Family

by Emily Thompson

  Jonas looked to Twist with thoughtful and dusty-gray-green eyes. “Do I believe that this mark on my arm is going to protect me from something out of a children’s story? Hell no. It’s all superstitious nonsense.”

  “Then why did you let them do it?” Twist asked with a nod to his arm.

  “Because Mama holds her superstitious nonsense close to her heart,” Jonas said with grim toleration. “No amount of logic will shake her faith. The moment she got the idea stuck in her head, my fate was sealed.”

  Twist smiled slightly, relieved to hear Jonas’s honest and straightforward opinion. He then took a heavy breath as his memory returned to the other things that Mama had said.

  “And what about the rest of it?” he asked Jonas softly. “About who she says my mother was, and all that?”

  Jonas’s eyes lost their color as he looked back at Twist.

  “Well…” Jonas said, pausing for a breath. “If you believe the vision you saw when you touched that bracelet, then you have no option but to believe what Mama said. I might not agree with her beliefs, but I’ve never know her to outright lie. And family is more sacred to her than anything.”

  Twist shook his head and tried to smile, but his face wouldn’t comply. “Then I’m the French son of a gypsy witch and a Spaniard, am I?”

  “There, there, old boy,” Jonas said, putting his right arm around Twist’s sloping shoulders. “I’ve seen a great deal of this world and met more than my fair share of people. You are undoubtedly the single most British individual that I have ever met.”

  Twist smiled back at him, while the fog in his Sight cooled his mind and lightened his thoughts. There was nothing taunting or at all maligning in Jonas’s blueing eyes.

  “In fact,” Jonas went on, “I’m sure that Queen Victoria couldn’t be more proud to have such a devoted son, adopted or otherwise.”

  Twist laughed at the praise but couldn’t bring himself to counter it at all. Jonas gave him a pat on the back before moving away to collect his jacket. His mind now clear of the soothing fog, Twist found comfort in a new and delightful thought: he’d spent his whole childhood wishing that he might be adopted into a family, never realizing that he was all the while an alien in his own country. England had nonetheless accepted him with open arms.

  Myra took his arm and spilled sunny pride into his Sight. “Jonas is right, you know,” she said with a smile. “You shouldn’t let the what you’ve learned about your family upset you.”

  “I’ll do my best not to,” Twist said, smiling back to her.

  When the three of them left their dim tent to rejoin the gypsies in the daylight, Myra was happy to find that a midday meal was already being served. The gypsies sat around the large central fire—which was still kept burning gently, even in the sunlight—with plates and bowls full of some sort of stew and crusty bits of bread. As Jonas and Twist took their seats with the others, Myra made sure that Twist got something to eat as well.

  Twist thanked the gypsies for their hospitality and tried not to wonder too much about what animals the undefinable bits of meat in his stew had come from. He’d heard stories of gypsies eating rats and hedgehogs before and focused very hard to keep such thoughts out of his mind. He looked up at the people around him, now that they were much more visible in the light of day.

  There seemed to be about fifty or sixty people in the camp, and by their appearance they could all be related to Harman and his son. Every face Twist saw looked vaguely foreign, as if its ancestry could easily stem from a wide range of nations. Some were more pale and fine-featured than others, and some were of a more substantial build and with darker complexions, but the differences between them were not very drastic. Try as he might, Twist couldn’t find anyone wearing a fashionable suit or even a matching ensemble. Beside the gypsies, Jonas appeared nearly as much a dandy as Twist did himself, wearing a set of clothing that actually seemed to match.

  “So,” Luca said suddenly to Twist. He was sitting nearby, nibbling at a hunk of bread. “You’re my cousin, then, are you?”

  Not too far away, Idris and Jeffery both trained their attentions silently but intently on Twist, as if he were about to put on a grand play. The whole of the Vimana’s crew—who had apparently all joined the gypsies for lunch as well and now sat together to one side around the fire—looked to Twist also. Twist could only imagine how the news of his relation to the gypsies must have spread while he’d slept. Even Aazzi’s ruby-shawl-covered form was here to watch him out of undeniable curiosity, despite the full sunlight.

