Shadow of the Templar: Cuckoo's Egg, Extended Edition: Chapter Twelve

On timeline: early to mid-1990s, ten to fifteen years before the events of the books
Spoilers for: the usual
Warnings: a brief bit that's borderline NSFW—blink and you'll miss it

12.

      The Olympic official's expression was one of vague, frozen distaste, barely hidden behind his reflexive smile. Ethan was still prattling on in his best 'rich old loony' voice (eccentric, he'd said dryly the day before, with this much money surely I'm only eccentric) and it carried to them where they stood taping their hands, united, for once, in their mutual dislike of anybody who could condescend to Ethan. "—Olympics were always my dream as a child, but of course it wasn't to be, not for me—"

      "I see," the man from the Olympics said. "That's a shame."

      "Fucking ol' cunt," Bran muttered under his breath.

      "Arsehole," Jeremiah agreed. Bran glanced at him and was rewarded with Jeremiah's nastiest little grin. "Thinks the sun shines out of his," Jeremiah elaborated, flexing his taped-up hands. "Fuck all of this, I'm for the horse—" and he was gone before Bran could react, racing ten quick steps to the pommel horse and mounting it in a swift bound.

      The thump and smack of Jeremiah's hands on the horse drew everyone's attention, momentarily. The Olympic man's smile faded, along with much of the dismissal behind it. Jeremiah on the pommel horse was—Bran at seventeen didn't have the vocabulary to describe what Jeremiah on the pommel horse was, beyond 'a fucking show-off'. He looked unnervingly like the gymnasts in the videos that Ethan had shown them, like he could someday go to the Olympics for real, and he never lost that little smile, like it was easy to fly like that—

      Ethan's foolish, charmed expression never wavered, but Bran caught the sudden steel in his gaze as clearly as Jeremiah must have. On the very next swing Jeremiah contrived to let his elbow snap out, his hip striking one of the grips; he fell across the horse in a sudden, ungraceful splat and slid off to land on the mats with a thud. Suddenly he didn't look like a gymnast to Bran but just like the same old embarrassed, laughing brat he'd always been. "Ow, hell," he said.

      "Are you all right?" Ethan cried, trotting over to help Jeremiah up. "Oh, dear, that was quite a spill..." Behind him the Olympic official's distaste flowered again, worse than ever—Bran could feel him disapproving of the coddling—and while that distaste and eventual dismissal was the entire goal here, it didn't make Bran any happier. He turned away and dusted his hands.

      Behind him Ethan was 'helping' Jeremiah over to one of the benches. "You sit right there until it stops hurting," Ethan said, fussing over Jeremiah, pushing a bit of Jeremiah's overlong hair back out of his eyes. "Once it does, stretch it out like I taught you."

      "Yes, Master West," Jeremiah said, making Bran snort.

      "Good boy," Ethan said, patting Jeremiah's shoulder before turning back to the man from the Olympics. "Shall we go talk in the kitchen and leave the boys to it? You can meet Jeremy's father, he ought to be about—"

      "Of course," said the official, allowing himself to be led away, Ethan prattling on about men's gymnastics and similar twaddle until the door shut behind them and the sound of it was lost.

      Jeremiah hopped back to his feet the moment the door shut, absently scrubbing one hand over his hip. "Wanker," he said, jabbing two upraised fingers at the door.

      "Utter wanker," Bran agreed, also flipping the 'v' at the door. "This is all your fault, you know. If Ethan didn't need a bloody excuse to keep you about..."

      "It's just for an hour, Bran!" Jeremiah grabbed the grips in both hands and jumped back onto the horse, knees dotting lightly off the padded surface before Jeremiah pushed himself up into a handstand. His legs extended until his pointed toes could threaten the ceiling; his upside-down grin was all the more lunatic in his pinkening face. "We'd be doing this in any event—it's just killing two birds with one stone, that's all."

      Bran scowled at him. "I'm not stupid."

      "Never said you were," Jeremiah said tartly, shifting his weight. His right hand loosened around the grip and then fell away; Jeremiah wobbled a bit but didn't fall. After a moment he steadied again, balanced neatly on his left hand. "Brilliant," he said under his breath.

      "You're the bloody wanker," Bran said, smacking Jeremiah in the stomach.

      Wheezing, Jeremiah grabbed for the other grip again, his body jackknifing in mid-air as he fought to counterbalance the punch. For a moment Bran thought he'd lose that fight, but then Jeremiah threw his legs forward and Bran didn't see it coming, didn't duck in time; Jeremiah's shins thumped heavily onto Bran's shoulders and his ankles locked together behind Bran's head, trapping Bran where he was. "Hallo, Irish," Jeremiah said, snickering. "Fancy meeting you here—"

      "Fucking get off me!" Bran said, all in a panic, wrenching Jeremiah's legs from about his neck and throwing them as far away from himself as he could.

      The momentum of it flipped Jeremiah straight over the other side of the horse. He twisted about in midair and thudded to the mats on the far side, somehow managing to land on his feet in a crouch. His back was to Bran but his face was to the mirrors, and so Bran could see that astonished, pleased look on Jeremiah's face turn into purest cockiness—"Fucking brilliant," Jeremiah breathed, straightening up.

      Bran scowled fiercely at the back of Jeremiah's head and stalked off to pretend to be practising on the rings.

      "An' he said I had loads of potential," Jeremiah said. The voice he'd put on was nasal and monotone and made Bran want to slap it out of him. "So he said he'd teach me an' all, an' I said all right, an' he did, an' it's all right, innit. Loads of work, though."

      Bran, still dicking about on the rings, rolled his eyes. The sooner the Olympic official left, the happier he'd be, particularly if it made Jeremiah shut his gob and drop that awful act of his. "But you do still have your schooling?" the official prompted, his voice almost syrupy.

      "Yeh," Jeremiah said, with a snort. "Wish I didn't but he says I've got to."

      "They have their tutors in after morning exercises and after lunch," Ethan put in. "I suppose it isn't perfect, but, well, we all must make sacrifices!"

      Jeremiah hopped up on the end of the pommel horse and sat there kicking his feet. "Better'n going to some school with a bunch of swots anyway."

      "You're no swot, that's for certain," Bran added. He pulled himself up, bracing his arms by his sides, showing off a bit as all eyes turned in his direction. Lifting his legs he pointed his toes at the far wall and added, "Bloody surprised you can write your own name."

      "Yer a fuckstain," Jeremiah said, matter-of-factly.

      "Jeremy! Language!"

      Jeremiah ducked his head, snickering. "Sorry, Master West."

      Ethan sighed hugely. "Boys will be boys, I suppose."

      "Mm. That they will." The official edged a foot in the direction of the door. "In any case, I think I've seen all I need... wouldn't do to keep the boys from their practise..."

      Ethan made a funny little jump and hopped after him. "Oh! Oh, yes, absolutely, you're absolutely right. I'll just see you to the door..." He was still prattling on when the door swung shut behind him.

      Bran dropped to the mats with a groan. His arms ached. He'd been on the rings near constantly these last couple of weeks, just to make sure he'd look good (or good enough) for the man from the Olympics committee, but all the same he'd been hanging up there for ages now. He stripped off his ring grips, then, on an impulse, flung one of them at Jeremiah's stupid head.

      The grip swooped through the air and ended up fluttering to the ground halfway between them. Jeremiah didn't even bother twitching away. "Very nice," he said.

      It all just made Bran tired. He jabbed his upraised fingers at Jeremiah and went to reclaim the grip. The grips were expensive, Ethan always said, although Bran suspected they were only dear for bits of leather with buckles on. Still, he'd had to measure his hands for them, so there was something to it, must have been.

      The door swung back open and Ethan let himself in, pulling his tie loose as he came. "Well," he said, in a much more normal voice. "I think that went well." He rolled one shoulder. "I must admit it feels good to operate again, even if only on this small scale."

      "Is that all there is to it, then?" Jeremiah asked, hopping down from the horse. "I mean, it can't always be that simple, can it? Seems like we could have told him I'd popped out of the telly one afternoon and he'd have bought it."

      Ethan shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over his arm, then took off his little gold glasses. "He was... about average, I'd say," Ethan said, blinking madly. "My God, I hate those glasses—at any rate, it's got nothing to do with intelligence, how perceptive a person is. Some people are just suspicious buggers and that's all there is to it."

      "And now I have a history," Jeremiah said.

      "Indeed. Now there's a documented reason for you to be about. Not that I was particularly worried in any case." Ethan glanced over at Bran and gave him a little smile. Bran looked down at his hands. The grips had left vicious red marks on his fingers and he rubbed at those.

      A ripping sound made him look back up: Jeremiah, untaping his wrists. "So we're done, then."

      "Well, I may want to bring in another person later, just to let someone else get a proper look at you. But for now... yes, we're done."

      Jeremiah nodded, balling up the tape. "I'm for the pool, then," he said, glancing at Bran. "Give us a hand with the mats?"

      "Uh, aye. Right."

      Bran's eyes snapped open in the darkness. Whatever had woken him was already over, but it had done a bang-up job before it went: he was so awake that he was breathing heavily, in purest instinctual terror. He flipped over and looked at the clock. 4.23AM—well, that was half the mystery solved.

      Bran brought his breath under control and made himself be perfectly still. After a few seconds his ears picked up the slight sounds of Jeremiah slinking down the back stairs, solving the other half of the mystery. Little sod must have slept in today, if he wasn't waking Bran until nearly four-thirty. Bran groaned under his breath and let his head drop back onto the pillow. Usually Bran would fall back to sleep after Jeremiah's ritual morning waking, but he could already tell that it wasn't going to happen this morning. He was so awake that it hurt. Bran forced himself to lie still for ten minutes, just in case, then gave up.

      Having got off to an odd start, the day didn't seem to be getting any less odd. Every thought that Bran had was prefaced by some sort of acknowledgement of how early it was. It was so early that it seemed wrong to be turning on the lights. It was so early that Bran cringed when he dropped his comb, the sound seeming to echo loudly forever even though it really made only the slightest clatter on the bath floor. It was so early that he worried that the noise of his shower going might wake Ethan... and so on, and so on, and so on.

      Wherever Jeremiah had fucked off to, he'd certainly fucked off there right and proper. Bran couldn't find him anywhere about (not that he looked very hard, of course) and by the time Bran picked his way down the back stairs, the house was as silent as he'd ever heard it. Bran flipped on the lights in the gymnasium, wincing at the hum that they made, and discovered that the floor was still rolled back to expose the pool. The mats were in their usual shoulder-high piles at the far end of the room, walling off the exercise equipment from the pool area. It felt odd to see. Usually Ethan and Jeremiah would have the mats back out before Bran ever came down. Bran toyed with the idea of laying a few out, but in the end he couldn't be bothered. Bran flopped out at the foot of the weight machine and ran through an abbreviated stretching routine.

      By the time Bran had been clattering about on the weight machine for half an hour, the weird spell of 'so early' had faded and he was able to make noise without wincing about it. Ethan ought to be up and about by now in any case, down any moment to have his own morning workout. Bran knew this—for as long as Bran could remember it had been Ethan's habit to get his own exercise in before breakfast—and yet fifteen minutes later Bran quite nearly fell off the rings when he glanced up and spotted Ethan coming his way. He managed to make the drop look natural (he was pretty sure) and greeted Ethan with a curt nod.

      Ethan nodded back. "You're up early."

      Bran grunted in response and drew up his legs, his arms trembling against the rings. One of his grips wasn't on quite right—he could feel it—but it wouldn't slip, not quite yet.

      Ethan watched him work the rings for another few moments before slipping on his own gloves and picking up the dumb-bells. Bran did the last few reps in increasing desperation as the grip turned under his fingers, dropping to the mats half a second before the grip could throttle his fingers. His arms felt like noodles. Bran shook them out. "So, where's our little tyke, then?"

