem figure.

“No, honey, she’s fine,” Mum says. Her gaze drills into Rebecca unbelievingly. “She won’t have to go there for quite a while, if at all.”

“Oh, I will. Unlike you, I’d rather not almost have a baby at the office.”

“Contractions were seven minutes apart. I was fine. You’re distracting.”

“You’re pregnant?” Jean’s eyes pop.

Rebecca wrestles for an apologetic half smile. “Surprise?”

“But— I mean, how? When?”

“You were away for really long on that diplomatic—”

“Three weeks! We called every single night.”

“It felt longer. Every day is too long when you’re not there.” She takes his hand when he starts to scoot away.

He’s got a bit of a crazed look, as if he’s just killed a deer with the car. He slides his hand out of hers, wipes it on his trousers.

“I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. I guess—” She doesn’t know how to retrieve his hands when he starts gesturing aimlessly. Eliza, Lily and Celia’s heads bob along each useless fumble. “I guess I was just really excited when you were back and forgot to check the expiry date on the—” She glances over her shoulder. None of us kids feels caught, staring shamelessly, curiously. The twins’ ears look about the size of an elephant’s ears. “You know.” Rebecca vaguely says.

“You’re…” Jean’s hands slump alongside him. The couch squeaks. “How long?”

“A bit over one month.”

“Holy shit…”

Kids gasp but he doesn’t register. No one reprimands him for his language. We don’t even laugh, that’s how oddly tense the whole situation is.

“Tiger—”

“I just—” Jean stands abruptly when she reaches out again. “It’s okay.” He takes her hand then, squeezes it, and lets go. “I know it’s not your fault. I’m just gonna… clear my head for a minute.” He walks past the girls without ruffling anyone’s hair. That’s alarming. He didn’t even ruffle mine. I don’t think he knows I’m here at all.

 Mum gets up. As she passes the other couch, she puts a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and whispers her congratulations. Rebecca smiles genuinely for the first time, just before she sinks into herself. I use the commotion of the twins and Eliza scattering away and tail Mum silently.

She finds Jean outside in the garden. It’s getting dark. The light from the house is in my back, so I huddle close to the wall outside, my shadow disappearing. We have these massive pots of hydrangeas that Mum claims need to be planted into the earth to grow properly. Right now, they’re a good cover.

Jean stands on the border of the path, the tips of his shoes dipping into wet grass. He’s rocking back and forth. Both hands cramped in his hair, he tries and fails to take calming breaths. His sudden fright cools momentarily when Mum produces a cigarette packet.

“My mother-in-law,” she says when he looks baffled. “If you promise me that it stays with one.” She shakes the package invitingly.

“It will. I quit,” he declines. Mum raises a single brow, so he takes a cigarette. He refuses the lighter though, the cigarette rolling between his lips as they both stare out into the garden. “A baby.” Jean laughs curtly, a little hysterically. He plucks the cigarette from his mouth before taking a deep inhale of evening air.

A few birds sing their farewell to the day. In the grass, insects chirp. A larger, dark bug crawls leisurely across the path, his back shimmering in the light from the house.

Mum searches her pocket, finding a lollipop. Jean gladly trades.

“Seven years apart,” she says.

“Becks is… How old are you?” He studies her profile.

“Forty-one.”

“Holy crap.”

Mum glowers at him, but Jean is too busy mildly freaking out to realise how he low-tier called her old. He knows Rebecca is a few months older than Mum. He also knows how old exactly they both are without being told, at least under normal circumstances. By the way his eyes are flitting, I guess his brain is bailing out on him.

He turns to stare across the lawn again. “Aren’t chances… lower that it’ll work the older she is?”

“Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?”

“A bad thing!” He doesn’t hesitate; doesn’t have to think it over.

If I ever have kids – which is currently not only unimaginable but also utterly undesirable – I want Jean as godfather. He never cuts corners when it comes to us, be it the twins or Eliza and me. (Also, he isn’t the president.)

The rocking picks back up, the tips of his shoes shiny with wetness. “Oh, what if the baby won’t make it?”

“It will.” Mum rests her palm on his shoulder blade.

Jean is taller than Dad, a lot taller, and since I always see Mum next to Dad, this is a huge contrast. He nods. Then again, like someone who isn’t convinced, but he wants to be.

“This is Rebecca,” Mum argues gently. “She could have another set of twins– Which is unlikely,” she interrupts herself when his eyes double in size. “She’ll be fine, and the baby too. You’ll have the best doctors of Amestris by your side. And if, for some highly improbable reason, you would lose the baby, then you still have two beautiful daughters and your loving wife.”

Jean takes a long breath. His chest expands until I think it’ll burst. Then he deflates, arms sagging, dangling. He reaches a hand back to find Mum’s, giving a small squeeze of appreciation. “Thanks, Reez.”

“We’re here for you.”

“Yeah, I know that.” His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Must have acknowledged the lolly for the first time. He rolls it from side to side, dwelling on an old habit.

Mum pinches her nose. Out comes a radio announcer’s voice. “You have the First Lady’s support.”

Jean breaks into a massive grin despite himself. His lips curl around the lollipop, and he takes it out with a smack as he chuckles, “Wow, I haven’t heard that in a while.”

“Got me through the worst.” She smiles softly.

I push a little further against the wall. Don’t ask me where that insider between them came from, but Grandma told me about ‘the worst’ very briefly, very likely dialled down to almost zero – the election, the inauguration, the accusations, the stalking and the break-in. I was five and Eliza was tiny. Neither of us remembers anything but panic and gunshots and sirens.

Jean wipes his forehead. It glistens with sweat. He flaps his shirt to get cool air in. “Say, why don’t you have another?”

“No.”

He laughs. Whatever Dad told him in the car the other day must have been heavily biased for Jean to dare mention it to Mum.

She gives him a sidelong glance. “I have two children and one husband to raise.”

“Fair point.” He wraps the lolly up and stores it in his pocket. Then he holds the door open for Mum to go inside first. With his free hand, he quickly pats his pocket. Making sure the twins won’t see it. They fight over everything that isn’t double. “I could really use that holiday now.” I hear him say as the door falls shut.

Mum isn’t locking it. Does she know I’m here?

I wait. The ground is wet from the rain, but my legs are aching from crouching. The bug has vanished into the darkness. On my knees, I spy into the hallway. Empty. I creep in. Jean and Rebecca are hugging in the parlour, so I steer to where Eliza is. Motionless – it’s her way of being sneaky; actually works more often than not – she stands in the doorframe of the kitchen. The door isn’t shut all the way, so I peer past her.

Dad is staring at the droning oven. Really staring hard, glaring. If our dinner were a dog, it would have its tail tucked so firmly that the tail would blend in with its stomach out of fear. One of the glasses Dad brought is used now, droplets of wine on the rim and bottom. An even older bad habit than Jean’s smoking.

Mum wedges herself between Dad and the oven. She runs her hands down his arms that he crossed tightly across his chest. Gently yet persistently, she coaxes his hands free from hiding. They’re fists. His knuckles are white. She slides up his knuckles, traces her thumbs over the scars on the backs of his hands. When at last she gets to lace her fingers between his, she sways them back and forth, sways until his arms loosen enough to go along, gradually swinging the anger from his taut muscles.

His teeth visibly unclench, like a snake unhooking its lower jaw. Subconsciously, I copy him. He lets out a long, lung‑collapsing sigh. Mum travels back up his arms, bringing one of his hands with hers to imitate what has to be a very improvised, casual, too-close-to-be-practical dancing posture.

Dad’s forehead flumps onto her shoulder. “That holiday will go up in flames…”

“I believe in you.”

He chuckles dryly. “You’d be the first.”

Mum closes her eyes. Tilting her head, she rubs the side of her face to his. “Always have been and always will be.” She keeps them swaying softly, their feet merely seesawing left and right.

“I don’t want to ruin it for the kids, but Catalina is asking for it.”

Catalina was Rebecca’s name before she married. Mum kept hers, but Mum is now the only one whom Dad doesn’t call by their last name. It’s his thing.

“Jean and I will hold her horses,” Mum says gently.

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“You’re a goddess.” He reciprocates the rub.

I’ve seen Dad have a stubble in pictures that Hughes took. I can’t remember ever seeing it in real life. Just like with the three-piece, Dad isn’t breaking character of being the president just because it’s Sunday. Does Mum miss that stubble? She’s angling her cheek towards his chin as if she did.

Dad tears himself away enough to offer a grateful smile. Tenderly, their lips meet.

My cue to leave.

“Our daughter is spying on us again.”

“Baby brother,” Eliza whispers.

Mum makes that face she pulls when trying not to roll her eyes, as if eating pickled plums or lemon slices. “You can tell the others that dinner is ready.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Eliza salutes and dashes off.

 

---

 

The school bell dongs. Everyone hoists up their backpacks and hurries to clog the entrance. Every morning anew – the morons. I wait a little. I can feel the chauffeur’s eyes on me from behind the tinted windows of the car. Turning around, I wave. Let him know that I know he’s watching.

To be a normal child… I sigh, moving up behind the throng. I see a replica of Mum’s blonde hair flash somewhere in the crush of students – Eliza – then she’s gone. If this were a contest of who squishes in first, she’d be top moron every single day.

“Lucien!” Joss materialises next to me when we’ve gotten through the worst. There’s so much chatter in the halls, she half-yells at me. “I heard Celia and Lilian were at your place. You should have told me!”

I have to smile. Joss is the best backup for getting out of playtime with the twins when they become annoying. “Sorry. Had to study.”

“As if you did.” She gloats. “So, how was it? Did you make it?”

“Barely.”

“Those hyper-monsters…”

“They were fine. But everyone kept going on and on about babies.”

“Babies?”

We turn a corner. I slow down and she falls into step, glancing around as if we’re about to spray the walls with graffiti or something.

“You gotta keep this to yourself,” I say quietly. Joss seals her lips and tosses the imaginary key over her shoulder. “A friend of ours is having a baby – unplanned.”

“How exciting!” She grabs my arm, jumping up and down. Her pigtails flail along. “You’ll have to introduce me!”

I tut, pulling my arm away. She ignores it, links arms and tows me towards our classroom.

“When I’m grown‑up, I want a boy, then a girl. Their names will be Daniel and Marie. Or Mia. None of those boring old fart names like those of my parents.”

As long as she doesn’t name them like her dog… She calls him Wiz, short for Sir Wizard Bollamahooey Marquis of Darlington. The “Sir” title isn’t even a joke – her parents bought it for her birthday a few years back. Money will get you anywhere.

We take our seats and sure enough, the moment he enters the room, Mr Hastings kills the mood. Any mood. He lost part of his leg decades ago in the war with Aerugo and has been stuck in constant rage ever since.

“… bloody bastards across the border selling us their trash.” He starts off by insulting Xing. Next up is Creta, then Briggs in the North. I’m tempted to tell him that he’s badmouthing a part of our own country, but I know better.

Gordon doesn’t.

“What do you think he calls his mother?” he whispers. His seat neighbour snickers. “Blasted woman, how dare she be older than me?” he imitates Mr Hastings.

This time I can’t keep from snickering too.

Simon nudges me on my other side, leaning over my desk for Gordon and the others to hear as he mutters, “Wait ‘till he finds out we’re a democracy now.”

Gordon snorts. He chokes on his spit when a bunch of keys barely misses his head.

“Silence, McGregor!” Mr Hastings hollers. His head is all red, his neck like a wrung-out rag, tight with pulsing veins and wrinkly skin. “You scoundrel,” he yells, which only makes Gordon snicker more. “You’re lucky your stepmother pays for education you don’t deserve, nouveau-riche yokel!” He slams his fist onto Gordon’s table. Gordon doesn’t say anything else, his head lowered.

He only attends this school because his father remarried a dirty rich woman. We’ve never held it against him – why would we? Gordon’s fun. He’s the closest to ‘normal’ you’ll find around here.

Throwing things at students isn’t allowed but I’ve heard that Mr Hastings does it. Usually it’s more harmless, like an apple or a piece of chalk. He’s never gotten personal before.

I exchange a glance with Simon.

“Don’t go feeling all wise, Mr Kingsley,” Mr Hastings accuses Simon before the latter can so much as open his mouth. “You’re even more of an embarrassment to your family.”

The essay. Simon didn’t finish it on time, handing in half of a very hasty, very sloppy essay. His other grades are passable though.

Mr Hastings looms over me. I wince. I didn’t say that last thing out loud, did I?

He snarls more than he speaks, the veins on his neck pulsing sickeningly. “And don’t get me started on you, Little Prince,” he spits, splattering our faces. “Everyone knows you’re an accident that the president had to keep because he is a public figure.”

Joss jumps up in her seat. “That’s harsh and a lie, Mr Hastings!”

“Oh, shut your trap, Miss Darlington. Nobody needs your phoney heroism.” Mr Hastings picks up his bunch of keys. Joss sits. He narrows his eyes at her, then folds his hands behind his back, mumbling how no one wants a child in the middle of a regime change and that the ‘other one’ – meaning Eliza – is the same. “Five years apart,” he says to himself (even though it’s only four and a half!), and that the country would have been better off if its most powerful man wouldn’t be a father as well.

“The school would be better off if Mr Hastings wasn’t a teacher…” Simon whispers.

Mr Hastings bursts into a mad frenzy that lasts the rest of the period. No one speaks up again, no one even answers his questions once he goes back to teaching. It only makes him yell more. The classroom next door has fallen mute, their teacher either annoyed or frightened just like the students.

I refuse eye contact – with Mr Hastings, with Simon, with Joss. I fixate the pen in my hand until my vision blurs. When the bell rings, I hurtle off faster than the clogs of students can form. Mr Hastings is shouting my name but I ignore it.

My throat is on fire. My face is on fire. I can’t breathe with how hard my heart is pummelling my lungs.

There’s no big break between the first and the second period, so the school yard is empty. I cross the hopscotch markings and jungle gym, jump down the big stairs that we sit on to eat lunch in summer, and don’t stop at the fence separating the yard and the running track. It clatters as I slip through. Dusty red pebbles whirl up on the cinder pitch. They get stuck under my shoes.

Mum doesn’t want another child. Mum said she is raising us like it’s a bad thing. Did she never want us? Would she and Dad be better off if we didn’t exist? The whole country?

Past the equipment shack where they keep the hurdles, I take a sharp right. Flowers give way to undergrowth. Brambles, bushes, overhanging trees. I push through, covering my head with my arms, and crawl to where the covert is thickest. Even with a bright orange, reflective vest, no one could spot me here.

My chest and face are ablaze. I’m crying.

Chapter 4: The Year 1916

Thorns have torn at my uniform. Some are stuck in my wrists and hands. I don’t take them out.

Knees drawn to my chest, I sit in the thicket behind the running track of school. My head is heavy and hot like a cauldron, my eyes itchy. I rub them, drop my forehead onto my knees. Grass tickles my ankles but I don’t swat it away. I’m ready to stick my fingers into my ears so that I won’t hear the bell. See if they care.

Part of me wants the school to notice. To worry and swarm out and find me, be overjoyed to have me back.

What if they won’t be overjoyed? What if they won’t come looking? If my parents didn’t want to have me, would they come looking at all or be glad I’m gone?

I press my eyes down over my knees. Screaming inside my head, I try to drown out the questions with a cruel thought or two: Mr Hastings getting into huge trouble. Mr Hastings getting fired. Locked up. Dad dropping everything at work, snapping his fingers to fry Mr Hastings’ butt, turning the school upside down in search of me.

He’d never do that – drop everything for me.

Steps draw near, light and hasty. The fence between the running track and the yard rattles. Must be the groundkeeper’s dog. Sounds like just two legs, I realise as they come closer, slow down, get stuck in the thorns with whispered curses like ‘drat!’ or ‘fudge nugget!’.

I wipe my eyes and nose. The overhanging twig is lifted to reveal me. She gasps, lets the twig whip down again with her arms already flying around my neck so quickly, it knocks us both to the ground. Arms, legs, all of her, Joss wraps around me as if she could choke the sadness out of my lungs.

“He’s such a meanie! Don’t listen to him. Nobody even likes him!” she cries. She’s sniffling, and it breaks my dam.

Tears well up without mercy. They etch down my cheeks like acid. I hate crying. I hate it so, so much. The way my breath hitches, the ache in my chest, my throat cording up. My voice is the worst, scratchy, high, pathetic. So I don’t say anything.

Joss keeps on insulting Mr Hastings, mumbling words that are hardly nasty in her innocent, well-mannered way. I don’t strain to listen. Lying there, roots boring into my ribs, her weight crushing me into dead leaves and possibly a load of ants, I don’t move. I know I get upset at Dad for being emotionless, but grief isn’t an emotion I want in my life. Not this embarrassing, stupid kind anyway.

I try to decide on a different feeling – indignation, anger. Gratitude for Joss’ support? It isn’t working. Just thinking about throwing a tantrum, complaining to the headmistress, yelling at Dad, it’s draining. I’m too tired to feel anything. I just want to go home.

Joss finally releases me. She brought her bag. The thermos clanks as she takes it out the side pocket, pouring green tea into the cap. She has to mould my fingers to hold the cap when I don’t cooperate. A lunchbox wrapped in a lacy handkerchief is next. She unwraps the daisy-print handkerchief, folds it on her lap, sets the box on it and picks out a piece of smoked salmon sandwich that her maid cuts into little squares.

“Keeping the parasite alive,” Joss mumbles as she prods my lips with a sandwich square. I swallow thickly. It never failed when she said that. Any other day, I’d be in stitches. Now it’s got a bitter taste to it.

I eat only to make the lump in my throat disappear.

 

---

 

When I get home, only Clara and Alma are there, cleaning. The chauffeur leaves to pick up Eliza after her last period. It’s a long day for all of us which means no practice after school, no lessons, Mum and Dad staying late at the office. Eliza and I eat in the cafeteria on these days. I greet Clara and Alma fleetly on my way upstairs, telling them I’m going to do homework. Which I will. Later.

The attic is a huge, dusty place. I don’t think anyone’s been up here in the past twelve, maybe eight years. Eight makes sense. Lots of chests with Eliza’s name on it are at the front – her baby things.

I stand on the ladder, spying in. The only light I have is in my back, my head throwing a long, rounded shadow across a thick layer of dust. I listen for Clara and Alma, but they remain downstairs, setting the table for dinner, vacuuming the hall.

Hands sticky with dust, I crawl to my feet in the attic. I don’t think even Jean would have to duck where I’m standing, the sloping roof is so high in the middle. One massive roof beam stretches from one end to the other like a century-old tree growing horizontally.

Past Eliza’s stuff, I search for mine. Mum and Dad must have kept some records, maybe an old newspaper article announcing their son and their opinions on it. The public’s gossip.

Cardboard boxes tower close to the hatch. Autumn, winter, New Year decorations. Things we use more often than pacifiers. Furniture shapes are draped in big white cloths. A sewing machine. A dog basket and a beheaded chew toy. The light almost doesn’t reach me anymore when I find another chest.

It’s strapped shut by belts, several of them, put together to go all the way around the chest, both directions. Feeling for the buckles at the front, I slip them open. A plume of dust whirls into my face and I pinch my nose hard so that I won’t sneeze. I stop to listen. Voices. If I can hear them here, they must be either upstairs or worse, Eliza has come home. She’s loud.

It’s not forbidden to go up here, but Mum and Dad don’t like it when we climb anywhere by ourselves. I have to hurry. Also because I don’t want Eliza seeing the ladder and coming up.

The chest offers a variety of cuddly blankets, baby rompers, a pacifier, a bottle for feeding. I dig deeper, my fingers operating blindly in the darkness until they find the spine of a book. A photo album? Works for me.

I close the chest and merely slip the belt straps loosely through the buckles. No one will come here before the next long day when I get another chance of returning the album and everything else to normal.

The album – a scrap book? – is worn, the cover fraying. I hold it to my chest and climb down with one hand, much slower than I’d like. The voices are still downstairs, but Eliza’s is one of them. Carefully lying the album on the floor, I use a pole to fold in the ladder, shut the hatch, then rush into my room.

It’s getting dark outside. My room is dim. I stand at the door, ear against the wood. Eliza hums as she skips upstairs and into the bathroom. I wait until she’s downstairs again, probably blathering to Clara and Alma about every insignificant detail of her day until she can do it all over again when Mum gets home.

I take the lamp on my nightstand around the bed. Sitting up behind my bed, on the floor with lamp, I open the album. It’s a book. The first pages are empty. Then there’s Mum’s handwriting. Neat, awfully small.

First Kick, it reads at the top of the page. If I didn’t know Mum’s handwriting, I would have thought some outsider wrote this – it’s succinct, to the point, the least engaging, most emotionally-uncharged read. So then she really didn’t want to have me…

I turn a page. First Perceptible Heartbeat, First Time Roy Touched Belly. That one’s a huge mess. Dad’s handwriting is in it too, barely readable because he wrote with a pencil. It reads like my English assignment where he ‘helped’ by adding gushy poetry. At least he seems excited about my existence here. I spot the word ‘kiss’ and quickly turn a page.

Dad’s handwriting disappears entirely a few pages later. Always just Mum, always very bland bullet points. Each of them nice though, for example: first smile – had to bring Roy chair, too adorable. They must have started to like me at some point I guess. Dad became Fuhrer one year before I was born, which means he must have been too busy to keep on writing this, let alone spend time with me. Maybe Mum resented me because she had raise me all alone?

First Tooth, First Time Rolling Over, First Laugh, Says ‘Mama’ (not ‘Dada’). That last one makes me smile. Bet Dad was all snippy about it. First Time Crawling, Says ‘Mada’ (Madame). I reach the end pretty quickly. There’s an abrupt stop after First Steps (in the office!), then blank pages for the last third of the book.

I’m about to close it and hide it under my bed when a photo falls out. It flutters into my lap. Setting the book aside, I pick up the photograph with both hands, holding it close to the lamp.

Mum and Dad. White walls, tiles, a shower in the back – the bathroom where they must have lived before moving into the Fuhrer’s manor. Dad’s wearing pyjamas and Mum is wearing one of his dress shirts, buttoned halfway, a pregnant belly poking out. She has her hands on his face. His hands are on her waist and they are kissing. A black something at the bottom rim might be Hayate’s tail poking into the frame. They look happy.

I startle when Eliza’s blabbering is right in front of my door. More steps. Heeled shoes. Mum.

I hide the photograph and the book under the bed, replace the lamp on the nightstand and turn it off. Just in time. I can see the shadows of legs linger in front of my room. For once, I’m grateful for Eliza’s chatter because it gets Mum to follow her, giving me the chance to turn on the big light, get out some homework and look busy at my desk.

Mum peeks in to say ‘hi’ a minute later. She asks how I am, tells me we’re having dinner shortly. She frowns at my uniform – darn, I forgot to change!

I change and eat dinner mostly in silence, justifying myself by mentioning Mr Hastings briefly. Not what he said of course, just his temper. I’m not pushed for details because Eliza goes on and on and on about her class teacher, Mrs Wallace, who is an absolute fanatic of Dad and used yet another of his speeches as a dictation for the class to write. Dad usually wiggles his brows at Mum at this point, joking that she could be more enthusiastic about his every word. Neither of them say much, tired from the long day.

I should have known that despite everything, Mum still notices.

“Lucien?” She doesn’t get up from my bed after having said good night. I don’t meet her eyes. I was brushing my teeth for ever, and she knows I do that when I’m upset.

She waits.

I furl my fingers around the blanket, gaze adamantly downwards. It’s now or never. I will never sleep again if I don’t ask her now. Eliza is in bed. Dad in his office or the bathroom. The hallway is dark. I turn my face away from the light on the nightstand. “Mum,” my voice croaks, “did you… want to have me?”

She gasps softly. She gasps.

It’s true then.

“Who suggested that I didn’t?”

I wince at the murderous fury in her tone.

“Mr Hastings said that the president would do better if he didn’t have so much to do with his family. That the country would be better off. Please don’t say anything – he’ll pick me in class all the time.”

Mum’s fixating the wall. I can practically see the gears in her brain at work until smoke comes out. Legal ways of punishment are much more complicated than a bullet to the brain, Haymans once said. I wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“So did you… want to have me?” I avert my gaze when she snaps out of her thoughts. “Or am I like Jean’s new baby?” Which wasn’t planned, but, contrary to me, Jean very much wants it. Rebecca too.

Mum sighs. She scoots closer, and I suddenly want to go deaf and not hear what I can already see is a disappointment.

“Being the leader of a country is a very busy job,” she starts. My stomach coils painfully. I pull the blanket closer to myself. Mum notices. She gently unclasps one of my hands, takes it between hers and runs her fingers up my palm. “Lucien.” She waits until I dare look at her from below. “No matter what our jobs are, no matter what anyone else says, we are never too busy for you.

“It’s true that we hadn’t planned to have children just then. I didn’t want to be pregnant because I didn’t want to have to sit things out and let your father brave it out alone. But I always wanted you, always.” She squeezes my hand.

My stomach still aches, now mostly because I doubted her.

Mum’s voice is warm with a smile as she continues, “We loved you so much and we never regretted anything for even a single second. Even before you were born, I wanted you. And Roy… There’s never been anyone happier about your existence than him. The way he tells you Maes acted when speaking of Elicia? That’s your father. He was complete nuts. He still is.”

“No, he isn’t.” The sniffle making my nose runny disappears. I pretend to scratch my face, secretly wiping my eyes.

“Oh, yes, he is.” Mum squeezes my other hand. “He just calms down in the evening, that’s why you don’t get the full load I have to bear at the office. Someone will try to make small talk, ask about you or Eliza, and you can watch the minutes turn into an hour as your father rambles on. Some people say he’s a different person then, all smiles and bright eyes.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I ever?”

No. No, she isn’t. Mum doesn’t exaggerate.

We turn to the door when I hear my name.

“Lucien?” Dad is coming down the hall, knocking on the open door, letting himself in. He knew I was in here; he’s such a bad actor. “There you are.”

What did I say? Bad actor. Where would I be past nine in the evening other than in bed?

He doesn’t notice that no one’s buying his performance, waving for me to follow. “Come, take a look at what I found.”

He hurries downstairs. I exchange a sceptical glance with Mum. She shrugs, equally puzzled.

Dad left a trail of open doors in his wake, leading me to one of the garages where he keeps his old car. Said I get to have it one day, but Mum thinks either rust or mice will get the better of it until then. There are high shelves and lockers against the walls holding paint buckets, brushes, car stuff, tools. The gardener has his own shed of tools, but we keep the spare brooms and rakes in here. There’s enough space to park another two cars.

The question forming on my tongue is so disinterested, it will dampen his mood. Which is mean, I know, but I’m tired and kind of sore with sadness and anyway, shouldn’t he be sleeping standing up?

Whatever I was going to say gets stuck. In the middle of the garage are crates, some angular, some rounded. There are wheels, planks, a steering wheel. Everything you need to make a soapbox car.

My heart skips a beat. I’ve always wanted to make one!

“Looks like it’ll be a busy weekend, hey?” Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have someone come by to get us the tools we’re missing, explain how they work.”

Dad used to do everything with alchemy. He has absolutely no idea how a drill works, let alone differentiate between it and a cordless screwdriver.

I approach the crates, running my hands along what will make the driver’s cab. I can’t wait to sit in this. I know the perfect hill to drive down too. I gotta tell Simon – we can race each other!

I’m surprised there are no alchemy traces anywhere except— there they are. The little lines of transmutation. I wonder what Dad took apart to make this. He must have heard my initial question to Mum and created this in a rush, yet I can’t see what he destroyed. Mum will find out. She always does.

“You like it?” He’s approaching so cautiously, his act cast to the wind. He must have heard.

“It’s great.” I manage a smile. He beams; he’s so relieved. I’m almost sorry I trample his relief, but I have to ask. “Dad, was I unplanned like Jean’s baby?”

He nods almost immediately. “You were. You and your sister both.” Wow. He said it so casually, I almost want to laugh. Crouching down, he lowers his voice. “But the only reason was because you mother was scared to death about giving birth.”

“Roy.” Mum growls. Arms crossed, she’s leaning with her hip against the jamb of the door.

Dad grins, getting up. “You were.” He turns back to me. “And it actually didn’t go too well. Lots of pain.”

“All of it worth it.” Mum comes over to stroke my hair. Her slippers sound like a duck waddling on the concrete floor of the garage. “Your feet are getting cold,” she tells me. She’s right, so I let them walk me back to bed.

Outside my room, the door shut, I can hear that small hum which I know is Mum and Dad kissing. Couldn’t wait until their room. I want to pull a face, but then I start to wonder – what must it be like for them to remember all of this? How will they act with Jean’s baby once it’s there? Will I get to see the way they hold it; the way they held me when I was that little?

When there’s no sound or light in the hall anymore, I turn on the lamp on my nightstand. Without leaving my bed, I bend down, groping around for the book I hid and take out the photograph. Pregnant bellies look weird. But Mum and Dad look happy. Happy to be together, happy to have me.

I smile to myself. I was getting all worked up for nothing.

Reaching for the off switch of my lamp, the photo turns over. Scrawly handwriting. Neither Mum nor Dad wrote this. Grandpa? Two months to Radicchio. Whatever that means. Oh, wait, I know. Eliza had the codename ‘Cinnamon Bun’ until birth because they didn’t know if she would be a boy or a girl and couldn’t call her by her name yet. I was ‘Mustard’. Or was I ‘Mayonnaise’? Something that Mum craved at the time.

I only just turned off the light when my hand freezes in mid-air. I turn the light on again.

Hold on. Then who is ‘Radicchio’? A mistake surely.

I look at the date. 2^nd of August, 1916.

I look again. I stare until the numbers blur, the ache in my stomach flaring up like bile shooting up my throat. 1916.

But… I was born in 1918.

Chapter 5: Reign

I didn’t sleep. Not for a minute. My head is droning, my eyes crusted and itching and probably bloodshot. I avoid my reflection until the last possible moment.

“Riza, what is this?” Dad’s voice in the hall is entirely too loud for me this early in the morning. He’s waving a sheet that rustles, tailing Mum to where she is making sure Eliza packed her homework.

Mum does that little huff of effort for whenever she gets up after kneeling. Eliza’s backpack clinks shut.

“You can’t leave me alone with Armstrong,” Dad pleads urgently. “Proceeding age makes her all the more vicious.”

“I’m sorry, love, but after what happened—” Mum lowers her voice, “yesterday.”

I rinse my mouth, dry my hands and take my comb to my room. Their voices only pick back up after I closed the door. I don’t want to hear about Dad’s work. Makes me think of Maes, of murder for knowing too much. Also the lady Armstrong is hella scary. Alex Armstrong is fine but weird, but his sister… What must it have been like to work in the military with her? Even Mum shudders mildly when remembering joint training exercises. Mum.

Today, I can’t bring myself to feel very sorry for Dad. I don’t wish anyone lady Armstrong in the morning (either Armstrong, to be honest), but right now, I feel bleary with betrayal. Just what happened in 1916? Why was I never told? We tell each other everything – why won’t they trust me with this?

My mood drops from the cellar to the centre of the earth when the break after second period ends. I considered faking a stomachache to bunk off school. The test in geometry this morning was the reason I didn’t. A stupid idea. It couldn’t have gone much worse. Every time I think of what I discovered, my brain comes up with one terrible scenario after the other.

Maybe Mum and Dad didn’t want to have me so bad, they tried to get rid of me and it didn’t work for two years. That must have been why it caused Mum so much pain. Maybe I was born and frozen with alchemy and when the public realised I was missing, Mum and Dad were forced to bring me back. Maybe Eliza and I are adopted to cover up the super cool, super smart Radicchio who never flunks geometry or English or Chemistry.

No, I’d know if there was another child. The public would talk about it.

I must look as nauseous as I feel because Joss keeps throwing me worried glances. I’d really rather be squished into roots and an ant nest by her than sit here and endure Mr Hastings. We’re twenty minutes into his class and he’s already throwing a tantrum.

Gordon snickers. His mum is nice. Strict and a little boring but nice. He must have told her what happened and she dismissed the accusations. That, or he doesn’t remember to feel ashamed.

I know I do. I don’t join in when he laughs behind his hand. I don’t look at Mr Hastings or anyone else. I shouldn’t even be here; I shouldn’t exist—

We jump in our seats when Mr Hastings slams his fists onto Gordon’s table so hard, it rattles like a landslide. The pencil case flies off. The books wobble on the edge. They’re about to fall right onto Mr Hasting’s feet when he lifts his hands off the table, snatches Gordon’s wrist away from where it protected Gordon’s face, and raises his other arm to strike. “Why, you little—”

The door opens. We sit as if on a frozen lake, thighs burning against the ice below, unable to move without ripping off skin, unable to breathe lest we crack the ice and sink to our deaths. One of the girls squeaks. She clasps a hand in front of her mouth. Mr Hastings’ jaw drops all the way to his wing-tipped shoes.