  Twist was thankful for the spoonful of stew he’d just put in his mouth, which gave him a moment to think before responding. He found the concept that he was so closely related to this particularly uncouth gypsy to be greatly unsettling. Had his own mother been as brash and seemingly unwashed as Luca, or as bold and occasionally high tempered as Harman could be? Or was she more strange and mysterious like Mama, who now sat across the still-burning fire from him, staring at him with her haunting, wolfish eyes.

  “So it would seem,” Twist responded stiffly to Luca.

  “You know,” Harman said, looking at Twist thoughtfully, “I never really noticed before, but you do look something like my little sister, around the eyes. The color is exactly the same.”

  Twist looked away from him.

  “That’s just extraordinary,” Howell said, shaking his head as he and the rest of the Vimana’s crew continued to stare at Twist. “Imagine, you traveling with us all this time, and your friendship with Jon, when all the while you’re a blood relation to the family that raised Jon and Ara.”

  “Yes, that is quite extraordinary,” Jeffery agreed earnestly.

  Idris nodded, seeming very well entertained at the moment.

  “It really is a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Zayle asked.

  “I can hardly believe it,” Arabel added.

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Mama mentioned, finally drawing their attentions away from Twist. “He and Jonny were always destined to meet.”

  “But how could you know that, Mama?” Arabel asked with far too much interest for Twist’s taste.

  Mama gave a sigh and shook her head. “Their Sights pull them together. They always would have found each other. It was only a matter of time.”

  Idris looked to her, seeming quite intrigued but slightly confused.

  Twist’s mind suddenly returned to the first few days he had spent with Jonas. From the first moment he had laid eyes on him, Twist had felt a strange and almost magnetic pull toward the other man. Once they had finally touched—out of pure necessity as Twist nearly tumbled off a mountaintop in a thick fog, and Jonas had just barely caught his arm, saving his life—and their Sights had later shown to effectively block one another, the feeling of the pull had vanished, but their friendship had grown. Twist shuddered to find Mama’s choice of words so disturbingly close to the truth.

  “Then, did you know about their Sights when Jon was a boy?” Zayle asked with rapt attention.

  “I’ve known about him since he was an infant,” she said with a nod to Twist. “And I knew then that there must be another. I knew it was Jonny the moment I saw him.”

  Idris frowned sharply, looking at Twist and Jonas with something like alarm.

  “Aww, too bad,” Arabel said, looking to Twist with a sigh. “I wish that I could have been your special friend, instead of my brother.”

  Twist looked back at her, startled and unnerved by the idea. He couldn’t imagine ever being as close to Arabel as he was to Jonas. He caught a darkening in her eyes as she realized that he didn’t mean to agree with her.

  “Hey, get your own special friend,” Jonas grumbled at her with a comical sneer.

  Arabel made a face at him but didn’t protest.

  “Well, I’m glad that it was Jonas,” Myra said. She took Twist’s hand and smiled to him, spilling a warm glow into his mind. “I wouldn’t want to compete for your affection, if you could touch another girl.”<
br />
  Twist smiled back to her and wished that he could tell her she would have had no reason for concern, without offending Arabel in the process.

  Jonas smirked, his gaze on his plate. “Don’t worry, Myra,” he said with a wicked lilt to his voice. “Twist always would have chosen you, even if he could touch Ara. Anybody would.”

  “And just what do you mean by that?” Arabel snapped at her brother.

  “Men don’t like naggy girls,” Jonas said with a smug smile.

  Luca sniggered to himself.

  “I’m not naggy!” Arabel roared, gripping her spoon as if it were a dagger.

  “Jonas, stop taunting your sister,” Howell grumbled.

  “What the hell are you sniggering about?” Arabel snapped at Luca.

  Luca looked to her with a sudden mask of wronged dismay on his face. “Nothing!”

  “I’ll show you nothing,” Arabel hissed through clenched teeth, getting up to advance on him.