      "Jeremy?" Ethan thought about it for a minute while he did his arm curls. "I expect he's still in bed. Breakfast isn't for another half an hour."

      Bran snorted. "He doesn't fuckin' sleep, haven't you noticed? Wouldn't be so bad except he still walks so loud I have to hear him clomp downstairs at four o'clock every fuckin' morning..." He leapt up and caught the rings again. "Wakes me up every time, like."

      "Really," Ethan said, glancing over his shoulder at Bran. "No, I didn't know that. I wonder what he does."

      "Used to run the hallway with the wires in," said Bran, chinning himself on the rings. "Don't know what he's doing now. Fucking about, most likely." He dragged himself up a few more times, then added, "See if you can't teach him to walk properly. I need my bloody sleep."

      "Mm." Ethan worked in silence for a while, then put his weights back down on the rack. "It's good to see you working with the rings again. I have to admit that I was a touch worried to see you neglect them."

      Bran rolled his eyes so hard that he was forced to drop back to the mats. "You could have said something," he pointed out. "You know, a quick 'Bran, I think you ought to spend more time on the rings'? Never know, might have worked."

      Ethan chuckled. "It might at that."

      After a minute or two it became obvious that nothing further was forthcoming, so Bran leapt for the rings again. Ethan moved to the machine and settled in to bang the weights up and down. The morning wore on; eventually Bran heard the clattering sounds that meant Claude was in the kitchen and getting breakfast underway. A last ten minutes of exercise and a quick shower before breakfast—Bran hauled himself up again.

      "How are you getting along with the jars?" Ethan asked.

      "Ugh, gave up ages ago." Bran got himself balanced in an iron cross. His voice leaked out from between his gritted teeth, airless and strained. "Figure I'll just wait until you call for them to come in—won't win, but won't lose—" He dropped again with a stifled shout. "Not like Jeremiah's going to find my jar," he wheezed.

      "Jeremy."

      "Right, Jeremy, whatever." Bran idly kicked his feet. "Stupid game anyway, can't believe I wasted all that time on it—d'you know what I caught him doing the other day? He was digging up the shrubs you just had put in on the side of the house! S'pose he thought we'd buried a jar under the new dirt or some such." Bran snorted.

      The weights paused. "Did he now? I must admit I wasn't expecting that sort of... thoroughness. I do hope he didn't kill off any of the plants."

      "Don't think so. He just dug around the roots, like. Put the dirt back."

      "Mm." Ethan rolled off the weight bench and settled in on the opposite side to work his shoulders. "I suppose it's possible you caught him burying his jar..."

      The burning flush of realisation rolled over Bran, then flicked away. "Eh, even if he was, he wouldn't have left it there after I spotted him, like."

      "No, I suppose not. Although I suppose it couldn't hurt to check..."

      Bran glanced over, noted that Ethan's eyes were narrowed with amusement, and snorted. "Oh, aye, sure, I'll get right on that."

      "And I seem to recall it was you who pulled all the meat out of the freezer and left it on the counter, in August..."

      "It hadn't been out but half an hour at most!" Bran said, dropping to the mats again. "Claude ticked me off something awful but nothing was ruined, it was still all frozen hard as anything! Barely wet!"

      "And no jar."

      "And no jar!" Bran stripped off his ring grips and tossed them onto the rack with the free weights. "I think Claude liked having an excuse to buy all new fresh meat, you ask me."

      "Oh, most likely." Ethan chuckled. "A good thought, though. Those huge paper-wrapped packets of meat... it would have been a good place to stash a jar, wouldn't it?"

      Bran shifted from foot to foot. "Course it's a stupid place to hide things, everyone hides things there, you said—"

      "—particularly women—"

      "—I know that," Bran said, irritated. "But I thought maybe Jeremiah—"

      "—Jeremy—"

      "—right, I thought maybe Jeremy didn't."

      Ethan paused, the bar halfway down to his shoulders. "I'm reasonably sure that Jeremy and I have had that conversation by now." The bar moved again. "So he's also not likely to have hidden his jar in the toilet tank or under his mattress."

      "Like it would fit!" Bran idly rubbed the callus at the base of his middle finger, then huffed. "Anyway, I'm for a shower before breakfast."

      "See you then," Ethan said pleasantly, and Bran left the gymnasium to the rhythmic sound of Ethan's weights rising and crashing.

      The muscles across Bran's shoulders and upper back burnt like fire for the better part of a week. He hated himself for letting the rings go for so long, and pushed himself to get it back—sometimes, when he was particularly clear-headed, he wondered why he was bothering. He'd never liked the damned things in the first place. He'd only learnt them because he'd had the knack and needed some sort of demonstrable gymnast 'skill' to prove that he was, in theory, in training for the Olympics and thus exempted from having to go to school.

      Well, that and how Ethan was always on about how a good thief needed every muscle available to him and how most gymnast skills were quite useful in other, less useless ways. But.

      Bran did go out and push a stick into the dirt around the shrubbery, though. He didn't find anything. He wasn't at all surprised.

      It was over in an eye-blink: one moment Jeremiah was just barely fending off blows as usual, and in the next there was a thud. Ethan barked out a breath, reeled back a step, and sat hard on his narrow old arse, gasping. Bran sat up on the weight bench.

      "Yes!" Jeremiah crowed, punching the air before he got control of himself again. The joy fell right off his face. "Er. Are you all right?"

      "Well struck," Ethan wheezed, thumping his chest with his fist. "Very well struck—ah, God, it's a good thing I'm in decent shape for my age."

      Jeremiah tried on a small and not entirely certain smile, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I didn't actually expect I was going to hit you," he said.

      "To be honest, I wasn't expecting it either." Ethan's hand spread out over his breastbone. He was still breathing a bit hard.

      "Oh, ah..." Flustered, Jeremiah darted forward and held out a hand. "Here, let me..."

      Bran quickly stifled a grin. Ethan's hand came up and clamped onto Jeremiah's, and Ethan let Jeremiah pull him up from the mats—only he kept going, throwing his weight forward, driving his shoulder into Jeremiah's midsection to bowl him over. Or at any rate that was how it was supposed to go (that was how it had more or less gone all of Bran's life, anyway) but Jeremiah yelped and spun aside at the last moment and Ethan went stumbling past; Jeremiah jerked back and Ethan went spinning 'round thanks to his grip on Jeremiah's hand, bouncing off his arse again but now facing the other direction. Jeremiah shook his hand free and danced back a couple of steps, wary now.

      Ethan winced and put a hand in the small of his back, then ducked his head and started laughing. "Ah, God, I am getting old."

      "Won't fall for that one again," Jeremiah said. His uncomfortable smile came back.

      "No, no, I expect you won't." Ethan stood up, slowly. "All the same I think I'd best call a halt to sparring for this afternoon—there's only so much beating I can take, you understand."

      "Aaaw," said Jeremiah. Ethan's eyes darted at him (Bran saw it so clearly) but Jeremiah, having learned well, hadn't yet dropped his guard. And that made Ethan laugh again and hold up both hands in surrender, then move—stiffly—towards the door.

      The white August sunlight slanted in through the drapes to cast long shapes on the floor. Bran was wide awake—literally unable to keep his eyes closed any longer—but he stayed defiantly in bed all the same, because it seemed like the right way to go about things. From where he lay curled, he could see the clock: 9:02AM. Soon, then. Very soon.

      Now, in fact: the sound of a car pulling into the drive. Bran forced his eyes shut and shouldered up the covers, making of himself an unwelcoming lump in the bed. He wasn't frightened, not precisely, but all the same he was apprehensive, uncertain of how this was going to go. It seemed like such a large thing, although he knew that, really, it wasn't large at all.

      The car idled in the drive for a few minutes. Bran's stomach started to hurt and he contracted into a little ball under the covers, letting a thick fold of quilt cover his ear. He could still hear the car, though. The deep rumbling of its engine seemed to go right through him, not as a sound but as a shivering.

      Eventually he heard the front door open and shut again. The faint hum of voices was almost lost underneath the car's engine, but still, it was there; Bran shut his eyes and became nothing but ears. Soon enough he heard only the car, but by counting under his breath he timed a silent journey back into the house, up the front stairs, down the hall to his door—

      Ethan tapped on Bran's door with two fingers and let himself in with the same motion, much as he always did. If he was taken aback to see Bran still so egregiously in bed, he didn't let on. "Bran? Liam and Paula are here—"

      "I'm not going," Bran said. His voice came out as an unlovely croak and he followed his pronouncement with a spate of thick and mucousy coughing.

      Ethan was silent for a long moment. "Ah," he finally said. "I rather suspect they've got that idea by now."

      The sudden stab of guilt was almost enough to drag Bran out from under the covers—but, as Ethan had said so many times, 'almost' was exactly the same as 'not quite'. Instead Bran grunted and yanked the covers over his head, isolating himself inside a hot little cave that smelt a bit too much of his own unwashed body.

      Ethan stood in the doorway for a moment, then sighed. "All right, I'll go and tell them that you won't be down. It would have been polite of you to let them know before they came all this way—"

      "Don't care," Bran said. Shut up, you're not my real dad ran crazily through his mind and he was horrified to find that he'd nearly said it aloud. Indeed, he made a little croaking sound before he bit his tongue and forced it back.

      "Mm." The door started to swing to, with the faintest of creaking sounds; if Bran knew Ethan at all he knew that Ethan would be frowning up at those hinges, planning to come back with a can of machine oil before the day was done. "I suppose you don't," Ethan finally said. The door chunked shut.

      Horrified and elated, Bran lay just where he was and listened as Ethan once again let himself out the front door. After a brief buzz of conversation the car shifted back into gear and trundled off down the drive; the front door shut behind Ethan again, and then all was still. The elation won out. He'd won, and it was that easy...

      The nervous tension dissipated and, contrary to all expectation, Bran fell asleep again, discovering once again that sleep was always the sweetest when there was something else he ought to be doing instead.

      Of course, the rest of the day was just fantastically awkward (once Bran dragged himself back out of bed, at any rate). Ethan was so firmly stuck in neutral that it was like he'd never had an emotion in his life, and for all his faults Jeremiah was smart enough to pick up on that. Smart enough to absent himself, too—Jeremiah was nowhere to be seen, even when Claude was racketing about the kitchen. Ethan sat at the kitchen table and read the papers and radiated cool disapproval. As if he were entitled to! It was Bran's life, wasn't it? Fuck's sake!

      Rather than sit through the silent treatment that would be lunch, Bran stole an apple and a hunk of cheese and spent the afternoon in the pool instead. Why not? He'd been working hard for a week—no, for most of his bloody life!—and he deserved a goddamned day off, a real one, without being dragged to mass or burning himself out on the rings or scrutinising some damned pictures until his eyes bled. Fuck it. Pool day. He floated around in the water, seething.

      By the time that dinner rolled around, Bran's sense of having been wronged had assumed epic proportions and calcified there, like stone. He was abso-bloody-lutely starving, having slept through breakfast and mostly missed lunch, but his pride would no sooner let him sit down at dinner with the others than it would let him burst into snotty tears and beg forgiveness—instead he dragged his sulk up to his room and curled up in bed with it, petting it and nurturing it and making plans to raid the kitchen after everyone else had left it alone for the evening. The sound of the others talking at dinner filtered up to him, too clearly. Had they propped the kitchen door open, just so that Bran would hear them having a good time without him? Bran threw himself back out of bed and flipped through the CDs on the rack, muttering to himself. After some thought he fetched out Automatic For The People. It suited his mood, and once it was on, he couldn't hear the voices any longer.