“Mr Hastings.” Dad’s voice is a bottomless pit. It makes a shiver run down even my spine.

Two bodyguards flank Dad, their suits shiny black, their sunglasses impenetrable. Even so, it’s Dad’s eyes that are the least forgiving.

Mr Hastings’s fingers snap away from Gordon’s wrist. His other hand twitches, flashes to his side, then back up, a clumsy salute all he can manage when words fail him. He tries to speak, but no one can make sense of it.

Dad lifts his palm. Mr Hastings claps his teeth shut at once.

“Would you mind accompanying my officer?” Dad asks darkly. It’s not a question.

Mr Hastings gulps so loud, I can hear it; see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He inches toward the door. Dad and the bodyguards take a step back. There are more people in suits in the hall. Barton, another bodyguard, usually for big events or public appearances. Wittock, he will do the arrest. Crawford, probably to give written notice to Headmistress Denver or gather Mr Hastings’ personal data.

Barton draws his gun. Mr Hastings flinches. The whole class does when one of Dad’s bodyguards too reaches for his weapon, but Dad again holds up his palm.

Steps are pelting down the hallway towards us.

“Daddy!” Eliza leaps. She latches onto Dad in a boisterous hug, but he keeps standing as if nothing happened.

“Hello, my love.” His tone changed drastically, now warm and tender.

Eliza plucks her face away from his chest enough to flash a huge grin up at him. “What are you doing here? Are you coming to my class too?”

“Has your tutor been as naughty as Mr Hastings?” He pats the top of her head.

She beams, shaking her head, still hanging on as if he were the jungle gym in the yard. “No, she just fell asleep,” she says with no judgement whatsoever. “We’re watching a silent film. I went to the loo.”

Dad’s lips purse in displeasure. We all brace ourselves for punishment. Punishment and the fated meeting between the President of Amestris and his most frantic fan, Mrs Wallace. Imagine her face if she gets caught having fallen asleep in class… by Dad.

I’ve almost worked up the courage to suggest it when Dad says, “Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t have wanted a lesson like that every once in a while when I was your age…”

Eliza’s grin stretches anew. Everyone’s faces brighten. Beatrice – the one who squeaked – is still covering her mouth with her hand, only now her cheeks are glowing an adoring red. Even Joss looks smitten, eyes shining at Dad’s benevolence. And just when I could have suggested a spectacle that would have lasted the school (and poor Mrs Wallace) a lifetime.

“How much too early am I for ‘present your parent’s job’ day?”

I almost shake my head to clear my thoughts. Dad’s smiling at me. My shoulders tense, squaring as if a horde of rhinos was headed straight at me. “It’s on Friday.” I almost croak. No, I’m fine. I can be cool.

Everyone is still transfixed by the whole ridiculousness of the president at school, escorting a teacher out, showing grace to another.

“Too bad,” Dad says. “You chose your mother anyway.”

“She has the cooler job,” I say without missing a beat. My voice is level but my body is hot all over. Please don’t make me blush, please don’t!

“She does.” Dad replies with a wry smile.

Beatrice swoons, melting a little into her seat. Eliza giggles, setting off more and more in class. Simon elbows me with an impressed nod and a knowing smile. No idea why this occurs to me now, but this is the first time I don’t despise my hair. It’s our thing. I get to be as nonchalant and suave as Dad, not just cramped into his shadow.

The guards put their guns away. Wittock is taking Mr Hasting’s by the arm, leading him out. The second they are gone from the doorframe, the class breaks out into heated discussions. Some laugh, some of the girls shed a tear of shock. Gordon looks like he hit the jackpot, his eyes bulging a little.

I stand up. It hushes a few while others chat even more animatedly. Dad is sending Eliza back to her class. When she’s left, waving every few metres until she’s reached the right door, I lower my voice close to Dad.

“Did you come here to ditch Armstrong?”

His complaint from his morning has another thought shooting into my mind. Mum said something about ‘yesterday’. It wasn’t about the office. She was going to come here, leave Dad to brave Armstrong alone. He did ditch Armstrong.

Dad puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your mother is kindly holding the fort for me,” he whispers. “This was more important.”

“And less scary.” I challenge with a raised a brow.

He smiles. Smiles really as if we’re partners in crime; as if I’m one of the boys, Jean or Maes. I’m so happy, I almost tremble.

“By a hairbreadth.” Dad’s hand tightens on my shoulder. His voice is still low. “From where I stood, it looked like he was going to hit you. That will haunt me,” he sighs. I’m so surprised, I can only stare. There is some serious effort in the way he relaxes his features back to a smile. “Promise to let me know if something like this happens, okay? Verbally or physically.”

I nearly yell my question about the mixed-up years, why I wasn’t told about 1916. Instead, I nod.

Dad squeezes my shoulder one last time, then the throng of people moves down the hall. Headmistress Denver is hurrying towards us, flustered and confused. I don’t register her words, my eyes on Dad’s back.

He came. He actually dropped everything to come here. For me.

Mrs Denver stumbles towards our classroom once she is in the picture. She still looks thoroughly dumbfounded. It’s not everyday a teacher is taken into custody for attempted violence against a child – luckily.

She tells us to sit, scurries away and returns no five minutes later.

“Silence,” she demands half-heartedly. We blabber more quietly. “After an unforeseen turn of events,” she says as if none of us had been there, “you are all excused for the day. The assembly hall will be open for you to call and wait for your parents.”

Everyone springs to their feet, chatting excitedly.

“Please don’t forget anything. Mr Kingsley, is this your umbrella?” Mrs Denver tries to bring us in order for naught. I’m out the door, dashing past her faster than she can pronounce my name.

Dad could still be here!

Please, please, please, I plead as I race down the hall. They will have passed by the offices to alert Mrs Denver. I take a shortcut by the janitor’s niche. I don’t want to sit around and call, I want to go with Dad! He came to my school, he remembered, he cared so much that he paid five people for a spontaneous (expensive!) exclusive trip outside the office.

“He’s moving to sector two!” Joss materialises behind me. She isn’t lightning like Eliza, but she can be fast too.

The bullet-proof car outside. Dad’s entourage. Crawford is opening the door, which means Dad is less than one minute away from being gone.

Joss brakes hard. I keep running, but I hear her opening a window. Crawford looks up. He and Barton move closer to Dad, hands on their belts. Joss is shouting something or maybe just waving, but it draws their attention long enough that I leap down four steps at once, nearly crashing to the ground and into Dad.

He watches me as I bend over, catching my breath. I’m on fire. My ankles ache from the landing. But I did it. I caught up.

My hair whips as I straighten quickly.

“Class—” I wheeze, pausing for breath. “Class was dismissed. It’s my final lesson for today.” I look at him, hope burning bright like a beacon.

Joss comes hopping down the few steps to the front court. She’s carrying my bag – did I lose that on the way here? I had it when I left the classroom…

She hands it to me, and I take it without either of us breaking eye contact with Dad; as if this was the plan all along.

Dad studies the giant clock on the tower of the school building high above us.

Crawford shakes his head pointedly.

Dad acknowledges it, then looks from me to my bag to Joss. “Will Miss Darlington be picked up separately?”

Our eyes light up. Crawford’s shoulders slump. He wedges himself into Dad’s field of view, tapping his wristwatch.

Joss does a little curtsy. “I haven’t notified anyone yet, sir.”

“You can call from the mansion,” Dad proposes.

She inclines her head gratefully. We exchange glances, giddy, barely containing the skip in our step as we’re offered the backseat of the bullet-proof car.

Dad chooses the passenger seat. He tells one of the bodyguards from the accompanying cars to organise someone for at home until Mum comes back (can’t bear the meeting with Armstrong without her, I guess). Crawford hands him a file and gets into one of the other cars.

We’re dropped off with a smile from Dad through the rear-vision mirror.

When he comes home later, the kitchen is a mess. Gina came to watch us – she’s one of Dad’s sisters. They all have real names and nicknames they used for being spies (and still sometimes use). Her real name is Georgina. She gets angry when we say it. Eliza and I would make games of winding Dad’s sisters up, drawling something like ‘Georgeiii…is a good name’. All of Dad’s sisters are super fun; they can laugh so loudly. They tell the wildest stories about their jobs, about Grandma and Dad.

Joss must think Gina a nanny. We don’t correct her. Eliza has very little boundaries with anyone, so her joking around with a ‘nanny’ or hugging her isn’t suspicious at all.

First Mr Hastings’ arrest, riding in Dad’s car, Joss coming over after a short day of school and now baking with Gina. Things couldn’t have gone any smoother. Oh, and did I mention that the kitchen is a mess?

Dad’s face goes a little pale when he comes in. His brow twitches, gaze as bewildered as it is empty. Gina sucks when it comes to being a housewife, including baking.

“Daddy!” Eliza throws her arms up in greeting. It sends the cookie cutter she was using flying across the kitchen. She picks up another and resumes as if nothing happened. She did that too when ‘sprinkling’ the counter with flour before rolling out the dough. The package is still there on the ground, white footprints from all of us everywhere. As I said, Gina’s not the domestic type.

“Roy-Roy.” Ginger curls bounce as she twirls around to greet him. Much is exchanged in that one glance, mostly from his side. She brushes it off and offers a chair. “Watch your step,” she says as if the flour’s been on the floor for merely a few seconds. “Anything I can get you?” She leaves a hand-shaped white print on his suit.

Dad doesn’t notice. He doesn’t realise we’re giggling about the handprint on him. His eyes are busy taking in the white floor, the egg dripping down the counter, the overcrowded sink, whatever that purple goo in one of the bowls is. “I’ll need a strong one after this…”

Joss gasps softly. I halt the tip of the piping bag the two of us were figuring out together. She grabs one of the better results of cupcakes. Better as in looking appetising. The first few are… they’re edible for sure. Only the piping bag hadn’t been mastered yet.

Sprinkling the giant, jiggling spiral of frosting with chocolate chips, Joss carries the cupcake over to Dad. “One strong one. Enjoy, sir.” She presents the cupcake. His tired brow rises. Seeking a spot he can touch without his fingers getting sticky from the frosting, Dad slowly receives the cupcake. I think Joss is holding her breath.

“Thank you.” He smiles. His eyes flash up to me with amusement. I know he meant alcohol. He knows I know.

All of this almost made me forget about the mystery of 1916.

We hear Mum come home. Eliza hops off the stepladder she needed to reach the counter. Gina catches her midair. Dad troubles himself to get up as quickly as exhaustion will let him – before Mum sees the battlefield. He goes to meet her in the hall. Their steps wander up the stairs, so I sneak after them as Gina starts instructing the girls where to start tidying up.

This could be my chance. Before Eliza claims all attention at dinner. I go to my room and get out the photo from under the bed. Mum and Dad are changed out of their work clothes when I get back. I have to smile when I see Mum snitching some of Dad’s cupcake right out of his hand with her mouth. “Today was a nightmare,” she mumbles.

He wipes frosting off her upper lip, then kisses the spot. “It could always be worse.” The kitchen. It’s a good thing he didn’t let her see it.

Mum looks drained off energy like a raisin dried in the sun. I hold the photo closer to my chest. “I don’t see how. From what General Armstrong described, we’re on the brink of war with Drachma. The people might ask for former State Alchemist intervention. Roy—”

“Not today.” He sits next to her on the bed, swiftly drowning her words with another bite of cupcake. She grumbles but chews. Her tongue has to work away the stickiness on her teeth.

Nothing will distract her enough though. Throughout dinner, she wears her brooding frown. I ask her if I can climb up to the attic and she doesn’t question it, only wants to be there when I go up and come down the ladder. Eliza is on my heels, of course. She’s busy discovering her old toys while I slip the album and photo back into the chest in the back and shut it tightly.

Reign, it reads on the label. I trace the name with my fingers.

Dad is slowly adapting Mum’s gloom, and so he invites us to sleep in their bed. Eliza is there faster than the speed of sound. She’s asleep just as quickly.

Light snoring betrays that Dad followed right after her. Deep in slumber, Eliza will reach out and pat his mouth to shut the noise. He’ll grunt, chuckle if awake enough, and drift off in a matter of seconds. Two hours later, the snoring makes a comeback, but softly enough that neither of them cares.

I hear it all. For the second night, I can’t sleep. I shuffle my feet, careful not to kick Eliza.

Mum’s arm comes over me. I still. And wait. Her arm retreats and at first, I think she’s turning away, but then I hear her feet on the carpet and the warmth disappears from behind me. The door clicks open but never shut. I wait again, then sneak after her into the hall.

So then she did notice how long I was brushing my teeth.

I find her in the kitchen.

A mug of hot chocolate awaits me. Unlike Eliza, I can drink one at night. She gets her zoomies like a dog.

Leaning against the counter, I copy Mum. She’s holding her own mug, stroking my hair with her free hand. I stare into my hot chocolate. Tiny bubbles are popping on the surface. Cocoa powder is sticking to the inside of the mug like dried-out dirt crumpling into a puddle.

Mum takes a sip, entirely unprepared when I ask.

“Who is Reign?”

Mum’s hand drops from my head. It doesn’t freeze as if caught off guard by the barrel of a gun, it just slumps, already shot dead. Her mug is left behind on the counter. She walks to the table, pulls out a chair and sits. She sits.

Mum doesn’t usually appear to have human needs – she can skip any meal of the day without complaining, spend the night working, drive for hours and hours. She doesn’t race us to the bathroom after a lengthy trip. She doesn’t turn over for a few minutes when the alarm rings.

She doesn’t sit when her body grows weary.

Now she does. Her elbows meet the table. Her forehead drops onto her folded hands. It’s not her body gone weary but her mind, in a way I can’t compare to anything I’ve ever seen. Not Eliza’s hyperdrive, not Dad’s temper or Mr Browning’s accusations, not even the press or a General’s bloated ego will crumple her into this— this leaf crushed under heavy boots.

There’s a silence so swamped with sudden grief, I can’t taste my cocoa anymore. I cling to the mug, sucking at the warmth with my fingers when an icy shiver rushes down my spine.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I don’t know what else to say, how to retrieve my voice. I’d rather retrieve the words; never find out who Reign is if only I could erase this moment from my brain.

Mum’s eyes aren’t shut. They seem glassy yet avid to drink in the wood of the table, anything that isn’t what she must be seeing in front of her mind’s eye.

I want to tell her that I was looking for my own childhood, that I found the name on accident, that I don’t think badly of her. For a moment, I wonder if Reign is Mum’s Hughes. Or someone Mum killed during the war.

“Reign,” Mum speaks softly, heavily. Not like she doesn’t want to say it, but rather as if she wants to linger on each letter, as if pronouncing them will set her free from something that hurts her with every coming word shredding her tongue. “Reign was your older sister.”

What?

My breath subsides.

Mum briefly closes her eyes, then lifts her head from her hands. She doesn’t turn to me when she continues. She looks blind with sorrow. “She is the reason why I was afraid to have another child – you. And the reason why I loved you from the moment I knew we were having you.”

She looks at me then. I abandon the safety of my mug. Reconsidering, I pick up both of our mugs and bring them to the table. It never occurs to me to take the opposite seat. Mum welcomes my climbing her lap, strapping me in with both arms.

It’s silent. I can feel the lessening heat of the hot chocolates wafting up to my face. Selfishly, scared, I squeeze her hand the tiniest bit. Finally, Mum speaks again.

“Your father held the rank of Major General. We had just returned from the first phase of the Ishvalan Restoration when I found out that I was pregnant.”

The laws, I think. Fraternisation.

“It was only when he found out about the pregnancy that your great-grandfather told me we were related. His love for Reign even before she was born helped us greatly through those times. Your father was promoted and I quit the military. My violation of the law was pardoned despite much opposition.

“We moved to Central when Reign was only a few months old. Your father worked tirelessly to restore the public’s and military’s trust, and to protect us. The Ishvalan Restoration was going well, and relations with Xing and even Aerugo, who had supported the Ishvalans in the war to weaken our border, were developing positively.

“It was winter when Reign fell ill. A cold at first, then a fever, like a flu. For three weeks, it dragged on. It bettered occasionally, only to flare up again. Everyone we could reach came to help – the most experienced doctors, even an old friend from Xing who knows Alkahestry, the kind of Alchemy that can heal.”

The white streak on Mum’s neck. Alkahestry saved her back then from bleeding out. Dad still has nightmares about that. I hear him say ‘Lieutenant’ in his sleep sometimes; feel him wince awake and draw her into his embrace.

“We spent day and night at the hospital. Your father had to cancel an important diplomatic voyage to Drachma.” Mum’s voice hollows out like a pot of clay, a cold, brittle echoing. “One week before her first birthday, Reign succumbed to her illness.”

If I sat facing Mum, I still wouldn’t look. I don’t want to see her face; I can hardly endure the crippling of her voice.

Barely above a whisper, she goes on, “As if to give us a reason for her death, Grandfather suffered a stroke shortly after. Had Reign not been so ill, we would have never requested the Xingese princess’ aid and she would have never been there in time to save Grandfather.”

She never calls him ‘Grandfather’ expect when addressing him directly, just the two of them. She called him my great‑grandfather before. There is something intensely frightening in the way she seems to forget right now. Mum doesn’t forget things. Mum doesn’t stray from the role she assigns herself – be it secretary or first lady or unfailing supportive mother.

Just now, she is straying. I let go of my mug to hold her arms around me, keep her close and from going any further; from getting lost.

Her hug tightens. She clears her throat softly. “Your great-grandfather had named your father his successor, and even when he was feeling better, he stuck with the decision. When we found out I was pregnant a second time, we weren’t quite ready with all the things that needed to be done. We weren’t quite decided if it would be responsible to burden someone with being the Fuhrer’s child; with being our child.”

Ishval. I feel a bubbling need to twist around and squish Mum until the guilt gushes out from her. The way I’ve seen him hold her, Dad seems to try that every once in a while. It doesn’t work.

“What we were undoubtedly decided on with all our heart was you.” She surprises me enough that I forget to avoid her face, tilting my head back. A tender smile only just reaches her eyes. The wrinkles are there at the corners, but the light in her eyes hasn’t recovered yet. “We were starving to finally meet you.

“When I was carrying Reign, it took me almost until she was born to warm up to her. I didn’t feel I could be a mother.”

“But—” I croak, my mouth sticky with cocoa. “You’re the best mum there is! The best!” I turn around, scrambling with my legs to sit the other way, squashing myself into her.

Mum squeezes me fast. Her cheek roofs my head, moving back and forth to feel my hair on her skin. “We never said it, but I think you father and I secretly agreed how glad we were for the accident to happen – that it brought us you and later Eliza. I might not have recovered so well from losing Reign if you hadn’t kept me on the hop. You were very needy and I was more than happy to give you all my time and attention.

“All the attention I possibly could.” She falters again, briefly, and sighs. “It wasn’t enough.”

I peek at her, confused.

“I should be glad, I guess,” she goes on. She can’t stop stroking my hair, with her hand, now that I removed my head from under hers. “I didn’t have the time I wanted, and it made you independent. You turned out so, so wonderfully, Lucien. You’re very mature for your age, and I have myself to blame for that.”

“I like it. But it makes others annoying sometimes.”

“You are brilliant in every aspect, my love. You’re diligent and honest, you show us how you feel.” Something she never did, it rings in her words. “I still wish I would have given you more, much more time. Your father too.” She compels herself to smile. “I know your father’s anxious about the elections – I am too – but at the same time, we can’t wait to be with you and Eliza. It won’t be an easy transition for us. Your father and I have always worked more, never less.”

“We can keep you busy.” I pat her arm. “I can take Dad with me to practice, and you can help Eliza with the horse she always wanted.”

“We could consider riding lessons. She has been very patient.”

In other words, getting a horse is still out of the question. But we could get a dog. I can see the thought almost word by word on Mum’s creased brow.

She pulls away from it. This time, her smile is genuine though still small. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. We trust you. I suppose we didn’t trust ourselves yet. But don’t worry. You mended my heart and your father’s just by being you.” She kisses the top of my head.

“Did you—” I bite my lip. “Do you see her in us?”

“Reign? No. Newborns often look alike, but you beat all the records by weighing over four kilos. As if you wanted to tell me you’re strong, not frail. You were there to stay.”

Like a wedge driven into firewood, something chips from Mum’s voice. I squeeze her more, until her spine pops and her lungs stutter for an instant. Her chin wobbles on my head, right before she lifts it off.

I never hear her sniffle. I’ve never seen Mum cry and that doesn’t change tonight. She won’t let it.

We finish our cold cocoas. I go to the bathroom while she rinses the mugs.

We return on quiet feet to find both Eliza and Dad having wandered across the bed, or maybe she climbed over him. Mum or Dad are always on the outside, usually Mum, to get up without disturbing us. She doesn’t complain now when I choose the far side. She even crawls into the middle of her own accord. I have to shuffle to feel her warmth, but she retreats further.

Dad rouses vaguely when she weaves into him, demands to be drawn into his embrace. Drowsy, he complies. “What’s up?” he rasps.

She might have whispered close to his ear or maybe she didn’t, but he holds her even closer, so close that all I feel brushing my back are Dad’s arms around her, not Mum’s body. A single finger extends, scratches my shoulder blade to tell me he registers me; that everything’s fine.

He doesn’t know that I’m the one to blame for Mum remembering that first baby they lost. I have a feeling that he knows it’s what this is about though; the reason she needs comfort.

Chapter 6: A Question of Time

It’s been two days since I sat in the kitchen with Mum in the middle of the night. She went to work with Dad and I went to school, to archery and tennis. I think about that night when I leave the kitchen this morning. I didn’t think Mum did.

Still, Rebecca sees right through her. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Mum is getting her coat like she always does. There is nothing different – not in her movements, not in her face.

Rebecca sees something though. She glances down the hall, at me, then at Dad. He isn’t even looking back, scanning some document, but Rebecca gasps softly and takes Mum’s hand, squeezes her arm. “Code R?” she whispers.

My brain feels bright with a bulb newly lit. So that’s what it is! Roy, Riza, Rebecca, ravioli – it could have been anything. It’s Reign. It’s always been Reign.

My feet carry me to the front door, arms ready to hug Mum, to apologise. She’s gone before I reach her. The car starts outside and they’re off.

 

---

 

Light tiptoes from the hall into my room, just over the threshold. It catches on my feet, barely, and I move them to see different angles flash up and slither back into the darkness. Eliza is singing in the bathroom, unintelligible, probably spraying toothpaste foam everywhere. She had extra caramel on her waffle tonight.

We don’t usually eat sweet in the evening – I for one would always vote savoury just to keep hyper-Eliza to a minimum. But Dad said ‘he felt like it’ which is basically code for Mum feeling like something without expressing it. Or knowing. They can do that – read each other’s minds, well, unspoken minds, unthought thoughts.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. How Rebecca just knew. How Dad knew.

How I am the one who made Mum sad.

My fingertips brush over the horns of my stuffed animal. They’re soft but sturdy, made from felt, I think. A little scratchy; nicely prickly. I used to tickle the tips of them under my nose or trace my lips, suckle on the right one instead of my thumb when I was a toddler. Mum says she later regretted making it as it might remind of bio‑alchemy chimeras. I’ve always loved the mishmash of colours and animal attributes.

Eliza’s Mum-made plushie has floppy ears and hooves. Mine has horns, a curled tail like Hayate had, and a more or less symmetrical snout. Eliza’s is bigger, because apparently, I almost choked on mine – at least tried to – when I was a baby.

Eliza prefers her dog plushie to the one Mum made her; says it makes her miss Hayate less. We bought it on a holiday once. Hayate was still with us then, but when he died, Eliza clung to that plushie – at home, in the car, even at school sometimes – as if it would bring him back. Things got worse when Sally, Hayate’s mate, died shortly after. The vet said it was a broken heart.

Could… Mum have died of a broken heart when Reign died? Or Dad? Would either of them die of a broken heart if the other were dead?

Half past nine. We sure are late for bed when Dad’s in charge. I’m about to close my door when I hear him joining Eliza’s song with what has to be the most lethally embarrassing thing ever: improvised rapping. Improvised rapping by my forty-six year old father. I close the door faster, but a shadow blocks my path.

“Mum.” I wince back a little, arms flying behind my back to hide the plushie. It’s been buried at the bottom of my closet for years. The last thing I want is upset her again.

But if she doesn’t see it, how will I know…?

“I’m surprised you’re not using the chance to read.” She nods at the book on my nightstand. Did she see the light below my door the other night? The other other night that is. I haven’t touched the book in days, even though it’s a really good one. I feel like I’m betraying her if I did; reading on happily as if nothing happened.

Something in Mum’s eyes softens – not like a warm caress to my hair but more like a plant too warm with its leaves dampening sorrowfully.

I scramble into bed before I can trigger anything worse. She waits, switches on the lamp on the nightstand before shutting out that awful duet by closing the door. I’m under the covers when she turns back around.

“Been a while since I’ve seen that little guy.”

I can’t see her face with the lamp right next to me. I can’t hear sadness in her voice or anger or joy, only lingering – like a stranger waiting for a train and you don’t know if he truly wants to arrive at his destination.

I pull the plushie out from under the blanket. Hima, I’d called it, because I didn’t know how to pronounce Hyena and apparently also didn’t know what a real Hyena looked like.

The sheets rustle as Mum sits down beside me. Gently, she taps the tip of the right horn – the suckle-victim of baby-me.

I stare at the gesture, when really, my vision keens to catch a glimpse of her expression. “Can I ask you something?”

“Will I tell him to stop? Yes, yes, I will.” She glances at the door, a knowing smirk on her lips as Dad’s refrain faintly pulses through the door from across the hall.

I feel like a monster for changing the subject, but if I don’t, I won’t be able to sleep. And this is Mum! Nothing can deck her. Right…? “Did you make one for Reign too?”

She stiffens as if I dropped a load of ice cubes down her back. Her shoulders move down with purpose, hands arranging neatly in her lap. “I did.”

I should have asked Dad. I shouldn’t have asked at all. I should have spent the night sleepless or reading or waiting for Jean to drop by. He might know. He’d know how cruel I am for asking this. He’d know a better way to ask, I’m sure. He’d know whether it’d be a good idea to ask Dad at all.

I really don’t want to press, but I want to know. Why didn’t we know we had an older sister when I’m always so proud about how open and honest we are as a family? What was Reign like? Who was she to Mum and Dad?

“She didn’t like it very much.” Mum says.

My eyes flash up to her without my consent.

She isn’t looking, not even at Hima, as she goes on, “I didn’t either. Well, I did, when I was a little woozy with a fever. Once back to my senses, I locked the thing away, but your father wouldn’t rest until he found it. I didn’t know whether to be triumphant or depressed that I was right. Reign preferred snuggling unpeeled carrots to the toy I’d sewn.”

“Carrots?”

“Your great-grandfather had a quirk for introducing her to random objects around the house. He once brought in a toad from the garden and imprisoned it in her crib. It took us three hours to get her to stop crying.”

“That’s mean.” I grin a little. Exactly the thing Grandpa would do. (I know he’s my great-grandpa, but since I don’t have a grandpa, I call him that. He doesn’t complain. Says he isn’t even that old. He is. Ancient is an understatement.)

What’s also mean is that Reign didn’t like her plushie, but I don’t say it. I feel like I can’t degrade her in any way in front of Mum.

I’m surprised when she goes on without prompting. “It was so loud – the screaming, your father yelling, the dogs barking – that security guards broke down the door to rescue us from whatever they thought was happening.”

A knock on the door. Mum doesn’t feel interrupted as Dad pokes his head in. The light is behind him but his smile is tangible like chewing gum streeeetched all the way from his lips to my face, because he spots us shoulder to shoulder on the bed.

“The guards came in quickly and since their main goal was to protect your great-grandfather, one of them pointed his gun at your father.”

“The toad in the baby cot?” Dad catches on immediately. There’s a chuckle in his words. His voice is a little hoarse from all the singing. I didn’t notice it stopped. “That was a night to remember.” He slumps down on the side of the bed, strokes Mum’s knee in unspoken apology for taking up its space. “When Darryl threatened me out of reflex…” He hisses between his teeth. “Safe to say you mother nearly amputated his fingers with her own gun.”

“Roy.”

Dad chuckles and shrugs. Her eyes narrow warningly but her knee doesn’t pull away from his hands. His gaze finds Hima, twinkling curiously. There is so much I don’t know, but I’m almost certain this reaction just now has to do with Dad liking Mum’s sewing. She can be doing something epically boring like fixing a loose hem on his tie and he’ll slur in a phone call or accidentally cross out a word with his pen sliding out of his grasp. He loves when she picks up needle and thread. He becomes the definition of goo-goo eyes.

“What did Reign’s look like?” I hold up Hima. “Can I see it?”

That stiffness Mum had earlier streaks across Dad’s face. It strangles the muscles at his neck.

I should’ve asked Jean, I should’ve asked Jean!

“We buried it with her.” Mum’s voice is like a tight-rope walker over a ravine – breath held, pushing on unwillingly, fleeing forward. “Even though she didn’t like it.”

“She liked it.” Dad’s hand stills over Mum’s knee, presses down as if to stop a bleeding. “She wouldn’t have anything else with her in hospital. She liked it a lot.”

Mum bites her knuckles, turning her head away from us. Her side stutters against mine in a voiceless sob or a tenuous inhale or a tremble.

I’m paralyzed. My ears bleed, my heart batters. Mum isn’t like this. She doesn’t—

I feel hot with shame and grief and so sorry; so, so sorry for bringing it all up. Again. I want to go back in time, to turn into an ant and be stomped on.

Dad is just as alarmed, not having expected Mum reacting this severely. Not here, not with others around.

She inhales again, sounding wet and hollow up her nose. I don’t check if her eyes are wet too. Dad does.

He scoots closer, until he runs out of space at the height of her hip, but scoots closer still, hovering next to the mattress, low enough to be at eyelevel but high enough not to crouch, his legs shaking at the odd angle. I hear a kiss and when I dare to glance up, his lips press between her brows for a long, vigorously tender moment.

Mum’s shoulders sink. Still consciously but less robotically. She rubs her face and eyes. Dad takes it into his hands, kisses her lips. She makes a small sound, then nods, whispering, “I’m okay.” Only then does he retreat.

Her arm wraps around me. She pulls me to her, but never to her face, chin hooked to the top of my head. “It’s okay. I’m sorry if I scared you.” She squeezes my elbow.

She did scare me. A lot.

I wish she’d scare me enough to shut me up but I can’t help myself. “Can I visit her?”

“We can,” Dad says before Mum has to. “I’ll take you there.” He pats my hand over Hima’s back.

I hear him excuse Mum’s lack of good night wishes to Eliza with a headache. Then he follows Mum to their room. The door shuts.

One, two, five minutes. Ten. I turn off my lamp. Eleven, twelve. I turn over. It must be past ten by now. I got some answers, but I can’t find sleep. Maybe I just found a new thing to keep me up, or maybe Mum succumbing to emotions is what’s been rattling my soul for days. And I made everything worse.

How did I think Dad was the one never showing feelings? How did I never see just how tightly bottled-up Mum kept herself, always there for us but never needy, never letting anyone be there for her?

A knock. Dad quietly opens the door and shuts it behind him. It’s too dark to see, so I listen to his steps creaking on the wood, then swishing on the deep-pile rug in front of my bed. Unseeing, he sits down on my arm, gets up, and I pull away. He sits down again.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

He sighs into the darkness.

The light from the hall below the door is turned off, the house cramped with silence.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You have every right to ask. Frankly, I didn’t think it would hit this hard after such a long time.”

Does he mean Mum or himself?

I fiddle with Hima, cushioned in the crook of my body. “I asked Mum on Tuesday. I found a photograph of you and wanted to know who Reign was. I ruined her whole week.”

“So that’s why…” Dad mutters to himself. He strokes my back, leaning over a little with his voice low. “You didn’t do anything wrong or insensitive. You don’t have to blame yourself – it happened before you were born.” Under his breath, as if repeating some kind of prophecy he doesn’t understand, he adds, “Soon fourteen years ago.”

“But I brought it up.”

“Many things do.” His tone doesn’t whistle like Mum’s runny nose but there’s something missing, something vacant like a carved-out rock; a cave into which you speak but your voice echoes back unreliably and foreign. Dad traces my back, vertebra by vertebra. I love when he does that. “Saturday, in fact, we saw a woman crossing the street with a baby stroller.”

Saturday, that’s how exactly he remembers such a small moment. That’s how hard it hits, and not just Mum.

She said we don’t remind her of Reign, but we were in baby strollers too once, yet all that comes to mind is Reign. Dad confuses archery with tennis practice every single week, but on Saturday, he saw that stroller.

I swallow a lump of saliva thick and stinging as cough syrup.

Dad’s fingers travel back up my spine. “It can be the most minuscule things. The paperknife we used in Grumman’s office where we had brought Reign in the beginning. A chip in Mum’s mug from back then, the smell of bee balm when you rub it between your fingers. You two helped a lot with that.”

“We helped?”