  Luca sprang to his feet, already backing away, as he smiled imploringly to Arabel and tossed random compliments at her. Arabel deflected them all with a furious gaze and began to chase him. Some of the other gypsies laughed and murmured quietly to each other, clearly enjoying the show. Twist marveled silently at how completely Jonas had shifted the focus of the conversation off of Twist and himself.

  Jonas glanced up to Twist and gave him a knowing smile. Twist felt his world fall more easily into order as he realized that, regardless of anything strange to do with their Sights, Jonas would have always been his friend. Their spirits were simply too well in tune.

  As evening fell, Twist found himself idly watching the sky above the trees turn to deep blue. After lunch, the gypsies had left him and Myra alone. Twist was grateful for the silence and the chance to let his weary thoughts wander naturally into peace. Even after all of the disturbing news he’d been given about his past and the mythical creatures that wanted his ruin, Twist still couldn’t help but notice that the air felt cooler, cleaner, and lighter to him than it had in a long time. He was truly free of the dragon’s curse, and his future bride was at his side.

  Jonas wasn’t far away, playing a game of dice around a table with a handful of the younger gypsy men. Twist could hear their voices as they cheered and taunted each other throughout the game, but the language that they all spoke was far from English now. It sounded sometimes French, and sometimes entirely foreign to Twist’s ear, but Jonas never seemed to miss a word. Myra, who had sat beside Twist quietly for a long while, laughed softly into her hand. When Twist looked to her curiously, she shook her head.

  “Boys are so silly sometimes,” she said, glancing off to Jonas and the others.

  “Can you understand them?” Twist asked.

  “Oh, they aren’t speaking your language?” Myra asked him, appearing surprised.

  Twist shook his head, smiling at her. “I find it truly amazing that you can understand whatever you hear. Have you always had that gift?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Myra said with a light shrug. “When I was a girl, I couldn’t always understand what people from faraway places said. But after I was put into this puppet,” she said, looking to her clockwork hands, “I’ve never met anyone I couldn’t talk to.”

  “And when you leave your puppet,” Twist said thoughtfully, “you can still understand. You’ve spoken with me many times in that way.”

  “I guess it’s because I’m a spirit,” she said, clearly a bit uncomfortable. “Spirits understand spirits, after all. I guess we can understand each other’s…whatever the sounds our voices make.”

  “Well, I’m very glad that we do,” Twist said with a smile as he took her hand. As he’d imagined, her emotions felt cold and elusive to him. “I rather like being able to talk to you.”

  Myra smiled to him as her emotions brightened in his Sight. “So do I,” she agreed.

  Twist decided to leave his curiosity unsated, to spare her the discomfort of talking about her true nature. Whenever the topic had come up, she had always changed the subject. It didn’t matter to Twist, one way or the other, if she was actually a living spirit or a specter. His love for her wasn’t at all dependent on what she was.

  Idris approached Twist and Myra quietly and sat down beside Twist. “Twist…” he began, sounding at once casual and nervous. “May I ask you something?”

  He was fidgeting with his long white fingers absently, and his golden eyes seemed restless as his gaze shifted about him and never seemed to settle for long. Twist felt a ripple of confusion waft through Myra’s emotions, mirroring his own, to see the djinn so ill at ease.

  “Of course, Idris,” Twist responded.

  “Well, I was just wondering,” Idris said, his golden gaze finally resting for a moment on Twist’s. “How old are you, exactly?”

  Twist stared back at him silently as cold dread trickled down his spine. Many different dragons had asked him that question, without any apparent reason. Hala had asked him. No matter who it had been, whenever anyone had asked his age without reason, it had always led to talk of Twist’s pocket watch as well, and then to some horrifying, confusing, or frustrating end.

  “Why are you asking?” he asked Idris, his voice smooth but as cold as ice. Myra’s concern grew brighter in his mind.

  “Just curious,” Idris said, his tone betraying clear alarm.

  Twist didn’t respond. He only looked at the djinn with raging apprehension. He felt Jonas’s gaze fall on him from where he sat at the table, clearly alerted to Twist’s unease by the buzz at the base of his neck. Idris took a thoughtful breath, his eyes roving once again for a moment, before he settled his gaze on Twist, as if he were bracing himself for a battle.