      His stomach muttered and pinched at him, but Bran ignored it. He curled up on his bed with the stack of tatty photographs and looked at them without seeing them, just to be doing something worthwhile. They were battered about the edges and some of them had obvious fold marks, one of which was so deep that bits of celluloid flaked off the image. Bran scratched at it, getting black stuff under his fingernail, and the corner of the picture came off in his hand. Bran flicked it to the bed. It had left behind a worn and furry edge, and he mucked with that for a few minutes because it was easier than thinking and more interesting than looking at the photographs again.

      Someone thumped on his door. Bran looked up, expecting Ethan to let himself in, but the door didn't open. "What?" Bran called.

      The door opened. Jeremiah stuck his head in. "Brought you dinner," he said, all matter-of-fact, and before Bran could tell him to fuck off Jeremiah let himself the rest of the way in, kicked the door shut behind him, and dropped a plate onto Bran's desk. "You know Claude, he couldn't not feed you, even if he tried."

      Bran dearly wanted to kick Jeremiah out and go back to being wronged and shunned and such, but the roast chicken smelt so good that he changed his mind. He'd still been treated poorly but eating his dinner would not change that and was therefore completely all right. Dropping the pile of photographs on the bed Bran stood up and went to go eat while his dinner was still warm.

      Jeremiah watched him for a minute, then started poking around, scrutinising the building plans tacked to the wall before running a finger along the rows of battered books on Bran's shelves. Bran ignored him. It wasn't so hard to do, not when Jeremiah was being quiet. The CD was still moping along. Bran listened to that, instead.

      He was mopping his plate with a bit of bread when Jeremiah got bored with poking around in the study and disappeared into Bran's bedroom instead. Bran sat up, snuffling—whatever the red spice on the chicken was, it was a bit hot. "Here, come out of there!"

      Jeremiah stuck his head back out of the bedroom. "Oh, what? Not like I haven't been in here before."

      "Doesn't mean I want you in there now."

      "So?" said Jeremiah, and he ducked back in.

      Bran flushed with anger. He was about halfway out of his chair when a vagrant idea first made him pause and then made him drop back into his seat. "Suit yourself," Bran said instead, trying to sound as bored as possible.

      Jeremiah didn't respond. Bran could hear him nosing about, flipping through the CDs on their rack. It made Bran grit his teeth, but he stuck with it. "May as well pick out another," he made himself say. "That one's nearly done."

      Silence. Jeremiah bobbed up in the doorway again, blinking. The confusion on his face was the best thing Bran had seen all day. "Which one's good?" Jeremiah asked.

      "They're all good!" Bran said, stung. "I wouldn't keep crap music around, would I?"

      Jeremiah looked over his shoulder at the stereo, then back at Bran. Without another word, he disappeared back into the bedroom. The rattling started up again. When Automatic For The People moped to its end, the rattling from the CD rack stopped, the CD player thunked open, the CD went back in its case—Bran had heard all those sounds a million times—and Jeremiah went back to hunting through the racks.

      Bran sat very still, just where he was. His hands were folded over his stomach, and if his knuckles were a bit white from pressure, well, he looked relaxed. He wanted to rush in there and make Jeremiah stop touching his things, but if he acted like he didn't care, maybe Jeremiah would stop wanting to tweak his nose so badly—a CD clattered into the stereo. Bran held his breath. The ensuing silence was so perfect that when Jeremiah pressed play, Bran heard the CD spin up. 'World In My Eyes'—all right, the little prat had picked Depeche Mode, that wasn't so bad. Bran listened to that one a lot, actually. He pushed back his chair and got up.

      Jeremiah was perched on the edge of Bran's bed, the CD case in his hands. He turned it over, smirked down at the cover, then slid out the liner notes. "That all right, then? Only I thought the cover was nice."

      "Fine," said Bran. "D'you have to sit on the bed?"

      Jeremiah looked up at him, then glanced around. "I don't see anywhere else to sit in here."

      "You could come out and sit in the study. That's where the chairs are."

      "Why? Music's better in here."

      Bran didn't have an answer for that. He didn't have anything else to say, either. Robbed of his purpose he wandered around his bedroom, trying to ignore Jeremiah, listening to the music, snapping his fingers absently. Jeremiah flipped through the liner notes, spun them in his fingers, then slotted them back into the case. "The music's all right, isn't it?"

      "Aye, I like it."

      "Relaxing, a bit."

      "But—" Bran spun about and waved a finger in Jeremiah's direction "—not boring, like. Not like Ethan's music, all that soppy symphonic crap. It's... it's dark, innit. You can tell they're, I don't know, wicked, maybe. Like they've done all this awful sinful stuff and they don't care, they've never cared, but now they know how the world really works deep down. Where it's rotting, like." He risked a glance at Jeremiah, afraid that he'd see Jeremiah smirking or rolling his eyes, but instead Jeremiah was watching him with this oddly grave expression. Bran took heart and soldiered on. "But it's relaxing, all right. Hypnotic. Like, nothing surprises them any more, even the worst stuff, so it's calm, that dark place."

      Jeremiah looked back down at the CD, then abruptly grinned and scooted back onto the bed, cocking one knee across the spot where Bran usually slept. "They look like a right bunch of poofs, though, you want my opinion."

      Bran bit back his instinctive defence. "That's part of it, innit. They sing like that and look like that and you know they're not normal, like. Like they'd do anything that felt good..." Having caught himself, Bran rallied a bit. "And I s'pose you'd know a poof to look at one, wouldn't you?"

      Jeremiah's eyes dropped half-closed, leaving them deeply hooded and sly over his crooked little know-it-all smile. "S'pose I would at that," said Jeremiah.

      There was a brief hitch of time after that which seemed endless. Electricity crawled up Bran's spine and froze him in place, numb with fear, wrapped in the shivering grip of panic. The loudest voice in his head was the one screaming don't let on! but Bran knew that he already had—Jeremiah snapped the CD case shut with a click that dropped neatly in between the notes of a song, and the little sound shattered Bran right out of it. Jeremiah's little smile didn't change as he held out the case, and Bran reached for it, because he couldn't think of anything else to do. He plucked the CD case from Jeremiah's fingers, catching it by the furthest corner to avoid any untoward contact, and put it on the dresser next to his stereo. "Ta for fetching up my dinner," Bran said—was his voice really as steady as it sounded? "I'll just... go and take the plate back down before Ethan gets sarcastic about it, aye?"

      "Too right," Jeremiah said, settling back against the headboard like he owned the place, Bran's pillow squashed into the small of his back. He picked up the pile of photographs and flicked his own finger against that worn and furry edge. "I'll stay and give the music a listen, I think. Don't know much about music, but it seems... nice."

      "Nice, aye," Bran said, forcing himself not to hurry out of the room. He snatched up his plate and banged on out of his rooms, into the dark safety of the hallway. The door shut behind him and cut off Depeche Mode like a knife might; Bran gulped a breath and hurried off down the back staircase, melding into the dark with nothing short of relief.

      The kitchen was dark, as well, save for the usual little island of light about the dining table, where Ethan sat with a glass of wine. He looked up as Bran banged in. Ethan's expression was reserved, but suddenly it didn't bother Bran a bit. "Evening, Bran."

      "I need you to do me a favour," Bran said desperately, abandoning his plate in the sink without a second thought. "Go up and... find something for... for Jeremy to do, like. He's in my room—"

      If anything, Ethan's expression only got flatter. "I can't be solving all of your problems for you, Bran. Whatever's between you and Jeremy, you'll have to find a way to deal with it yourself—"

      "Please!" Bran cried, his voice cracking neatly across the middle. "Fuck's sake, Ethan, please, it's... it's vital!"

      "Vital."

      "Yes!"

      "Mm." Ethan looked away, studying their dim reflections in the kitchen window—Ethan's face was lost in a welter of shadow but Bran's expression was painfully clear. Eyes wide, eyebrows beetled, mouth wrenched open: Bran looked like he was half an inch from crying. Bran jerked himself away and stared out into the darkness, instead. "All right," Ethan finally said. "I'll go and winkle Jeremy out of your room for you—if you'll promise to call Liam tomorrow and apologise for not informing them of your decision ahead of time."

      "Fine! Done!" The rush of relief hit Bran like a wave and he sagged forward against the counter. "I meant to anyway. I just... it seemed important to do it that way, I s'pose."

      Ethan drained off the last of his wine and stood up, putting his glass in the sink next to Bran's plate. "I can't say I understand, but if you'll just apologise, I'll let it go." He moved past Bran, heading for the door. "And you might run some water over those dishes, or Claude will fuss at me on the morrow."

      "Aye, right," said Bran, rounding the end of the counter and turning on the faucet. Ethan left the kitchen; a few minutes later Bran heard him calling for Jeremy, his voice artificially cheerful and offhand.

      "Do you ever want to, you know, have a proper fight?"

      Bran kept his eyes firmly on the punching bag—if he were to stare at it any harder, it would most likely burst into flames. He slashed the side of his wrapped hand against the leather just an inch or so below where he was looking, making the bag creak heavily on its chain. "I do, when I spar," he said. He hit the bag again. "And right now I'm practising. Something which you ought to do more of."

      Jeremiah groaned out an annoyed sound and flopped out on his back. Still dripping from a dip in the pool, he'd hopped up onto the pile of mats to watch Bran hit the bag. "That's not what I meant at all," Jeremiah said. "I meant, well. We do all that throwing nonsense and the kicking and the hitting with our hands out flat, and it's brilliant and all, but... sometimes I miss just having a go at someone with my fists, you know?"

      "Brawling."

      "Yes, that. I mean, I know Ethan doesn't think much of it—"

      "It isn't that," Bran said with tacked-on patience. He caught the punching bag in both hands, stilling it. "I mean, he doesn't mind it because it's crude, although it bloody well is. He minds it because it looks more serious if you're ever nicked. Some museum security guard's breathing hard because you threw him over your hip, that's one thing, but he turns up with a busted rib and a mouse under one eye and that's just assault plain and simple."

      Jeremiah didn't say anything for a moment. Then: "Mm," he said, rolling over onto his belly and dropping his chin onto his crossed wrists. "You sounded just like Ethan there. Bit of a quote?"

      The hackles rose on Bran's back, and he let go of the bag and smacked it again. "Maybe," he said as evenly as he could. "Not like you don't pretend to sound like Ethan all the time."

      "I like sounding like Ethan. I think he's a good person to sound like. All posh."

      "Oh, yes, very posh, you and your wanting to have a barney out in the streets like a bloody drunk."

      "It was just an idle thought, Bran!"

      "And you're getting the mats all wet," Bran said. "That's brilliant, innit, get them all mouldy and rotten and stinking of chlorine, won't Ethan love that."

      Jeremiah rolled his eyes hugely. "Well, if you don't want to talk about it, I'll be quiet."

      "Ethan doesn't care for the word 'posh' in any case," said Bran, and having won the argument, went back to punching the bag.

      Jeremiah watched him in silence for a few minutes. The silence was worse than the talking: the silence was all attention. Despite himself Bran felt the need to show off, just a bit: he slid back a step and kicked the bag, the bottom of his foot booming off the leather. It felt good—kicking always did—and Bran shifted into footwork for a minute, working the long muscles in his thighs and practising his balance. And still Jeremiah just watched him. It made Bran grit his teeth. "And you call this nonsense," he said, more to break the silence than anything else.

      "Poor choice of words, you're right," said Jeremiah. "It isn't nonsense. It's just so terribly—" the pause was brief, but it was there "—refined, in comparison to a punch-up."

      Bran snorted. "Refined."

      "Mm."

      "You can say 'posh' if that's what you mean, you know."

      "Ha. Do you know, I don't think so?" One of Jeremiah's hands slid out from under his chin. He looked at it for a moment, studying first his knuckles and then his nails—then he smiled, balled his hand into a loose fist, and bounced it ever so lightly off Bran's shoulder, leaving knuckle-marks in the sweat.

      Bran shrugged Jeremiah's 'blow' off with perhaps more energy than it required. "If you haven't got anything better to do than pester me, maybe we ought to stop and put the mats out," Bran said, rolling his shoulders to disguise the awkwardness.