“All the time. Eliza for example smashed so many plates and mugs, we couldn’t tell anymore which blemishes were made by Reign or Eliza. Well, made by us because of Reign, or made by Eliza. She’s always had a special talent.

“You, my friend, you smeared your entire mouth blue and then swallowed the rest of the ink from Grumman’s pen – one of Reign’s favourite things to watch in the office. Of course, you both came up with countless shenanigans of your own as well, created new memories – and horror scenarios for any parent.”

His smile is back, ringing warmly, full of understanding. There is something comforting about not receiving forgiveness – because it means I never needed it in the first place. Dad isn’t mad and neither is Mum.

Thinking of her tugs at my heart though. I curl up more tightly around Hima. “We don’t have to go to see Reign.”

“Are you sure?”

“Wouldn’t Mum want to… come too? I don’t want her to cry again.”

Dad lets out a shorter sigh. “I can go with her another time. Which isn’t because she doesn’t want you there.”

“I know.” She doesn’t want herself there, crying in front of me. “I didn’t want to make her feel as if she has to go.”

“You didn’t. It might help her though; I think it’s a good idea. Remember that secret date on Mum’s birthday on that I always take her? Always one day after her birthday.”

“You visit Reign?”

“We do. It’s Reign’s birthday. We always go to celebrate. Not a year goes by that we don’t think of her, especially on the day she passed away, but when we go there, we go to think of the good times, how much she taught us about being parents.” His hand rocks my back, easing my tension. “Come to think of it, her birthday is not the most convenient day to celebrate – I’ve hardly been more frightened in my life. It went dreadfully. Then again, it brought us her.

“It brought us you, too.” He starts the journey anew, adding a little circling motion on my shoulder blades. “If Reign hadn’t awoken the mother in Riza, she might have never considered having children.”

“She said that.” And it still doesn’t make sense. Mum is the best mum. She was a mum to Hayate too, and Sally and their puppies. “I just wish Mum wouldn’t have to be so sad. I wish Reign was still here.”

“For your pack of siblings?”

He didn’t forget. It’s that stupid section of his brain that ignores when I’m angry but recalls precisely which exams I flunked.

“For Mum. At least that none of it ever happened.”

He goes up until he reaches my nape. I like it better when Mum strokes my hair. Dad’s the king of back massages though. Right now, the movement feels taut.

Bending down, he kisses my temple. “We’re more than happy to have you and Eliza in our lives. Happier than we could ever be, no matter what happened in the past. You two are our purpose in life. Soon, you’ll be our only purpose – then it’s finally time for me to fully join the party. That means doing homework with your old man, singing in the car when I take you to tennis practice. Windows down.”

“I’ll ask Jean to adopt me. They are making room for a third child anyway.”

Dad gasps theatrically. I curl tighter, Hima hiding the smirk bursting on my lips.

“You wouldn’t!” His tone makes me want to turn around. Bet he’s got his hand over his heart and all, clutching his shirt in pretended agony.

I tuck Hima under my chin so that he can hear me. “Never,” I confirm, then add as casually as I can, “I’d never do that to Mum.”

Another gasp, so over the top that he has to clear his throat. I shriek when his knuckles ruffle my hair every which way. My hands fly up. He anticipated it. Elbow in front of me, Dad is pinning me down with his arm, blubbering indignant nonsense. I poke him so he switches to tickling. I was already laughing and so was he, but when I accidentally hiccup, he laughs even more.

The door to Mum and Dad’s room opens. We freeze. Dad’s chest was heaving a moment ago, now unmoving above my panting. The handle makes this slight grinding noise, and the hinges don’t squeal like those of the bathroom. Usually open, I almost don’t recognise the door as that of Mum and Dad’s room.

Dad fleetly tugs the blanket up and wishes me a good night. I stay perfectly still, straining to hear his voice through my door. ‘Take a break’, ‘okay’ and ‘tomorrow’ reach my ears. I don’t hear if Mum answered. Did she want to kiss Eliza goodnight? Come back to me? I hope she didn’t want to apologise – I want to do that. And I will.

I reach for my alarm, then pull back. If it goes off, Mum and Dad will wake up. So I sneak over to the window and in slow motion, pluck the roller blind open a few slots wide. It’s summer – the sun will wake me disgustingly early. No amount of breakfast in bed will outweigh how sorry I feel, but it’s a start.

I drift off with bacon and eggs and singing in the car prancing around my brain.

Dad’s right – there will be plenty of chances to make this up to Mum, and to Dad too, for him to spend time with us. By the end of the year, the elections will have come and passed. And there is no way Dad will win this time.

Chapter 7: False Alarm

Notes:

Thank you for your comments, Munya! Here's that update ;)

The sun hasn’t had a chance to annoy me yet when I’m already awake. It’s too early though, so I turn over. Not as tired as I thought, though well-rested isn’t what I’d call myself. I turn again, look at my alarm, close my eyes. I surrender to waiting.

At quarter to five, I get up. My door is the quietest of all. I’m careful not to sneak though, not too obviously, or Mum’s bodyguard senses will kick in and a loading gun rattle in my ears. I used to love how cool it looked when she snatches a weapon out from a holster – on her leg, her belt, from under Dad’s arms if he wears his. She’s so much faster than him.

I’m not naïve enough anymore to be wowed by guns.

I slip into Eliza’s room. I’m a good older brother; I’m offering her involvement in a favour to our parents. Not to mention Eliza has been, for years, baking with Mum, with Alma, with her friend whose father is a confectioner. She can crack an egg on any surface without destroying the yolk.

One arm falling off the side of the mattress, the other curved theatrically above her head, Eliza sleeps as if mortally offended. Nothing unusual there. A couple of plushies and that round fuzzy pillow she loves are strewn about the floor, kicked off. It’s a miracle anyone can sleep when she’s in Mum and Dad’s bed, but there’s a difference that keeps her calm: Dad holding her. Fast. Her subconscious just melts into position like a bird under a blanket, serene, blissful, asleep within minutes and like a rock.

I wonder if he did that when she was a baby; if it’s a leftover reflex of hers to settle down.

I wonder if he did that with Reign too when they stayed with her in hospital, knowing no amount of holding her would keep her with them.

“Eliza,” I hiss. Nothing. “Eliza.” I shake the arm above her head. She grunts out a snore. My eyes roll into my skull. I already want to ditch her. “Wake up, Eliza.”

“Whyyy…” she slurs. Not sure if she’s awake or sleep talking. She once had a long phase of sleepwalking that made Mum and Dad too afraid to let her go on a class trip. They regret it till this day.

“We’re going to make Mum and Dad breakfast in bed. Because Mum wasn’t feeling well yesterday.” Which is entirely my fault, but Eliza doesn’t need to know that.

She huffs, draws herself up as if rising from the grave while also weighing twelve tons. I cringe at the sight of her hair. On second attempt, she locates the strands sticking in her mouth and takes them out, smacking her dry mouth. “Whad’a we makin’?” A yawn drawls her words.

“Scrambled eggs, bacon, yogurt with jam. I’ll start cutting chives.” I creep out of her room and wait for her to use the bathroom, the noise of the door and flush covering my descent to the kitchen. With the big knife and a towel over the bread, my fingers well out of the way, I saw off a few crooked slices. We do have a toaster and I know we’re not supposed to use the stove without someone watching, but we’re making scrambled egg anyway.

Eliza shuffles into the kitchen on bare feet. I’ve buttered the bread and lied it in a pan when she cracks open the first egg. One flick of the wrist, crack against the side of a bowl, thumbs in, and the egg slips out without bruising on the sharp edges of the shell. We turn on the stove together, taking turns with watching the blue flames.

I add all the fruit and berries I can find to an oval platter, arrange them by colour, brew Dad’s morning coffee while Mum’s tea seeps. I don’t know how much sugar he wants and simply drop a sugar cube on the tray next to the mug. The mug reads ‘Democracy? I’m married.’ Hughes would find it hilarious, Dad says. Would have bought it for him had democracy been a thing back then.

Eliza and I snail up the winding staircase, each balancing a tray. Mine holds the liquids. We forgot spoons, it hits me halfway, so she leaves her tray on the floor upstairs and sprints back down. I use the chance to sneak a peek into Mum and Dad’s room.

Pale sunshine threads the room from between the roller blinds. Mum is snuggled into Dad’s chest, fingers furling around his shirt, pulling it to her face. She looks so small with his arms wrapped strongly around her. The grinding of the doorhandle makes her stir, but only enough to filter out of a dream phase. Erasing the bulk between them, she stretches her knees, shifts her hips flush against his, weaves one leg between Dad’s. He rouses, or maybe doesn’t, but tightens his embrace.

I’m grateful when I hear Eliza’s feet pounding the stairs because any minute now, Mum’s thoughts from yesterday might have resurfaced. My throat clogs just thinking about it.

I pick up my tray and Eliza hers, teaspoons clattering. The door nudged open, we clear our throats in unison.

Dad’s head wobbles up to squint crusted eyes our way. I can’t tilt my tray to display its contents, but the smell of coffee – and bacon, mostly bacon – revives his senses at once. He strokes Mum’s back, and she quickly rubs her eyes when spotting us. Crusted from sleep, I tell myself in denial.

“Headache gone, Mummy?” Eliza scrambles up on the mattress, the egg bouncing off its plate and onto the tray. Dad sits up, takes it from her before blueberry jam can spill on crisp white sheets.

“It is now.” Mum takes her time hugging Eliza, then me.

Dad’s gaze is keen, nostrils flaring upon catching coffee, while Mum’s eyes are so mellow, they could safely cushion an open wound. We sit in a line against the headboard to all benefit from the blanket’s warmth, breakfast on our laps, gone before Eliza can recount her schedule for the day. It’s good when she’s chatty – flowing words keep bacon from entering her mouth.

Her energy coming to life keeps Dad from turning over in bed. He lets her show him a praise from her teacher, then saunters into the office, pyjama and all. I’m still on the bed when Eliza whizzes past the room, stalking Dad while pretending to be taking important notes the same way he does at his desk. She’s obsessed with how important he is.

The plates clatter quietly. Mum is stacking them. I grab the second tray before she can and we bring them to the kitchen.

The moment she sets down her load, she strokes my hair. “Thank you for such a lovely initiative, my love.”

I wring my hands, glancing up from below. “I’m sorry I messed up, Mum. I didn’t want you to remember something sad.”

“It’s alright. I remember on my own just the same.” She supresses a sigh. Her hand on my head doesn’t leave though, and the movement doesn’t stiffen. “I’m glad you brought it up.”

Gaze flying up in surprise, I find her eyes gentle and calm, the same as her voice.

“It’s been too long since we talked about it – your father and I. It helps. I suppose we’ve been too busy to notice we needed it.” One last pat, then she starts loading the sink with our dishes. “We’ll go to the graveyard together. Then you and Eliza can ask all you like. Thinking of Reign made your father remember quite a few things about you two as well when you were little.”

“Can we tell her before?” I keep close to Mum. “I wanted to make something for Reign and Eliza will be narked if I made something and she didn’t.”

“I can ask her if she wants to bake with me – prepare a picknick,” Mum proposes. She rinses the trays, but leaves the dishes for the staff.

I have to smile. “Fun family field trip to the graveyard? Sounds like our kind of weekends.” She nudges me and I grin. “But now that I know, we can also talk if you want. Must be frustrating to only have Dad when it comes to feelings.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s true! I speak from experience.”

“And you have every right to your opinion.” She crouches down, brushes hair from my forehead. “I still wish you’d try to confide in him more.”

“But it’s so annoying.” I pout. It echoes in my voice. “It always feels like I have to prepare some kind of presentation in school and defend myself, why I’m qualified to talk about it and wait for mean questions from the teacher and that’s only if he listens in the first place.”

“You should tell him that.”

“No.”

“Then I would like to tell him if that’s okay with you.”

“Please don’t.” I shake my head resolutely.

She mutters something about the holiday, but I tell her I won’t change my mind. I don’t want to. Grabbing my bag, one of the tennis balls falls out. It rolls all the way through the living room, so far that when I finally reach it, I kick it in frustration. Stupid. Now I have to fetch it.

It doesn’t go into the garage, but takes its merry time bouncing down the few steps to the closed door. Holding the ball in my hands, I can’t take my eyes off the door for a minute. The soapbox car. Dad’s horrible promises of singing in the car almost scare me off enough, but still, on the way to school, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, our holiday might turn out to be fun.

 

* * *

 

The drain gurgles softly, quietly, the water level in the glass rising at the speed of a slug in summer. I slow it to drops. This way, I can hear Mum and Rebecca’s voices in the parlour. She said I should rather do my homework than stick around.

“Rebecca has some apologising to do to your father.”

“But I want to listen. I want to learn.” Always works. Mum and Dad can’t say ‘no’ if it’s for the sake of personal growth.

This time, for the first time, she hummed negative. “If you ever have to apologise to someone for your bad mouth – which I hope will never be the case – you’ll know what to say.”

While I also hope that won’t happen, I’m more curious than thirsty for knowledge. Thirst for water is just an excuse too. I wanted to see if Dad would follow me and trigger the apology from Rebecca. He didn’t. He’s pretending to be invested in my math homework – when he spends time with Eliza or me, Mum doesn’t make him do something he doesn’t want to. His office has lost its safety net. Our rooms are the new havens.

“False alarm?” Mum is asking in the parlour.

“False alarm. My cycle started again – it was just so late, I got worried. I don’t know why – I’m not stressed.”

“Maybe your body knows better.”

“I guess.” Rebecca sounds sour. “It didn’t have to tell me this way though… I really confused Jean, the poor babe. Next time, I’ll do a blood test before anything else.”

“You did one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So then you’re demonstrably not pregnant.”

“Nope.”

“Never were?”

“Yup.”

“And still run foul of Roy?”

Rebecca’s confidence shrinks from her voice. It’s impossible to understand what she’s saying, some muttered excuses or justifications.

Mum sighs. “He doesn’t have it easy, and he does try his best. I don’t need him taking any more blows than already. The public can be vicious. He’s come so far since…”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I mean it – I was being rude the other day. Tell him that?”

“I will.”

“You’re the best.”

“Actually.” The couch rustles. Mum got up. “Excuse me for a second.”

I’m up the stairs before she finished that sentence. The glass of water stands forgotten in the kitchen. Dad doesn’t question it, neither my slight panting. He’s still bent over my homework, looking comically big on the old stool that we painted to look like a frog when we were little. Eliza’s is pink and vaguely resembles a mouse.

Mum’s steps are quick. I fixate my desk as if I were a magnifying glass trying to scorch the paper. She goes to Eliza’s room. Phew.

Dad glances at me when I heave a sigh of relief.

“You got it?”

Did he even notice that I left?

I drill my attention to the pages when I hear Mum approach the open door of my room next.

“Sure,” I croak out. Clearing my throat, I point at the seven I calculated. Dad’s eyes bulge a little, enough to distract me. I snicker. He pouts but is back on topic right away, shoving over his attempt. It makes me laugh again. “Where do you even find the time to write all this in an exam? Just,” I cross out half of his equation, “subtract this,” I draw a line, “from this. Easy.”

Dad scoffs as if someone spat on his meal.

I hand him the pen. “And instead of—” I break off. Behind Dad, Mum has moved into my field of view. I almost forgot.

She’s leaning with her hip against the jamb. Her voice is soft, but in her eyes, there is a buzz so haunted it almost makes me jump. “What are you two concocting?” She guards herself well. I blink, and the panic is gone. Maybe I just imagined it…?

“Dad’s math teacher sucked,” I announce. “Our method is so much better than theirs.”

“He’s right!” Dad sounds as astonished as he sounds affronted.

It melts away whatever was gnawing at Mum. She crosses over, runs her hands down Dad’s shoulders, hardly acknowledging the page in the book he is slapping as he mutters, “It’s so simple. Lucien taught me.” He presents the chaos of his notes.

I blow raspberries. He only came to avoid Rebecca, and now he’s made himself dive into my homework so hard, I almost believe the pride in his tone.

Mum seems to believe it. Her face looks tender, soothed even though he didn’t do anything.

He rants on, “If I find out that whoever invented this method was alive back when I was in school – oh, there’s going to be a letter from the president. Years of my life!”

I laugh. “Are you going to arrest him?”

“I think compensation for personal suffering is in order.” Dad grins a wicked grin.

Mum lingers, as if pulled towards us by invisible strings. She forces herself to let go, but doesn’t leave, busying herself with folding my uniform where I tossed it onto the bed.

After she leaves, Dad and I do one more equation before he stretches and saunters reluctantly into his office. Feels good to close the math book, better than ever before. There’s something about Dad’s handwriting in my notebook that makes me want to show it off at school.

A brief staring contest with my undone English homework later, I remember that the forgotten glass of water might save me for another few minutes. Again, Dad doesn’t come. Passing by his office, I see he didn’t get to his chair, hovering over a letter, halfway around his desk.

I’m not yet in the kitchen when I hear that someone was faster than me.

“Mummy!” The couch squeals under Eliza’s suddenly added weight. This is the moment where Mum returns the hug, then sends Eliza out to play.

She doesn’t seem to mind now. I wonder if she hides that look again; if she lets Eliza linger like she just lingered in my room.

“I wish we had a dog again, Mummy.”

“Me too, love.”

“Don’t you miss Hayate?”

“Very much,” Mum says with that same thrumming darkness in her tone that I thought I’d seen in her eyes. It’s a sad, subdued darkness, but a deep one. It etches into her features when Ishval is mentioned. “But things are just too busy at the moment to meet a dog’s needs. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Eliza makes a pouty hum, but doesn’t complain. She skips past me, then again when I entered and left the kitchen with my glass of procrastination. Eliza went to get her favourite picture book. Read it day and night, back to back, over and over the very second she could make letters into words.

I spy through the door that she leaves ajar in her jaunty wake. Sprawling over Mum’s lap on her tummy, Eliza starts reading. She has this annoying habit of mouthing the words whenever she becomes invested. Takes two pages for her to start. Two pages and she’s just gone, eyes wide, absorbing the colourful pictures of farm animals, lips moving.

Mum absently runs a hand over Eliza’s back while Rebecca continues with anecdotes from work, the shops, the twins’ class teacher. Boring, but better than English homework.

“I’m dying to go skiing again,” Rebecca says. “Jean wants the kids to learn snowboarding, but since I only know how to ski, I can’t teach them.”

“Why don’t you book them a course?”

“And send my babies up a mountain with a stranger? Never. I was actually thinking of a little alone time with Jean. I could teach him skiing, or he could try snowboarding on his own. Then next year, we can take the twins.”

“Are you trying to wrangle your kids in with us for a week?”

“Oh, would you?” Rebecca clasps her hands in prayer, eyes screwed shut.

Mum pauses. Rebecca peeks one eye open.

This would be the moment where Eliza springs up like a catapult and supports Rebecca’s plea, begging Mum to have her friends sleep over for an entire week. But Eliza is immersed, her finger feeling the rim of the pressed cardboard pages as she whispers the words to herself.

Mum smiles. “It depends entirely on our schedule.”

“Then I’ll make plans according to that. If you don’t mind.”

“You know I don’t if it fits.”

“Yesss!” Rebecca cheers to herself. “Did I mention that you’re the best? Because you are.”

“You’re the best, Mummy,” Eliza says, apparently now partially attentive. Maybe the statement just cued her. She finishes the sentence she was reading, then wiggles to turn around, holding up her arms. Mum doesn’t hesitate to wrap Eliza into a hug.

I startle when a hand lands on my head. Jean raises a brow but says nothing that’ll give me away.

He saunters into the parlour. “What’s the occasion?” He chuckles when seeing Eliza strapped into Mum’s arms like the safety belts of a race car.

“Mummy’s the best!” Eliza proclaims. Mum cringes from the volume close to her ear.

Jean doesn’t sit. He’s holding a document with important-looking crests at the top corner. “Lucky Lizzy.”

Eliza beams at her nickname. He made it up when she was little, and she insists he should be the only one to call her by it.

“Do me a favour and fetch your old man?”

Eliza bursts into laughter at the nickname. She wrestles out of Mum’s unresisting arms as if any second longer could bury her under an avalanche or drown her or whatever it is that gets her to move quicker than an athlete pumped full of adrenaline, and whooshes off past us, up the stairs.

Mum’s face scrunches up with reluctance.

Jean chuckles. “Come now, it’s not that bad.”

She brushes off her skirt. “Easy for you to say.” She closes Eliza’s book, neatly placing it on the coffee table before she finally convinces herself to get up with a small huff. “You don’t receive punctiliously detailed schedules on how to wave and when.” Her hand lifts, fingers so perfectly fitted together, it’s as if straight out of a painting.

“Nah, we practised the waving.” Jean is smirking.

Rebecca’s eyes gain a mischievous spark. She crosses her legs, leaning with her arm over the backrest of the couch. Mum glowers at her glee.

That’s when our guest enters the room.

I don’t count Jean and Rebecca as guests; they’re family. This man is, but also isn’t.

To explain him, it helps to think of alcohol.

Alcohol is a thing on which everyone in the world has a distinct opinion. It doesn’t have to be too wild, but no matter what kind of question you ask a grown-up about alcohol, they will immediately be able to answer.

Take Jean. He says that life would be very sad without it. Heymans takes this a step further by saying that life devoid of beer – his words – is a sin.

(Mum is right when he says I’m too mature for my age, but honestly, what do people expect when I spend more time surrounded by ex-coup-strategists working for the government than with boys whose world consists of who won the latest running contest?)

Back to my analogy. When asked, Dad will say alcohol is a treat to be enjoyed in moderation (Jean will laugh but never tell me why. Like I can’t imagine). So Dad likes it but he’s better at hiding it than the others. Became better at hiding it, I guess.

Mum isn’t straight-up anti alcohol, but close. It’s either superfluous or prohibited – in the office, before a big event, during a big event, for me and Eliza and mostly Dad. I think her bans exist solely because of and for Dad.

Rebecca rejoices over most any spirit, beer, wine, you name it. Even Kain can give you distinct lines not to be crossed when it comes to drinking, and I’ve never seen him so much as sip a glass of champagne.

Long story short, everyone has a distinct opinion on alcohol. Turn this around and you have a precise idea about William Mordecai Langley. Former aid to Grandpa and not-so-secret dog lover, Langley works for Dad as his closest advisor, and has a refined, immediate opinion about absolutely anything. Whatever you need to know, you ask him and he’ll rattle off a detailed list of pros and cons for you to form your own opinion.

He practises enunciation with Dad as if it’s his first speech to the public. Eliza and I sit on the couch with Rebecca, while Jean and Mum watch from the other couch, noiselessly sipping tea. It’s a short speech. About the event, mostly, but Langley finds something to perfect in every gesture, every vowel, every syllable and its meaning, not just the words. A gala for charity. Strange to think Dad can be a side character in any setting, but here, he’s for once not the host. Doesn’t relieve him of his duties to the public though.

Eliza and I are bored quickly. We play a game where we have our hands outstretched, palms facing down, and the moment the tips of our fingers touch, one of us has to slap and the other has to pull away. When that becomes too loud, we switch to thumb wrestling. Of course, we could leave anytime. Dad always says he’s grateful for a small audience of friends or family to practice with, but it’s blindly obvious that he’d rather be alone. Being the president doesn’t give you that kind of luxury.

Finally, the speech comes to a close. I haven’t been listening for a while now, but Mum is becoming fidgety. Presidency, the life of a public figure, it was Dad’s choice, not hers. Every cell in her body is yearning to merge into his shadow as she stands up, every fibre of her crying out to return to the mute, stoic support she was before they got married.

The speech has been shaped, written, re-written, analysed, and re-written again by some ten people before this practice session. Dad has advisors for writing, for body language, rhetoric speech, answering questions of journalists, of politicians and of civilians. Langley is often part of the first basic structure, then comes back for the finishing touches.

This last bit isn’t in his field of expertise.

Mum stands stiff as a statue somewhat behind Dad. Jean sighs. Rebecca is snickering, earning herself a glare from Mum. Langley chooses an armchair and pours himself a cup of tea while Jean goes and adjusts Mum with a gentle shove between the shoulder blades. Reluctantly, she lets herself be scooted next to Dad.

“It’s not our wedding,” Mum mutters half angrily, half embarrassed.

Jean snickers. “You say that every time.”

“Get on with it and kiss your husband,” Rebecca hoots. It earns her another evil eye.

Eliza leaps up and scrambles onto the other couch to be closer. Like her obsession with Mum’s wedding dress, she can’t get enough of protocol practice. And protocol calls for an intact, loving family, ergo, a kiss.

Jean has to give another nudge for Mum to turn.

“I can do that in my own time,” she mumbles.

Dad is glowing with adoration for her. She ventures a glance up at him, and regrets it immediately. Eliza and I giggle.

“It’s a charity gala, not a New Year’s ball,” Mum complains, but then Dad takes her hands and his lips descend so naturally to hers, it makes us all wonder what the fuss is about.

Four hundred people watching, that’s what. Camera flashes, tabloid press. The general discomfort of doing something private with all the world keenly observant for slip-ups or disharmony.

Eliza makes a small, delighted sound. She’s melted down the backrest, peering only with her eyes over the rim.

“He’ll be facing the crowd.” Jean starts with the adjustments. He turns Dad towards us.

Langley nods into his tea. His expression is the same whether Mum and Dad kiss or breathe. Makes you wonder if there’s anything at all that fazes him.

Jean has managed to pry Mum and Dad’s hands apart. He draws the shape of the dais into the air, demonstrates how Dad would step back after the speech, end up next to Mum who waits supportively in the background, put a hand on the small of her back and steal a brief peck for that demonstration of harmony.

“And then— hey.” Jean has to pluck Dad’s hand away from Mum’s again. “Drop it. Bad.” He points a finger. The second he’s turned around, they join hands. He sees it in our faces. Rebecca is rolling her eyes, while Eliza’s burst with starlight. It becomes a game, holding hands the moment Jean isn’t looking, our seriousness deteriorating until Rebecca starts to make a comment about something that doesn’t involve clothes. Mum shushes her hectically and hands land over my ears. Rebecca is only cackling though, releasing me a moment later.

She mouths something inappropriate that even makes Jean blush.

With pink cheeks, Mum surrenders herself to the protocol. Eliza keeps swooning, no matter how often they practise.

The best part is yet to come. Rebecca and Jean are in the kitchen, gathering plates to set the table. On long nights like these, we have a chef deliver dinner. Langley just left, and while Eliza is busy babbling Rebecca’s ears off, I go upstairs. When the tension of a public event drill starts to fade, the real match takes place.

“Won’t Amestris ever leave me alone?” Dad gives a groan-laced sigh. They’re in their room, getting changed for dinner. Mum’s collar certainly looked too tight there for a while.

Spying around the door, I see her holding up her hair. Dad zips the more casual dress all the way up her nape, covering the tattoo.

She finds a clip to secure her hair. “It will in the near future.”

“That’s a relief. And depressing.”

“Would you rather keep going forever?”

“There are so many things I must do.”

“Can those things be done in a lifetime?”

“Why must you always ask the smart questions?”

“Do you want me not to ask them?”

“It’s a blessing and a curse.” He sighs again, this time with a wry smile.

Mum turns around. Her eyes soften. She undoes his tie, one hand sliding it out from under his shirt’s collar, the other resting on his chest.

I love listening to them when they unwind. Makes me wonder sometimes why Dad is so bad at tennis. Back and forth, back and forth they go. He does it with Grandpa too, at least he used to. As for Mum, it’s as if she’s at the shooting range, lying on her front, ear mufflers obscuring her hearing but each shot hitting bull’s eye. They seem not to listen to each other, yet their replies fit like a rehearsed script.

“I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over.” Dad slumps onto the bed. Forearms on his knees, his wrists dip down in between. “Actually, tomorrow can wait. The whole weekend can wait.” He runs a hand through his hair. “What are we going to do about Drachma…?”

Mum stops his hand. I smile to myself. Dad does too. Arms slackening, he tilts back his head and closes his eyes. Dishevelling his slicked-back hair is her job. She’ll weave her fingers into his hair, one hand, then the other, fingers straddling, ruffling gently, playfully, starting from the top until his fringe is back over his forehead and her palms cup his head, holding all that weight of responsibility and pressure and duties, just for a minute.

Their lips meet, longer than Jean would allow for the gala, more tenderly than Langley would approve.

Mum sits on Dad’s knee.

“How about I finish up that report for tomorrow’s morning meeting, and you do a brief workout before bed, right after dinner.”

Dad makes a sound as if someone pulled a tooth that’s been painfully rotting inside his mouth for decades. “You’d do that for me?” His arm slithers around her, cushioning her back.

“Do you even have to ask?”

Something flickers in his eyes. I can’t see Mum’s face, but that spark of recognition in Dad’s gaze mirrors the tone of her voice. He kisses her shoulder, then buries his face in it. “Riza.” His voice slurs with the way he rubs into her dress. “You are my sunshine and my moonlight.”

“I’m your wife,” she says as if you could ask any married man on the street and he’d confirm that, yes, of course his wife gladly handles his paperwork of national significance for him on a regular basis.

Dad doesn’t take it for granted – neither her sacrificing her evening, nor the fact that she’s his wife.

She protests, but mildly when he flops onto his back, caging her in with both arms and legs. I can’t understand what he’s saying, squashed under Mum’s head. Neither of them feels the need to move. They twitch when Eliza’s voice travels upstairs, but Rebecca is with her, so they stay put for as long as they can.

Another chance. I’d thank Eliza for all the opportunities she provides, but then she’d want something in return.

Downstairs, Jean only is left, poking pumpkin slices. The fork slides right into the softened flesh and he smiles to himself.

I sit at the kitchen table. We’ll eat in the dining room, but I look smaller when I sit, more innocent.

“Uncle Jean?”

“Mhm?” He puts the end of the fork into his mouth out of habit. Wooden spoons clank when he mixes the salad with the sauce.

“I know about Reign.”

The mixing stops. Jean turns around. He takes the fork out of his mouth, but doesn’t use it as a replacement action; doesn’t find an excuse to look elsewhere. It’s the first time I mentioned her name and someone isn’t avoiding eye contact.

“You do, huh…?” There it is, the sudden grief in his eyes. Less acute than with Mum or Dad. Most strikingly though, he isn’t hiding it. He smiles past it. “A fighter, she was. We used to have a phrase: Reign reigns supreme.” The smile reaches his voice. He blinks a few times too often for dry eyes. “Your old man would let her get away with anything, that’s why. She was a handful, but a jolly one.”

“Why didn’t I know of her before?” I tilt my head to the side, trying to overplay the way I’m gripping the legs of my trousers. My ears are burning to hear if Mum or Dad or Eliza are coming back.

They are.

Jean hears them too.

“How is it possible that no one ever mentioned her?” I press. We’re the most known people in the whole country; we’re more famous than Uncle Ed, and it still took me twelve years to find out?

Steps are drowning in Eliza’s excited chatter, closing in.

I’m prepared to be disappointed, when Jean throws a glance towards the door, then leans down and whispers, “That would be ‘the Interview’.”

Chapter 8: The Interview

“Thank you for the meal.” I feel the need to bow my head a little. Joss always does it with Mum and Dad. Maybe her parents insist she does it? Her mother looks very pleased. From behind the napkin with which she pats her mouth, she is glowing with content. Then again, she usually is when I come to Joss’ place. Simon thinks she wants Joss to marry the son of the president.

Former president, soon, but I don’t remind her.

Spending time at Joss’ place is… different. The Fuhrer’s, now president’s estate is huge, no question, but Mum and Dad made a point of raising us as closely to normal children as possible – aka letting us sleep in their bed, having their room in the same wing, not hiring a nanny, cooking dinner whenever possible. Joss is basically royalty.

She and her brother have their own wing. It comes equipped with one bedroom each, two bathrooms each and one big one for that ginormous bathtub-jacuzzi thing, a guest room, three playrooms, the nanny’s quarters, the maid’s room and butler’s pantry for snacks, a balcony turned into wintergarden and a ballroom for practising etiquette, music and dancing.

We used to spend hours and hours in the playroom where Joss’ parents had model railways set up that encircle the whole room. There are custom-made trains, bridges, tunnels, a scaled-down version of their own mansion. The other playroom is like a private indoor funfair. It has the rich people version of rocking horses with the stupidest name – kiddie rides. Rocking with electricity, Joss’ parents had a unicorn and a bulldozer made. (Joss’ brother used to love construction sites. I think he still does, but he doesn’t fit the kiddie bulldozer anymore.)

We put the napkins we kept over our laps on the table. I’m not sure Mrs Darlington knows where the plates are stored in her own house, that’s how much staff works here. They serve every warm meal with those silver domes over the plates.

In the music room, I am served tea while Joss is to play her most recent piece on the grand piano. Mrs Darlington doesn’t play, but she sits in on the lessons, Joss says, and so she knows where to correct her daughter.