  “Is it possible,” Idris asked, his voice held firmly calm, “that you’re somewhere around twenty-seven this year?”

  Although the best information Twist had on his own age confirmed that he was, indeed, roughly twenty-seven at the moment—hadn’t Mama even said the same?—Twist didn’t respond.

  “Do you know how old Jonas is?” Idris attempted with a smile.

  “I wish you would tell me why the bloody hell you’re asking me this.”

  Idris’s smile melted into wounded disappointment. He looked away and then rose silently, walking away from Twist. Myra watched him leave with a look of shock and confusion on her face, while Twist took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Not even Idris, his friend, would tell him what was going on. Maybe it had something to do with the fairies that wanted his head. Or maybe it was something that was actually logical. It clearly didn’t matter either way, because Twist obviously would never know.

  “Dear?” Myra asked him gently. “What was all of that about?”

  Twist gave a heavy sigh and looked to her sadly. “I have no idea.”

  “What the hell’s happened now?” Jonas asked, having come to join them. He crouched down before Twist and looked to him with gray eyes. “It’s just one thing after a-bloody-nother today.”

  Twist met his gaze with a sigh. “Idris just asked me how old I am.”

  “What?” Jonas asked, his eyes going yellow, his tone as sharp as a knife.

  Twist nodded.

  “And he didn’t have any reason to ask, did he?” Jonas clarified expectantly.

  Twist shook his head.

  “And he didn’t explain himself at all, either.”

  “No, in fact he walked away instead.”

  Jonas cursed and rubbed at his brow wearily. Twist nodded, feeling the echo of his own frustration build in the buzz at his neck.

  “Didn’t the dragons at your trial ask you the same thing?” Myra asked, clearly trying to work out the situation. “They said that they couldn’t tell you why they wanted to know because they were trying to keep you safe, didn’t they?”

  “Yep. More bloody nonsense,” Jonas confirmed.

  “But, dear,” Myra persisted, “didn’t they also know that your mother was a witch?”

  Twist and Jonas both looked to h
er sharply.

  “Well, the blue one,” Myra said, looking back to them sheepishly. “The one who said he was Kazan’s brother. He said you were ‘the witch’s son,’ didn’t he?”

  “Oh yes, I remember that very clearly,” Twist answered, struggling to keep his voice from sounding sharp when he spoke to her. The echo of that phrase had tormented him from the edges of his thoughts for days before he’d finally managed to put the notion to rest.

  “Well…” Myra went on gently. “Mama’s a witch. And, well…I, of course, mean no disrespect at all, but—well, darling, doesn’t it make sense that your mother might have also been…you know.”

  As much as it pained Twist to see Myra speak so hesitantly to him, the truth of her words would not leave his thoughts long enough to allow him a moment to reassure her. He shook his head, fighting for some crumb of clarity.

  “Good point,” Jonas murmured, his voice cold. “Is anyone else concerned that we are always the last to hear any of this? Hell, we know less about this nonsense than anyone else on the damned planet.”

  “Anyone in the solar system, you mean,” Twist answered bitterly. “Remember, most of the dragons left the planet, and none of them ever gave us a straight answer either.”

  Jonas cursed and rubbed at his face with his hands. He then took a measured breath, his eyes closed, while Twist felt the buzz in his own neck calm slowly, inexplicably. Jonas opened his gray eyes on Twist, looking significantly less aggravated now. Twist suddenly realized that Jonas was just as much a victim of all this madness—the insane idea of murderous fairies, and finding out that Jonas had been raised by Twist’s own family, not to mention the deeply uncomfortable idea that their Sights were a cosmic force bent on drawing them together regardless of their own personal feelings for each other—as he was himself. The confusion and frustration that plagued them both was only held in check by sheer strength of will.

  “Right, here’s the plan,” Jonas said seriously. “We get ourselves a bottle, stuff Idris into it, and make him tell us what the hell we’re missing.”

  Twist gave a halfhearted laugh and shook his head.