      "I suppose we ought," said Jeremiah, jumping down.

      "Anyway, I'd thought to take Jeremy down to London later this week," Claude said, bustling around. One fat hand was full of curling parsley leaves, momentarily disregarded in favour of pulling a bottle of white wine from the fridge. Claude hip-checked the fridge door closed with a neat little pivot and hurried back. "His hair needs cutting in any event—might as well take him to a fellow I know, get it done properly—whoop!" Claude banged the wine bottle down on the counter, dropped his untidy handful of parsley on a cutting mat, and snatched up a vicious-looking knife. "And perhaps a bit of shopping, after," he said. "If we've time."

      "Of course," Ethan said, looking a bit amused. "Thursday?"

      "I'd thought Friday." Claude's knife crunched through the parsley, turning it into a pile of green shreds. The sharpish scent stung Bran's nose and he rubbed the back of his hand across his face.

      Ethan made a loose gesture. "I'm certain we can spare you on either day," he said. "I haven't entirely forgot how to cook. I hope."

      Jeremiah raised his head from the cradle of his arms. He'd draped himself decoratively over his chair, sideways on, looking like nothing so much as a lot of clothing that had been thrown there and somehow managed to fall in a humanish pattern. "Can we go to the museum while we're there?" he asked. Everyone looked at him and he pulled in, going from languor to embarrassed adolescent in a flash. "Only I've never been, and... well, I suppose I had ought, hadn't I? Have to see what it's all about."

      "The museum," Ethan mused, all but stroking his chin as he thought.

      "He means which museum," Bran clarified, letting his hand fall back to the table. "There's not just one, you know."

      Jeremiah wrinkled his nose at Bran. "I know that."

      "Must be a hundred of them in London alone—"

      "More like two hundred, I think you'll find," Ethan put in. "And most of them aren't quite... mm... germane to our interests, shall we say? Famous homes or historical buildings—one can't exactly walk off with a sixteenth-century cathedral stuck down one's trousers."

      Bran waved that off. "In any case they're all a bloody slog, even the famous ones, but I suppose you ought to at least see what they're like."

      "They aren't dull, Bran," Ethan said, pained.

      "They are!" Bran sat back in his chair. "They bloody well are. Bunch of dull old paintings in empty echoey rooms." Ethan didn't respond right away; Bran, emboldened, went on. "And they've got those uncomfortable benches for prats to sit on and 'contemplate' the art—" he crooked his fingers in the air for quotes "—and sometimes they think they're so special that they bring little sketchbooks and try to draw the paintings!"

      Ethan quirked an eyebrow. "No leftover vitriol for the guards, then?"

      "Pack of disapproving old farts, can't leave a fellow alone with his 'contemplation' for a second," Bran shot back. "And as far as security goes, not a one of them's any more good than a fart in a windstorm."

      "That's hardly fair. They're quite good at discouraging students from putting their fingers on the Degas ballerinas. And such."

      "Tell you one thing, though," Bran said, rising to the occasion, enjoying himself. "A determined fellow could snatch a picture off the wall and run right out with it and they'd be hard-pressed to keep up, let alone catch him. Best they could do would be to see him."

      "That what you'll be doing for your next job, then?" Jeremiah asked.

      It caught Bran off his guard and knocked him right out of his loop. "What? No!" he said—then he caught the look of amazed over-innocence and subsided, grumpily. Jeremiah grinned at Bran, unabashed, and went all boneless in his chair again.

      "In any case I think that's an excellent idea, Jeremy." Ethan tapped his fingers on the table, thinking, then looked over at Claude. "Would you mind?"

      "Not a bit!" Claude called back, over a rising hiss of steam. "May as well do it up proper and go to the British Museum, you want my opinion..."

      Ethan nodded. "Oh, I agree. It's damned near the definition of 'museum' by this point."

      "It'll be tight time-wise, but I think we can wedge in an hour or so." Claude frowned down at the pan.

      The sizzling sound filled the kitchen and everyone went quiet. Ethan turned his attention back to his wine, Jeremiah practised his posing or whatever it was he was doing over there, and Bran picked at a bit of cuticle that was flaking off his thumb. "Why don't you stay over, then?" he found himself asking. Claude made a non-committal noise, more focused on his bits of fish than on conversation. Bran's mind caught up to itself and ran ahead. "No, honestly. You go down on Friday and take care of your business, then stay over at a hotel and do the museum up proper on Saturday." Bran took a breath. "And that way you can go to the museum and no one's going to wonder why he's not in school that day."

      The glance ran around the room: Claude and Ethan glanced at each other, then Ethan glanced at Jeremiah, then at Bran, then back at Claude. Bran had never felt so transparent in all his life. "It's not a bad idea," Ethan allowed, after a moment. "Why don't you go ahead and go that? We certainly won't starve to death."

      "I suppose it would give us more time to get everything done," Claude said, either dubious or distracted. He blinked down at the pan, then started flipping fish bits over. "Jeremy? What do you think?"

      "That's fine with me," Jeremiah said, rubbing the back of his head. "Can we have room service while we're there? I've never done that, either."

      Claude rolled his eyes hugely. "Oh, yes, forty-dollar stale cheese sandwiches at three in the morning, bloody room service, can't fathom why anyone would eat that foul nonsense..."

      Jeremiah snickered. "So we can, then?"

      "Yes, yes, of course." Claude waved the spatula benignly at Jeremiah, and just like that, it was done.

      "Are you certain you don't want to come?" Ethan asked. He was standing in the doorway to Bran's room, one hand toying with the doorknob. "After I drop those two at the train station, I'll be going down into town..."

      Bran was nearly vibrating with the need to have them all gone. It was a wonder to him that he wasn't juddering in his chair. "Nah, nah, I'll stay here. Enjoy the quiet, like."

      The look that Ethan gave him in response was just a hair too long, a touch too cool. "Of course, as you like." He let go of the doorknob and straightened up. "In that case, we'll be off. You're on your own for lunch—I don't expect to be back until one or two at the earliest."

      "Fine." That didn't seem like enough, so Bran said it again. "Fine. I'll be here when you get back."

      "Try not to get into too much trouble on your own," Ethan said—there it was again, that cool amusement—and then he was gone, leaving Bran alone.

      Bran flung himself out of his chair and began to pace the length of the room. He could still hear voices floating up from downstairs and he willed them to go with every fibre of his being—finally, finally the door to the garage shut behind them, cutting off the noise of conversation. Bran went still in the centre of the room, all ears now, listening. The garage door went up with a rumble that Bran felt through the soles of his feet, and, a moment later, went down again. Two strides took Bran to the window in his study and he craned to watch Ethan's blue sedan proceed sedately down the long drive and out, into the wilder world.

      Bran darted for the door of his room. "Hello?" he shouted, his voice echoing up and down the hallway. No answer. "Hello?" Still no answer. "I know you're there!" Still nothing. The weight that fell off Bran's shoulders was tremendous. Still, just to be certain, he closed and locked his bedroom door.

      Time to think like a thief: if there was any problem—if they'd left something vital behind—they'd be back. After ten minutes or so, though, the likelihood that they'd bother to come back for anything would be almost zero. Bran turned on his heel, taking in the perimeters of his room. He was anxious to be moving, but he needed to play it safe. Ten minutes to kill. He'd waited all week for this, what was ten minutes more—

      The realisation that he was entirely alone in the house for the first time in months belatedly struck. Without giving it much thought, Bran jabbed his upraised fingers at the wall that separated his rooms from Jeremiah's, then strode on into the bedroom. He was going to do this up right, he was—Bran pulled open the little drawer in his night-stand and fetched out both the little bottle of hand lotion and the packet of tissues.

      He'd meant to savour the moment, or, at least, he'd meant not to hurry through, but once Bran had his hands on himself he couldn't wait another moment. Bran closed his eyes and bared his teeth and jerked himself off with short, angry strokes, each one a recrimination: this for Jeremiah, and that for Ethan, and this for Bran himself, this, this, this... he cracked his eyes open right before the end, watching the muscles in his belly ripple just before he shot all over them with a strangled grunt.

      Gasping a bit, Bran winkled out a tissue and mopped at the mess on his belly. A glance at the clock informed him that he'd barely knocked four minutes off his waiting period—still, once he'd cleaned himself up and dressed again, it ought to be safe. Bran slid off the bed and stood up, hitching up his trousers. He headed for the bath.

      Three minutes later Bran eased out into the hallway, already feeling like a thief, feeling the guilt of it. "Hello?" he called again, just in case. No answer. Bran ducked his head and slunk down the hall to Ethan's rooms.

      Ethan's rooms looked like they always did: expensively cluttered, and brown. Everything was made either of some heavy dark wood or of brown leather and copper hobnails. The Turkish rugs were dark blue and dark red, which seemed daring, for Ethan. The massive old sleigh bed was rumpled and unmade, the off-white sheets nearly blinding; the far side of the bed was inhabited by a scattering of books and magazines, and had been for as long as Bran could remember.

      Leaving the door open for safety's sake, Bran swallowed and set about gingerly tossing Ethan's rooms. He barely dared touch a thing (and he was certain that Ethan would know no matter how careful he was) but he forced himself to poke a hand under the mattress and scramble under the bed and shuffle through the clothes in the closet. Ethan had a lot of clothes, all bespoke and conservative and proper and dull, dull, dull. Towards the back of the wardrobe Bran found a few (dull) things that must have been thirty or forty years old, wrapped up and stashed away. Bran patted his way through and found nothing at all.

      The bath was still damp from Ethan's morning shower, and smelt powerfully of the woodsy stuff that Bran had always just thought of as 'Ethan'. The cabinets under the sink were a minefield of junk, most of it having that settled look that meant it had been there, untouched, for years. Bran forced himself to shuffle through all of it anyway. His best (worst) find was a dilapidated stash of feminine-hygiene things that must have been rotting in the back of the cupboard since the seventies; Bran flipped open a little plastic case, found a rotting rubber dome and an instruction slip that proclaimed it to be a DUREX DIAPHRAGM, and fumbled the whole thing away from himself so quickly that the rubber thing spilled onto the floor and bounced about in a terrible, wobbly fashion. "Aaaaw, Ethan," Bran moaned, shovelling everything out of sight again so that he wouldn't have to think about it.

      Bran forced himself to take his time and check every corner twice, but still: forty-five minutes of careful searching and Bran couldn't think of anywhere else to look. If there was a jar in here, it was stashed away in some secret compartment that Bran hadn't found. Purely out of curiosity Bran flicked open the box on the dresser and looked at Ethan's jewellery: mostly cufflinks (why did Ethan have so many pairs?) but also a few rings and Ethan's second-favourite watch, the silver one. There was a scattering of loose change at the bottom of the box. For some reason, it was mostly brassy centime pieces. Bran pocketed a ten-centime piece, just because.

      His heart still mostly in his throat, Bran forced himself to walk through the rooms again. There simply weren't many places to hide a jar the size of Ethan's (or the size of Jeremiah's). The bath would have been the best bet, but Bran had come up dry there. Bran looked the room over, making sure that everything looked approximately as it had when he'd come in, and then let himself back out, closing the door behind him. It was barely eleven. Bran decided on an early lunch.

      Bran was in the kitchen, his hair still wet from a second shower, when the garage door went rumbling up and Ethan's car pulled in. Bran checked the clock: shortly before two. He nodded to himself.

      A few minutes later Ethan let himself in from the garage, a grocery sack in one hand and a plastic carrier bag in the other. He seemed a bit fussed; he froze on seeing Bran at the kitchen table, in much the same way that another man might have jumped. "Bran," Ethan said, blowing out a breath. "I'm home."