She doesn’t do it when I’m here. The way she watches me over the rim of her expensive Xingese porcelain cup, I can’t help but believe Simon’s theory. Feels like an auction, and I’m the only bidder.

“Mamá will be having tea in the library,” Joss says as she leads the way upstairs. It’s the parent-free zone – this is nanny and children domain. The best part of any sleepover is escaping here.

A warm fuzz in my tummy eases the uncertainty I’ve felt the past days about Reign, about Mum being upset, about it all being a secret. At least at my home, I don’t need to flee from my parents or hide in my room where I know they won’t come in.

Joss doesn’t mind too much. It’s a slight nuisance to have her every breath observed and judged, like having to retie a shoe for the third time.

She takes my hand. I almost stumble when she suddenly drags me across the gallery overseeing the rounded stairs, past the nanny’s room and into the west wing. Her parents’ territory.

Her eyes flit around. The butlers are busy cleaning up after dinner downstairs, so she hustles me down the hall, into a seemingly unprepossessing door. It’s dark in here. A dim cone of light reaches us from under the door. Joss lets go of my hand. I squint until my eyes adjust, watch her tread carefully towards the window where she opens the curtains a slot wide to let evening sun streak in.

Shelves against every wall. They stretch up to the ceiling, cramp into the tiniest nooks. Bespoke, some of them, so that they fill every corner and ever spare angle. Joss is tracing the contents of one shelf with her finger, but never touches them. I venture closer to her. There’s a gramophone, so dusty that no light will reflect on it.

From the lowest rack, Joss takes what looks like a suitcase. I’ve seen these before – Kain has lots of them. Portable radios or audio players. Like gramophones but for headphones.

“Papá is out this weekend,” Joss quietly says.

Her father is big cheese at the stock market. Made millions, was trusted with huge investment plans, founded two companies and swallowed another three, one of them for consultancy on stocks. Before that, he was a journalist. His research back then helped him gain the knowledge and connections he now has. This must be his archive from back then.

Most of these shelves are spilling over with old newspapers. Mostly economics, but I also spot some local news, important world news, out-of-the-ordinary things.

The shelf Joss was skimming holds files – audio files; disks small enough to fit the player.

She plugs in the headphones, puts the disk into place, then pauses. I wait for it to spin. Her finger hovers. Eyes big and questioning, she fingers the envelope of the disk, finally presenting it to me.

The Interview.

It actually says it on the label, exactly the way Jean said it.

Joss knew something was up. She moved heaven and earth to be selected as my partner in school. They usually just put us in pairs by how we sit, but she made up this huge story of how she twisted her ankle, the inconvenience of the seating arrangement, something about cattle drowning in the south – you had to be there, it was amazing. The entire day, she kept on limping to convince the teachers. They sat her closer to the door (to me) so she wouldn’t have to suffer all the way to her usual seat.

Naturally, we didn’t work on our project at all. She asked what was wrong and I told her about Reign, about Mum nearly crying and about what Jean said. For some reason, Joss didn’t sound overly surprised (only cried twice with how sorry she felt for me and Mum. Mrs Wallace brought her ice, thinking it was pain from the ‘twisted ankle’).

Joss felt sorry for me. She might be spoiled rotten, but her empathy is on a whole other level. I didn’t say anything, and still she knew right away how betrayed I feel. Sad, but also betrayed.

In the last shreds of dusk, I scan the label she’s holding. Below The Interview, it says December 30, 1918. One day before New Year. Four months after I was born.

Joss is cradling the headphones in her lap. I nod. We each press one side to our ear. The audio player turns on with a click that makes Joss glance at the shut door. Then the disk turns.

Applause. My heart speeds up. Some interviews are held with a live audience, then broadcasted over the national radio channel. This one’s about the first anniversary of Dad as the Fuhrer of Amestris. More applause.

Mum’s voice.

Joss scoots closer to me. I’m hot, my breathing quick but as quiet as I can manage.

Mum is apologising that Dad couldn’t make it to the interview. The host is happy she’s there, and I believe him.

He’s nice. Annoying but nice. He sounds like his rambling could make you deaf but I think it’s just because Mum’s answers are so concise in comparison. I imagine her with hands folded in her lap, back straight on an old slouching couch. The folded hands make me think back of her on my bed, when I asked about Reign’s plushie, so I modify the picture in my mind and have her cross her legs all business-no-bullshit like, hand busy sipping a glass of water.

Not a word wasted.

The host is a waterfall, jumping from one topic to the next with little to no transition. In my mind’s eye, I see him holding a list of things to talk about. He sounds young, maybe Mum’s age at the time, maybe younger, springy.

‘With that out of the way, it sounds to me like the new year can come!’ The host says.

Mum says nothing, probably doesn’t even nod because it wasn’t a question. Anyone else would have chimed in with enthusiasm – politicians always assault an opportunity of boasting about something positive; anything at all.

Not used to the silence, the host continues, ‘Plans for the holidays?’

‘We might take tomorrow afternoon off.’

The crowd laughs. They don’t know Mum isn’t joking – she’s saying it for a laugh, yes, but I don’t remember a single New Year where Dad or even both Mum and Dad weren’t in Dad’s office at home for a couple of hours.

“Now,” Joss whispers.

I swallow. It feels like a coin dropping down a vending machine, wedging uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach. Something about other people having heard this, about my best friend having heard this before me, leaves a sourly-dry taste in my mouth.

‘Our revered Fuhrer’s dedication to his country is admirable.’

The crow cheers. They had to – democracy wasn’t until five years later.

‘Is he as good a leader as he is a father?’

‘Are you asking about his Excellency’s parenting skills or fertility rate?’

The crowd howls and sputters at Mum’s reply. She’s unfazed, even when the host suggests a separate interview on the latter. Creep.

‘Since we touched on the topic – my auditors are dying to know how your little one is faring.’

The crowd applauds their approval.

‘It’ll be his first time hearing fireworks.’ Mum sounds sorry for me. She told me that for almost six years, I would hide in the cellar, wailing by lungs to wrinkly raisins at the idea of fireworks, while Eliza slept through them. Neither of us appreciated the beauty of it until much older.

‘A microphone might toughen him up for the big event. A little gig at our studio, a bit of brabbling. What do you think, folks?”

The crowd cheers.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Alright, alright, I get it.’ I imagine the host holding up his hands in defence. ‘Careful with the baby‑stuff. You know, the Fuhrer’s reputation as our Amestrian flag’s dragon – fire alchemy and all – is a fitting image.’

Clapping from the crowd.

‘Lately I heard people dub you the nation’s lioness with how protective you are of him and your family.’

A few cheers. Someone whistles.

It wasn’t a question so Mum says nothing.

Joss takes my hand. I wince. My heart is strangling my throat.

‘Can’t blame you, no, with your kid dying last year. What was it again? Pneumonia? Fever? Sad stuff. Tragic, really. And the funeral in that weather! Anyway, is there—’

Someone gasps. The host tries to finish his sentence, asking about future plans and I don’t know if he means politics or another child or baby-me, but no one cares. There’s a mad rustle, as if the man behind the microphone wants to dash forward. The table of the host rattles, a glass clinks, water sloshing.

No, it’s not water.

The wetness splatters. Mum heaves, like she isn’t inhaling air but a knife shredding down her throat. For a second, I’m not sure it’s her but a dying animal.

‘Mrs Mustang!’ The host forgets she kept her last name.

Murmurs go through the crowd, drowning in the overall swishing of backstage people hustling to the sofa to help Mum. I hear ‘threw up’ and ‘blood’ and ‘god’ and ‘hush’, mostly ‘hush’. And then nothing.

The recording ended. A monotone buzz crackles on. She didn’t apologise for the inconvenience. She didn’t excuse herself. She only wheezed and coughed and maybe collapsed.

My eyes focus on the label of the recording. December 30, 1918. Below is scribbling I can’t read.

“The guy said ‘It happens to the best of us’ and switched over to the singer he had hired for the evening,” Joss whispers. “Papá says there was never a bigger drop in listeners. A few of the women invited to the interview, the ones clapping, started a campaign to fire the host.

“More and more joined and it became a movement to support mis‑carri‑age, safe abo‑tion and research in child dis-eas… uh, sickness,” she reads from the notes under the date that I can’t decipher. Her dad’s writing.

“Was he fired?” I croak. I don’t know why I asked; I don’t care about the man.

“He was. Moved up north. The Interview left such an impact on the people who were there that not one of them made a statement for the tabloid press. A week after the turn of the year, Amestris had agreed to never bring it up again – not in the media and definitely not in front of your parents.” Joss points at the handwriting under the label. “That’s why you didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No.” I wrench the headphone from my ear like swatting a mosquito. “Thanks for showing me.”

I’m shaking. I clench my jaw, clamp my legs together. It won’t stop. I’m sitting on my heels, but they tremble too so I drop down, try to attach myself to the floor.

I can feel Joss watching me. She doesn’t comment. Quietly, she puts the headphones back into the box – they fit exactly into a mould of foam. The recoding slides back into its case, and two minutes later, all evidence that we were here is on its shelf as if nothing ever happened, curtains drawn. She isn’t doing this for the first time.

Joss takes my hand again. My legs calmed down. My heart hasn’t yet, not completely. I let her help me to my feet and we sneak towards the door. With the light off in this room, we stare at the streak beneath the door, wait for the two shadows to disappear. They close in.

Tugging on my hand, Joss pulls me into the corner behind the door, just as it opens. A figure leans in. The light from the hall catches on angular glasses in an otherwise dark face.

“Lyn, get out of Pa’s room.” Ernest, Joss’ older brother, sounds bored. He flicks her forehead when she emerges.

“Hey!”

“Quiet,” he says, again without any irritation. Closing the door behind us, he pushes his big square glasses up his nose and jerks his head in the direction of the gallery. The motion makes him have to adjust the glasses again.

We follow, Joss reluctantly, me curiously. I should be more afraid of being caught in someone else’s house but I’m still in shock. I stare at the chequered sweater vest on Ernest’s lanky frame, at his long gait, at feet that make me wonder if he has to climb stairs on tiptoes.

Back to the safety of the children’s wing.

His room is perfectly functional. A single bed, tidied by the maid (no one else tucks in the blanket under the mattress – you have to get it out again each night), a lamp for reading, an armchair inviting for more reading with a standard lamp. No frills on the lampshade, just a curved shape. The fabric is a plain beige, as is most of the room.

Ernest sits the wrong way around on the chair at his desk to face us, arms folded over the backrest against his chest. The most rebellious thing you’ll ever see him do – sit the wrong way around. There are books stacked on his desk, some open. He’s preparing for finals. Eliza and I are four and a half years apart. Joss and Ernest are too, only he’s the eldest.

His attitude makes me wonder just how old he is mentally – like people calling me mature for my age. When he shut the door behind us, it didn’t feel like a lecture coming, more like an alien imitating a human shutting a door too precisely to seem natural.

“What were you doing in Pa’s archive?”

“Nothing,” Joss lies.

Ernest’s lips lower in mild displeasure. Like dropping a 500 Cens piece at your feet and having to pick it up.

“Tell me and I won’t tell Pa,” he says. There’s no excitement behind it, no cunning haggle he’s planned. They must have this discussion often but he neither tires of explaining the rules each time, nor yells to get it over with. Eliza would have long stomped her foot or hissed or looked for a bargain.

“Why do you always need to know everything?” Joss tuts. She looks at me, and I nod. Something about Ernest makes me think he already knows. “We listened to ‘the Interview’. The adults didn’t want to tell Lucien about it.”

“The adults?”

“I answered your question.”

I squeeze Joss’ hand. She hasn’t let go and I feel bad if I pulled away when she’s doing her best to comfort me. If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t know what to do to support her.

Ernest glances at me; feels that I’m about to speak.

“I didn’t want to ask Mum or Dad. Last time I asked Mum about Reign – my older sister who died… It didn’t go too well.”

Ernest nods when I say Reign. Apparently, all of Amestris knows her more than I do. “That’s a good thing. I imagine your father wouldn’t be too thrilled either.”

“He took it better.”

“I mean the Interview.”

My ears perk up. So then he does know more. It doesn’t need more than my eyes gaining a spark for him to continue.

Before he does, Ernest signals with his hand for us to sit. Joss pulls me over to the armchair – maybe he has a quirk about no one sitting on his bed – and we squish in together. Ernest doesn’t care about our closeness at all, unlike most girls in class. They’ll make jokes and whisper. He doesn’t seem to register it.

“You listened to the whole thing?” he asks.

I nod when Joss does. We got to the crucial part, that’s for sure.

“The host was a stinker, a stupid stinker!” Joss nags.

Ernest’s lips drop again with that tepid disapproval. If he were water, he’d always be lukewarm.

“There was an article about it shortly after. The Fuhrer had it burned and the papers ceased reporting on the event by his order. Mr Beauchamp was part of the meeting the Fuhrer held when the First Lady was giving the Interview. That meeting was more important to the Fuhrer, of course, than a witless New Year inquiry-response cycle.”

“Mr Beauchamp is Ernie’s private algebra tutor. Financial guru or something. Ernie’s such a smug, he does math in his free time.”

“Quiet, Lyn,” Ernest says, still without any tremor of anger. He looks at me when he goes on. “Mr Beauchamp said that news of the Interview reached the meeting, and that your father got up at once and left and didn’t come back. Only after two days, someone sent out letters with a postponed meeting date. The burned paper were all the orders he gave. For the countdown, he showed up for precisely two minutes. The First Lady didn’t come at all.

“I took my private lessons at the Beauchamp estate. Mrs Beauchamp didn’t take part in the campaigns but she didn’t let a day go by without mentioning the Interview – quietly, at home. She was more concerned with the First Lady than the general deficit in the field of miscarriage or child mortality. The public became rather attached to your mother,” he tells me.

I don’t know how to feel about that. Mum’s awesome, the best mum there is – I could be happy that others see it too. I’m not. Reign’s death was left alone, but for all their sympathy towards Mum, the press can’t keep from slandering about us. So what, they write badly about Dad and not Mum most of the time? They must know that it affects her too! All of us. Their pity feels worthless and their appeal to Mum hollow.

“We read the mess-carriage thing,” Joss says.

“Miscarriage,” Ernest corrects. As if that explains anything. He’s so patient though, so impartial it’s almost enraging. “Miscarriage is the premature death of an embryo or foetus during pregnancy. In other words, the death of Reign Mustang saved the lives of countless unborn babies and young women wanting abortion.

“To this day, the media hasn’t tired of reproaching the president for his use of national funds; for shifting what could have been invested in the economy. Amestris’ armaments industry was at an all-time low because of demilitarisation. He didn’t tell the state that he was preparing for democracy. He almost wasn’t elected because his own party wanted to kick him out for secrecy.

“Be that as it may, some economists had – and still have,” Ernest lifts a finger importantly, “the audacity to call the circumstances back then ‘close to a financial crisis’. Other counsellors criticised the approach for more reasons than money. There were ethnic minorities and religious groups that went berserk to the point of committing arson, robbing shops and wreaking havoc because of the extended abortion laws protecting women instead of unborn children.”

I stop watching Ernest’s finger. I’m staring at my feet, my mind a foggy mess. I want to punch someone. I want my tennis racket, then the people who’ve been harassing Dad and Mum all these years standing in a line so that I can batter ball after ball at them.

“Tell him about the president’s answer,” Joss urges Ernest.

She’s smiling. I look at Ernest.

His glasses are high enough, but still he pushes the bridge of his glasses into the bridge of his nose out of habit. “That’s right. There was one thing the president used to say when confronted with such accusations and it never failed. He asked them about population growth.”

“Population growth?”

“Children born in Amestris.” Ernest circles his palm as if he’s given this lesson three times today. “Not immediately, of course. Research takes time, abortion rates went up. But give it a year and already, there was an increase in fertility behaviour. Another year and vaccines for babies brought early death from tetanus, smallpox and scarlet fever close to zero. It was incredible.”

There’s emotion in Ernest’s eyes for the first time – not much, not yet what I’d call reverberating enthusiasm, but something. Science and math are what get through to him, Joss always says.

It makes me wonder if there’s anything that gets through to me. Something that truly resonates with me. Not politics, that’s for sure.

I remember the finance tutor and, more than ready to change topics, ask Ernest about what he’ll do once he finishes school. Joss rolls her eyes when he starts explaining the stock market where his father works, how he’d rather be part of an individual company where he can make a difference, not just watch what happens.

We’re let out with the same alien exactness, an inner robot controlling Ernest’s hand on the doorhandle as it moves down and back up.

“So nosy.” Joss sticks out her tongue when the door is shut. She doesn’t go on though, because for being nosy, Ernest also likes to share.

We sit in Joss’ room, on the huge Certan rug, rolling a ball back and forth between us. At first, Joss spits a couple of insults about the host of the Interview, but when I don’t react any more than with a hum, she falls quiet. Our legs become goals, opening and closing like scissors, and we build hurdles from roll pillows and stick horses that the ball has to bounce over.

When the maid comes to tell us it’s time for bed, Joss and I haven’t touched our homework, just played ball and lazy darts and sprawled out on her four-poster, tracing each other’s heart line. We made up so many silly horoscopes for one another over the years, but today, I don’t feel like saying any more than ‘goodnight’.

The guest room is huge and oppressing at the same time. Silence seeps into my bones.

No singing from Eliza, no middle-of-the-night work that ends with that lung-depleting sigh from Dad. No kiss goodnight from Mum. Tomorrow, before Joss and I leave, I’m going to call Mum. Hear her voice without the chill of retching gasps.

Notes:

Thank you so much for your comments, Munya! :)

Chapter 9: I'M TAKING OVER THE STORY

Lucien is out on a school trip. BO-RING. So it’s up to me, Eliza Christine Mustang, heiress to the throne, to continue stalking our parents in his absence!

Let’s start with the throne part because I’m not even kidding. Here are the facts:

Mummy’s psycho dad was an alchemist, which basically makes him superior to the rest of the village, so their king. Mummy is his daughter and probably the smartest out of everyone there anyway. The princess. She’s passing the title to me. Daddy was a General, then Fuhrer, then president – bingo. Also if you squint and make a handstand and don’t have anyone Xingese around for comparison, Daddy could pass as Xingese and they have lots of princesses. Bam. Royal heritage.

Our house is the biggest and coolest in the city. Castle: check. It’s missing a tower though. There’s an Amestrian flag on the roof, but I’d like one on the tip of a tower. My flag (I drew one), not the Amestrian one.

Speaking of the Amestrian flag, I’m going to need that dragon. Everyone tells me it’s just a symbol and doesn’t really exist which is one hundred percent code for ‘it’s too dangerous, only the chosen one can lift the curse and free it’. That’s gonna be me. Or Daddy, and he’ll give it to me.

A horse would be nice too. A white one like the ones that pulled Mummy and Daddy’s wedding carriage.

“Eliza, sweetheart?”

I rocket out of my chair.

“Could you come in here for a—”

“Yes, Daddy!” I skid to a halt on the threshold of his office.

“… minute.” He looks up from a letter.

I wiggle on the spot. Wait for it…

He scoots back. Yes!

I dash across the carpet, around the desk and right up onto his lap. Daddy huffs like I punched him in the stomach. His face relaxes, and he smiles, hoisting me up comfortably. Any second, he’ll say I’m getting—

“You’re getting too old for this.”

You are, Daddy, I swallow. He’s sensitive about his age. He shouldn’t be. Grandpapa is old, really old, so Dad’s fine. Still, Lucien and I pretend we’ve never seen Mummy colour the grey streak at his temple.

I miss Mummy. She went up north to the military castle. It has towers, and then there’s that biiig wall between the mountains. I wanna see it, but I don’t wanna see the bad people. Mummy is preparing to meet them. Daddy will go there too.

I also miss playing with Lucien, but I don’t say so. He’ll only be annoyed. I made him a card for when he comes back. I’m gonna make one for Mummy and for Daddy. And for Granny! She’s not going anywhere, but I love her.

Daddy’s chest does that little stutter whenever he tries not to sigh. He sounds tired. When Mummy colours the grey hair, he does it too – trying not to sigh, sounding tired anyway. “Your teacher sent the quarterly notice. She enclosed your last essay.”

I beam a flashing white grin. The essay was too easy, but fun! Mrs Wallace gave me an A. “Do you like it?”

“It’s lovely.” Dad squeezes me close for a sideway hug.

I dump my head on his chest. Being in Daddy’s office, being called into Daddy’s office and cuddling at his desk is like first prize in a raffle. No, like beating Charlotte at dodgeball and then surprising everyone with free ice cream. Charlotte is off the table. So is Daddy’s work. At his desk! Can you imagine?

Take that, Amestris! Take that, bad people behind the Northern Wall! Eliza Time.

“Is there a reason you put your name down as ‘Lady Eliza Mustang’?” The squeezing stops.

Like that’ll stop me from getting cosy.

I snuggle my cheek where the breast pocket of his shirt pricks my skin. “It sounded nice.”

“We’re not royalty.”

“I know…”

“It’s perfectly fine to play princess with friends and wear pretty dresses. Just be careful what might provoke a response from the press. We don’t need them accusing us of title forgery.”

“Yes, Daddy…” What’s title fogigy?

“My love.” The words get smushed when he presses a kiss to the top of my head. He takes his hands away.

I ignore the hint and keep sitting. “Daddy, can you have weekend yet? Can we play?”

He sighs one of those bad sighs. I pout even before he speaks.

He chuckles, but shakes his head. “I’m sorry, not yet.” He gently shoves me off his lap. “Maybe next month.”

I stomp towards the calendar on the wall. It’s bigger than my arms are wide if I stretch them. The numbers of the days are mostly covered by writing, that’s how busy he is. All the things Daddy has to do and places he has to go and people he has to meet. My name is on there too, at least it was a while ago when I had a school event. I can see Lucien’s class trip under big hectic letters spelling Drachma.

Squinting, I find today’s date under those letters.

“But next month is in two weeks!”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You go on and enjoy the weekend.”

Hm. I could call Beth. I could start making Mummy’s card. Steal some cookies. Daddy’s too busy to notice; he won’t know the difference. Mummy will once she gets back. But she’s so far away, and the cookies are with chocolate chips.

Head hanging, arms dangling from drooping shoulders, I slooowly walk away. “I’m almost out…” I say.

No reaction.

“There’s the door…” I drawl.

“Pardon?” Daddy says after a moment.

Good enough.

I rush back to hug him. He’s lost in the stuff on his desk again before I’m out in the hall. There were maps and fancy emblems on letters. Important things. Extra-national things, I think, like, outside of Amestris.

I’m not yet in my room when the phone rings. Daddy answers. When we’re in a car or when he’s at the office – the outside office; I’ve been there a lot – he’ll say the whole thing. President Roy Mustang. So cool. Mummy or Uncle Jean will say ‘President Mustang’s office’ or something. Here at home, the phone is special. It knows it’s him.

“Speaking,” is all Daddy’s deep voice says. Then he’s quiet.

Can’t hear the other person. Must get closer. Maybe it’s Mummy. Missing me, on her way home. Imagine a whole Sunday with Mummy and Daddy at home, Lucien away. More Eliza Time. I’m wagging on the spot. I have to know.

I’m halfway across the hall back to the office when she’s suddenly next to me. Cigarette stench should have given her away, or her size, but Granny Chris is super sneaky. I flash my most innocent grin. If I don’t turn my head all the way up, I’ll look like a puppy. She can’t resist that – no one can.

Pursing her lips, Granny puts a hand on her hip. Her tongue plays behind her teeth – she doesn’t smoke around us, but I can see she wants to.

“To your room, little spy.” She lightly plonks her fist on my head.

I hold it as if she dropped a brick on it. “Ow! I’ve been attacked!” Come on, Daddy, stop the call, save me! “I’m under attack, help.”

Granny tuts. “Oh, shush your whining, dearie, it wasn’t—”

“What?!” Daddy explodes.

Even Granny winces. She grabs the back of my shirt when I try to go into the office. We’re standing in the open doorway, staring. Daddy’s eyes have a wild tremor in them. Like he’s watching the landscape fly by from inside a speeding train. He coughs out a ‘where’, or maybe nothing, I can’t understand him. The receiver is leaving red streaks where he’s pressing it to his ear.

The phone pings, the desk rattling as Daddy slams the receiver down. The echo isn’t gone before his other hand has flown up, the dial rattling like an Automail chainsaw.

“Roy-boy?” Granny crosses the threshold. She doesn’t let go of my shirt.

Daddy’s got the receiver back at his ear, the connection bleeping. His eyes dart up to us. He opens his mouth, but just then the bleeping stops.

From here, I can hear the voice on the other side.

“He’s just out the door. You’re home, right? He took the armoured car.” Auntie Rebecca.

“Yes. Thanks.” Daddy’s breathing isn’t okay. His face is white. He puts the receiver back but misses one side of the fork. Neither he nor Granny seem to notice. He’s already on his feet, the chair swivelling with how much he’s hurrying away.

Granny tugs on my shirt again when I reach out.

Daddy storms past us. He grabbed the guns from the bottom drawer in the bedroom, slipping through leather straps so that they cross at his back, the guns dangling under his arms. “Stay here with Eliza.”

“Roy.” Granny pursues him to the stairs.

He stops a few steps down, turns only his head. His eyes are dark over his shoulder. “Lucien was abducted.”

 

* * *

 

The bouncing stops. Then the car’s engine ceases buzzing. I can’t see a thing.

Doors are opened and slammed shut, making the car jiggle. Relaxing my hands, I stop bending my fingers to my wrists. The rope won’t budge, no matter how much I scratch. My hands feel sore and prickly with how tight these fetters are. My neck is stiff. Those men didn’t exactly offer a pillow to lie on.

Voices. Male. Some of them I think I recognise from before, muffled outside the car.

If they let me out now, I’m not sure I can get up. My stomach throbs where I was punched. Much worse are my legs. Cramped, knees boring almost into my chest so that I might fit.

Last night was a bit of a downer. Homesick isn’t what I’d call it, but for some reason, I didn’t feel like joining the rest of the class for games and tea. Now I’m glad that I didn’t. Joss must regret that she did. It smells of urine and something pungent – petrol?

The voices close in. Creeeak, the boot of the car is opened. Light whisks past the underside of the blindfold, but that’s about all I can see.

This can’t be happening.

“Why, good morning, little prince.”

I’ve heard him speak last night, mostly swear words. Before that, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this voice.

My throat tightens. Someone grabs my collar and drags me up to sit. I can’t breathe. My heart jabs against my ribs, and I feel like I could throw up any second. I want to. I want to be hunched over the bowl of a toilet, wheezing out my lungs, the stench of vomit biting my nose – anything that isn’t here.

I want Mum rubbing my back, telling me it’ll be alright. I want Dad saying something unfitting to awkwardly lift the mood.

I want to go home. I want to pass out. I want to disappear rather than take another step.

This can’t be happening.

“Move it.”

I’m wrenched forward. My foot catches on the boot of the car, and I panic, falling blindly. My shoulder hits the ground. Someone keeps pulling on me, keeping me from collapsing onto my face. There’s dirt down here, mud but no grass. It stinks of petrol.

The hand on my collar yanks me upright. I stumble.

“Can’t walk like this, runt?” Another hand grasps the back of my head. My eyes burn when the blindfold squishes them, pulled back, then up. I blink against daylight. Just for how long did we drive? Where the hell are we?

Mud, dug-up. Mountains are in the far, far distance, barely more than grey silhouettes. The North? Are these Drachman spies? Will they impede all that Mum and Dad worked towards to make amends? There is a hangar of sorts up ahead, in the middle of nowhere, bigger than a warehouse but made clumsily from corrugated iron. Wooden stakes impale the ground from here to the hangar, randomly strewn about.

“Who’s that?”

My breath catches when Joss shrieks behind me.

“Don’t know. Wouldn’t let the boy go.”

“Kill her then.” The man who took off my blindfold says.

A gun loads with a cold-hearted click. Joss whimpers. I lunge backwards, across the boot of the car just when the other man points his gun.

It now points right at my forehead. I see red, black, my head swimming with fright, but somehow, I get my teeth apart. “She’s the daughter of the Darlingtons. Her family is the richest in all of Central,” I stretch the truth. Not sure if the Armstrongs are richer, but it’s a close race. “She’ll be dearly missed by her parents. They’d pay anything,” I pant. “Anything at all.”

Two men stare at me. One is shorter than Jean but at least as bulky. The other looks like he could lose twenty kilos and still be overweight.

They’re right, she wouldn’t let go. Joss clutched my arm so hard it bruised, trying to keep me there at the hostel last night. I’m the reason she got taken too. I’m the reason Drachma will attack; that there will be war and Dad might…

Dad might go to the front lines.

“Anything, you say?” The fat one strokes his moustache with two fingers.

“Anything,” I repeat. My wrists are bound behind my back. I’m clutching metal, afraid the tremble of my hands could shake the entire car and betray me. Hanging halfway across Joss isn’t heroism. My legs won’t support me properly, squiggly like noodles. I can hardly look those men in the eyes – I try, want to remember their faces, but my vision keeps blurring, flickering away.

“We’ll let the boss decide.” The taller man shrugs. He reaches out. I trip when he drags me forward, so he kicks my ankle. “Stay on the path, damnit. This field it littered with landmines. One wrong step and kaboom!” He mouths an explosion. “So no escaping either.” A grin edges onto his lips.

He kicks my ankle again when I won’t walk. The other man is lugging Joss out of the car. The moment she stands, she attaches to my arms like a baby possum to its mother. She might be biting my shirt; I can’t turn and see, only feel a constant tug. I’m just glad we haven’t been separated. Yet.

The stakes in the ground make no sense to me. No pattern, no coloured ribbons. With Joss clinging to me like a peg, I get away with another stutter of my feet without raising suspicions. It’s not exactly an arrow. It could just be dug-up mud. I have to leave some kind of sign; a safe starting point.

The men lead us towards the hangar. I drag my feet as hard as I can. Before my mind’s eye, I see myself catapulted into the air, swallowed by fire as the mines rip me apart, limb by limb. Still, I drill my feet down, try to mark the path we zig-zag through the wooden stakes.

Metal rods emerge from the ground, propped up to keep the gates of the hangar shut. It rattles in the wind. Large enough to fit a tank, at least. To the side, there is an improvised door – a sheet of corrugated iron standing in front of a hole. ‘Payback’ is the password. The taller man in front of me says it before we enter, and right away, there is movement inside.

A man readjusts his gun upwards as we duck inside. He’s huge, like a massive wardrobe right next to the hole. The sheet of iron is shoved in front of the entrance again, the man becoming a bear of a shadow looming over us.

“Get a move on.” The fat guy pushes Joss. She bumps into me, and I flounder. I can’t save myself from the fall, so I hold on to whatever fabric of her uniform I can reach. We wobble, but stand. We don’t release anything close to a sigh of relief.

Apart from the shadow of the gate keeper, there seems to be nothing here. Vast, cool emptiness trapped under high ceilings that clatter in the wind.

The tall man flicks on a light. A winding concrete staircase. We descend underground, the fat guy’s gun boring into Joss’s back, sometimes into mine whenever she manages to squeeze in next to me. Something rumbles. The light fades. I stagger, slip a step, crashing into the wall. Everything’s dark. Someone closed the stairwell; sealed it up with a heavy object. There’s no getting out of here.

For a moment, I think the oxygen is thinning out; that we’ll suffocate.

“Bloody children,” the fat man cusses. He shoves us to go on even though we can’t see.

Carefully, I feel for the next step with my foot, estimate the distance. My shoulder hurts from the fall earlier. I’m nauseous. My stomach clenches like a wrung-out rag, my legs on fire from the cramped car ride.

The other man went ahead. I can’t feel that he’s in front of me anymore. Click, a light comes on up ahead. I’m at the bottom of the stairs, my foot feeling straight ground.

Doors to all sides. The walls are concrete, cracked here and there, sprayed with names and explicit images. The red colour, almost brown, might be sprinkled blood. Rat droppings line the walls left and right. I want to cover my nose with my hand, avoid the stench. My heart is racing so much that I can only pant, my lungs burning for breath.

Right, left, right again. It’s a whole tunnel system. A steel door marks the end of this hallway. Its handle reminds of a bank vault, round, with spokes to move metal bars in and out of the lock. The tall man cranks the door open. I grip Joss’ uniform tighter. She merges into me, whimpers behind my ear. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want this to happen, but if I must, I’d rather be Joss right now. Hold on to someone. Hide. Pretend it’s all a nightmare.

A square room. Bare concrete – the walls, the ceiling, the floor. A bunker?

A single table marks the middle. Bottles of liquor litter the floor, crowd under the table and in the corner. A gun is lying blatantly on the table. One chair is empty. In the other, a man is rocking on the back legs, his feet crossed over the table. He looks haggard. His cheeks dent into his face like a rammed car, sprouting a few days’ worth of stubbles. I’ve never seen him before, but I stand paralysed when his ice-blue eyes collide with mine.