      "Aye, I noticed," Bran said. He'd spread out on the kitchen table with a handful of magazines that had come in that day's post; they were mostly Claude's—fashion, cooking, and European travel—but Bran was bored enough not to care. "I put your letters on your desk," he said, striving to sound careless about it. "I'll run Claude's mail out to the cottage here in a bit."

      After another moment of hesitation, Ethan stepped into the kitchen and nudged the garage door closed behind him. "Did you have lunch?"

      "Aye, just scavenged from the fridge." Bran turned a page. "Do any good?"

      "Oh, yes, possibly." Ethan was still a thousand miles away, though. He pottered around, putting away the food that he'd bought, barely glancing at Bran. Bran kept his eyes on the magazine, his eyes sliding right off the glossy pictures.

      Ethan folded up the empty sack and stowed it in its place under the sink. "We'll have dinner at six, I think," he said. "If that's all right with you."

      "Aye, fine."

      "Mm. Well. Good." Ethan picked up the carrier bag. "I'll be in the workroom if you need me."

      Bran's stomach turned over, slowly. He tried not to let it show. "Aye," he said, feigning disinterest. Ethan vanished upstairs. He didn't come stomping back down to demand to know what Bran had been doing in his room, and after a while, Bran managed to take a full breath again. He gave Ethan fifteen minutes to get situated, flipping through Claude's magazines and stacking them in a neat pile on the edge of the table. Finally, once Bran judged that he'd waited long enough, he picked up the pile of Claude's mail and let himself out into the wet.

      The guest cottage didn't look much different from the last time that Bran had been in it. Claude was a neat enough fellow (unlike Ethan) and kept everything in its place when he wasn't using it; the few signs of his residence were tidied away in regimental rows and neat stacks. Bran left the magazines on the kitchen counter and got to work.

      With both Claude and Jeremiah well out of the way, Bran felt not the slightest need to hurry. He started in the main room, working from the far wall to the near, squeezing sofa cushions and searching the cabinets under the bookshelves; when he'd thoroughly eliminated it as a possibility, he moved on to the kitchen, with its plethora of hiding places, and from there, on towards the back of the house. Two hours later Bran had searched every last one of those damned boxes in the second bedroom, and come up dry. He wasn't worried, though. He still had the back bedroom and bath to go through, and there had to be a loft in here, or at least a crawlspace.

      The back bedroom was Claude's lair, and it showed, if only slightly. There was a tidy pile of magazines on the bed-side table and an opened carton of Claude's funny cigarettes on top of the dresser. His toiletries—all French, from the look of them—were lined up in neat rows underneath the mirror in the bath. A faint scattering of dark stubbly hairs ringed the drain in the sink basin. Bran took a deep breath and got back to work.

      He cleared the bath first, because he was already in there, then started on the main room. Bran thumped the mattress, looking for hard spots, then crawled under the bed and searched the springs. What next? The closet—Bran opened the closet door and spotted the fat black satchel tucked in the corner right off.

      His heart thudded hard in his chest, once, then Bran had hold of the grips and had pulled it out. His newborn hopes died a quick death even before he'd put it on the bed: the bag was heavy, but it was heavy in the wrong way. Rustling and solid like paper, not fat and rattling like a jar full of marbles. Still, he'd kick himself forever if he didn't look. Bran popped the top of the satchel.

      An hour later he forced himself to put the pile of Claude's girlie magazines back into the bag. Bran felt like he hadn't blinked for ages, but it was all right, because he'd got himself an education of sorts. His legs felt a bit shaky when he got up, and he had to lean on the bed until he felt steady again—but after that he threw himself back into his work with a renewed enthusiasm, whistling under his breath. He almost didn't mind when he finished clearing the bedroom and hadn't found a damned thing.

      Bran paused in the hallway and looked around. Where hadn't he looked? Under the house again—with a torch and a very large stick, thank you—and in the loft, assuming there was one. There had to be one, didn't there? The house had a peaked roof and Bran couldn't imagine that space going to waste. He walked through the cottage, looking at the ceiling and bumping into things.

      Even looking for it he almost missed it, a tiny trapdoor in one corner of the second bedroom. Just a crawlspace, then. Unfortunately it was under a small table with a lamp and a brass knickknack on it, so Bran had to move everything out into the hall and then fetch in a kitchen chair to stand on. It made him feel better about things, though. If he had to go through all this trouble just to check the crawlspace, that made it a good hiding spot, didn't it? Bran hopped onto the chair, lifted the trapdoor, and stuck his head up into the loft. And sneezed. And sneezed. His eyes were watering from all the floating dusty bits, but still, he could see a number of small boxes and sacks pushed onto the floor of the loft. He wasn't sure whether to be excited about that or not. First things first: Bran ducked out of the loft, let the trapdoor close, and went to wash his face.

      "Right, then," Bran said under his breath, skinning out of his damp t-shirt and tying it around his face. Sure, he could stop and go get a dust-mask and a pair of goggles out of the garage, but he didn't want to stop now. Climbing back onto the chair he pushed up the trapdoor and fetched out the first box, dropping it onto the bed below. It felt wrong, and it was wrong: when Bran pulled open the flaps he found nothing but a pile of yellowing handwritten receipts. Bran barely glanced at the top one, didn't find it interesting, and closed the box again.

      Bran pulled everything out, piece by piece. It was, if anything, even more random and inexplicable than the stuff in the loft of the main house. One bag made his heart leap with its glassy clattering, but even before Bran got the bag open, he knew that it wasn't what he was looking for. Too metallic, too light. Bran pulled the bag off and found himself holding a glass fish-bowl about half-full of tarnished copper pennies, old enough to still have kings' heads on them. Bran stuck his hand in and let the pennies trickle through his fingers. He'd take that with him, he thought, and he got off the chair long enough to put the bowl aside.

      The last box proved to contain a brittle brown ladies' wig, stuffed with crumpled paper and still smelling faintly of either perfume or hairspray. Bran added it to the stack, blinked his eyes vigorously, and stuck his head back into the loft. Now that everything was out, he could see that it had all been stacked on a couple of loose plywood panels laid over the bare joists of the ceiling; beyond the edges of the plywood lay a sea of fluffy brown insulation wool. No wonder it was so dusty and awful up here—and now Bran had to put everything back.

      Bran bent to get down and stopped, his eyes on a level with the joists. Was that...? Off there in the front corner? Bran straightened up and rose onto his toes, peering forward. It looked like nothing more than a shadow, or an odd lump in the corner, but... Bran looked down, sighed hugely, and hoisted himself up into the loft, landing on one hip on the plywood. It creaked under his weight and he froze until he was certain that it would hold. Still, now that he was up here, he could see a bit more clearly, and that was something. A brown paper bag, looked like. And stuck in the corner like that—he had to have it. Arranging himself along two of the joists Bran heaved himself onto all fours and inched forward, like a train on wooden tracks.

      It became a nightmare in seconds. Sharp-edged glassy wool bits floated through the air, found the bare and sweaty skin on his torso, and stuck, scratchily. Bran wanted to claw off every last inch of his skin but he couldn't spare a limb to do so. The joists weren't but two inches wide, which was far too narrow for his shortly-aching knees. Every time Bran tried to move forward, he wobbled and had to catch himself. His progress was too slow to be a crawl. Bran set his jaw and crept onwards, occasionally dropping to one hip to precariously relieve his knees. At least he hadn't picked up any splinters—the moment he thought that, of course, a cracked piece of wood jabbed into his left hand. Bran yowled.

      Approximately a thousand years later Bran was balanced within arm's reach of the bag. Almost. Huffing for breath, dripping with sweat, Bran looked back and forth, then gingerly lowered himself until he could lay across the joists. One joist dug painfully into his bare ribs, one into his hip, but now his hands were free. Bran craned for the bag, his outstretched fingers opening and shutting just an inch short of one of the bag's handles. Just a little more. With a throttled shout Bran lunged for the bag.

      It almost worked, except that it didn't, not at all. Bran's ribs scraped forward across the joist and he overbalanced, his left hand slamming down into the insulation. It was soft and filled with knives and then there was a crack that filled the world and Bran's hand went right through the plaster of the ceiling below, caught in a tangle of brownish wool that refused to tear—but his right hand jabbed through the handle of the brown paper bag at the same time. Desperately Bran clutched at it, even as he back-pedalled with both legs, somehow preventing himself from going right through the ceiling entirely. Somehow, the next time that everything fell still he was still laying across the joists, his left hand scraped and bleeding from a thousand tiny scraping cuts, his right hand closed white-knuckle tight about the handle of the bag.

      Bran pulled the bag towards him and then found that he couldn't get it open, not balanced across the joists as he was. It was heavy, and it sounded right, but even his newfound hope couldn't overcome the situation. Bran moved the bag, then moved himself down the joists, then moved the bag, then moved himself again. Somehow, eventually, he made it back to the plywood panels and could sit properly. Exhausted and impatient, he tore at the bag, revealing a flash of orange and gold.

      Ethan's jar.

      Bran closed his eyes in something like relief. It hadn't all been for nothing.

      Five minutes later a bloody, sweaty, half-dressed apparition drifted out of the front door of the guest cottage, weaving a bit. In one arm it carried a sodden t-shirt and a glass fish-bowl full of coins; in the other, a torn paper bag imperfectly wrapped around an orange Chinese jar. Bran staggered toward the main house. First, a shower—God, he itched so bad—and then... no, fuck it. First he'd take this jar straight to Ethan.

      The workroom was dark, save for the bright pool of light over the workbench. Ethan was faffing about with a disassembled mechanism of some sort, as he did; he glanced up from the pile of bits as Bran came in, then paused and took a longer look. The guarded expression faded into something like concern. "Bran? What on earth—"

      Bran tottered forward. "Found your jar," he grated out, dropping the paper-wrapped bundle onto the table between them.

      There was a brief pause while Ethan's face rearranged itself: out of concern, it went through surprise and something like relief before settling on pleasure. "Oh, well done!" Ethan said, putting his spanner down and picking up the bag. "Well done."

      The rush of pride made Bran's knees go all weak. He plopped into a chair. "That was right bloody nasty of you, I'll have you know, putting it up in the far corner of the loft like that. Nearly didn't see it in that brown paper. Blended right in."

      "Oh, yes, I'm aware." Ethan tore the rest of the paper away and gently set the jar upright on the bench, dusting his fingers over the orange surface as if to reassure himself that the jar was all right. He chuckled a bit. "The light in the attic is very dun-coloured, I think you'll find, what with all the wood and the insulation."

      Bran slumped and kicked his legs out from underneath him. He still itched like fire but the cool of the workroom was pleasant on his skin. "Don't know how you got out into that corner without falling through the floor, mind." Bran held up his left hand, dotted with drying blood. "I put my hand straight through the ceiling in the front room. Big lovely hole and plaster all over the sofa."

      Ethan's smile twisted in on itself. "Ah. Well. I'll have to do something about that, then." Plucking the lid off the jar, he picked out a single yellow marble, rolling it absently about in his fingers. "As to how I got out there, well, that's why there are two plywood panels up there: I'd sit on one and move the other in front of me, then shift onto that one and move the first in front. It isn't quick, I'll grant you that, but it's relatively easy."

      "... aaw, God, I should have thought of that," Bran said. He snickered, suddenly a bit light-headed. "Couldn't see you clambering about on those joists, old as you are. You'd have broken your hip or some such."

      Ethan smiled. "Yes, yes, we all know how terribly decrepit I am, thank you." He dropped the marble back into the jar and dusted off his hands. "At any rate, congratulations, you're the first to find a jar. Now go and rinse off all that filthy stuff, and be sure to put peroxide on your hand, after. I suppose I'd best find where I put the plastering tools."

      "Aye, right," said Bran, levering himself out of his chair. His head spun.

      That shower felt better than almost anything else Bran could remember. Once cleaned, the damage to Bran's hand proved to be of no moment: the tiny cuts looked like spots or bits of dirt. It only really looked funny if Bran held his hands together. Bran dumped half a bottle of peroxide over his hand and squealed out a tiny sound as the stuff fizzed up—it didn't hurt, not precisely, but it stung like nothing else. Once the peroxide had settled down, Bran rinsed off his hand and went to get dressed.

      By the time he left his room again, Bran was nearly floating on pride and relief. He let himself into Jeremiah's room easily enough, springing the locks, and set about tossing the room both thoroughly and properly. He still had the rest of the day, and most of tomorrow, so there was no need to hurry at all—Bran dumped Jeremiah's hamper on the floor and left the dirty things where they lay, then stripped all the covers off the bed so that he could flip the mattress up against the wall and scrutinise the box springs. Jeremiah's closet was still a bit bare, but Bran shuffled the things on hangers about in any case, going through all the pockets (not that the jar would fit in even the largest pocket, but Bran had to admit to a bit of curiosity about it all). The most interesting thing Bran found was a shoebox half full of Jeremiah's labelled Polaroid pictures, abandoned on the top shelf of the closet, and that wasn't interesting at all.

      Bran pulled out all the drawers and rifled through Jeremiah's clothes, then wedged the drawers shut again. He pulled everything out of the cabinets in Jeremiah's bathroom, then tossed it all back in any old way. He spent a few minutes looking through the books on Jeremiah's shelves, just because he felt like it. He searched the desk and the shelves under the window. Finally Bran was forced to admit that the jar wasn't in here, but, honestly, he wasn't certain that he cared any more. He'd found Ethan's jar. Wasn't that enough?

      Surveying the mess, Bran toyed with the idea of tidying things away. In the end he put the mattress back where he'd found it—more or less, anyway—but left everything else where it had fallen. It was almost time for supper in any event. Maybe, if he felt like it, he'd come back after supper and see to the mess. Probably not, though.

      Bran picked up the pillows, tossed them at the bed, and let himself back out of Jeremiah's room, perfectly content with his good day's work.

      Dinner that night was a cheery affair. Ethan wasn't half the cook that Claude was, but all the same he was perfectly decent, and he knew what Bran liked, to boot. And, to top it all off, there was a wine glass set at Bran's place at table, and Ethan poured him half a glass of wine, as casual as you like—"It only seems proper to toast your success," Ethan said, moving on to pour his own.

      "Sounds good, aye," said Bran, gingerly picking up his wine and sniffing it. It had a sharp, biting, fruity smell—huge surprise, that, Bran thought he'd never get over it—and he put the glass back down.

      Once Ethan had served their dinners and taken his place at table, he lifted his glass. Bran picked up his own. "To your success," Ethan said lightly. "May you have another of the same sort."

      "I'll drink to that, I will!" Bran tapped his glass against Ethan's and took a tiny mouthful of his wine. He tried not to grimace too obviously but the wine clawed his mouth dry and cleared his sinuses, so he thought that it must be good stuff, whatever it was.

      After dinner Bran left Ethan doing the dishes and ambled on upstairs. He went past Jeremiah's room without a backwards glance—the mess? what mess?—and let himself into his own room. It was also a mess, although not nearly so profound of one. Bran didn't care much about that, either. He pottered around taking the blueprints back down off the walls, since the cleaners would be in next week and they shouldn't find those, most likely. Once he had them back in their tube, Bran put the tube by the door. He'd take that back downstairs later.

      On a whim Bran went over and opened the window. The breeze that hit his face was cool and damp, but the shingles were mostly dry to the touch. Bran lifted his face into the breeze, then stepped up and ducked out the window, straightening warily on the roof of the veranda.

      The roof didn't look much different than it had the last time he was out here. There were still handprints on the gutter, but they were old, fading things, lost under a new coating of dirt. The scuff marks on the roof were new enough, though—Bran stopped thinking about it and leapt up to sit astride the dormer, wriggling to get comfortable.

      It was a pleasant night. Quiet. The cool felt good on Bran's skin. He settled back against the slope of the roof and tucked his hands behind his head, looking up at the clouds and the occasional vagrant star that managed to peek through. God was supposed to be up there somewhere—Bran thought so, anyway, but he wasn't all that up on his theology, and in any case he wasn't certain about the whole idea. Whether or not God existed, though, Bran thought that he was done with mass. At least for now. He reserved the right to go back at any point, but he'd talked to Liam and they'd agreed that Bran would stop going for now. Unless God felt like intervening, of course.

      "Here I am, then," Bran told the sky, already wincing at how loud and raw his voice sounded in the quiet night. "Captive audience. Give us a sign, if you're so inclined." He went quiet. Anxious to do this right Bran scanned the sky from one end to the other, looking for anything that might be a sign. A shooting star, an odd movement in the clouds... he'd consider a sudden rise in the wind, although he wasn't certain that he'd give it much weight.

      Nothing happened. The night went on just as it had, cool and damp, a bit breezy. Bran debated whether that very unchangingness wasn't, in fact, some sort of a sign, but then he caught himself at it and felt stupid. "All right, then," Bran said, shutting his eyes. "To hell with you."

      Saturday dawned quietly and a bit late. Without someone's big elephant feet to wake him in the wee hours, Bran had managed a smooth and untroubled sleep until almost eight, waking with a calm feeling that carried him right along. Breakfast was an easy thing, Bran and Ethan sitting in a comfortable morning's silence before going their separate ways; Ethan went out to the guest cottage to patch the hole in the ceiling, and Bran went to the gym to pack in an hour or two of exercise before getting back to work.

      He spent the rest of the morning up in the loft of the main house. Yesterday's find in the guest cottage had galvanised him, convinced him to take another look at another loft. This one had a proper floor and everything, and little windows to let in the light; Bran got those open for the sake of the breeze and got to work. The trick, he thought, was to search the place systematically. He'd searched it before in a bit of a haphazard fashion, letting himself get sidetracked into bringing down whatever caught his eye—this time he'd go over the space a square foot at a time, making certain that no corner got overlooked. He was about half done and quite ready for a break by the time that Ethan called him down for lunch.

      Two more hours after lunch saw the loft finished once again. Bran had found neither hide nor hair of Jeremiah's jar, of course, but even that little setback couldn't distress him much. Yesterday's success had given him the unshakeable feeling that it was only a matter of time before he succeeded again. Bran closed up the loft and went to tear apart the laundry room, instead.

      He'd finished with that and moved on to inspecting the pool closet when he heard the garage door go up and Ethan's car drive away. Bran's stomach tightened. Only half an hour or so until this pleasant quiet was banished again—Bran decided to shake the kitchen down one last time, while there was no one else in the house to catch him at it and he could bang cabinet doors open and shut as loudly as he liked.

      Bran had finished with that and moved on to tossing the front room when he heard the car pull into the front turnaround and stop. The small oddity made Bran frown and straighten up. Why would Ethan go to the front? No answer was immediately forthcoming, so Bran stepped to the window and brushed the curtain aside. The blue sedan was parked out front, its boot open. People swirled around it in a smallish crowd, pulling out bags; Ethan was smiling and Claude was talking a mile a minute, a fancy carrier bag swinging from one arm as he flapped his hands around.

      Of Jeremiah Bran couldn't see much, only a vague shadowy shape lost somewhere behind Claude. Every few moments someone would pull yet another bag out of the boot—how much shopping had Claude done?—and Bran would catch another glimpse of Jeremiah, just an elbow or a shoulder or a brief flash of face. Bran had almost lost interest and turned away when Claude stepped back and slammed the boot, revealing that it wasn't Jeremiah with them, but a stranger. The hairs on the back of Bran's neck prickled.

      Of course it was Jeremiah after all, and a mortified Bran realised that almost immediately. Jeremiah laughed and held out his arms while Claude loaded him down with carrier bags, five or six of the things. Claude had certainly had his way: Jeremiah had on all new things and a pair of sunglasses that made him look like a right arsehole, and his freshly-cut hair lay swept back just so, to bare the narrow, foxy planes of his face. He didn't look a thing like the little prat that had left here yesterday—no, he wasn't little at all, was he? As the three of them moved around outside, Bran realised that Jeremiah was taller than Claude and only a bit shorter than Ethan. "Aaw, God," Bran muttered. When had that happened?

      Jeremiah said something that made both Claude and Ethan laugh and then brushed past Ethan, heading for the front door. He looked sharp, all sleek and clean and well-dressed—Bran had a pair of tan chinos like those, right enough, but he hadn't anything like that black jacket and he wanted those creepers worse than anything—and Bran rocked back onto one heel, aware of how sweaty and dusty he was, aware of the baggy t-shirt and old track-suit trousers that he was wearing. Jeremiah stepped up onto the porch and Bran broke for the front stairs, moving fast.

      His room would be the first place they'd look for him, so he wouldn't be there—Bran yanked open the door to his room, punched down the button lock, and pulled the door shut. It was crap but it would have to do. Jeremiah let himself in the front door and Bran fled down the back stairs, pulling up short just half a second before his hand touched the back door. He couldn't go out that way, he'd run into Claude, or into Ethan putting the car away...

      He ended up in the laundry room, breathing hard in the dimness. Bran felt like a right idiot but, all the same, they wouldn't look for him here; he'd just give everyone ten minutes to settle down and then slip out the back or something. Just... put off the moment in which they found him. That would do for him. Honestly it would.

      Dinner that night was an awful slog. Bran was still damp and pink from his shower and he'd done a bit more than just throw on the first shirt and trousers that came to hand, but it hadn't helped much. He spent most of the meal slumped in his chair, desperately aware that his overlong hair was tinted green from all the chlorine and that there were a fresh pair of spots growing huge and sore and pink beside his nose—and meanwhile Jeremiah was sitting there as cool as you like, so sharp Bran was like to cut himself on Jeremiah's edges. The feeling of sitting next to a stranger persisted. Every time that Bran caught a glimpse of Jeremiah, his skin all jumped.

      "—in tatty jeans and white trainers," Claude was saying, gesturing with his fork. "White trainers. I ask you!"

      Jeremiah shrugged. "They're comfortable."

      Claude's fork stabbed out to threaten Jeremiah, who blinked, mildly enough. "There are more ways to be comfortable than in rags and rubber," Claude said firmly. "You're not uncomfortable now, are you?"

      Jeremiah looked down at himself. "That's true," he said, brushing his fingertips over the front of his new black t-shirt. It was so new that it was still utterly, nightmarishly black, and it fitted him like a second skin.

      "And you look approximately a thousand times better," Claude concluded. "The trainers are all right for exercise, if you must, but no one—no one!—should ever wear white shoes in public. Or at least not where I can see them. Eugh." Claude shuddered.

      "I do hope he didn't cost you too much," Ethan said. "I didn't precisely intend—"

      Claude swept Ethan's protest aside with a brusque gesture. "Don't fret about it. It's my money, after all, and I was pleased to do the honours."

      "And before you get the wrong idea, I'd like to point out that he had to talk me into it," Jeremiah said, settling back into his chair. His voice was a bare, amused murmur. "I'm a terrible person, it's true, but all the same I didn't intend to take advantage of him like that."

      Bran went still, his eyes ticking right. Ethan only laughed. "I'll admit the idea did cross my mind, but in the end Claude is an adult and can be responsible for his own decisions."

      "Who said anything about Claude?" said Jeremiah. "I only meant to preserve your image of me." Now draped over the back of his chair, a long lean curve from his head to the floor, Jeremiah offered Ethan a crooked little smile, which Ethan returned in kind. Then Jeremiah laughed and shook his head. "And of course I say that as if you didn't remember me as a dirty little street rat with a foul mouth."

      Ethan's smile tightened into a wry slash. "I remember you as Jeremy," Ethan said firmly. "Your time as Jeremiah is best forgot by all of us."

      "Hear, hear," said Claude, raising his glass. "To Jeremy."