“Welcome.” He outstretches his arms. Swinging his feet off the table, the remaining legs of the chair clatter onto the ground. “Please, do make yourselves at home.”

The fat guy jostles us into the corner. A few bottles tumble, clinking, rolling across the floor. With a push to my shoulder, the fat man steals my balance. My knees pop painfully, and I slump ungainly to the ground. Joss kneels before he can do the same to her. I keep clutching her uniform, hiding her behind me. Her breath shudders against my back. Tears seep into my shirt.

“Lucien Mustang.” The haggard man stands up. With a curt wave of his hand, he sends the others out.

The metal door scroops, then groans shut. I can’t hear the men leave. Still, my eyes snap to the gun on the table.

Guns have been around me my whole life. I’ve never shot one, but still, they are part of my identity, of my family and their history. They broke so much in my parents, but they saved them on countless occasions. It could save me now. It’s right there.

I nearly jump out of my skin when the man laughs. There’s an echo in his laughter, the same brittle madness his eyes spray at me. A complete lunatic. Is he going to execute me right here, right now?

Am I… going to die?

“And you brought a friend, how sweet.” Haunted, that’s what he sounds like. Possessed. Like someone’s telling a joke in his ear that makes him cackle. He cocks his head to the side.

Joss is shaking, sniffling.

I can hardly look at the man. Those eyes, icy, unnatural somehow, make my blood freeze. I feel like I should know him. Like he knows me. Personally.

“Do you want ransom?” I ask. For a second, I try to remember how much allowance I was given for the trip. The holes in his worn suit make it look as if he could use just about any amount of money.

He laughs again, hoarse and empty. The chair squeals across the ground as he slouches further into it. Reaching for a dark green bottle of wine, he takes a good swig.

“Ransom?” The wine sputters from the neck of the bottle and from his lips. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Haven’t you been paying attention, kid? Payback’s the magic word.” He hauls the bottle into the corner.

Joss shrieks. I gasp, shut my eyes. Crash! The bottle shatters against the wall. Thin, red liquid leaves trails, pooling on the floor around thick shards of green.

“Name’s Arvad Horrace Pilatus,” the man says. “Served in the military as a Lieutenant Colonel. Not bad, eh? At least I was until your father made them thrown me out and let me rot in prison for fifteen years.”

Fifteen years?

He worked with Dad? He clearly isn’t Ishvalan. The senior staff with Bradley got a lifelong sentence, and they were of higher rank.

“That’s right,” Pilatus rasps. “Fifteen years. Quite a long time, isn’t it? I spent more time behind bars than you on this planet, and depending on whether or not your Mummy and Daddy will meet my demands, that’s longer than you’ll ever live.” He jerks his unshaven chin at the gun on the table.

Mum and Dad. Blood rushes loudly in my ears. No one ever mentions Mum. It’s always Dad, the Fuhrer, the president. Why Mum too? He knows both of them. Fifteen years isn’t long enough for the coup, so that isn’t what he was sentenced for.

Lieutenant Colonel Pilatus. I feel like I should know that name. I venture another glance at his eyes that spark like a match striking into ignition, with hatred and something so far from reality, jittery, shrinking. He’s unpredictable. And he’s strewn the place with landmines to take his revenge on Dad.

He doesn’t that Dad is busy with Drachma, preventing a war. That he isn’t coming.

I’m going to die here.

Notes:

Thank you so much for your comment, Munya!
I'm glad to know you liked the approach via Joss, and that I should definitely not forget the visit to the graveyard :D

Chapter 10: Shot to Hell

Notes:

lilyellowcat, thank you so much for your review! Also... yes. You're spot on 😎

Adult language ahead. Long chapter incoming.

Landmines. The petrol I smelled – that must be a trap too. If Dad used Flame Alchemy, he’d blow everything to splinters, including himself. That’s why the ground was dug up. That’s why this is underground.

None of which is going to help me now that I found out. If he truly comes, then all this thinking got me is knowing how Dad will die, which only makes me more nauseous.

Joss sniffles. I squeeze her hand for the millionth time. We’re sitting back to back, her facing the wall, our bound hands painfully entwined. We’re all we have left. At least Mum is safe. Up north, away from everything, she can go back home to Eliza. Unless Drachma attacks by then. I almost forgot about them, now that I know this has nothing to do with the imminent war.

I swallow, but the lump won’t go away. My throat feels like it’s been stuffed with prickling, dry hay, clogging my breathing, scratching with every breath. Pilatus left the room. I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore aynway. Not much to see though with my eyes blurred, tears drying out the skin of my cheeks until I feel it crack. I don’t want to die here. I don’t want Dad to die. I don’t want Mum to die of heartache when he’s gone. I wish they’ll never find me, but I also wish they were already here.

Everyone will die. Everyone. Don’t bring Jean, I want to tell Dad. Or Heymans, or Kain.

Drachma might still attack. Use the situation of Dad not being up north, pitch Amestris against Dad for his decision to find me. He could choose Amestris, go to the border instead of coming here. Maybe he doesn’t know at all. Maybe he doesn’t believe some psycho’s call about kidnapping, or maybe the security doesn’t believe it and he’ll never know.

What if Joss’ parents send someone first? Blow up officers or their own staff unknowingly? They wouldn’t come themselves, they’re important people.

My parents are even more important. So then…

At least they are not going to die here.

“He broke into your house.” Joss stops crying for the first time since we got cramped into the boot of the car. Her voice wobbles though, like a toddler taking its first steps. “I know him. From my father’s archive,” she whispers.

We haven’t spoken a word yet. My ears feel like someone is pulling them like rubber bands, trying to detect anyone outside who might want to shut us up. If Dad doesn’t believe I got taken, I’m expendable. If Joss’ parents involve the authorities, we’re both dead. And if Pilatus is as crazy as he looks, he might just start shooting out of boredom.

“He broke in and found out your mother and father were breaking the laws,” Joss continues. I can hardly understand her. She must have the same idea, afraid someone might hear.

I know what she means though – fraternisation. Does that mean… Was this about them or Reign? If he was in prison for fifteen years, does he know Reign died? He must; he knew about me and my school trip.

“Your father shot him, but after he left the hospital, he broke in again. He was only put in jail after threatening to kill his own father. Mrs Wallace says he’s—”

“An enemy of the state,” I suddenly recall.

“Yes,” Joss breathes.                                                                                                 

Mrs Wallace mentioned him once. I didn’t take notes because she rants about pretty much anyone who critiques Dad. That’s a lot of people. Pilatus – she mentioned the name. She knew – everyone knows, again, everyone except for me.

I sink in on myself. Joss’ hands tighten with alarm. I drop the back of my head to hers.

“I’m sorry I got you dragged into this.”

She sniffles. She dragged herself into this, we both know, but if it wasn’t for my family, I wouldn’t have been a target to begin with. Those men didn’t even know who she was.

“What do you think the others are doing?” she whimpers.

I squeeze her hands with numb fingers. The rest of the class will have been sent home. I imagine them getting picked up by their chauffeurs, no one risking taking the train the school rented. None of them will be a target. They’ll feel uneasy, or maybe they find it all a spectacle. Home, cosy, telling an exciting story. Returning to school like every day.

That makes me wonder – what day is it? I couldn’t tell the time inside the car – hours, probably as many as it takes to return to Central. Or did they take us West? North? We were right at the border of the three regions to see the steam engine museum. Is it still Monday or was last night Monday and it’s now Tuesday?

Steps clack down the hall. A man calls something. More steps, right in front of the door, fading in the distance. A guard left.

The door squeals open.

“They’re here, that was fast.” Pilatus grins at us. He pulls the gun from his belt. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips as he checks the ammunition. Magnum bullets. They’re huge. They could rip my fingers off my hand.

“Who is?” I sit up straight. My wrists never hurt as much as now. Get off, get off! I need to be free; I need to stop Dad and his men from stepping on the mines. Please see the arrow, my footsteps in the mud!

The corner of Pilatus mouth twitches upwards. His pupils are tiny. They flicker as if he can’t find me sitting right where he left me. He’s either lost it completely or added drugs to the mix. “Some pretty, armoured car.” He points his gun at the open door. “Time to die – bang.” He moves his weapon as if it recoiled with how heavy the ammunition is. “That is, if they get inside at all.”

A rumble above.

A landmine went off?!

“Kaboom!” Pilatus’ laughter tears at my eardrums, dirty cackling, harsh, mad – so mad he has to cough. He gulps down wine from an open bottle, spits half of it onto the floor.

Another rumble. Guns shooting. Joss yelps.

“What do you think we’ll find – an arm? A leg? ‘Oh, look, it’s his majesty’s head!’” Pilatus slaps his knee. “His eyes, his precious eyes, blind again,” he guffaws.

More shooting. Right down the hall. A man shouts.

I see images of Dad in my mind, lifeless, gone cold and stiff. Blind eyes. Blood everywhere. Fire.

“Time to die, time to die,” Pilatus sings. He throws me another grin. His teeth are dark with wine, like blood, his eyes spasming.

Another shot. A grunt, then a thud.

Is that a good or a bad sign?

Pilatus turns with twitching serenity, points his gun at the open doorway. “What a privilege – someone made it down. Now I’ll have the honour to—”

Bang!

“Aaargh!” Pilatus screeches. The barrel of his gun was shot clean through, the bullet stuck in his shoulder. The gun drops.

Bang! Another bullet gores through his hand. He clutches it with his other hand, yowling in pain.

Steps rush towards him. Bang, bang! Bullets splinter each of his kneecaps. I can’t look away; I’m turned to stone. Pilatus collapses, shrieks so much his voice bounces off the walls, shattering like hail. He rolls onto his side, grasping his knees.

A gun enters, finger on the trigger, ready to kill. Eyes so sharp they could slit his throat, she stares him down.

My breath catches.

“Mum…” I’m not sure I spoke or thought it. I can’t hear with adrenaline flooding my body, my heartbeat rattling all the way into my skull.

She reloads the gun. Somehow, her eyes catch me from the side.

“Lucien!” Mum whirls around. She crashes to her knees in front of me, hugs me, her gun boring into the bruise on my shoulder. I’ve never felt better in my life.

“Mum.” My eyes itch like a thousand ants biting them.

Mum blurs, but I can make out the tear streaking her cheek. With her thumb, she wipes my face, then my eye until I can see again.

“Are you hurt? Did he—”

Chink, metal grazes metal. Then tock, tock, the grenade drops from Pilatus hand, the pin between his grinning wine teeth.

Mum gasps. She wraps her arms around me, shields Joss and me with her body. No! I want to scream, don’t!

Clap. The floor quakes. It bursts open, rolls the grenade like a tidal wave into the wall which opens up, swallowing the grenade and the floor that pushes it, a tunnel punched in so fast, my hair blows in the sudden draft.

Boom! The grenade explodes somewhere far within that new tunnel. Red lightning zaps, then disappears.

Alchemy.

Shoes clack into the room. There is something so menacing about his pace, so powerful, it sucks in the air more than the transmutation did.

“Captain! Damnit, she went in here—” His eyes pop. “Lucien!” He scans me, gaze flitting for a second before it returns to the bleeding heap on the ground. “You…” Dad growls.

Pilatus gropes for his perforated gun. Dad steps crunchingly Pilatus hand, the one with the bloody hole. Pilatus screams. Dad picks him up by his collar. Pilatus’ jaw, maybe his whole skull jolts with a wet crack when Dad’s knuckles connect.

“Sir,” Mum scolds.

Dad drops Pilatus like a dead body. He shakes his knuckles, bloodied from the impact. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” He claps his hands, and touching the chair, he transmutes it into a winding wooden prison, contorting all around Pilatus. It didn’t look as if he was going to move anytime soon, but now it’s sheer impossible.

“The perimeter isn’t secured,” Mum informs. “They could be waiting outside.”

“Then we’ll just have to make our own exit.” Dad claps again. He crouches next to Mum.

Voices carry down the hall – the fat man is one of them. He sounds angry.

Before he touches the ground, Dad puts a hand on my shoulder. It’s like looking into a mirror. I’ve never seen him so frightened in my life.

Palms pressed to the floor, the concrete begins to shake. Red lightning shoots up. Like squiggly jail bars, it drills into the ceiling, a square tunnel opening. The floor raises us up, all four of us, through the darkness, earth and rocks rushing by.

“There are landmines everywhere,” I gasp out.

“How far?” Dad asks.

I don’t know how to answer.

“Twenty-three metres this way; we’re on the west side of the building. Fifty metres tops,” Mum says.

“Then fifty it is.”

The tunnel bends sideways. The floor keeps rushing us upwards. My ears clog, then crackle with the sudden altitude.

I’m not dead. Mum’s not dead. Dad’s not dead. Joss is not dead.

The earth parts above us. Daylight. I squint.

Those grey outlines of mountains are in the distance. The hangar is a good distance away. Black cars and military police are stationed close to us, away from the stakes in the dug-up mud. One car is in parts, close to the hangar, the ground having rained down on it after blowing up. The driver’s door is bent, scorched and stuck further away. Only the door. Embers glint on the ground. I think I see a disembodied hand clinging to the upturned steering wheel.

“Sir!”

“Mr President, sir!”

Men rush towards us.

A large vehicle buzzes to ignition and rumbles over – an ambulance, I guess, but I can’t see. All I can see is black, Dad’s coat rustling on his shoulders as he kneels, throwing his arms around me. My neck bends uncomfortably with how hard he squeezes. I close my eyes against his shoulder, body sagging. I’m exhausted. I can’t think.

The men continue to speak. They ask questions. A doctor pokes my back, someone cuts the rope around my wrists and must have helped Joss too because she isn’t right behind me anymore.

Dad won’t react on anything. He just sits there, holds me. If he speaks to me, I don’t hear it. I’m numb.

 

* * *

 

I startle awake, thinking his arms are leaving me. They already have. There is one arm around me – Mum’s. We’re on the backseat. Joss is on her other side, curled up like a dog.

Dad released me after a desperate minute. Paramedics checked Joss and me, carried us to the ambulance. My ears were deaf to words, but I vaguely heard Dad’s voice as if through a wall of wool – giving orders, soldiers reporting. He said something to Mum that made her go quiet. The doctor checked her too for a while, but wouldn’t let me see.

Turns out they took us further north. Now we are being driven to a hotel in North City.

Mum asks someone to bring clothes for Joss and me. Joss won’t stop shaking. She gladly peels out of her sullied uniform, slips into the bathtub, and insists not to be left alone. Mum asks me if I’m alright for the umpteenth time, and when I say ‘yes’, she sits with Joss, her shirt drenched where Joss keeps hold of Mum’s arm in the bath.

I sit next door. The armchair is preferable to the bed – it has cushions on all sides, like a stiff hug. There is a coffee table, couches, an unlit fireplace. The bed is ginormous, hung with heavy embroidered curtains that have those fringes at the edges like rugs. On the floor, there are fringed rugs, thick, layered over one another here and there. It’s warm enough without the fireplace. It’s cosy, I try to convince myself. I’m fine.

I don’t know where Dad is. I don’t know who died and how many. If Pilatus was found by the police or if his own men were quicker. What I do know is that the news of my hijack reached Mum at Northern Command and she took off almost by herself, abandoning the work that attempts to smooth things over with Drachma. She saw the trenches I’d left, followed them, the backup in the car biting his nails off while she barged ahead. She shot the guard at the entrance of the hangar clean between the eyes.

A knock on the door. Bowing, a lady who works for the hotel brings neatly folded clothes for Joss and me. She aims for the coffee table, but then leaves them on the sideboard, close to the door. Barton, one of Dad’s bodyguards, is watching the girl’s every step, gun at the ready. She must have heard Mum’s gun loading next door too. She flees the room with another hasty bow that might have been meant for me.

Barton turns the key in the lock, remaining in the hall outside.

I regard the wooden door. My vision becomes empty, nothing staying in focus for long. A tremble seizes my body, but I refuse to hug myself. I rub my arms anyway on the way to the sideboard, pretending I’m just cold.

“Mum?” I knock on the jamb.

Water ripples, then sloshes. Mum appears, her sleeve rolled up but soaked anyway. “Thank you, my love.” She goes down on both knees. Instead of taking the clothes, she squishes them between us, hugging me. Her hand trails up and down my back. She noticed the tremble. Water seeps into my uniform.

The door unlocks. Barton salutes ‘sir’, then leaves us alone.

“A word.” Dad says. His stride is every bit as furious as his voice, marching him to the adjacent room.

Mum’s hand stiffens ever so slightly.

She kisses my forehead, then takes the clothes for Joss to the bathroom. I change, take my time. Finally, the water splashes and Joss comes out of the tub. Fabric rustles. She sniffles like she has for the past hours, but she isn’t sobbing anymore. She and Mum exchange a few hushed words.

The door to the other bedroom reopens. “Captain.”

“In a minute,” Mum says. Quietly.

Another tremor rushes up my spine. I hate this. I already hate this, but there’s nowhere I can go. I could hide in the bathroom, have the shower swish loudly in my ears. It won’t change the fact that I know; might as well endure it. Wouldn’t be the first time, not by a long shot.

When I was younger, Mum and Dad would often fight about sleep. He would work into the night, she would work into the night, and I think it’s only because she quit the military for us children that she saw reason before him. Took them months – the same thing, over and over, raised voices, sharp huffs – until they came to the conclusion that both of them desperately need sleep and that even on days where work isn’t done, they go to sleep at some point. They’re not always successful. Taking breaks is worse. The number of things Mum can get done while dinner is cooking can be dizzying. Even when we ask her to relax with us, she’ll start gathering up Eliza’s toys or dust off a shelf in between.

This has nothing to do with sleep. The air tastes the same though; like a sizzle ready to combust into flames.

“Riza.” Dad’s voice through the door.

I’m not yet relieved he chose her first name. Mum strokes my hair as she passes me. I don’t buy her smile. It falls the moment she touches the handle, and the second she shuts the door behind her, Dad’s voice rises.

“How could you?!” He bursts like fireworks. Like a landmine.

I picture Mum standing ramrod straight, her expression ironed out. It takes an awful amount of imagination to erase the saluting arm.

“Just how foolish can you get? You didn’t even take a squad and you were in bloody headquarters – send someone! Tell me!”

“We couldn’t waste time.”

We. She plays that card often. I almost can’t hear her, but Dad all the more.

“You went straight into enemy fire on your own – do you have a death wish? Do you want your children orphaned?”

“I want my children alive.”

“He threw a grenade at you and you did nothing!” The door quivers in the jamb, that’s how loud he’s yelling.

Joss hurries from the bathroom over to me, latching onto my side, hiding her face. I want to do the same. Cover my ears. I can practically see the sparks flying from Dad’s gloves.

I can also see detached limbs, this time Mum’s, had he not come in time. He’s right, it wasn’t coordinated. She had no idea he was coming. She would have died, ripped to pieces right in front of me.

“I was protecting my son!”

My. Not ours.

Sparks fly then, a roar sending waves of heat from their fireplace into ours. The hotel howls with sudden air pressure through every chimney pipe. The windows rattle. Flame Alchemy. She hates when he uses it. He hates the world when he uses it.

The breeze Dad sent from his fireplace to ours makes ashes dance through the air. They coat the ground in dust and white flakes. A single shred lands on my sock.

He growls, the words ‘promise’ and ‘never’ among many. Mum says nothing.

Silence. In my mind’s eye, I can see his thumb and third finger, the skin turning white as they press together, ready to snap again. I hold my breath.

Thud.

My ears bend towards the door. Dad’s voice has broken to a rasp. Unintelligible, I think I still know what he’s saying. I heard it after the break-in, and in my first conscious memory, when there were complications during Eliza’s birth. One sentence. Four words. The last two a crippling exhale. I can’t lose you.

Mum replies softly, gently almost. There’s a rustle and another thud.

I hold Joss’ hand. Her other one is on my back, furling around my shirt with abating fright. We sit on the bed. I play with the hem of the shirt I was given. It’s too big. No buttons – makes it feel like a makeshift pyjama. I could sleep for days, but at the same time, I don’t think I can sleep at all.

Minutes tick by. Five. Almost ten.

The door opens.

Dad’s eyes fixate me for an endless moment. I can’t read them.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair as he walks into the room. I didn’t think he’d noticed how much of a mess he is, now trying to smooth down spiking black. The press would have scrambled to get a photograph of the president dishevelled with madness. Maybe they did.

“Your parents are informed about your safety, Miss Darlington,” he says. When Mum sits on the bed behind us, I can see a twitch in Dad’s legs to follow. He doesn’t, hands disappearing in his pockets. Taut, the tendons from his wrists to his knuckles bulge. “They would like you to call them tonight.”

Joss nods her thanks. Mum puts a hand on Joss’ shoulder, the other on mine.

Dad continues, “You’ve both been excused from school for the rest of the week. We can extend that however long you want.” I’m not sure he means us or just Joss. He looks at me then. “Your mother and I need to host the Drachman representatives. You will be coming with us to Northern Command. We can arrange to send Miss Darlington home if that is her wish.”

“What is she, a parcel?” I grumble.

Dad’s eyes harden. He lets out a sharp breath through his nose. “An escort then,” he corrects himself. “Although it would make me feel more comfortable if you stayed,” he tells Joss. “Northern Command will be guarded heavily. You will be safe there until my men have apprehended Pilatus’ accomplices.”

“They’re not dead?” I remember the guard Mum shot. He certainly is. I did hear the fat man’s voice before we escaped through the ceiling though, and I didn’t see anyone going into the building after Dad got us out and we drove away.

“Some of them.” Dad draws the words from his mouth like hair clogging a drain. Disgust at the men, reluctance to tell me. There’s more that he won’t say.

“What about Pilatus?”

Mum tenses. Dad’s eyes flit up to her for a second. I want to see what her eyes tell him, but she won’t let me, any betraying spark gone by the time I tilt my head back.

“Why don’t we eat first?” she suggests.

Protests build on my tongue, but Joss is already nodding avidly. My stomach, the traitor, rumbles its consent.

I should have voiced those protests, because apparently by ‘we’, Mum meant me and Joss. I was half expecting Dad to work instead of eat, but of course, she joins him at the desk in their room – a temporary, improvised office, yet already suffocated under an avalanche of paperwork.

Two bodyguards take Joss to the phone at the reception. No one else is allowed there for the duration of the call, any guests of the hotel locked out or ushered away before they can enter. For a reason I won’t tell her, I’m glad Joss didn’t insist I come. I can’t hear her cry anymore. Not because I think it’s whiny or not justified, but because I still haven’t. I want to. Bawl my eyes out, tattle my lungs. I can’t.

I’m upstairs, about to take it out on my teeth with floss and mouth wash and half an hour of brushing, but even when the handle slides out of my hand and the door shuts in my face out of sheer clumsiness, I don’t yell in frustration. Why not? I just stand there. Toothbrush in hand. The door blocking my path. My breathing in order, my heart calm, but my mind—

It must be why they think I can’t hear them – my silence, the bathroom door having fallen shut.

Dad lets out a groan. Creeeak, his chair scrapes across the floor, then the mattress bounces squeakily under his slumping weight. Eyes rotating in my skull, my body unmoving, I can see Dad’s legs where he sat down on the bed next door. Elbows on his knees, his hands dangle in between. Mum must have been too afraid to close the door between our rooms.

She doesn’t see my head above the sideboard I’m standing behind – not in the bathroom, not out of earshot –when she speaks, “You’ve always been better at spontaneous conversation. It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t—” Dad hisses a helpless exhale through his teeth. His head droops. He reins in his voice. “Madame is informed – that Lucien is safe and won’t be coming home right away.”

“Is informed?”

“Havoc called her.”

“You should call. Ask to speak to Eliza. She’ll want to hear—”

“Riza.” Dad lifts his hands. A blizzard has nothing on how much they’re shaking. It’s like he’s travelling on a donkey cart with no fixed road, his bone rattling. It’s terrifying. “I could hardly listen to Havoc speak Lucien’s name, I can’t—” He interrupts himself for another pressed breath. “I just want to hold him and never let go. Fuck.” His hands clench. It doesn’t stop the shaking.

“You can.” Mum appears from where she stood by the desk I can’t see. She goes down on one knee, trying to catch Dad’s eyes veiled behind black hair. The second knee lowers. Shuffling, she takes up the space between his feet. “These beds aren’t custom made like ours, but I’m sure we can squeeze in together.” She doesn’t want to leave Joss to herself. She also doesn’t want to split up; she wants to be with me and with Dad.

Me too.

“He’d never want that,” Dad scoffs tenderly. His tone vibrates with an abject smile. “I’ve been afraid of puberty all my life, but even now, it’s a vulnerable age. What if the girl blabs and word gets out? A young man sleeping in the arms of his father. He’d spurn me more than already.”

“He doesn’t spurn you.” Mum takes Dad’s hapless hands, rubs them strongly. “You know he doesn’t.”

“How did I ever think I could do it all?” Dad withers with a sigh. His head sags further.

Mum catches it with her forehead against his. “Soon, you won’t have to do it anymore.”

Dad gives a grunt in his throat as if she just reached inside his mouth and tore at his vocal cords. “Don’t remind me. I’m going to think war with Drachma is a piece of cake by the time the election is over. I’m…” He bites his tongue. Mum tilts up her chin. When their noses brush, Dad hums, his voice mellowing. He opens his eyes, but she must be blurry with how close they are. My ears strain to understand when he whispers, “I haven’t been Roy ever since Madame took me in. I was her spy, a soldier, the Fuhrer, the president.”

“A father.”

Dad doesn’t reply.

Mum lets out that breath – the one for whenever she’s decided something. When she’s taking things out of your hands and you know it’ll to be alright because whatever she is going to do, she does it with such conviction, you’re convinced before she’s halfway done.

Her knees glide backwards. Keeping hold of his hands, rotating him with her, Mum sits beside Dad. I unfreeze, ready to be chided for eavesdropping, but Dad isn’t looking this way. He is fixed on her, tiredly, hopefully, waiting for the magic of her decision breath to take effect.

Wordlessly, Mum guides his hands to her waist. It’s safe to let them go then – he’ll use any chance he can get to hold her. It stills the trembling, as if the skin of his fingers melts into the fabric of her turtleneck. She cups his face.

“There’s no rush, my love.” With her thumb, she traces his cheekbone. “Tomorrow, we speak with the Drachman representative. We follow the schedule. We see this through. And after the election, we get to be parents, and then, we can figure out who Roy is. I, for one, have been yours for as long as I’ve known you and that won’t change – whether you’re a soldier or the president or just Roy.”

Dad curses softly. He squeezes his eyes shut, his lips a thin, unhappy line. It takes another stroke of her thumb under his eyes for them to open. The corners of his mouth squirm but fail to point upwards.

“Don’t ever do something like that again.” Any beginnings of a smile vanish. “But… Thank you. For saving our son.”

“You did.” Mum averts her gaze to the floor.

It makes Dad’s hands spring into action against the grim shadow haunting her features, fingers eager to soothe her sorrow. He avoided touching her side, skipping right up to her face.

“I really was being an idiot,” Mum says. “I should’ve shot Pilatus in the head when I had the chance.”

“Yes, you should have.”

So then… they haven’t found him? Something in Dad’s voice sounds an awful lot like when he told us about chasing Hughes’ murderer into the catacombs of Central Headquarters. Revenge. Not bloodlust, but satisfaction in a certain man’s suffering.

Pilatus suffered – a shot in each knee, in his hand, his shoulder, a broken nose. Still, it doesn’t seem enough. They want him dead; condemned for his crimes.

In other words, he hasn’t been apprehended.

Steps come down the hall. The bodyguards who went with Joss exchange a few words with Barton in front of the door, muffled.

The sheets shuffle. Before Mum can turn around, I open the bathroom door and slip in, dry toothbrush in my mouth. Poking my head out, pretending that’s why the bathroom door opened, I wait until Joss enters.

Gosh, her face is all red from tears. She sees me and smiles more brightly than I’m prepared for. I invite her in and close the door of the bathroom. It’s bad enough I have to know my parents are a mess – if Joss heard, I would die.

She looks relieved. I bet her parents are too. They might not talk a lot like we do at home – she has her nanny to confide in – but her parents care a big deal about her well-being. Anything money can buy, they buy if it makes her happy.

Joss wipes her eyes, and for the first time, I feel I could cry too. I’m so jealous, it’s burning holes into my chest. I have to turn away, pretending to rinse my toothbrush. I could never hate her for all she has, but damnit, even though they barely take part in her life, her parents have a plan. Mine don’t seem to have any idea what they’re doing half of the time.

“What did they say?” I swallow these things churning inside me like a vortex. I can’t be a drag, not when her spirits are finally lifted. Telling her that Pilatus is still on the run might shatter her.

Joss blows her nose with some toilet paper. “They were really worried,” she says. Sniffling, she then takes a deeper breath to compose herself.

I offer a smile and she gladly returns it. Her cheeks are swollen. Her eyes are worse. I wonder if her parents understood a word she sobbed into the phone.

“Papá was there too.” The smile reaches her voice. “He says he wants to thank you personally; they both do. I told them how brave you were. That you saved me.”

I hug her.

Joss is stiff with surprise, but quickly hugs me back, so fast my spine pops in several places. She giggles, never loosening her arms.

I don’t want her to. I can’t look her in the eyes when she says I was brave. I wasn’t. Hearing her say it makes me tingle all over. How embarrassing – I really needed that. I want to hear it again and again.

I drop my chin on her shoulder. She’s taller than me, which should be a bother, but right now, I couldn’t care less. “Did you tell them—”

“No.” She gives a small squeeze.

I let go and she reluctantly does too. “Thank you.” I turn back to the sink, get out some floss. She wouldn’t rat me out, but still, I was scared for a moment. Dad would be livid if he knew.

Chapter 11: A Wall of Steel and Fire

Northern Headquarters is like one big aisle of saluting soldiers. Left and right, seemingly the whole way up to the top office, they stand, eyes eager to avoid the president but catch glimpses of me. Curiosity peaks when they see Joss. She’s clearly not Eliza, they whisper.

Must be nice. People wondering who you are. Not being famous, yes, but also that it’s about you. Dad’s lament from last night echoes in my head; who he is if not someone’s nephew or pawn or father. Joss might be the daughter of dirty-rich people, but she still gets to be Joss. I’ve never been anyone except the son of the Fuhrer, the son of the president. At archery, I’m the son of the Hawk’s Eye. No pressure.

Langley is waiting up ahead. Elegantly carved double doors open for us. The soldiers who opened them snap into salutes, then leave. Mum shuts the doors. She guides me and Joss over to the right of this huge office where there are a few sofas around a coffee table. Pens, colouring books. Did the ones preparing this think we’re seven?

“How’s your tooth?” Mum asks me gently.

I observe Dad and Langley going over to the big desk in front of the window. The carpet ends in the middle of the room, their shoes going from silent to clacking. “Hurts.” My hand wanders to my right cheek.

Mum pulls a sorry face and rubs my back.

I told her yesterday that I have a toothache. It was just after she’d tucked us in. Dad came to say goodnight much later. He didn’t stay. I’m not sure if it made me feel better or worse that he didn’t hold me like he said he wanted to. Less guilty, but worse.

“She should be here soon.” Mum puts a hand over mine, careful not to apply pressure.

As if on cue, the telephone rings. Langley accepts and curtly confirms. A few minutes later, Dr Bishop-Porter, my dentist from Central, is let into the office. We go to the adjacent room. It’s another office, smaller, maybe for a secretary or so. It has a couch against the wall where she motions for me to sit.

In thick boots against the cold of the North, she waddles more than ever. She’s the closet person to a duck I’ve ever seen. The couch whines as she plops herself down on one side, my mind conjuring up feathers that spiral up upon the impact.

I sit at the other end of the couch, hands in my lap.

“Now, this would be a lot easier if they hadn’t gone through my stuff like a bunch of hooligans,” she fumes mildly as she searches her bag. One of those typical doctor’s bags – a solid ground with little pins as feet. The top opens with a click, sturdy handles flopping aside. She finds a wrapped‑up piece of leather that unfolds like a pencil case, tools lining up inside. “Looking for weapons… As if no one can kill a man using one of these.” She grins, holding up tweezers big enough you could repair a car with them.

I don’t laugh.

Dr Bishop-Porter drops the tongs in her bag. “Scary place, so full of soldiers.” Her hand disappears in the pocket of her white coat, producing a small torch. “Getting searched isn’t the nicest experience, but I understand their concern. Can’t be too careful with people kidnapping children.”

My eyes snap up to hers.

The wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes deepen when she offers a sympathetic smile.

“Does the whole country know?”

She nods. “Is that a problem?”

I lower my head. Bet the headlines read ‘son of the president’. A picture of Dad coordinating the search for Pilatus. My name might be in the first line to remind of my existence; that I have my own name.

“Your mother said you had a toothache?” Dr Bishop-Porter points at her left cheek.