      Ethan picked up his own glass. "To Jeremy," he echoed, then looked expectantly at Jeremiah.

      "You realise you're going to give me a swelled head," Jeremiah—Jeremy—said, laughing and waving them off. "I don't know that I'm comfortable with the idea of toasting myself—"

      "... what is this shite?" Bran said. He stood up so fast that the backs of his legs sent his chair skittering back. "What... what..."

      Jeremiah-that-was burst through Jeremy's smooth facade like a snickering ghost. "Oh, come off it, Bran," Jeremy said, laughing. "I'm just having a little fun!"

      "It's fuckin' creepy, you want my opinion!" Bran floundered for a moment. "I'm going upstairs—Jeremy here can wash the dishes—" and he spun about and headed for the door, going as fast as he could without actually running.

      Although the conversation had died no one called after him, which hurt a bit; Bran had to turn to shoulder through the kitchen door, and he caught a glimpse of them all looking silently after him, Jeremy with that sardonic little smile on.

      Jeremy came down to the gym the next morning in an old singlet and a pair of much-washed fleece trousers—not to mention Claude's old nemeses the white trainers—but it was too late. The damage had been done. His hair still lay perfectly swept back, like it was all of a piece, and the expression on his face was snide and superior and not like Jeremiah's at all. Ethan stopped to speak to Jeremy and all Bran could see was how the two of them were almost of a height. Almost of a size, to boot; Jeremy was a bit slimmer, but that was all. His bare arms were sleek and muscled and (not fair, not fair at all) lightly tanned.

      Jeremy said something and offered Ethan that small and crooked smile. Ethan laughed, patted Jeremy's shoulder, and moved on. Jeremy's eyes ticked over and landed on Bran—heavily, almost—and the smile widened. "Bran!" Jeremy called, sounding as innocent as you please. He waved one hand at the mats, neatly laid out for sparring. "Want to have a go?"

      Bran snorted, one shoulder jerking up. "No," he said. "Got better things to do, haven't I?"

      "I don't know," Ethan said, his voice suddenly neutral again. "Have you?"

      "I have!" Bran's voice cracked, and he scrubbed the back of his hand across his lips. "I have," he repeated. "Only came down to put in a bit of time on the machines before I get back to work."

      Jeremy opened his mouth—Ethan's voice came out. "I must say I admire your dedication to the project," Jeremy said, one eyebrow ticking upwards. "So much time you spend poring over those old photographs and building plans—I can only hope that I'm half as dedicated when my turn comes."

      "All right, Jeremy," Ethan said patiently. "That's a bit much."

      Jeremy dissolved and Jeremiah burst into braying laughter. "Aaw, but I was having fun!"

      "Oh, I know you were."

      "And you sound like a right idiot," Bran said. They both turned to look at him—with identically raised eyebrows—and Bran floundered before flinging a hand in Ethan's direction. "It's all right for him, innit, he's damn' near sixty! You want to sound like you're a pensioner before you hit twenty, that's your lookout, but at least think about it, aye?"

      Ethan looked at the ceiling, still smiling faintly. Jeremy glanced at Ethan, then back at Bran, something sparking in the back of his eyes to match his smirk—"Oh, an' this is how I should talk, like?" Jeremy said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Aye, I c'n see how that might go over a bloody treat..."

      The sheer nastiness of it set Bran back on his heels, and it did not help that Ethan was so transparently pressing his lips together in an attempt not to laugh. Bran made a sound in the back of his throat, either a snarl or a gurgle, then jabbed two upraised fingers at Jeremy. "Aye, so funny, you are, whyn't you go and fuck yourself—"

      Jeremy's grin contracted into a crooked little twist of smile and Ethan quickly cleared his throat. "Actually, I think that's enough out of both of you," he said mildly.

      Acquiescing, Jeremy stepped past Ethan, heading for the barre across the mirrored wall. Bran was still snarling after him and so he saw it happen, when Jeremy met his own eyes in the mirror and his steps slowed. There was a pause, in which Jeremy studied himself, eyes narrowed, smile flickering off and back on again. He slid one foot to the side and shifted his weight, cocking his hip and dropping his shoulder, hooking a thumb in the waistband of his track-suit trousers; Jeremy studied his new pose, then heaved a breath and relaxed into it. If he'd gone any more boneless he'd have collapsed into a flesh puddle. The hand not posing at his waist swept up and feathered through his new sleek hair, and Jeremy tried on a smile, then a smaller one, then a bigger one—"Fancy yourself, then?" Bran said, trying to put as much of an edge on it as he could.

      "Yes," Jeremy said. "Do you know, I think I do?"

      The kitchen was a right mess when Bran banged in that afternoon. Ethan and Jeremy had fetched out the lock-picking kit and spread its contents all over the kitchen table; now Jeremy was slumped back in his chair picking through Ethan's massive collection of ancient, rusty combination locks. The stethoscope hung from his ears, proving that not even the new slick Jeremy could make that look good. They both looked up as Bran came in; Ethan raised a hand in idle greeting and Jeremy flicked out a sliver of a smile before going back to poking through the locks.

      "Back to that, then," said Bran, heading for the fridge.

      "Back to that," Ethan agreed.

      "Mm." Jeremy fetched out a silver lock with a red face and clapped the stethoscope's bell to its back, holding it in place with two fingers.

      Bran fetched himself a bottle of water from the fridge and wandered over to watch. Jeremy had his eyes slitted half-closed, working the dial entirely by sound and feel; Bran pulled out a chair and dropped into it just as Jeremy's fingers flicked back. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. Jeremy glanced at Bran, then looked back down; he picked up a pen and wrote '36' on the paper there.

      Bran was still working on his water when Jeremy popped the lock's hasp free. "Well done," Ethan said.

      "Thank you," Jeremy said, putting the lock down. "Of course, it's just a combo. Hardly a challenge." He picked up another lock, this one with an ordinary black face, and put it on the bell.

      Ethan shrugged. "That's true," he said. "Still, it never hurts to stay in practise."

      Bran picked up the red-faced lock and clicked its hasp back into place. Outside the rain was patting down, just hard enough to make itself known, and the clouds had made the light in the kitchen grey and pleasant. Bran didn't feel inclined to leave, especially not with Jeremy distracted by the locks and unable to make his usual snide comments. He leaned back in his chair and filched a peach from the fruit bowl.

      "Do you know, that reminds me," Ethan said out of the blue. "Bran found a jar while you were gone."

      Jeremy blinked and looked up. "Never mine," he said, a bit of Jeremiah breaking through, like the sun through clouds.

      "No, no, he found mine, actually." Ethan chuckled. "I can't think why I didn't tell you."

      Jeremy looked at Bran, eyes wide and somehow ridiculous under that weird sleek hair of his. "Brilliant," he said. "So where was it? I looked for ages..."

      "Guest cottage loft," said Bran. "Off in a far corner hidden in a brown paper bag—bloody impossible to spot."

      "Aaw, but I looked up there and everything." For a moment of time Jeremy almost pouted, his lower lip slipping damply out from under the upper, but then he glanced at Ethan and his new fancy 'Jeremy' mask fell back into place.

      Ethan waved that away with a little flick of his fingers. "I only moved it up there a month or so ago."

      "Oh. Well. Well done, then," said Jeremy, his smile going crooked. "Now I shall have to look even harder for yours."

      Bran snorted. "Aye, well, good luck with that, then."

      Jeremy looked at Bran for a long moment, trying on faces: the little crooked smile shrank to the tiniest quirk of a smirk before growing again, one eyebrow lifted and dropped, his eyes fell half-closed and stayed that way. Finally Jeremy breathed out a slight laugh and looked back at the lock in his hand. "Thank you," he said.

      They all went quiet after that, nothing more to say. Ethan toyed with his half-empty glass and watched Jeremy work. Bran ate his peach—it was a good one, Claude must have bought it—and washed it down with the last of his water. Jeremy popped the hasp on the black lock and put it aside, picking up another lock, almost identical save for the large rust-filled dent on one side. The wind picked up outside.

      Ethan glanced at Bran. His eyes drifted up, then, abruptly, away. "That's another thing," he said. "We really do need to talk about the pool—"

      "Oh, not yet, Ethan!" Jeremy said, looking up from the lock. "It's only just gone September, can't we leave it for a bit?"

      Ethan made one of those Ethan-noises, a throat-clearing that had a laugh buried in it. "Well, that was actually what I'd wanted to talk to you about," he said. "You've both been so good about keeping the pool up and properly taking care of the mats that I thought we could leave it until November." He held up a single finger. "However, I do insist on draining it, come November. I don't want the slightest trace of chlorine in the air at the party."

      "Aye, fine," said Bran.

      Jeremy started to form the word 'brilliant', his lips pursing around the 'b' before they paused and relaxed again. "Fair enough," he said instead.

      The rumbling of the garage door brought Bran up and out of his blueprint-induced stupor. He blinked madly, then spun about in his chair to look at the clock. Almost three: it would be Claude, then, coming home from the market just in time to put something together for Ethan's precious tea.

      Bran dithered. On the one hand, he'd fallen out of bed this morning disinclined to talk to anyone; on the other, he was hungry, and if he stared at these building plans any longer he was like to die of boredom. He'd got to the point where he was measuring the length between the back door and the safe and calculating how many steps it would be, how many seconds it would take him to traverse the intervening distance. Any more of this and he'd actually be down in the gym making practise runs, and how big an idiot would that make him look? Too big, in his opinion.

      Still, tea wouldn't go amiss. He'd just pop down and let Claude know that he'd be joining the others today.

      Claude was dashing about putting things away when Bran stuck his head in. A plastic carrier bag sat on the counter leaking items out of its top; Claude would dart over to it, snatch up another couple of things, and zip smartly off again. Bran cleared his throat and Claude executed an odd sort of pirouette in mid-dash, spinning about to see who it was without interrupting his forward momentum—"Bran!" Claude said, thrusting two boxes into Ethan's tea cabinet. "Excellent timing, hold up just a tick, I've got something for you in here."

      "Aye?" Bran said, taken aback.

      Claude rooted about in the bag for a moment and came up with a small blue plastic bottle. He thrust it into Bran's hands with a flourish that seemed to call for some sort of fanfare, then went back to dashing about and putting things away. Bemused, Bran studied the label. Anti-chlorine shampoo—Bran touched his hair, vaguely embarrassed. "Is it that bad, then?"

      "No, no," Claude said, waving that away without even looking in Bran's direction. "It's noticeable, certainly, but not awful. Still, it can't be good for your hair, chlorine can't—isn't it dry?"

      "A bit?" Bran knotted his fingers into a bit of overlong hair, just behind his ear. It crackled like paper and he let it go again, a pair of broken strands tangling about his knuckles.

      "In any case, that stuff claims to help, and I thought, might as well give it a try!"

      "Aye." Bran looked down at the bottle, then slid it into his pocket. "Aye, well, ta for the thought."

      Claude beamed at Bran over his shoulder, slapping the cabinet shut. "You're welcome! No trouble at all. Will you be down for tea, then?"

      "Uh. Aye." The bottle was heavy in his pocket; Bran touched the curve of it through the denim of his jeans. "Aye, I will. Just... going to go and have a shower first, I think."

      "That's the spirit!" Claude called after him as Bran headed for the door.

      Bran stepped out of the shower and swiped a clean streak in the mirror and flinched, startled. He hadn't thought that the green was as bad as all that, but now that it was fading... he'd been a bloody bridge troll and no mistake. He tugged a damp strand of hair down over his eyes, then let it spring back into its natural curl. Light brown again, at least, but so long! "Jesus," he said, then flushed, hearing Liam's booming Irish Jaysis! underneath; the flush faded as he frowned at himself.

      "Jesus," Bran said again, trying it. It needed more spit and emphasis—"Jaysis!" Bran snapped, putting as much Liam into it as he could dredge up. The word rang off the walls and echoed against his ears. Bran winced.

      The pen spun in Bran's fingers, dancing over his knuckles. He frowned at the calendar. The clocks would shift back on the twenty-third of October, he knew—well, Ethan had told him—and even if he wasn't going to go in until nearly nine o'clock, the extra hours of darkness beforehand would be a comfort, in an odd sort of way. Not too soon after the time change, though, he told himself. Give people a bit to get used to the new clock. A week, maybe... God, could he stand that much waiting?

      Bran shook his head sharply and, before he could over-think things any more, scratched a shaky black 'X' over the 26th. Wednesday, that was good, a day when working people would be all tucked up inside by nine in the evening, with their televisions on. There was a shaky feeling in his gut as he put the pen down. It felt important, what he'd just done. Now he had a deadline, a definite date. A plan. It had never felt so real.

      Still, it was more than a month and a half away. He could go in earlier, he supposed, but it was best to let the dark and the rain really settle in—the colder and nastier it was, the better it would be. He was like to die of boredom before the 26th rolled around, but still: a plan!

      Someone knocked on the door and then opened it right away: Ethan. Bran didn't even bother to turn about. Ethan appeared at his shoulder like a curious apparition. "The twenty-sixth, then," Ethan said, his voice all neutral.

      "Aye," said Bran. "D'you want me to run it down for you, why I picked it?"

      Ethan hesitated, then shook his head. "That's all right. If you have reasons—and it sounds like you do—then I am willing to accept that they're sound reasons. You've done a good job so far."

      "A good job!" Bran repeated, flabbergasted. "It's been nothing but mistakes and waiting and fumbling about! Even when I'm doing it right I'm doing it all wrong—"

      "Nonsense." Ethan's voice was firm. "I've told you before what a monstrous cock-up my first job was. In comparison you're doing quite well."

      "Aye, but!" Bran couldn't think of anything else to say to that, so he said it again. "Aye, but. But."

      "Think of it as a learning experience," Ethan said, with just a twitch of smile. "So many things I can't just teach you—you have to learn them for yourself, the hard way. You're doing that."

      Bran huffed out a breath and lurched away, making a tight round of his office with his hands in fists at his side. "You couldn't have said that once? Not once? It's been all 'you didn't think of this' and 'what will you do about that', all the time since I started, just poking holes in my plans, like. Here I've been thinking it's all been a wash—maybe I could have used a word, Ethan!"

      "... I thought I had?" Ethan said, his brow furrowing. "Honestly, I'd meant to. Er. Will you accept it now?"

      "A bit late!" Bran cried, throwing up his hands. "... aye, of course I will!"

      Ethan cleared his throat and put on a smile that, for Ethan, was almost silly. "You really have been doing a bang-up job, Bran. Yes, you've made mistakes, and overlooked a few things, but every time I've pointed out a problem, you've fixed it. You've made fewer mistakes than I was expecting, to be honest."

      "Well." Bran looked down at his feet.

      "You've also spent a lot of time preparing and practising, which is key. I think you'll do quite well, when the time comes. And I mean that, in case you were wondering."

      Bran found himself with his hands jammed in his pockets, still staring at his feet. "Aye, all right, that'll do."

      "Oh, good," Ethan said briskly, dusting his own hands together as if to say that's sorted. "At any rate, that was hardly what I was here for. Here." He flicked a small bit of pink stuff at Bran, who caught it automatically.

      Some sort of card: Bran spun it about in his fingers and found himself looking at his own face, plastered onto a driving licence in the name of Paul S. Greaves. He looked up at Ethan, his mouth half-open. "That for me, then," he said, a bit strangled.

      "Teddy dropped them by this morning," Ethan said. "It's about time the two of you learned how to drive, if only so I don't have to keep ferrying you about. And to drive properly, by the way. If I had a nickel for every time some poor fool got away scot-free only to get pulled over for speeding away—"

      Bran clapped his hands over his ears, his new driving licence jutting out from between his first two fingers like some sort of awkward head-wing. "I know, I know—"

      "—or got bunged into jail because they got a ticket at the wrong bloody time—"

      "Ethan, can we not?!"

      "—or got nicked during a routine stop..." Ethan trailed off there, his little smile opaque. "Honestly, Bran, you act as if you've heard this before."

      "Only a thousand times!" Bran let his hands drop. "So when do we start?" He waved the licence. "With the driving?"

      "Whenever you like."

      Bran almost said now?. "Tomorrow? In the afternoon, like?"

      "We'll take the sedan," Ethan agreed.

      They started in the drive, then, eventually, moved out to a parcel of land out in the countryside where (Ethan said) anyone at all could drive without a licence or anything, because it was all private property (Ethan's, apparently). "Just don't hit the cathedral," Ethan said with a small, tight smile. As the ruins were at least half a mile away, Bran didn't foresee it being a problem.

      Driving was interesting. Almost too interesting. When he'd spared it a thought Bran had thought a car would be like a bicycle, only easier. He was a bit shocked to discover that he'd been wrong about that. The car at rest was a rock; the car, moving, was a landslide. Only a landslide that was all too eager to go anywhere you told it. Which was all right, except that at first, Bran didn't know how to speak the car's language.

      Still, by the end of the week Bran was steady enough behind the wheel that Ethan let him take the car onto proper roads, and, eventually, let Bran take them home. For some reason, taking the car up the winding drive was the best part. Bran had gone up the drive so many times before, but never in a car under his own power. It was different, better, even if he couldn't explain why. Even if getting the car into the garage proved a trial—Bran had to back up and start over several times, and even then came within a hair of scraping the car against the doorframe—the novelty of driving the car home remained. Bran hopped out of the car with a good head of steam on him, tossing Ethan the keys. "Cheers!"

      "Yes, well done," Ethan said, extricating himself from the passenger seat. He looked a bit shaky—but then he'd looked shaky all week. It was his car, after all. "A bit more practise and I don't see why you couldn't take the car out whenever you liked."

      "Don't think I won't take you up on that," said Bran, leading the way into the house in a cloud of amorphous visions of hopping in the car and going down into town whenever he liked. Still a bit peckish after dinner? To the chip shop! Hair even a bit too long? To the barber's! Even just driving around for the sake of doing so—Bran banged on into the kitchen and stopped quite dead, so quickly that Ethan came within a hair of treading on the backs of his shoes.

      Jeremy was sprawled out at the table, all boneless and lazy. His smile was so nasty that it hurt to look at. He had something small and green and round in both hands, turning it about like (Bran's mind could not help but jump there) the steering wheel to an odd and tiny car; the rest of Bran's jar sat on the kitchen table, fat and mint-coloured and not in Ethan's safe any more. "Hallo," Jeremy said, touching the lid to his brow in a salute.

      Bran froze, his ears roaring. Some vestigial part of his brain prodded him and screamed he hasn't actually given it to Ethan yet, grab it and run, it's not against the rules but Bran was beyond hearing it, let alone acting on it. He stood in one place and he panicked and he raged, while Ethan stepped past him and headed for the table. "Well," said Ethan, holding out his hand. "I see you've been busy."

      Still wearing that nasty smile Jeremy leaned forward and put the lid into Ethan's hand. Bran's stasis popped like a soap-bubble now that the jar had been 'given' to Ethan properly and there was nothing else he could do about it but lament the losing; unwillingly he dragged himself up behind Ethan, his trainers making small squeaking noises on the floor. Jeremy sat back again. "I had plenty of time, what with your taking Bran out every afternoon," he said.

      "I expect you did," Ethan said. He pulled the jar towards himself (with a soft rattling of marbles) and put the lid back on with a soft click.

      The sound, tiny as it was, banished Jeremy instantly. Jeremiah flooded back into Jeremy's face and the weird hybrid bounced upright, eyes wide, mouth gaping into a jumpy grin: "Never thought I'd get into that safe, it's monstrous, where did you get it? But I tried it like the regular combos, with the stethoscope and all, and I thought I could hear something, so I kept on, it only took forever..."

      "It is very large," Ethan said, holding up a hand for silence. He sounded a bit pained, with which Bran could sympathise. "Unfortunately it's also very old. Not at all state of the art any more, I'm afraid. I use it precisely because it is so large and so heavy that it could not be opened quickly nor got out of here by anything less than demolition. So, yes, it's essentially just a larger, stronger version of a combination lock, and vulnerable in exactly the same manner."

      Jeremy nodded. "Lot of interesting things you keep in there, too. I had a bit of a dekko at it all, but I only took out the jar, I promise."

      Ethan's eyebrow had a little spasm. "Well, that's a relief."

      Bran wanted to say something, but all he could do was make a small bubbling sound in the back of his throat. Eventually the sound dried enough to become a growl, and he spun on his heel and threw up his hands at the far wall. "Fuck."

      "Language, Bran," Ethan said absently, then shook his head as his eyes came forward into the present. "No, never mind me, you're an adult now and can say whatever you like... at any rate, that seems to conclude the game. Jeremy, would you mind showing us where you hid your jar?"

      Jeremy burst up and out of his chair like there was a spring under his arse. He still looked like Jeremy, with the slick hair and posh clothes and all, but the energy and excitement was all Jeremiah. He ran for the kitchen door at an excited, bouncing lope, Ethan in his wake. Bran dragged unwillingly after, numb and disgusted. He almost didn't want to know. He'd looked so hard, and for so long—it almost didn't matter where the jar had been hidden, because wherever it was, it was going to make him feel a right idiot.

      "Can't bloody well believe I got away with it," Jeremy said, bounding up the back stairs to the second floor. He paused at the top, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waiting for Ethan (who never ran anywhere if he could help it) and for Bran (who was dragging arse). Once Bran joined them Jeremy ran off again, down the hall, past the door to his rooms, and Bran had just enough time to think in the workroom, then before Jeremy hooked a sharp left and banged into Bran's room.

      Bran's stomach fell straight down into his shoes. Ethan hesitated, glancing back at Bran, then followed Jeremy; after a long and static-filled moment Bran went in after. Why—how—he'd never—he caught up with them at the door to his bathroom. Jeremy was on his knees on the bathmat, digging through the almighty mess under the sink and talking a mile a minute: "I thought he'd never look here because it was his own turf, like, he'd think it was safe—put it in here on the first day and tried not to think about it, that's bloody hard—" Jeremy paused long enough to move an armload of ancient first-aid things out onto the floor, then stuck his entire upper body into the cabinet. His voice sounded hollow when he went on. "I thought for sure he'd notice anyway! I had to come in and make sure it was still here a few times, honestly, I thought I was going to die of nerves—" Jeremy's shoulders rippled and he edged backwards on both knees, popping out of the cabinet under Bran's sink with his hair in an almighty disarray and the God-be-damned white jar, half-arsedly wrapped in a plastic bag that had once held cotton wool.

      Bran opened his mouth, intending to say something funny, like well, that's that, I'll just go and throw myself off the roof now, shall I. Something like that. Something Ethan-ish. What came out was an angry, disbelieving croak. Ethan looked at him, and Bran saw pity there before Ethan looked back at Jeremy. "That was well thought," he said.

      Jeremy twitched off the plastic and tossed it at Bran's bathroom waste bin, missing. The bag fluttered to the floor. "I suppose he never thought that I'd think of something like that," Jeremy said, suddenly all Jeremy again despite sitting on the bathroom floor. Plucking off the jar's lid Jeremy picked out one of the blue marbles, rolled it in his fingers, then let it drop back into the jar. "At any rate I'm fairly certain that the jar is undamaged—"

      Bran had snatched the open jar from the bathmat before he knew he was going to move. His voice finally broke from him in an awful, embarrassing harpy's shriek—"God damn it!" he screamed, rifling the jar against the wall with all his strength. It exploded in a rain of sharp ceramic shards and marbles but Bran was already gone.