I shuffle to lie back, the leather squelching under me. The torch clicks into ignition. Opening my mouth, I close my eyes. Rubber snaps where she’s putting on gloves. The moment her index finger lightly presses down my front teeth to drop my jaw further, a warm rush of relaxation settles over my body. My muscles become water down the drain, melting into the cushions.

A dental clinic is my favourite place to be. Somewhere I do well. Somewhere the focus lies on something uniquely mine. If there were a doctor for fingerprints, I’d go there weekly.

Dr Bishop-Porter takes the torch between her teeth. Hand freed, she gets out that tool with a small hook at the end. With a little scraping sound, metal on enamel, she checks my molars one by one. I wish I had more. I wish I had so many teeth to look at, she’d take until the Drachman representative came and left.

That dream ends quickly, the tool retreating already. “Pristine,” she mutters. “Your choppers are a delight, Gumdrop. If all kids took care of their grinders the way you do, I’d be jobless,” she laughs.

I keep my eyes closed. Maybe she’ll continue if I do.

It’s pathetic, I know. Like when Joss praised me in front of her parents. But I feel I can’t live without it, not after I—

A sigh escapes through my nose.

“Dr Bishop?” I don’t sit up, don’t open my eyes.

The torch clicks, switched off. “Yes, Gumdrop?”

“Can I… tell you something?”

“Anything, my sweet.”

Sitting up, I draw my knees to my chest. The walls are thick enough that I can catch no sound of Mum or Dad or Langley or Joss.

The scraping of the dentist hook continues in my head, like the plucking of a lullaby, encouraging me. I can hardly speak though. I’m hot all over, ashamed, afraid, but if not her, whom could I tell?

“It’s my fault…”

 

* * *

 

Voices rise next door. Dad’s voice mostly. Faintly, I can hear the telephone ping with how violently the receiver joins the cradle. I didn’t notice when it rang.

Wiping my nose, I stare at the door. Dr Bishop‑Porter doesn’t begin packing her tools. She doesn’t seem to hear anything from next doors, at least she pretends not to, her attention never straying from me. Makes me want to cry, but then again, even confessing didn’t get me to do it.

In her eyes shimmers sadness. What happened to me, but also that I’m stuck here now, my father raging next door, politics ruling my everyday life. She’d take me back to Central if she were allowed. I want to ask her to do it like nothing else, but I know it won’t be granted. I should be glad that my parents care so much about my safety, but right now, I just want out.

Knock, knock, pause knock. The last one like a skip. Jean.

He peeks in. “Hey there, Champ.” His voice is tight, his smile a battle with himself.

Dr Bishop‑Porter pats my knee and pushes herself up to stand with an overdone groan of someone twice her age. She leans over the couch to collect her things into her bag. It blocks out the door for a moment. “Any more aches?” she murmurs.

I force what might have started as a smile onto my lips. She’s offering me a way out; a longer appointment.

“All good,” I tell her.

She sighs a little and so do I.

Jean closes the door after she left. I dropped my feet to the floor, but when he puts his hand on my shoulder, the urge to draw my legs into myself and curl up rises anew. He waits a moment. I refuse the invitation to speak, so he does.

“The Drachman representative won’t be coming here. They don’t trust our escort from the Northern Wall. They want to negotiate right there at the border. We don’t have a choice but to make another attempt at negotiations. You and your girlfriend will stay far enough away from the meeting room. The Briggs soldiers are cool; you can trust them to keep you safe no matter what.”

“You’re not coming?”

Jean rubs my shoulder. I want him to sit down too, for things to slow down.

“I’ll come with you all, but I need to go to that meeting with your parents. And…” He pulls a face as if someone is about to splash a bucket of ice‑cold water in his face. “General Armstrong,” he whimpers. I know he exaggerates because I used to find it hilarious when I was little how all the grown-ups are afraid of her. She isn’t so bad though. She judges with her own eyes, as she says.

She sees me as someone, not just my father’s son.

“So that means…?”

“Yup.” Jean straightens, hands on his hips. “We’re going to the Northern Wall of Briggs.”

 

* * *

 

If I thought Northern Command was big, I forgot about the Wall. I’ve been here once before when I was little. By now, I must be three times as tall as I was then, and still, I feel like an ant standing in front of this titan of metal and stone.

She isn’t up above the gate like she was the first time I came here. It was empowering just seeing her – blonde hair graceful in the wind, a steel grip on her sword. General Armstrong isn’t only the highest-ranking woman and senior highest‑ranking officer in the entire military, she is the North; a tempest of ice and snow.

She was my childhood crush and knowing it, she had a blast mocking Dad about being more popular with me than him.

“Where is he?” Armstrong can be heard barking even before we see her. Somewhere down the hall, her words echo off the walls, then that of Mum and Dad.

Jean is trying to herd Joss and me towards a staircase, but Armstrong won’t keep her voice down. Her steps follow us pointedly.

Joss stumbles a bit on the stairs. About to run, scared of the pursuit, she doesn’t make it any further when I stop. Jean hisses like he burned himself. The steps come closer, more than just Armstrong’s. Dad is complaining. One of his advisors urges Armstrong to come back, that the Drachmans will be here any second.

Briggs soldiers are posted by the top of the stairs. One of them, sporting a grey beard, smiles at us. He also quite effectively blocks the path of our ‘escape’, loyal to his superior’s unspoken request. Even over fifty, she’s a menace.

“Stop running, Havoc,” she barks.

Jean freezes up. Her boots shake the building. Joss squeaks, hiding behind Jean who made it to the stairs, trying to pull me after him. I don’t move.

She’s here.

“Took you long enough to show your face again.” Olivier Mira Armstrong towers above me – not because she is especially tall, but because she is like the Wall herself. A sword rests at her hip in its sheath. Her arms are crossed tightly, the fabric of the uniform wrinkling. “Afraid to set foot in the snow like your prissy father?”

Dad growls something down the hall. His advisors are faster in reaching us, but they pretty much turned to stone the moment she halted. Now everyone sort of crowds and cringes behind her.

I don’t break eye contact. “As if I have any say about where I go.”

Her eyes narrow. “Captain Hawkeye said you aren’t well.”

Once a soldier, always a soldier, she says. Someone quitting the military, because of children no less, isn’t something Armstrong has a lot of understanding for, but Mum has always been a special case – they respect each other. Usually it’s just people respecting Armstrong, fearing her, and she looks down on them. Mum, she’ll hear out. She won’t stop calling Mum by her last rank though.

I shrug. “Tooth ache.”

“Didn’t sound like it.”

My hands ball to fists. Did I mess up? I told Mum it was on the left, that’s why Dr Bishop‑Porter checked the left side, but this morning I touched my right cheek, didn’t I? Or last night? Mum knew I faked! And she still had my dentist shipped north.

Armstrong knows too, deducted it. Or maybe she just thinks everyone a liar by default.

I lift my chin. Indifference doesn’t work, so I return her cold gaze with a spark of defiance.

She tuts. The corner of her mouth tugs up. “So they didn’t snuff you out.” Her eyes smile, her face doesn’t. It’s even better than Joss raving about me to her parents. A compliment from General Olivier Mira Armstrong. You have to know her to see it. She’d never pronounce a praise, but she tells me she approves of my spirit anyway – in her own way.

She respects me.

“You be a good kid and stay put. No wandering around the fort.” Turning on the heel, her hair and waist cape flutter.

Don’t bet on it, I want to say, but there’s a fine line between commendable rebellion and getting your butt kicked hard for disobedience. “Don’t kill anyone,” I say instead, “yet.”

She laughs. Jean salutes. He gives me an impressed nod, about to hustle us upstairs when metal creaks like nails down a blackboard, a high‑pitched scraping rattling our ears. Snow whirls inside. The wind reaches us all the way over here, biting its way under our clothes. A giant black bear stands in the doorway, barely two metres away.

No, not a bear. A man.

His fur coat and hat are black, but the tips of each hair white with frozen particles. The same goes for the dark beard and moustache, frosted over. His eyes are slim, lined or maybe the skin of his cheeks is wrinkly with countless scars. Pupils blown to black orbs with the garish snow in his back, he surveys the people scattered about.

Did he… let himself in? Into the Fort of Briggs?

Langley stands furthest away down the hall. A few Briggs soldiers are posted around the improvised meeting room in front of Langley. To the other side of that beast of a man are Mum, hand on the gun at her belt, Dad, two advisors who chased after Armstrong, and then Armstrong closest to me. I can hear Jean fumble for his weapon behind me. Joss squeaks. It catches the man’s attention.

He seems to look straight through Mum. For a long moment, he surveys Dad, then briefly Armstrong. Finally, those dark eyes land on me.

Armstrong draws her sword with a shiink that claws at my eardrums. Is she going to fight him? Kill him?

She rams the tip of the sword into the ground. “We demanded your leader, not a messenger,” she accuses the man.

Mum has meanwhile unholstered a gun behind her back. With her other arm, she’s shoved Dad to the wall, but I can see her inching sideways to replace the shield of her arm with her body.

The Drachman turns his head towards Armstrong like a robot. Like with Mum, his gaze goes through her as if she were a polished window. I meet his eyes, praying I look as resolute at I did when returning Armstrong’s glare.

He speaks something in his own tongue, heavy, wooden words, then, “Fuhrer Mustang.”

Mum looks as if someone is making her swallow a thousand slugs, sick and indefinitely unsettled when Dad steps forward.

“Welcome,” Dad says.

Jean tugs on the back of my coat, but I refuse. My feet might be stuck to the ground anyway. I feel like the water in my eyes is slowly freezing over, and the is wind cutting my cheeks.

The advisors part for Armstrong. Like an electric fence, she sends off waves of fury that pulse and lash as harshly as the wind coming in behind the man.

He doesn’t seem to notice either whipping.

Dad clears his throat. “We’re pleased to invite you and your commander into the meeting room.”

“We?”

“You are of course free to bring your advisors and scribes as well,” Dad offers. When asked about Ishval, he’ll sound the same way – cautious, polite yet reluctant. He peers past the Drachman into the flurry, awaiting a leader, maybe an ambush.

“Don’t talk here.” The man’s ‘r’ rolls behind his beard. “You talk with commander outside.”

“Outside?” one of the advisors bursts. His hand flies in front of his mouth.

The Drachman doesn’t appear to have heard.

“Talk outside. No trap in here.”

“I can assure you, there is no trap set anywhere,” Dad says. There’s a supressed swell in his tone. He must have said the same thing about Northern Command, and again, they’re changing the plan. “No soldiers will be inside the meeting room—”

“No talk here. Outside. We wait.” The Drachman’s eyes graze me one last time, drill Dad, then he trudges back into the storm.

The wind howls, grazes my ears like shards of glass. One of the Briggs soldiers moves forward. Mum has drawn her weapon. He has too, but after a peak outside, he lets his rifle sink and pushes with both arms to close the heavy steel door.

Armstrong marches over, looking as if she’d cut off her soldier’s hand for closing that door. “Don’t bother,” she snaps, then to Dad, “Get your bonnet, we’re going outside.”

Dad sighs. He stops his step halfway, foot hovering in the air, when Mum’s arm tenses. She begs it to stop midway. Fingers outstretched, ready to snatch his sleeve and pull him back. She doesn’t dare. It’s clear enough though, so he halts. Armstrong scoffs.

Dad supresses another sigh. “We need to secure the area first.”

“Coward!” Armstrong shouts. The tip of her sword spears the ground. “We got them right there! We could already be done and over with this if you weren’t so squeamish! Show some backbone, you jellyfish! Else you’re worse than my brother after all. How many times do we have to let them send us running?”

Her voice booms up the stairs, even in the hall down which Jean is shoving me and Joss. I can’t understand Armstrong anymore when he closes the door behind us, but I’m certain she’s switching to proper insults the more frustrated she’s becoming. They come like cannon fire, one snarky bang after the other.

We’re in a parlour of some sort. An office maybe. There are cables on the table against the wall, but the radios are taken out. The couch looks old and worn, the two chairs rickety. At least there is a carpet – stomped flat but big. I can’t wait to get out of these tight boots, but I don’t dare. My face is still tingly with the cold.

The thought of getting comfortable is absurd. When Mum enters the room, I can’t figure out if getting cosy has just gotten easier or harder.

She nods at Jean. He goes to stand watch outside the room, at least I don’t hear him descending the stairs. Did the Briggs men leave? Are they securing the area? Does that mean Dad is…?

Mum moves to the windows. Slim to avoid enemy fire. I’m not tall enough to see through them. Quietly, I pick up a chair and move it towards the windows. Mum isn’t stopping me. I scoot the chair closer. Not sure she notices me at all. Her eyes look blind, paled by the snow outside reflecting in them.

We stand there for a while.

Joss sat down on the couch. There are no papers and pens for staying busy. She doesn’t get the other chair to look out with us and I’m glad – whatever comes next, I don’t want her to see it.

Mum puts her arm around me, and I’m not sure anymore I want to see it either.

She squeezes my side. She hasn’t stopped staring out into the whirling whiteness. Specks of grey betray the mountains, playing hide and seek in the awful weather. “He went to hear them out.”

The way she speaks sounds as if she’s telling me he didn’t go to talk, but jumped off a bridge. Like the next thing we’ll discuss is how to behave at his funeral. Like she’s given up, left behind by the one who has given her life purpose for the past quarter of a century.

Can I… Will I be enough for Mum? Will she stay with Eliza and me or follow him like she always has?

Her eyes widen suddenly. Her other arm comes up, hand aiming for my head. I search the white as hard as I can before she can shield my vision. Snipers? Cannons? An ambush? A trap?

Her hand freezes in midair. My body does too.

White turns to red. Orange, yellow, shrieking red. Flames gorge the snow, the air, the mountains, all at once. A titanic wall of fire is blocking out whatever it is Mum saw that promised certain death. Now there is nothing but Flame Alchemy. Drachma threatened him. He threatens them. He must be thinning the very oxygen inside their lungs with how colossal these flames are, thick as waterfalls, so hot I think I feel them pouring and melting through the heavy glass of the windows all the way up here. I can’t even see over them, and we’re some six, maybe ten metres above. The roaring shakes the chair I’m standing on.

And then the fire’s gone. Out.

Steam rises. Any surrounding snow has been melted. Like the blinding sting of a welding torch, the flames went out within an instant. We blink repeatedly. Mum’s hand on my arm is pinching me, but I don’t think she’s aware. Her mouth is slightly open, the hand on its way to cover my eyes now at her face, index finger bitten unconsciously. Is her heart pounding or standing still?

She releases me. Then her arm returns briefly for a quick, meant‑to‑be reassuring hug from the side, and she’s replaced by Jean. Her steps fly down the stairs before he’s had the time to properly shut the door.

I stare out. The mountains are visible now. The wind is back of course, only now there are no flakes of snow to twirl around, only steam. The steam is thinner up here than it must be on the ground. For a moment, I catch a glimpse of the blue sky.

He blocked whoever was about to ambush. If there were snipers, they can’t see a thing.

Someone opens the door. Jean didn’t holster his gun. He’s ready to point it, when the Briggs soldier hands him a telephone. The cable must be running through the entire fortress.

“Flames?” Heymans’ voice on the other side.

Jean moves out the room, but he doesn’t dare close the door fully in case we need something. “So much for calming things…” Jean’s voice stretches alongside the face he must be pulling. He lowers his voice, so I move towards him. “Not much diplomacy with all that shooting going on.”

Shooting? I didn’t hear any of it. Did someone get killed? Armstrong? Briggs men?

Dad can’t be dead because he made those flames. A minute ago. No, he can’t be.

“… went out pretty quickly; I’ve never seen it like that,” Jean murmurs into the receiver.

The blown‑up car from the hangar appears in my mind’s eye. Did that police officer die because of me, burst to pieces because I got captured? I see that single hand in the mud. Disembodied, bloody, only now it’s wearing a white glove with a salamander stitched on the back, and the mud moulds into snow in my head.

No, no, it can’t be. He didn’t stop transmuting because he was shot. He didn’t. We were lucky once, we’ll be lucky again. Scratch that, he’s always been lucky. Unfortunate, but never too much. Dad gets hurt, Dad sees bad things, he takes lives if he has to, but he doesn’t die. He just doesn’t.

Please.

Notes:

Thank you guys for your comments and input!
Because of that, I'm working on another change of POV which also concerns Reign. Do let me know if that's something you'd be interested in, as this story isn't mapped out completely yet.

Chapter 12: If Truth be Told

I learned a new word today. Frostnip.

Jean isn’t done talking to Heymans on the phone when I use my chance and dash past him. No time to think he could get into trouble for letting me out, how Joss might feel left behind or if that bear of a man is downstairs. My boot gets caught on the stairs. I crash with my sore shoulder into the wall. Hands flailing to catch the banister, I grip it hard enough to twist my wrist, the rest of my body still falling.

I bump into someone. She doesn’t help me stand, but at least she kept me from landing face first on concrete.

“And where do you think you’re—”

I duck past General Armstrong and jump the last steps. My ankles buckle. I have to land on my hands and feet to catch myself. It punches the air out of my lungs, and for a moment, the world is absolutely still.

The hall is soundless. No open door, no beast of a man, no wind. Langley stands with his wiry hands folded behind his back. He turns to glance over his shoulder at me. I don’t understand how he heard me when they didn’t.

Mum and Dad.

Dad sits like a discarded bag of laundry against the wall, one leg up somewhat, the other slumped. Mum is on her knees, hands over his ears. I can see why. His nose and brows are burning red, slightly bloated. Frostbite, I think. It isn’t yet, only frostnip. Still, my mind pictures Dad with his gloved hands intact, but without ears.

His face glows from the proximity of the flame walls. He opens his eyes and they share a long gaze. Mum’s as out of breath as him.

“Close call.” His voice drifts more than it rings.

“Too close.” She sounds angry.

Armstrong scoffs for everyone to hear and spins on the heel, long blonde hair billowing after her. When Mum keeps warming Dad’s ears and no doctor hastens to stitch up any wounds, my feet draw backwards, slowly, one at a time, until I’m far enough from Langley to dart around the corner without being hauled back.

I catch up to Armstrong just before she can clatter the heavy door of an office shut behind her.

“What happened?”

She tuts and sheathes her sword.

“Did they attack?”

“They did.” Her eyes spear me from above, like she’s standing at the top of a cliff and I’m the tiniest of all waves crashing into nonexistence. With a snap of her glove‑clad fingers, one of the Briggs men at the door scurries towards the table in the corner and puts on the kettle.

A small cast iron stove crackles with logs. Atop it is the kettle, to the side a sink and a single counter. General Armstrong drops into one of four chairs around a table, but it’s not a flounder from tiredness, not the clonk of a sack of potatoes, but the tight thud of a box shaking with ammunition. She’s sharp even in the way she sits, and she’s loaded heavily with disdain and violence.

I choose the chair to her left. She’s facing the door, and I neither want to have it in my back, nor do I want to stare directly at her. What am I saying, I don’t want to be stared at directly by her. Watching the soldier prepare a pot of tea is a welcome distraction.

I wait until he leaves the room. Two steaming cups sit on the table. They’re the same size, but like with everything, hers feels boldly bigger, fuller, hotter, just because it’s hers.

“Someone tried to shoot Dad.” I realise I’m not speaking the way I want to hear myself, but the way I hope she wants me to sound. I’ve disappointed enough people, including myself. This is a final chance, an impossible one. There is no pleasing General Armstrong.

She whips a tsk between her teeth. “They did,” she repeats. In her tea, she drowns the words, “And that Daisy ran back in here without burning a single man for their attempt at assassination.” The tea is steaming, but I imagine the heat making way for her lips, the aroma folding its body in a low bow across her tongue lest she insult it next.

I don’t bring my cup to my lips. Accepting an offered beverage or meal is a fundamental rule of appreciating the host, but if I wince back now from the near-boiling water, I’ll be Daisy 2.0.

Armstrong is glaring the logs in the fire to ashes.

Still, she isn’t glaring at me, so I ask, “What happens now?”

“Now?” A bitter laugh rocks her vocal cords, like flicking against a hollow metal pipe. “Now your father goes on a holiday, leaving us to clean up his mess of war threats and unsigned peace agreements.” Her cup clacks onto the table, empty.

My shoulders sag alongside my gaze. I hate seeing my reflection in the black tea, distorted and pale and stupid. Critique, downright spitting on Dad’s name and decisions, I’m almost used to, and she hated his guts before he rose to power, so there is a certain right in her fury; a nostalgia. That, and General Armstrong is a hard‑working, fair woman. She isn’t flawless, but she gets to beef unlike people who only belittle and don’t better things.

“… squeamish with a bit of frostnip,” Armstrong mutters.

She doesn’t get up for more tea or to leave the room. She’s immune to compliments, at least so they say, but I know she used to wallow in self‑content when I had my child crush on her, simply because it didn’t sit right with Dad. Maybe some of that satisfaction left traces of not disliking me. Maybe she isn’t still sitting here because she wants to, but because I’m here.

My tea keeps steaming, the cup perfectly huggable for warmth. Ankle propped up on her knee, Armstrong’s foot pensively taps the underside of the table for a minute or five until I speak up again.

“General?”

Spit it out, her pointed exhale says.

“Is it okay to lie to someone who lied to you?”

Half a smirk plucks at the corner of her mouth. She keeps her eyes on the logs. “You mean did I lie when I told that fake rat Bradley how I wanted Raven’s seat? Not particularly.”

She thinks it’s about her. Fine by me. Although comparing Bradley to Dad is a bit of a stretch that doesn’t sit right in my stomach, so I go on.

“And is… not telling someone something equal to lying?”

Bam! I wince nearly out of my chair when her elbow rams onto the tabletop. Chin perched atop the back of her hand, Armstrong curls her full lips into a gleeful smirk, blue eyes bleeding that self‑content from years ago.

“What exactly did you do?”

Shit.

The doors swings open. It hits the wall.

“He’s here.” Jean. A marathon has nothing on the sweat swimming on his forehead. Upon seeing me, he doesn’t smile. He isn’t smiling.

I’m dead.

Not even Armstrong’s annoyance beats the fury blazing all the way down the hall and into the room. Getting up, moving towards Jean and the open door – it’s like stepping up to a bonfire, ears crackling and popping, sparks biting with tiny teeth into my skin.

There is no actual fire, but the crackling keeps up like cracks of a whip, Dad dishing out the worst of the worst as he tows me out of the office. We were worried where you’d gone. We only just got you back. We’re disappointed you didn’t tell us. Didn’t trust us.

Do I… still trust them?

I’m a maelstrom of negativity throughout the whole ride to Central and I hate myself for it. Joss and I don’t speak, but she holds my hand – the one that isn’t balled into a fist under my cheek as I press my face to the window of the armoured car. Cool, I keep thinking. Let the coolness of the window seep into your pores, calm down.

At the door of the Darlington manor, Joss and I get out together, the two of us and Jean.

A butler already ran to fetch the lady of the house. It’s Tuesday. Although the sun is lowering itself towards the horizon, I’m not surprised when Joss’ father doesn’t appear alongside her theatrically sobbing mother. He’s a workaholic, just like my parents.

Also, is Joss’ mum wearing mourning black?

“Oh, thank you, thank you, young lord, for bringing her back,” she sobs. Almost reluctantly, she pats her daughter’s head as if Joss were a purebred cat found in the gutters and not yet cleaned up. “The Darlington family will never forget your heroism and, of course,” her gaze ping-pongs between me and Joss, “reward you suitably.”

I’m so done with her smarming. Staring her right in the eyes, my voice matches the flatness of a dead heartbeat. “Mrs Darlington, I am turning thirteen. You must know that I can’t make decisions of that magnitude yet, but…” I feel like Mum when she can’t quite supress a tired sigh after too much bullshit. “If I had to decide today, there would be no one but your daughter whom I’d marry. Have a good day.” A nod, one last glance at Joss.

She nods, see you at school. Can’t say there aren’t little stars twirling in her eyes, but she knows how to take my words. Appeasement for her mum. Something with which she can tease me once we’re back to normal.

Something she might want to cash in someday. She does love a corny romance.

Jean’s eyebrows are about to jump off the top of his forehead. His mouth can’t decide between a grin and a dangling jaw. He claps me on the back with a proud chuckle on the way to the car. “My, my. Thirteen my foot. You’re every bit your old man – hecking smooth, Champ. Hecking smooth.”

Any other day, I’d glow pride that Jean is impressed, or I’d be sour that he compared me to Dad.

My brain gets hung up on another thing though. See you at school. When things are normal.

Will they ever be normal again? Will I be? Gosh, I almost told Armstrong what I did, I’m such a mess. And angry. I’m really, really angry, especially because my mood doesn’t have half the effect of Dad’s mood where he keeps seething away in his seat. So what, I went two rooms farther? I was still in Fort Briggs. He’s the one who should apologise!

By the time we get home, the red of Dad’s ears and nose is gone completely, warmed up. His mood cooled down. We’re all mute as we enter the house.

“Daddy!” Eliza pitchpoles down the stairs.

Something between a grunt and a huff is blasted out of Dad’s chest with Eliza jumping into him. “Hello, sweetheart,” he breaks his silence.

I break mine when Mum takes off my coat and carefully rubs my bruised shoulder. “How about—”

“Fine.”

She frowns sadly.

I anticipated the wrong question. Whatever. Head down, I trudge out of her grasp. “I’m going to my room.”

“Lucien!” Grandma’s voice bolts through my body. Lacquered nails grab my chin, pinching my cheeks as she checks me left and right, turning my head. “Thank goodness you’re okay. What kind of a bastard kidnaps a child…” she mutters with venomous spit. She’s more relieved than cranky though; she’s getting old.

I shrug, feeling decades older too. “Just some stranger who knew me.” Despite squished cheeks, I hand her my fakest smile.

Her eyes narrow pensively. Still in her grasp, I rotate my eyes to see if Dad reacts on my accusation, but he’s already up the stairs. The phone in his office is ringing. Good excuse. Must be nice, getting distracted so he doesn’t have to deal with me. It’s rare that anyone would call for good news, almost unheard of. And yet, he’d rather take that call than stay another minute around me.

I jerk my chin out of Grandma’s grasp and she doesn’t take offence. She caught on though, I’m sure. She’s got that look. I don’t stick around to see her wordlessly trade it with Mum, who has become Eliza’s next target of assault.

“Lucien.”

I don’t stop when Mum calls out. Even a roaring cannon will get swallowed by Eliza’s babbling, but Mum’s been this way since the hotel – faint. Muted, but with subtitles sent towards my brain. She speaks, and I hear her, but it’s so different, just like…

Just like her forced break the other day. When she came out of their room but Dad sent her back, excused her to Eliza with a headache. She’s thinking about Reign. About the break-in all those years ago. I’m just the by‑product, the trigger of a bad memory, aren’t I?

I disappear before I can cause her any more sorrow, her and myself. My thoughts are diving more deeply into the abyss, and while I still notice that they do, I need to get out. Distract myself, get a hold of myself.

At least so the plan. Dad has other ideas.

The phone pings onto the cradle in his office. I’m at the top of the stairs. The door to my room in sight, when his chair creaks and his shoes that he hasn’t yet taken off swish across the carpet of the hall. For a second, I get a déjà vu of Armstrong, his pitch‑black eyes towering a foreboding eternity above.

“We need to talk.”

His stride forward shoos me down the stairs. I don’t know where Grandma went, but Dad’s head twitches towards the parlour, and Mum follows the gesture, Eliza glued to her side. Dad either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about Eliza’s presence.

He doesn’t sit. I don’t either.

The swishing of his steps swipes at my ears like a whetting blade. He paces around the couch where Mum and Eliza sit down. They huddle together as if the couch is the last skiff of a sinking ship.

Dusk has fallen.

“The police just called,” Dad informs. His tone is a rock skipped across a lake – skip, skip, skip, drown. Stab, stab, stab, dark.

But the police don’t know because we didn’t tell them. Joss swore she wouldn’t. Dr Bishop wouldn’t rat me out. Armstrong didn’t get to hear it.

I’m still tense like a mouse in a trap. The cat takes aim, his shoes grazing the carpet back and forth.

“You snuck away from security at the hostel.”

He shatters my poker face into a dozen pieces.

“I—” Don’t know what to say to that.

“We talked about this a million times. A trillion times.” Dad’s tone booms with the pulsing urge to shout. His hands quake through his hair. “Security is your greatest good. Don’t ever—”

“The reports never said anything!” I yell. As if that’d help me now.

Dad zaps me with a glare. His hair spikes where he ploughed through with his fingers. He’s behind the couch now, behind an open‑mouthed Mum and a cowering Eliza. His thumb and index finger pinch the bridge of his nose until his nails leave crescent shapes.

“No, it wasn’t in the reports.” He promises another discussion of me lying to the police. Of me getting Joss to also lie to the police. The stabbing of his words has turned to thorny prickles, night sky dimming his tone. “The Darlingtons took immediate action after the kidnapping. They began firing the majority of their security staff assigned to the class trip, assuming it was a slip up on their part. In trying to protect the staff from something they were not to blame for, your friend confessed to her mother.”

Damnit. Why does Joss have to be so noble when screwing up her promise?

I can’t feel anger at her yet. I’m starting to shake under Dad’s growls. My teeth won’t clench, jaw locked open to suck oxygen from the thinning air.

He rounds the couch. The room shrinks. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done by sneaking away? How many jobs you put on the line, how many lives you endangered? The press—” Another pinch of his fingers, this time in the air, ready to snap. It flexes the tendons from his hands all the way up his lower arm.

Mum shifts, afraid he will snap.

His fingers cramp to claws. “You put us all in danger,” Dad snarls. “And then you fanned the flames by lying about what happened.”

“How’s it feel…?”

Whatever his hand was aiming for, it got slapped away by my voice. I wasn’t loud or even angry.

“Excuse me?”

I am angry though. My chest heaves words out of my mouth, head rising slowly, eyes spearing through the sparks spraying from his glare. “Who is Pilatus? Why didn’t I know I had an older sister? And why does the whole world know about everything and I don’t?” I burst at every seam.

They exchange a glance. I can’t see Dad’s, but Mum’s is just short of horrified.

Feet previously frozen to the spot, I crack through icy shards of my own fear, prickling all over. One step, and the room expands. “I heard what you said at the hotel in North City. Why do you think I would hate you unless you had a reason to think so?”

“Watch your tone.”

“I have a right to know!” I combust. There’s no time to triumph that Dad is shocked nearly speechless, knowing I heard everything. “She was my sister.”

“It’s…” Mum’s veil doesn’t lift from her voice, confidence stuck in her throat somewhere. “Hughes’ murder upset you so profoundly, Lieutenant Colonel Pilatus might have too.” Unable to reach me, she rubs Eliza’s back.

I huff through my nose. “I know that.” My glare snatches up to Dad. “And guess what? Getting kidnapped by him was terrifying. But if I’d known about him—”

“Knowing who he is won’t help you. Everyone is potentially dangerous.”

“Then tell me about those people!”

Mum holds Eliza more tightly. “We don’t want you to be scared of everyone you meet.”

“Dad just said it’s justified. Anyone can be a threat.”

“Which is why we need to be more careful,” Dad reinfuses his tone with authority, “but we don’t want to lock you up either.”

I lift my chin. “Teach me alchemy then.”

“Lucien!” Mum barely swallows a gasp.

“You treat it like some kind of time bomb, but it’s not illegal. Anyone can learn it. It’s useful and I could defend myself. You wouldn’t even have to teach me; I can ask Uncle Edward.”

“You know precisely why we don’t teach you two alchemy.” Dad downsizes my advance.

My foot wavers, draws back, but I hold his eyes like trying to keep water from spilling out of clenched fists. “No, I don’t! All you ever say is that Grandpa went crazy over alchemy, but you never say how or why. What he was like. Why no one else is going crazy and why I’m still not allowed to learn it then!”

“That’s quite enough.” A shift in Dad’s weight, not, and my push is pierced. The spears in my eyes are melted down by his tone that drips with finality. “To your room.”

“Dad!”

“No, let’s—” Mum’s holding her forehead. Her whole head has sunken into her hand, lashes flitting as if her brain is spiralling through her skull.

Dad is by her side at once, Eliza plucking on her sleeve.

Mum gently shrugs them off. “We won’t split up like this now.” She fights herself to stand. “How about we take a brief recess. I’ll make some tea, then we can talk. Starting with Reign.” Her eyes find Eliza.

Quietly, Dad apologises to Mum for his volume, tails her to the kitchen like a medical alert dog.

Eliza slides off the couch. On all fours, she crawls over to me and peers around the couch towards the open kitchen door. The kettle is obscuring their voices, but their mouths move, Dad’s more than Mum’s. She keeps cradling her headache in one hand.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Eliza whispers.

I narrow my eyes. “It better not be how to get out of this.” I consider the couches, whether I will sit down or keeping standing. My legs are tired, but my chest still whizzes like a gas heater on full throttle.

Eliza targets my sleeve to pluck on next. “Don’t make Mummy sad again.”

I shake her off. “It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose.”

“You are, you’re making Daddy mad. You always do.”

“We have something in common then.”

“We don’t.”

“Not you.” I scoff. “Me and Dad.” I will arrowheads to grow from my glare, to fuel it with betrayal, but all that comes out is a tired, saggy struggle to remain furious. Drained, frustrated, I add in a mumble, “Who cares about you?”

I shouldn’t have.

Eliza gasps so hard she coughs, then blares worse than any ambulance as she shoves me away, takes another noisy inhale and rushes upstairs, wailing all the way.

“Lucien!” Dad comes scolding.

Mum hurries past me, after Eliza.

I really shouldn’t have. Why can’t I do anything right?

Click, Dad fleetly turns off the stove in the kitchen. When he returns to the living room, I’m already gone.

Notes:

Thank you so much, Munya, for your comment! ❤️
POV change will be... not Roy or Riza (so far) :D But you'll like it, I'm sure of that.
If you got something in mind for them, or for the upcoming holiday, let me know - I always feel inspired by your input!

Chapter 13: In All Honesty

The door bangs shut more than I intended. The blinds are down, everything pitch black. I don’t bother groping around for my bed. I don’t think I could – my legs are shaking violently, my chest heaving, feeling like a balloon squashed empty. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

I sink against the wall. Knees drawn up, I crush my eyes into them, seep them with hot tears of shame. I’m so angry – at Eliza, at Mum and Dad, at myself. I’m so tired.

Steps. The door opens, then shuts. I could only just catch a glimpse of the light, but I refuse to look up or make a sound. Even just ironed suit trousers right next to me radiate a fury that robs what was left of my breath. My jaw hurts with how much I clench it. Fabric shuffles next to me. I’m almost prepared to get to know what a slap in the face feels like when strong arms reach out and wrench me out of the corner.

My heart stutters. Eyes open wide, I see only darkness. The buttons of his shirt pinch my cheek painfully with how much he’s squishing me. He…

He hugs me. Fast.

Dad’s breath shudders above my head. Like Mum did when she told me about Reign for the first time, he presses his face to my hair, lifting off only to plant a long kiss on my crown, and only for a moment before squeezing me again.

My ears crackle like a broken radio when he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Everything sags. Arms, legs, my head against his steady heartbeat. I couldn’t stand up if I wanted to, let alone sit. My mind wrestles through the haze, but my body lost the battle, beaten to the ground. What’s left of my energy seems to be needed for breathing, maybe listening.

Dad notices. His clothes rustle against my ear as he moves. Pulled into his lap, I’m vaguely aware that he’s scooting towards the end of the bed, maybe to lean against it. All I know is he stops moving at some point. He never lets go.

Silence. Night.

It’s like Mum once said about the Promised Day – darkness swallowed the centre of the transmutation circle, thick as water, intangible as fog, and a silence that built in the ears seemed to hush the world from the inside out. She didn’t pass out like people outside of the centre, but still, she wasn’t fully conscious; wasn’t aware of the world or herself or time.

I’m nothing within this void except my breathing, and Dad’s breathing rocking me up and down. His biceps are tense around me.

“This is…” he rasps above my head. “This is almost the same way I held your mother when she was bleeding to death.” He breathes in, slowly, attentively, then out. “We had no secrets. I never withheld anything from her, and it made her a hostage until they decided to kill her. Whether or not they knew how I truly felt about her, they knew she was my weak spot. They knew she was invaluable because of what I entrusted to her, and she paid the price.

“I was afraid— I’m still afraid that I will endanger you by saying too much. I never meant to make you feel like we don’t trust you. I’m sorry, my love.”

My chest convulses with a sob. Dad squeezes me tighter, rubs my arm.

“You were always such a good big brother, I thought I was doing you a favour by not telling you that you weren’t the first born. I suppose…” Another inhale, an irregular one.

He stopped counting the seconds – four in, hold for two, five out. I count in his place, in, hold, out, as two and a half breaths are pressed out above my head.

His arms tense, legs caging me in further. “I’m sorry. I guess the problem was never you, it was me. I couldn’t speak about her. I wasn’t ready, and I never asked myself if you were.”

I grasp his shirt.

He kisses my forehead. “Losing Reign was too tightly connected to Pilatus, so we never brought him up. We didn’t want the reminder, protecting ourselves. But Lucien.” One hand cups my face, a sheet of ice burning into my skin. Another kiss smothers me above my brow. “You couldn’t have done better if you’d known who he was. You protected your friend, you dug those trenches for Riza to follow, you didn’t provoke. You didn’t provoke,” he repeats like a prayer.

Mum must have known right away what the trenches in the mud meant. Dad didn’t bother – he stormed the building by blowing the wall away with his bridge of alchemy, foregoing the landmines with rage turned to luck, rather than with wit.

He keeps hold of my face, keeps propping up his legs to have me practically merge into his chest, folded in half. Makes me feel like I’m five. I don’t mind. Not at all. Not right now. “If I had told you who he was, you might not have stayed so calm.”

I don’t know why he makes it sound as if I was some cool, confident superhero but I don’t correct him. Having the Flame Alchemist tell me I’m brave is a giant band-aid across my soul.

“You’re a lot like me when I was your age. I’m glad.” Dad’s voice caught itself, smoothed into a soothing, low timbre. A lullaby. A life vest. “You’re angered quickly,” he chuckles, “and you let it out. You cry, you tell us off. It’s my fault I’m not around enough to hear you laugh. I wish I could hear it every day. Then again, I’m not the greatest role model.

 “I used to let my emotions get the best of me. Rising in the ranks forced me to temper myself, which has been useful as Fuhrer and president, but…” One last sigh, so deep I sway enough for my ear to lift off the buttons of his shirt. “I should know to turn my feelings back on when I’m at home. I’m sorry if I let you think I didn’t care.”

I have the sudden urge to apologise to Eliza. I’m not angry anymore, and my head isn’t burning. Curling my toes, I notice for the first time how cold they are; how cold all of me would be if I wasn’t being crammed into Dad’s hug. But my feet respond. My hand responded earlier too. Air flows into my lungs, not yet through my stuffed nose but through my mouth, dried out as it is.

Dad rubs my arm again. It takes a moment until the gesture thaws from angular to round, and I feel the muscles in his legs ache to relax, flinching little by little as he drops them to the floor.

My voice is embarrassingly feeble. “What happened at Briggs?” I fade into a whisper. I’m not the superhero he praised me for having been, I’m barely more than jelly.

Dad’s throat vibrates against my temple as he hums pensively. “I’m not proud of it,” he cautiously starts. His first reflex is to dodge. But he continues, “Negotiations weren’t exactly fruitful. The representative threatened to have me shot, his men hidden all around in the snow. He wanted to force me to agree to his terms. I realised that he would understand no language except his own, although thinking about it now, I guess I was also letting frustration getting the best of me – all our preparations for naught, snipers posted to kill me.

“I blew up their ammunition with Flame Alchemy, then I locked the representative in with me – you saw the wall of fire, right?”

I nod.

He does too, chin bobbing atop my head.  “I could have left it with a few sparks to evaporate the snow and create a cover no sniper would be able to see through. I overdid it. Nothing was achieved during that meeting except more hostility, but at least Drachma received a fair warning of whom they’re up against.”

“Will you go to war?”

“Not if we can help it.”

My fist furls more tightly around his shirt. “I mean…”

“In person? No,” he says, but it hangs on the tip of his tongue, not taking the plunge into decisiveness. He doesn’t know if he might. He doesn’t rule it out. A firm squeeze tries to overplay the implication. “If there is anything else you want to know, please ask. Anything.”

“Will you ever teach me alchemy?”

Dad chuckles. “Not if your mother has a say in it, I’m afraid.”

So then… he wants to?

His legs finally win the fight – or lose. Either way, he is slumping against the end of the bed, and I’m sliding away, breathing more comfortably.

“I’m… sorry I snuck away from security,” I mumble.

Dad pauses, then breathes longingly. Four in, hold two, five out. “I think we’re all more than ready for that holiday.”

I purse my lips. I’m glad for the darkness. “You say that as if it would fix any of our problems.”

A croaking gasp, the one he always does when he pretends to be mortally wounded by Mum’s unapologetic honesty. His arms slacken. I poke his nose but he feigns death. It doesn’t work when I aim for the underside of his foot. Springing to life, Dad twitches hard against the tickle. The darkness can’t save me. I’m snatched away, coiled back into his arms, fingers dancing along my sides.

“I blame your mother for this!” he grunts humorously when I can’t help but laugh.

A knock on the door. It doesn’t disturb us. Dad stops tickling but doesn’t release me where I’m on his lap, this time as if sitting in the car.

Mum leaves the door open a slot wide, casting a pillar of light across Dad’s knees. “Why does every talk the two of you have end in accusations against me?” She sounds tired but relieved.

“Your candidness has always been a tad brutal.” Dad shrugs. His arms tighten possessively, voice flinging itself into woe. “I don’t know which of you I should envy more – you because he’ll want you to hug him now, or him for getting your hug.”

Mum’s brows do a little boastful bounce, the corner of her mouth tugging into a smirk.

I snort. “That’s the most Dad thing you could have said.” I scramble out of his arms. “I’m gonna go apologise to Eliza.” My tone is almost blithe. I’m not sure what happened.

Mum runs a hand through my hair as I pass her.

I wonder if they’ll be gone from my room once I’m back. If maybe Mum will sit down next to Dad, if he wants to hold her like that again, like he held me.

The shower is running. I knock anyway, loudly. “Eliza?” More knocking, then the water stops. Swish, she grabs the curtain. Opening the door a crack wide, remaining behind it, I listen to what must be Eliza poking her head past the shower curtain with what she thinks is a dead‑on replica of Granny’s squint.

“What?” The word splatters across the tiles.

Usually, it makes me bristle, hearing her annoying defiance. Right now, I count as I breathe out. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” I offer through the crack of the door.

She must be squinting some more, contemplating. The old blackmailer.

The curtain rustles in her hands. “Play horse when I’m done?”

What did I say? Always looking for a bargain. Even though she’s the baby of the family! Gets everything she wants anyway.

“Tomorrow.”

A stretch of broody silence. Tomorrow going once, going twice…

“You are forgiven.”

Sold.

“If!” She takes a big lung full of drama. “I also get your lunch cookie.”

“Deal.”

She whoops, then clears her throat, the curtain swishing shut like a toss of golden hair over the shoulder. “Apology accepted.” And with that, the shower turns back on.

I shut the door. She is such a dog sometimes. Easily persuaded, easily bought with a biscuit. It makes me want to laugh, but only want to. I could never – I’m too envious of that simple mind with simple problems. Where did she even get that from with parents like ours? Maybe it’s her shield against the world, like mine is maturity. Mostly. Outbursts and retaliation through bypassing security and almost getting us all killed isn’t exactly all that mature, I must admit.

Remembering my stupidity, I’m almost loath to return to my room. Eliza’s lunch cookie might have to wait a while too, because when will I get my next lunch box going to school? This week? Next? After our holiday? When will I see Joss? How should I react?

Voices float, gentle in the darkness of my room, and it’s the quickest I’ve ever felled a difficult decision. I can’t stay away from them, not when they assembled in my room, comfortable, maybe waiting for me to come back. My body relaxes already as I walk, simply imagining the sandwich of parental comfort.

“… did I say?” Mum’s voice.

Then Dad’s, as mellow as hair floating underwater. “I know, I know, I didn’t want to believe you. I still can’t. He’s turning thirteen.”

“I wanted hugs at thirteen. You can’t tell me that you didn’t.”

“You weren’t a teenage boy.”

“My father was practically a stranger, and I still wanted him to hug me.”

The ease in my muscles perks up again. Mum’s father. The alchemist gone mad. They never talk about him, so I stand absolutely still, tempted to cover my mouth with my hand for absolute stillness.

Dad lets out a sigh. There’s a bit of shuffling, maybe to get closer. My sandwich space minimising. His lips leave the softest of smacks, and I imagine it’s on Mum’s forehead. “He is so strong. He shouldn’t have to be.”

“For that, you can blame me.”

Dad chuckles. “I blame you for how smart he is too. It’s unfair, really. And good at eavesdropping. Did you know he heard us in North City?”

Mum exhales through her nose with amusement, rather than the anticipated shock. “You have no idea just how good…”

I freeze.

Dad laughs. He doesn’t realise she’s being serious. There’s another smacking of lips. I wait it out, wondering if Dad will continue, or if she will tell him I’m here. She can’t see me, but that means nothing. This is Mum after all.

Deciding whether or not to reveal myself before I’m called out evaporates in the dust cloud that is my sister bolting past me like wet-haired lightning. The door flies into the wall, and she flies with her arms and legs out, starfishing right across Mum and Dad’s laps, causing a big oof!

“Eliza, sweetheart.” Dad sounds close to choking.

I cross my legs in sympathy.

“No escape! No more travelling without me!” Eliza becomes a human staple, trying to immobilise Mum and Dad’s legs. Decade-long military trained legs.

I shake my head to myself as I climb the bed in their backs. Dad is still busy recovering from his near‑neutering experience, but Mum has her hands braced on the floor, ready to let Eliza roll off and get up. So the plan. Mine unfolds in the form of determined hands weighing down Mum’s ascend, fixed to her shoulders.

She slumps mid-rise.

“Lucien—”

“No escape.”

Eliza’s head flies up with the biggest grin of alliance. “No escape!” she chants.

Dad rises from the dead with a huff. “We need to split up, Captain,” he croaks. “Your orders are simple: Tickle until exploded with laughter.”

Eliza stiffens indefinitely. Apprehensively.

Mum’s runs a foreboding fingertip up Eliza’s spine. “Be careful, sir. Don’t let yourself get dragged into slumber parties.” Her nail scrapes across my knuckles, and my hands twitch, wanting to wince away. Tickling? Capturing? Or is this a diversionary manoeuvre and she is actually targeting Eliza?

Think, Lucien, think! Dad hasn’t spent time with Eliza tonight yet. It’s only logical they’ll swap places and Mum stays with me. Then again, Dad seems most desperate to make amends and talk. Unless…

Mum’s got one hand on mine now, threatening a tight hold, her other hand roaming Eliza’s back.

Unless this is exactly what they want us to think! Why aren’t they moving? What is ‘splitting up’ code for?

Dad looks at Mum, dead serious. “I cannot promise anything.” His hands fly up.

I twist away. Too late. Dad’s arms go down. Mum’s rises, bends Eliza’s knee off her lap, and whirls around before I can react. A squeal too octaves too high launches out of my throat. Eliza squeaks too, thrown up, caught mid‑air and carried off by Dad. She cackles the whole way through.

Meanwhile my breath is running thin. Laughter disappears behind the ajar door of Eliza’s room down the hall, but never fades. She’s further away, but louder all the same. We wait for the explosion, the panting recovery and the giggles of a weak, blissful heap of girl tucked under the blanket.

We being me and Mum, who is more or less crushing me with a hug on the bed. Payback for trying to keep her on the spot. Moving anything besides my toes is impossible.

I couldn’t think of a better way to fall asleep if I tried.

Chapter 14: Engraved in Memories

Notes:

munya_munya, thank you so much for your comment! It's a good thing you don't get tired of the bedtime scenes 'cause I apparently haven't gotten tired of writing them either :D

lilyellowcat, always happy to see your name pop up on my screen ^^ Thank you fot the comment!

POV change incoming.

---

Light tubes flicker away the darkness. Outside the hospital, the sky is pitch black. Central doesn’t seem to sleep at night, but it’s in a peaceful slumber compared to the madness in here.

Shoes clack, clack, clack up and down the hallways, left and right, back and forth. Doors open and close, cartwheels squeak. White tiles have gone sticky with sick and blood. The most experienced doctors were called in from all around the country. Tools clatter. The buzz of tension starts to quiet into excited murmurs like a radio frequency turned down. ‘Not yet’ has become ‘yes’.

It’s here.

Finally.

“Congratulations,” Gwen, his oldest sister, is saying. I don’t think he can hear her. Rigid, pale though flushed, clothes soaked with sweat so that the massive scar on his flank becomes visible, sight seems to be his only sense currently functioning. Then his legs twitch. He moves towards the bed.

“…ger. Tiger?” Rebecca.

I fade back to reality, but only a little, noticing that I’m in the same state as Roy. I can’t answer, not really, not any time soon at least.

The nurses leave. Backwards, they shuffle out, some sighing with relief, some giggling behind their hands. The doctor, Thomas Knox, keeps on talking, ignored until Gwen has pity on the man and hears him out in the hall.

Rebecca takes my hand, or maybe she’s been holding it for a while already. “Tiger?” She tries again. A tug is supposed to get me to follow the throng of people. My eyes stay glued to the bed. It must be the room; how similar it looks to the last one, how Roy is by her side now, throwing my mind into the past.

He was only a General then, so no president suite. A single room, two hospital beds scooted together. An I.V. behind them, fluids dripping like a heartbeat into her little foot. Baby veins are hard to find. So many blood samples she had to endure, so many needles to the top of her head, icy stethoscopes and stinging thermometers.

Cold coffee lounged in my hand. After how many night guards I had done, the staff gave me my own mug, not one of those disposable cups from the machine. It was Sunday. The doctors mostly went home. There was one in the emergency room close by, the radio babbling and crackling unintelligibly through the wall to keep him awake.

He was the one who reanimated Reign twice. His eyes said there wouldn’t be a third time.

I sloshed the coffee inside the mug, a murky mix of greyish brown. I should have been hungry, maybe sour that Rebecca asked me on a date and I had to decline – again. Sometimes, I wondered if this new job as bodyguard would make me Hawkeye 2.0; if my life would be work above all. I should have been angry. Annoyed.

The coffee splashed when I almost dropped it more than setting it on the floor. I suddenly got a spine-crawling feeling, catapulting me to my feet. No lights had come on. No steps had betrayed anyone. Still, I shivered and rubbed my arms. The feeling didn’t leave.

Opening the door to their room, I heard the faintest of rustling. Then more. I spied in. The moon caught in Roy’s hair. On his side, holding Reign. Exhausted to the point where he looked like he fainted rather than fell asleep.

A tiny baby cough.

“You make me happy, when skies are grey.” Riza was awake. Her voice was so soft, words drifting on the air like the bow of a violin losing connection to the string. “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you,” she sang.

A hiccupping breath.

Just one.

“Please don’t take my sunshine away…”

I didn’t realise how cruel the world was just then. Because Reign would truly never know.

Riza propped herself up the same way I jumped up from my seat. She shoved Roy’s hand off Reign’s chest, pressed her own there. He stirs. Her hand pushed harder. She leaned over Reign’s face, put her ear to her nose. The I.V. kept on dripping. The heartbeat was gone.

Riza started breathing again, panting. I wobbled out of the room, crashing into the doctor’s door to fetch him. Too late. The hospital rattled with the most horrifying, horrified scream. In my mind, the scream whipped up the image of skin cut into and peeled off like a vegetable, until there is only blood and pink flesh. That’s what she sounded like. As if someone was slicing a string of her vocal cords off, less than a hairbreadth, then another and another, see‑through veils of voice until only shreds of pain remain.

Each sob jabbed at my eardrums like a razor slipping and cutting me. The doctor didn’t hurry. He had been right. It was over. But the crying didn’t stop, not that night, not that week, not even when I was home and closed my eyes. It didn’t leave. That scream, that shriek has wedged itself into the folds of my brain like a chisel pounded in with a hammer.

The present filters back in. A single hospital bed, a big one. Roy at its side. Rebecca stopped tugging and left with the hospital staff. My body won’t budge, eyes itching because I don’t blink.

I still hear that scream at night sometimes. I heard her yowl in pain for hours of labour, a year later now, and it was nothing compared to back then. Seeing her in this bed, I suppose no amount of pain can keep you from loving what was causing it.

After Reign died, Riza went mute for months. It’s quiet now too, Father Time closing his eyes. Central is holding its breath for good news. The jam of people outside this room hasn’t ceased chattering with excitement despite the late hour. True peace is only in here.

She holds the baby like a secret, a treasure too precious for mortal eyes. Even Roy seems forgotten, perched on the side of the bed, kissing her hair. It doesn’t disturb the world that only she and the baby inhabit at that moment.

Later, when I let myself get dragged away, my legs begin to protest, and my eyes need a brief nurse check‑up with how many veins popped. My jaw feels like it’s been coiled between a big thumbscrew. Nerve-wracking is an understatement. Still, I’m so happy, this could be my own child. It’s not, yet I can’t stay away for long. Breda tries to keep me at the canteen, then out in the hall for as long as he can manage, but eventually, he rolls his eyes, creeping into the Fuhrer’s private hospital suite after me.

The headboard is vacant, the pillow occupied. No more strength to sit.

Roy fell asleep sitting next to the bed. Hunched over the mattress, I can’t see which way his head is turned on his arms, only a black mess in the dovish blue of a cruelly early morning. He’s holding her hand.

Lying on her side, Riza’s other hand is cradling a small bundle into the crook of her body. A bundle so loved, it’s like the air is saturated with fleecy tenderness, a sweet, warm fog that fills the lungs and weighs the legs down to an awestruck shuffle.

I make it to the free side of the bed.

Riza’s eyes open, lashes silky, dewy. Dreamy.

She’s one big smile when she recognises me in the half dark. I study her eyes, one then the other, and she does the same, gaze flickering back and forth, hopping over the bridge of my nose, seemingly coaxing out that smile I didn’t know I’ve been saving until now.

I look at the baby. Little bonnet, shut eyes. Nothing to tell me if it takes after her or him. If it resembles Reign with her raven black hair.

Imagine that. A girl with black hair, again. A constant reminder, or a new start…?

“Is—” I begin to speak but Riza’s eyes widen and her head twitches minimally in a negative shake. Hush. Don’t wake them.

I roll my lips between my teeth. Breda moves behind me, probably ready to extract me from the room again. Riza glances at the baby, then at Roy. I grin.

A boy.

Leaning down, I pass Riza’s puzzled expression until my voice is shielded behind her cheek, words drifting like a mute breath through the mayhem of her hair into her ear. “Maes?”

Her cheek shifts against my stubble. A smile.

Raising my head, we switch positions, my head the new barrier between her voice and her small, slumbering family.

“Lucien,” Riza whispers so softly, so closely I almost don’t catch the name above the susurration of her chewed lip against the shell of my ear. “Light.”

I almost repeat it, compliment on the beautiful meaning, but then I’d have to change sides and the way I am now, I’m closer to the baby. The baby boy – Lucien. The Fuhrer’s son.

Not knowing where else to go with my joy, I squeeze Riza’s arm. Hands unavailable, she nudges her temple to mine.

She did it. She made it through, gave birth to this perfect little being. I’m getting all excited, and just when I don’t know where to unload it other than bruising her arm, Riza jerks away.

He’s waking up.

Not Roy – I don’t think a stampede of horses trampling across his back could rouse him. He’s on a whole other level of ‘through’ than her; he’s down for the count with how much he was running from A to B, phoning people, shooing people, yelling at people, yelling at Riza not to die, crying, fainting.

Dr Knox said she fared better this time around. And that Roy fared worse.

Lucien is the one who woke up. Like a bunch of worms wedged into human skin, his limbs and fingers move minimally, oddly. It’s uncoordinated, almost alien, but gosh, baby hands! I want to touch them so badly. My feet won’t stand still, heels lifting and dropping, toes curling tighter the wider little Lucien opens his mouth for the heartiest of yawns. He’s like a raisin or an old, pink potato – wrinkly, fleshy. Not exactly the way people talk about a beautiful, healthy baby. Still, I can’t wait to hold him sometime. Soon, I hope.

Riza strokes his back with her thumb. He mmhs, then ahs, and I see the gears turning in her mind. Her hand held by Roy plucks itself away, without success. Lucien breathes an amplified protest. A warning.

Breda swats my arm away. I can’t help myself though, seeing as Riza is torn between letting Lucien drop onto his back if she lets go and tearing her husband from his death-sleep.

So I take the first button of her shirt between my thumb and index finger. Half a second, maybe less, it takes her to catch on – catch on, smile, nod, not a hint of indignation or shock, only mild surprise followed by gratefulness. We’ve come this far in the past year, the past two actually. For what it’s worth, carrying Reign in secret, withstanding the accusations about fraternisation, losing her – it welded us together more seamlessly than perfected alchemy.

Riza’s elbow prods mine where I’m halfway done with her shirt. Understanding, I catch Lucien’s back as her hand glides away. And just like that, I’m holding him. In a way. Feeling his tiny lungs expanding in another yawn, the vibration of his polite hnns sending goosebumps up my arm… Now isn’t the time, not at all, but I can’t wait to talk to Rebecca about planning for a baby.

Riza squishes her breast from the outside to inside. “I never thought I’d be doing this again.” She forgets to speak only in my ear, but her voice is like the hollow barrel of a gun, an accidental breeze stuttering through the metal. Her hand is shaking. “That I’d get to do it again.” Her arm assumes the shaking, her breathing stumbling over itself until Lucien can’t stand it anymore and latches on to the warm scent of what little she managed to bring to the tip under the strong pressure of her newly adapting body.

She freezes into a statue. Lucien grouches a bit, into her, which brings back the shaking. This time, all of her quakes as if the bed were a train galloping at full speed. Tears spring into her eyes. “Jean,” Riza rasps.

I grab the hand hovering above her breast, hold it tightly. And I hold Lucien’s back where it rocks with every laboured gulp. He gives up rather soon. Far from whiny, he simply gazes at his source of food, then, with an effort too big for someone his size – and for someone who’s spent but a handful of hours in this outside world – he shifts his head to seek the source of his mother’s voice.

Meanwhile Riza’s eyes must be seeing as well as his – very, very poorly. She’s gushing over with tears that end their journey over the bridge of her nose and down her temple with minute twaps on the pillow. The corners of her mouth are stitched on, wobbly but never dropping. “Lucien,” she whispers.

I tug on her hand. Takes her a whole minute to wrest herself free from his eyes – her eyes, I find out. Amber eyes. When at last she has the capacity to heed me, it’s another minute of overwhelmed breathing of his name, of trying to direct my attention to him, look, look! Her gaze darts from me to him like an arrow.

I tug again, slide Lucien closer to her. This time, she sees reason, at least follows directions, probably not giving it a single thought. To both of our surprise – and relief – Roy doesn’t stir much when she finally manages to free her hand. He smacks his lips when she kisses the top of his head, maybe out of subconscious reflex to kiss her back.

I can’t keep quiet. Even Breda snorts when Riza stands. Tries to stand. Her knees are all over the place, muscles slack with exhaustion, but it’s the quivering that makes Breda shake his head with pity and a smile. She’s practically dancing on the spot, the baby on her arm the only thing that keeps her from skipping around like a fawn. After birth euphoria. In Riza, it manifests as quiet but remarkable tremors.

Breda developed a bit of a crush on Mama Hawk – Riza being sweet and tender with Reign. He’d chat like everything was normal, he could ignore Reign best out of all of us when she was at the office, but when Riza went into mother mode, be it with Reign or Elicia or Hayate, even Edward who towers her by now, Breda’s cheeks get all mushy and ruddy. He suffered differently under the loss of Reign, the sudden fondness he had for Riza shattered.

Right now, I can see a spark of adoration where he’s stunned rigid.

I should be stunned too, because after everything, after over twenty hours of labour, Riza got up.

We walk a few steps. The Fuhrer’s hospital suite has a guest area with a coffee table and couches and a fireplace. Breda and I clamp out mouths shut. Our throats chafe anyway with badly held-back laughter. Riza is whizzing around the coffee table, her legs jiggling like jelly through the space between the couch and the table. A wonky spin at the fireplace, a feint attack on the window when she remembers just in time that the public could be out there, lying in wait for glimpses of the First Lady and, hopefully, her healthy baby.

She almost laughs as she escapes the potential discovery of herself. It comes as a grunt and a pant. Always smiling. With a tottering but considerable speed, she’s past us, in the private bathroom. The door is left open, so I leave Breda behind and follow.

Her smile is still there. Mischief has melted into tenderness in the yellowish light. I pull the door further shut, trying not to disturb Roy with the light. Riza just stands there, staring at herself in the mirror – the blood in her eyes, on her clothes, the shrunken outline of her abdomen, the bags of insomnia and the smile outshining it all.

When I put a hand on her shoulder, she almost collapses into me. “How about we get you back to bed?” I ask.

It did her good, getting up, walking around. Continuation is pointless though – she’ll fall asleep standing up.

“Fuck,” she gently says. Slackens some more. Then, “Thank you.”

My grin jumps onto my lips again. She returns it, still in that euphoric, not‑at‑all‑Riza, wicked way. As if she just pulled off the heist of the century, unbelieving of the luck she gets to hold to her chest. She might not even remember this brief ‘outing’ around the coffee table tomorrow. In fact, I highly doubt it with how suddenly her eyes droop the moment she arrives on the mattress. No getting comfortable, no tucking the blanket into place. Forehead pressed to Roy’s hands, baby to the hollow of her neck, and she’s gone.

I tuck the blanket around her; make sure her feet stay warm, and her shoulder, without smothering Lucien, of course. Roy gets the extra blanket that was folded over the couch. He doesn’t notice. As if I never came in, all three of them are huddled closely together and soundly asleep.

 

* * *

 

“Uncle Jean?”

I halt briefly when hearing Eliza’s puzzled voice. She turned around to get her dog plushie from the back seat of the armoured car. I’m just as confused.

Jean’s eyes are misty. He blinks rapidly, forces on a smile as he cranks his gaze down from the top of the hill to Eliza. It grazes me, the smile twitching into what might have become a genuine one instead of that try-hard no‑one’s‑going‑to‑buy‑it half smile.

“You can come, you know.” Dad leans into the window of the car, shielding Jean from us.

Shuffling sideways, I spy past Dad’s black coat.

Jean wipes his nose and shakes his head. “All good,” he says, and waits behind the wheel as we climb the hill, up to the gates of the graveyard.

“What was that?” Eliza whispers to me.

“A memory?” I can only speculate. I would have liked if he’d come. Tempted, I somehow refrain from turning around and seeing if he’s doing better now that he’s by himself, or worse. No, there are more pressing matters at hand.

“Can I go ahead?” With a few quicker steps, I make sure Eliza understands I’m going alone.

I’m glad Mum doesn’t look around before she gives me a nod. Just thinking about it calls the security back to mind. Of course, we are never away from prying eyes, not when we’re outside. This barred-off section of the graveyard feels somewhat private though, secretive.

Eliza asks about something. I hear the words ‘stone’ and ‘flowers’, and Mum and Dad take their time listening to her, explaining things. The weight of them sits heavily on my neck as my feet fly past tombstone after tombstone. Wilson, Greyson, a Margret, a Heinrich, a James. Then the mausoleums. Armstrong, Ampleforth, Bradley, Darlington.

And then—

Reign Mustang.

The name leaps into my eyes like a frog into a pond, sending ripples through my body. It wasn’t on the record of the Interview; it wasn’t even pronounced. I’ve only seen it written once, and still, the name draws me in as if it were my own.

I’ve stopped. I’ve stopped listening too, even though the winter wrens and red robins tempt me into acknowledging the world around me. I don’t.

My knees snap more than they bend, a light pop of complaint left unheard. There is an urge like a pebble resisting the current of a creek to glance aside, see how far down the path my family is. But this isn’t something I wouldn’t do if they were here; I will do it. I’d just rather do it when I’m alone.

The key I was given slides into the lock. The massive doors are surprisingly easy to open, respectful and noiseless. A single rectangular pedestal. At its foot, the stone ground has been freed, combed earth surrounding the pedestal, flowers blooming shyly under the milky light of stained‑glass windows. Life in death, flowers in sandstone, pearls of colour illuminating my path.

I crouch in front of the flowerbed. Fingers descending, the tips crawl onto the weed‑free earth. It’s so cold, so close to freezing were it not for the sun in my back. The silhouette of my body draws across pink and yellow flowers. My hand creeps forward. Soon, my palm rests flatly against the pedestal. Atop it is a stone casket in the shape of a cradle.

“Thank you,” I whisper into clouds of my own frigid breath. “For making Mum love me from the start. For making Mum and Dad marry.”

A clot bars my throat.

“I’m sorry.”

You had to die? I didn’t get to meet you?

“I’m sorry.”

Swallowing turns out to be useless, but so is breathing through my nose, the runny traitor.

Echoing steps announce the arm laying itself across my shoulders. Mum pulls me into her, despite how chilled her coat is. Chilled is good. Chilled makes the lump in my throat stop swelling.

My voice sounds like someone’s put a brick on top of it when I gasp, “Don’t step on it!”

Eliza stops. The flower chain she made dangles from her hands. White would have been suitable, but she’s Eliza, she had to make the darn thing as colourful as she possibly could.

“It’s alright.” Dad sounds infinitely smoother than me. Not smooth, but smoother. “Go on, love.” He nudges Eliza, never stepping onto the earth around the pedestal himself.

Keeping to the rim, away from the frosted honeysuckle at her feet, Eliza drapes her flower chain over the side of the cradle tombstone. It’s a beautiful thing, almost unfittingly beautiful for death and grief.

We all sit in a row of silence. The colours of the stained glass fade with clouds travelling, then return, warming the sandstone into something almost cosy, almost homey. Surprisingly, fortunately, Eliza isn’t the first to break the peace. Neither me or Mum or Dad.

A blackbird sails in over our heads. It lands on the tombstone. With its bony noiseless feet, it touches the flower chain, and Eliza opens her mouth, the three of us holding our breaths, hoping she won’t say a thing. She does too – hold her breath. Even the black bird seems lung-tied, watching us. Its attention flickers across this new area it unlocked, to the stained glass, the walls, the exit. Then to the flower chain.

It doesn’t peck the flowers. Like black birds do, it bobs its head, tail snapping up once, twice, until it flies off with an indignant chatter. Eliza and I snicker. I don’t know about her, but I for one wasn’t expecting so much life in here.

Dad’s chest expands and empties. He puts his arm around both of us, cheek dropping to the top of Eliza’s head. “Never thought you would be told this early.” Because he wasn’t ready, it rings in his statement. He might still not be ready. “That we’d be sitting here. All of us.” A wobble trips his voice. There is pride too, happiness, as he squeezes us in his arm. Then, only as a whisper, “You make me so happy.”

Hand loosening behind me, he reaches further. Mum meets him halfway. He tugs at what he can grasp of her coat, appreciatively, supportively. Her hand disappears from my back, holding Dad’s wrist tight. Their fingers lace – I can see it in the shadow between Eliza and me. We both watch, stare at the shape of held hands for what must be some twenty minutes.

Or so I thought.

Back at the car, I frown at the empty lunch wrappers on the passenger seat. Jean’s book looks like he didn’t turn a single page. A glance at the clock humbles my estimation of mere minutes. We’ve been here for over two hours. And honestly, I could have stayed forever, listening to the stories of Mum’s first pregnancy, of the cloak‑and‑dagger operation that was moving houses, of the Hayate and Sally, Grandpa revealing to Mum that they are related, the rivalry between Dad and Langley.

Hard to imagine, the last thing. I’m about to ask if we can do this every night – story time – at least for the duration of our holiday, but I don’t get that far. Jean got out of the car. He’s giving Dad a bone‑shattering hug. When he switches to Mum, I think I hear a slight whistle in the inhale through his nose.

Chapter 15: Favourite

Notes:

Thank you, Munya, for the reminder! I'm pretty busy at the moment, but I've had this half-done, so here it is!

Hope you'll enjoy :)

---

“Next stop: holiday home,” Jean announces. The car turns into a long driveway. He does a little extra swivel that makes Eiza and me giggle. Dad grabs the handle‑thing at the top of the door. Makes him look like an old man, but I don’t tell him that.

Jean pulls up to the house. Compared to our house it’s… quaint. Small. Only two stories. Red-brick façade. White wooden porch along the front and going around the corner to where the garden is. The swing dangling from a tree catches Eliza’s and my attention immediately. One swing. It’s going to be a fun holiday…

“Alright.” Dad gets out of the car. He puts his hands on his hips, which usually promises semi‑bad news. “You two wait here with Havoc for a minute. Your mother and I will just check the house.”

“One, two, three…”

“Not a literal minute.” Dad playfully nudges Eliza.

She grins innocently and stops counting.

The driver’s door shuts. Jean stretches his back and goes up on his toes to do the same for his long legs. “Pretty sure security already checked.”

“They also checked the hostel, and here we are.” Dad half quips, half glowers.

I duck my head. He gives me the same nudge as he gave Eliza, well‑meaning, but his shoulders tense when he meets Mum’s eyes. She nods curtly. Mission mode. Her eyes sharpened like blades at the edges as follows Dad closely. Eliza and I pretend we don’t see Mum unholster a gun.

“That’s not how I heard it happen.” Jean raises a brow at me. But then he shrugs. Hands on the small of his back, he arches into a backwards C. “Man, I can’t wait for the new custom‑made car. Gonna keep it once your old man is kicked from his post. A keepsake.” He winks.

I glance from him to the car. “Uncle Jean, can’t you stay here with us?”

He pulls a face as if I was the cutest puppy in all the world. It’s not to baby me, he’s just really sorry. I feel the same way – I’d be happy to have him here. He can make a joke out of almost anything – the perfect sarcastic mirror for when Dad’s in a sour mood.

Jean ruffles my hair. “Aw, sorry, Champ, I gotta go say bye to the twins, and then I’m off on my own holiday with Beccs.”

“I thought they come too!” Eliza pouts.

“They will.” Jean crouches next to her and points past the garden. At the other side of a mowed field, another secluded house stands. “That’s where they’ll be staying with their granny. Any day you feel like it, you can ask them to come play. Or go play.” He straightens. “My Ma can handle all four of you – she handled her own five kids too.”

“Five?” Eliza laughs.

“You know my siblings.”

I pluck at his sleeve. “Can’t you come back earlier and stay here?” I don’t wanna play with the twins. Eliza gets hyper when she does, so there’s no way I’m going there with her. Jean’s mum is nice, though a bit hard of hearing which gets really tiring. Three girls squealing like tea kettles, me yelling at Mrs Havoc – no thanks.

Jean holds up a finger. He ducks into the car, under the driver’s seat and pulls out… a letter?

“Not this time,” he tells me with a sympathetic smile. “But don’t worry, after the election, you’ll be seeing me a lot more around the house instead of inside the car.”

“And on the court.”

“And on the court.” He nods. Flicking the letter between his fingers, he glances at the house.

“And at the stable!” Eliza hops up and down. She switches to trotting, knees high like a dressage horse.

Jean frowns with amusement. “Stable?”

“I want a horse! A white one! When we finally have time.”

“You’re not the one who is retiring,” he laughs. “You’ll continue going to school as usual, and for quite a while, Lizzy.”

But Eliza is busy galloping off, snorting like a horse, circling the car as she builds up speed and swishes through the front yard.

Jean chuckles. He shakes his head, not a trace of Mum and Dad’s alarm detectable. He trusts security combed this place well, allowing Eliza to expand her range to the swing onto which she bounces with both feet, giggling and whooping.

Mum appears in a window upstairs. She checks our positions, then disappears again.

I catch Jean holding up the letter. Did she give a signal? Is it from her? For me?

“Think you’ll be okay with those three lunatics?” he asks.

I silently agree that I’m the sanest out of this family. “Do I have a choice?”

He ruffles my hair again. With two fingers between his lips, he whistles and Eliza comes running. She’s more of a dog than a horse. I almost wait for her to stick out her tongue as she pants happily. Jean presents the letter in a grand gesture, just as the door opens in our backs and Mum and Dad creak across the porch, crunching through the gravel towards us.

I open the letter so that Eliza won’t tear it apart in her excitement, and hold it between us. Mum’s handwriting.

“Presents?!” Eliza bursts.

Dust whirls up as she storms past me, Mum and Dad. They were wise not to shut the door, or we’d be down one door with the speed Eliza summons to dash into the holiday house.

“I thought you were checking if it was safe?” I whirl around.

They only smile. Dad quirks an inquisitive brow, then jerks his head slightly at the house.

I’m off.

 

* * *

 

Holiday house exploration is awesome.

 The downstairs feels opaque, probably for security reasons with few windows and plenty of curtains everywhere. There’s a fireplace with couches, armchairs, footstools that Eliza will abuse as vaulting horses. There’s a chess table, a table for games that are stored in the bookshelf next to it, and a darts board. Mum’s going to roast us on that one.

Outside is the swing, but I also spotted a target for archery. The kitchen is lighter because the floor‑to‑ceiling windows have a glass sliding door leading onto the porch. The walls above the counters, the floor, even the fridge – everything in this room is tiled with light and dark green mosaic. Grandpa would love this; it’s as whimsical as him.

I don’t have time to peek into the small room under the stairs or into the bathroom. I don’t even check out the tennis court behind the house that I couldn’t see from the driveway. Eliza ran upstairs and gasped loudly. That’s where the presents are.

I can hear Mum and Dad downstairs. The fridge door clinks with what must be bottles of milk as they check the groceries. The president doesn’t have to go shopping, especially not when he’s on holiday.

The upstairs is only half a storey. The hall is normal, but the rooms to the left and right are all under the sloping roof, the ceilings drooping down on the far walls. My room is the one with the view of the tennis court. It’s baffling but also kind of comforting, being able to see every room in detail in a single hour.

A broad bed, a small desk, a sitting area with beanbags on a round carpet and an old oak cupboard greet me. The wood of the floors and wainscoting smells nice – old, dry. Like particles of sun‑warmed hay. The sheets are from at home, dark but adorned with white spots like the starry sky. My own pillow welcomes me on the bed. On it sits a golden box, wrapped with a ribbon.

I sit, the mattress bowing. Picking the box up with both hands, I don’t find it in me to belittle its very obvious ‘hiding’ place as my fingers feel the silk of the ribbon and pull open the knot. The lid lifts with the slightest of chafing noises, cardboard against cardboard.

Reign.

I stare at the photograph. Baby Reign with her black hair, smiling as she blows slobber into a bubble at her lips like chewing gum. She’s being held under her bum and around her chest. The hand over her torso is wearing a ring with a small gem – Mum’s engagement ring. Mum’s hair is poking into the frame from above, reaching far down her shoulders, longer than it is now. I can only just see her chin and an open mouth – either in a gasp or laughing at Reign’s antics.

Or yelling at Dad to stop being useless behind the camera and clean up the mess. He’s in the next photo, although it looks less planned and more like a snapshot. Reign is in his hands, held out far away from him as a blurry white jet of milk puke splatters his shirt and neck. I can’t hold back a snort.

“That’s one’s my second favourite.” Mum is leaning on the doorframe. Arms crossed, a gentle smile rests on her lips as she tilts her head to the side.

“Is it the spewing one?” Dad appears behind her.

She chuckles, pokes his ribs, then comes to sit beside. Dad crosses over once I switched to the next photograph.

The box is full of them, at least ten, maybe more. They’re protected inside thin clear folders, cut to the square shape of the photos and taped shut. There isn’t a single air pocket in the tape – this must be Mum’s handiwork.

She lets out an amused breath when in the next picture, little black‑haired Reign is crawling towards the camera, a fierce look furrowing her brows, mouth open like a lion roaring. “Your father would growl at you, hoping you’d do it too whenever a stranger leaned over your stroller in the park. The only one you growled back at though—”

“Was me,” Dad sighs. “We know, we know. It has yet to stop.” He twinkles at me.

I stare at them blankly. Turning over the photo, I spot the date. 1919. The others too. The next is from 1921, where my legs are disappearing in black military boots, and Grandpa’s halfmoon spectacles sit crookedly on my nose.

“We brought some of Eliza too. And…” Mum’s hand drifts gently onto mine. She shifts the stack aside until the final photo is revealed.

I hold my breath.

Sunken eyes. Hair like threads doused in the rain. Long robes, so dark they melt into the shadows bordering the frame of the photograph. A goat beard. Next to the scary man, a hand lovingly on his chest, stands a blonde woman with a big-eyed toddler on her arm. She smiles a patient, sunny smile. The spitting image of Mum.

“Your father…!” I exhale with disbelief.

Mum nods minimally. I look from her poor attempt at a smile to Dad whose features are comically mellowed in unspoken support, his thumb stroking her knee. I study the photograph again. So this is the rumoured, kept‑dead‑quiet Berthold Hawkeye. I’ve only ever known his name, but I’m not allowed to speak it. The public would start snooping even more than they already have.

“None of this is Reign?” I ask.

“Would you prefer pictures of her?” Dad chuckles.

I shake my head. This is good. Really good.

For a long moment, I can’t tear myself away from that haunted glare, but eventually, I skim back to the front. “If this is only your second favourite…” I hold out the photo of me vomiting milk all over Dad like a talisman towards a monster, and sure enough, he flinches, face distorted into a grimace. “Then what’s the best one?”

“It’s not my favourite…” Dad mumbles.

Mum unearths a genuine smile. “It’s in bitter competition with this one.” She doesn’t seem to count the photos as much as her fingers land on one, somewhere within the stack, as if programmed into her movement. I feel warm at the thought of her looking through these so often she knows their order by heart.

Baby me – not Reign – is asleep on Dad, chest to chest. A tiny fist is curled around his index finger, held in his big hand as if I was a puny tangerine. His face must be Mum’s favourite part about it. He’s bawling his eyes out, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a miserable wobbly line, cheeks glistening despite the faded colours of the photo.

“New Year,” Mum says. Her voice is as tender as melted butter.

I glance at the back of the photo. 1919 – my first New Year. I was tiny.

“There were fireworks,” she goes on. “They scared you, but even when I took you to the cellar, I spent two hours pacing for naught. You wouldn’t calm down enough to sleep.”

“Two hours?”

Then she missed everything. Amestris doesn’t have Saints like the Ishvalans for holidays, and since Dad nullified the bank holidays that celebrate military victories against minorities, New Year is the big event of the year.

“It wasn’t our last New Year’s night spent in the cellar,” Dad shrugged. “You tired yourself out with all the crying, and Riza’s presence got you comfortable in the cellar.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.” Mum bumps her shoulder to Dad’s. “He missed you.” To me, she adds, “He was upstairs with the guests for dinner and a toast. When he finally slipped away, you started hiccupping and grouching, but only until I handed you over. To cure the hiccup, your father slumped to the floor like a roller coaster’s plunge. And you laughed.”

“Infused my suit with the stink of your full diaper,” Dad mutters. “I had to ask Riza to get me a pillow and blanket because I couldn’t get up from the cold concrete anymore – you’d finally fallen asleep.”

“Oh, don’t pretend with me now that you thought about the suit for even a minute,” Mum admonishes.

I peer more closely at the photo. Sure enough, Dad’s lying on bare grey. Also, he couldn’t look happier. With me on his arm.

“This is tough…” I muse as I switch between Mum’s two second favourites. New Year. The blurred horror on Dad’s face where I throw up a waterfall… I can’t decide. “And number one?”

Mum and Dad smile in unison. Must be a collective favourite. Two below the one where I’m trying on boots, Mum fishes out a photo so dark, I think for a moment it’s black‑and‑white. A room I don’t know. The camera aims down the foot of a bed, a clipboard hanging at the end. I can’t read what’s on the clipboard, but I can imagine. Stains darken the sheets. Blood. A blurry shadow to the side suggests someone was standing in the frame but tried to move out before the picture was taken.

In the middle, against the head of the bed, is Mum. She’s holding something on her arm. Neck bent, her nose nuzzles the bundle, eyes shut, hair tied clumsily.

“You were the fattest baby in the entire hospital that month.” Dad’s voice trembles with emotion.

I snort, and he shoots me a grin. His arm extends behind Mum’s back, reaching for me and pulling me towards her. I wind out. Pushing into my pillow, I create a hollow where the box and the photographs can lie safely, then twist back and throw myself into Mum’s side. She seizes me in a hug as if trying to save my life by squishing water out of my lungs.

“When did you grow up so quickly?” she sighs above my head.

I press my face to her ribs. “Thank you, Mummy.”

Dad clears his throat.

“Thank you, Dad.”

He chuckles. “Better late than never,” he feigns hurt. “It’s suspiciously quiet, by the way. Should we leave Eliza with her present for a bit longer or have a stroll around the garden together?”

“Tennis!” I peel away, beaming at Dad.

He wavers his head from side to side, then nods. “Alright. But I won’t go easy on you.”

I smirk. He’s toast.

It doesn’t take a minute to find out why Eliza is so quiet. Or what her gift is. Stickers.

The banister glistens with them. The door to her room— all doors upstairs, actually. She might have started out to tell a story of what is in each room, then found out there are more stickers at her disposal and gushed tidal waves of them on any surface where they would stick. The telephone in the hall looks violated by them.

“Mummyyy!” Eliza flies up the stairs, really flies as she leaps up at least three steps, crushing into Mum so much it sends her into the wall and Eliza’s feet into the air. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Mum hasn’t caught her breath for a croaking ‘you’re welcome’ when Eliza’s assaulting Dad. “Thank youuu, Daddy!”

He’s ready though, knees apart and bent as she catapults herself at him. He dodges, catches her mid air around her torso, and straightens with her dangling upside down from his arms. Her head goes red immediately with blood shooting down, stomach hard to hold steady with how hard she is laughing. Dad carries her to her room that way, and she squeals, wiggles until he has to throw her on the bed. Bouncing, giggling, shrieking, Eliza basks in his full attention of tickle attacks.

Meanwhile Mum is having trouble finding a single spot to hold the banister down the stairs without touching stickers. “We should get her into athletics…” she mumbles to herself.

“The poor competition,” I agree.

Downstairs, Eliza laid out the sheets of stickers, at least the ones remaining, like maps for troops that need coordination. She strategizes where to put the ones left as if planning a complex brain surgery while Mum makes dinner. I’m almost jealous how easily happy she gets, again like a dog, with just stickers. Glittery ones, bubbly ones that stand out from the paper, horse stickers.

Only almost. Because while Eliza plots her coup and Mum peels potatoes, I get to show Dad my tennis skills on the court.

Chapter 16: Calls and Kisses

Notes:

Thank you, Munya, thank you so much for your comment! Here is some more fluffy family time stress relief for you :)

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I am the last one out of bed. You’d think Mum and Dad would use their chance to get some sleep but when I went to the bathroom a few hours earlier, I could already hear Dad on the phone and the kettle bubbling downstairs in the kitchen. I meet him on the stairs and know immediately my sleep-hazy brain didn’t make up the noise. There is a sticker peeling off his jaw where the receiver of the phone sat.

“Good morning.” He tousles my hair.

We enter the kitchen. Its green mosaic is flooded with light from the sliding door. I expected Eliza at the table, shovelling food into her mouth, but she is outside already, soaking her pyjamas where she crouches in the dew‑moist lawn, stalking grasshoppers or whatever hyper eight‑year‑olds do at half past eight in the morning.

Mum is loading a plate with eggs from the pan. She begins to form a smile when her gaze catches on the sticker on Dad’s face. Her eyes spark with amusement. The plate is promptly left behind. Dad looks almost drunkenly elated when she steps up to him, pecks his lips and walks two fingers up the side of his neck to his jaw to pluck away the sticker. I’m glad Eliza isn’t in here right now – she’d ruin everything with her squeals. Dad even went a little red.

I roll my eyes when Dad snatches the sticker out of her hand and pats it back onto his face. Mum chuckles. He grins, then hums when she again cradles his cheek in her hand, ignoring the sticker as she kisses him. His shoulders seem to fall all the way to the floor. Neither notices when I pilfer the plate, sit at the table and begin to eat. I’m tempted to bring it to the living room to escape.

They also don’t notice Eliza, even though she practically smacks her face to the sliding door like a pigeon bumping into it. Eyes and mouth wide, she fogs the glass with her breath. Wiggling starts at her knees, takes her over into happy full-body hopping, up and down, up and down. She could make a ship motion sick.

Dad has only just encircled Mum’s waist with his arms, faces close to just breathe each other in, when Eliza figures out how get in from outside and lets out a long squeeee alongside the sliding of the door.

I put down the fork to hold my ears shut.

“Can you get married again?!” she yells.

“No.”

“Absolutely,” Dad says in time with Mum. He throws her an innocent grin. “You wouldn’t pick me a second time?”

“Do you want to have to ask me again, over and over, until I say yes?”

“Any day.”

She shoves him away by his face, but it only lands her a big wet smack of a kiss on her palm. She wipes it on her skirt, shaking her head with a smile as she grabs a new plate. The empty pan confuses her. It’s her turn to blush – she forgot she already emptied the egg.

“Can I go over to the twins yet?” Eliza rushes into the living room. She returns not a single bite of egg later, ninety-percent empty sticker sheets piled in her hands.

“Let’s give Mrs Havoc more time to wake up,” Mum gently says.

Eliza pouts.

Dad sidles past her to the open door, then takes a big step outside, calling, “I’ll beat you to the swing!”

“No, you won’t!” She takes off like an arrow off a bow. The sliding door quivers. I can almost see a comic dust cloud behind her. Dad doesn’t try to get anywhere as Eliza whips across the wet lawn, leaping onto the swing like a peregrine plunging onto its prey.

“Langley asked if I didn’t want to sleep in on my holiday,” Dad says from outside the door, watching Eliza whoop in triumph. “Imagine.”

“I have been for a while,” Mum says, cracking eggs into the pan. “Something to look forward to after…” she mumbles.

She didn’t have lower her voice, because Dad clatters more loudly with the water hose than is necessary. He doesn’t want to hear it. The election. It’s like blister, rising, building up, causing pain but he’d rather it never popped.

It’s ludicrous, imagining Dad as someone other than the president. Him not working non-stop, maybe even having a boss. Impossible. They aren’t kidding about sleeping in either – they haven’t since before I was born. I have witness reports.

Dad curses quietly outside. Just the thought of the election makes him so agitated, he can’t figure out the nozzle of the water hose. Him – the State Alchemist, master physicist and chemist, former General, coup strategist. You’d think Mum would be cool, taking it in her stride with how much she is looking forward to not being First Lady anymore, but she kisses the top of my head and hands me a second plate, oblivious to the first, before going outside to help Dad.

He grumbles something I can’t make out. Her voice is tender, and they share flashing glances that speak a thousand words, milliseconds each, before she cranks the nozzle into position and returns it to him. When she kisses his cheek this time, his shoulders don’t make it down by a hand’s breadth.

“One problem at a time,” Mum says.

He forces half a smile to the corner of his mouth but drops it right away.

Bare feet swish across the lawn. Eliza comes bounding back. Brows furrowed, pout firmly in place, she is about to grouch that no one raced her when Dad turns on the water. Eliza screeches. The water grazed her toes. Her eyes lock with Dad’s. And she’s off. The water pursues. He has to stretch the hose all the way to the end of the porch, trying to catch her. She comes back of course, evading, dodging, jumping in on purpose. It’s an even match as long as she stays within range. Not yet the speed of light, but the speed of Dad with a water hose. Bonus for her: all her squealing and yipping will wake Mrs Havoc nicely even if the old lady still lived in the East.

“Isn’t it a bit late in the year for that?” Mum muses, but Dad is busy playing. She sighs. She must have already sighed a number of times with Eliza in the garden in her pyjamas, without shoes, leaving wet footprints around the house and nose blotches against the glass door.

We explore the bordering forest together after Dad finally ate something too. We haven’t quite left the garden when he goes back to the house though, having heard a call. So much for a family holiday. Eliza leaves as soon as she’s allowed to play with the twins – luckily at their holiday place across the field. I read a book, play cards with Mum, help her with lunch and later dinner. He isn’t on the phone the entire time, but Dad misses lunch for ‘urgent work’. All of his work is urgent, it seems. More urgent than spending time together. He promises to make up for it with a late match, but has to leave. A delegate is waiting at the nearest military outpost.

When Mum brings a knocked-out Eliza to bed, I get ready too. My stomach is hollow with disappointment. I’m about to turn off the light when I hear the front door. Mum apologised on Dad’s behalf when she said goodnight, then went downstairs to wait for Dad. I can hear her faintly. I open my door in time with the sliding of the kitchen door, her voice eluding me.

The clock in the hall reads two in the morning. Not a single cloud obscures the sky, stars strewn brightly across the blackness above. I’m crouching by the open sliding door, the air cold against my feet and shins, when I hear the sucking of bare feet down the stairs behind me.

Outside, Dad’s voice rumbles hoarsely from the canopy swing. “… head isn’t in the game. When he goes full drive, the way he saves the ball – it’s so beautiful to watch, I can’t focus on playing. I don’t want him to think I’m letting him win.”

“He doesn’t think that. You’re nowhere near as good as him at tennis.”

“Thank you so much for your undying support,” he huffs. Fingers circle, delve to entice a shriek. Within a second, military training kicks in and he’s on his back, pinned out of defensive reflex. Mum’s panting giggle mellows him. Arms twine, weave around the other, until there is no gap. He tilts his head back, welcomes warm breathing against his neck and golden hair on his cheek. “I don’t want to ruin this.”

“You worry too much. I think this holiday is going much better than we anticipated.”

“Because you saved today.”

“So? Saved is saved. You’re on holiday too, remember?”

“What I remember is that a parent has no holidays until the kids leave the house. Your words.”

“Which holds true especially with snoopy kids.”

“Snoopy? Right now?” He starts to sit up, crane his neck, but ultimately decides in favour of his current, Mum‑squashed position.

There is a smile in her voice. “There is a good chance your kids are watching this very moment.”

“How good a chance is a good chance?”

“75 percent maybe? 80?”

“Is that so?” Mischief drips from his tone. “Well, here’s a 100 percent chance of how to get rid of at least 50 percent of those snoopers.” His hand finds her nape, slides into her hair. He hums when their lips meet.

“Ew…” I retreat backwards into the house.

Eliza doesn’t. Using Dad’s self‑created distraction to her advantage, she sneaks up to the swing. It has me curious enough to steal myself back outside. Dad chuckles. He heard me. It doesn’t stop him from kissing Mum, or maybe encourages him further – even worse. This better not turn into a snogging holiday.

They didn’t hear Eliza though, or they might just not be fast enough. No one is. In a single motion, she whisks out from behind the swing and throws herself onto Mum’s back. Mum gasps. Dad grunts breathlessly. I cringe when he barely swallows a curse, the swing creaking plaintively. He either just bit Mum’s lip or his own.

“Family sandwich!” Eliza cheers. She wriggles to make herself comfortable.

I wait until she’s nicely stretched out on her front.

“Lucien, no, don’t—”

Mum’s pleas end in a choked croak when I climb the swing and perch on Eliza’s back.

“You’re too heavy, get off, get off!” She flails her arms, hands balled to fists. I cross my legs. “I can’t breathe, you fatty!” She swipes at me but can’t reach me. Bucking, she tries to throw me off. I have to wrangle her arms down when she hits my knee. The swing sighs and groans under the moving weight almost as much as Dad does.

“Speaking of breathing,” he croaks, “I haven’t done that in a while.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?” Mum sounds just as smothered, but her sarcasm is sharper than his.

“Actually,” he says but stops.

I loosen my grip on Eliza’s thrashing arm. That last squeaking of the swing stretched, almost as if—

Mum, Eliza and I shriek in unison when the swing breaks off. With a bang, it crashes onto the porch. Into the porch. Through the porch. The moon is all the light we have out here, but I’m pretty sure there are wooden planks spiking up around us.

We hold our breaths. I feel Dad’s hand on my ankle in an attempt to keep us all from tumbling off. Mum lets out a suffocated groan. She doesn’t say anything though. Dad’s alchemy will rescue us from having to explain this… and paying for the damage.

The crickets ceased singing. Gradually, they fade back in. The wind seemingly paused too, waiting if we would recover. I’m not sure we did. At least Eliza isn’t trying to throw me off anymore.

“I can see the Orion from here,” Dad breaks the tension. I grin to myself. The awning of the swing must have blocked his view of the stars. It’s still above us, crooked but standing, so I have to lean forward to see.

Eliza inhales for more complaints at me shifting my weight, but cranes her neck to follow my gaze instead when I say, “Me too. There’s Rigel and Saiph.”

“Where? Who’s Saiph?”

“The knee.” I point a finger. “Do you see that tree where the top left branch is missing?” It’s drawn against the deep blackness of the sky, hardly distinguishable.

Eliza makes that strained noise she does whenever squinting hard. “I think.”

“Look up. Diagonally. There are two very bright stars, right? Above them are three small ones – that’s the belt – and above that another two bright ones.”

“Like one side of Flame Alchemy!”

“Like an hourglass,” Mum corrects. It’s not as strict as usual though. She doesn’t like when we like Flame Alchemy. It’s dangerous for sure, but that’s what makes it cool. Right now, she just sounds tired. Or squished. Both. I don’t think she’s looking at the sky at all.

“That’s Saph?”

“Saiph,” I tell Eliza. “The bright lower star on the left. And the one on the right is called Rigel. It’s the brightest of the constellation.”

“It’s also the seventh brightest star in the sky,” Dad says.

“Woaaah…” Eliza drawls. Her head sways from side to side, searching for something brighter to compare to Rigel.

Dad always says a good alchemist must master chemistry and biology, have profound knowledge of physics, and a decent understanding of geology, astronomy and astrology. The latter for their symbols, not for psychic reasons. We make fun of horoscopes in the paper together. Eliza soaks them up when Dad isn’t looking. I might peek over her shoulder from time to time.

“What’s the brightest star?” she asks.

Dad waits. It’s my turn.

“Sirius, in the constellation of the dog.”

“A dog?”

“You can’t see it now. It’s somewhere below Orion, behind the trees.”

“I want to see the doggy!” She becomes excited, but she isn’t moving around anymore. Head turned to the side, cheek squished against Mum’s shoulder blade, her eyes glisten up at the sky. “That one looks bright.” She points a finger. “Is it there?”

“I just told you, you can’t see it now.”

“What’s that one then?”

“Uhm…” I search the sky for stars brighter than Rigel. She must mean the one up there, the one that’s always the first to appear when night falls. “It’s not part of a constellation,” I muse out loud.

Dad’s voice carries a smile. “You’re right. That is the fourth brightest object in the sky.”

“Really?” Eliza sounds dreamy. All that’s missing is her kicking her legs in the air and her chin propped up like a teenager reading corny magazines.

“It’s the planet Jupiter.”

“A planet?” Now that has me excited too. How have I never asked about this?

“But a planet isn’t shiny,” Eliza protests. “In the books, they’re round and boring.”

“From here it is,” Dad chuckles. “The books are more detailed. They show you what you would see through a good telescope.”

“Can we get a telescope, Daddy?”

“Can we?” I join in. The sky isn’t this visible in Central. He must have never bought one because of the city lights. I can tell he wants to, now that we’re asking.

Dad hesitates. Like when having listened for the imminent collapse of the swing, he’s testing the silence. Eliza catches on, stilling. “I don’t see why not,” he says, and he says it as if dipping a toe into unknown waters. He ventures another test. “Did you know that in… alchemy,” no reaction, “Jupiter is associated with tin.” It’s not a question. “In alchemy,” he repeats.

A broad grin stretches across his face above Mum’s head. She fell asleep.

“I shouldn’t let this become a habit,” Dad mumbles, “but she slept so soundly too when you two chained her to the bed the other week. It’s rare she finds sleep this quickly…” With the backs of his fingers, he traces down her cheek. I watch intently, but to everyone’s surprise, Mum doesn’t wake up.

Eliza has gone completely motionless. I think she’s holding her breath. I poke her so she’ll release it before it turns into a gasping explosion above Mum’s ear.

“Can we sleep under the stars tonight, Dad?” I ask. My voice has gone down to a whisper, even though his hasn’t.

“Hmm,” he ponders. “Not tonight. We need to take precautions first. Let’s do it tomorrow if the sky stays clear.”

I nod and don’t say anything more. I look at Orion, at Jupiter. I try to spy out Sirius, but the trees are in the way. Eliza shuffles minimally. She’s getting cosy again. I know I won’t be able to sleep sitting like this, and if I lie down – which also doesn’t promise comfort – I risk waking Mum. That’s why Eliza is being careful and I find myself doing my best not to sabotage her mission.

The longer she holds out, the higher the chances of Dad drifting off as well and our outdoor sleepover coming true early.

Eliza winces. It makes me wince too. Then I feel Dad’s arm against my leg. He tickled her side.

“I know what you’re doing,” he murmurs. His voice drags so heavily, I think we were close to success – darn!

“We’re almost inside the house anyway,” Eliza bargains. She’s whispering, trying to get him to copy her or at least become drowsier.

Dad pokes her side again and she grumbles in defeat. I climb down. She slides off after me, and we stand around curiously to see how Dad is going to get up.

He isn’t. His chest rises and falls with his first deep breath since we flattened him. He wraps his arms around Mum. At first, it’s all he does. Hug, cuddle, then gently rub her back. It rocks strongly under his caresses, but she doesn’t want to stir just yet.

Dad repositions his legs around hers. Gathering momentum, he sits them both up. Mum makes a noise in her sleep. Her eyelids flutter, and she grasps his shirt for purchase when suddenly finding herself sitting, but not for long. Dad twisted his torso. He lifts Mum into his arms like a bride and stands, taking a big step out of the hole in the porch.

Her head sinks into the crook of his neck. She looks so small when he carries her like that.

“Off to bed, you two.” His tone has gone tender. It always does when he holds Mum closely. When dancing, in bed, even just when they hug. I usually wait until he has at least one arm around her whenever I bring home a D from school.

It’s all so far away – school, even the kidnapping and Pilatus’ whereabouts. Until we get a call the next day.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of The Unplanned Mustang-Hawkeye Family