I didn’t know. I didn’t want to hear about strangers.

“Said he’d fix us.” Chris coughed—a mockery of a laugh. “Guess you got in first, Tink. Fixed us good.” I could hardly protest. Between us, we’d killed him. Nearly. “Well,” Chris finished, his voice bubbling in his throat, “winner takes all.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “If you two die, what do I have left?” I had my mother, the empty perfection of the yard in Runagate, set apart forever from the crawling loveliness, the burnt-velvet bush of Inglewell. Gary and Trish were shocked and silent—perhaps I had lost them, too.

“No monsters is … hardly a loss,” Chris managed.

“You’re no more monsters than I am.” I needed to keep him talking. “Tell me what else you are.” No answer. “Chris!”

“Boys,” he said. His mouth was an awful colour. “Brothers. Sons.”

“And before that?”

His eyes were dull. “You’re hers, Tink. That’s why she keeps you. We were his—she could never own us that way. But Dad still liked you better than us. We were monsters.”

“Terrors, yes,” I conceded. “But so was Gary. You were boys like any others, after all. Weren’t you?”

“I was too heavy,” he said. “We never broke bones, falling. Remember? I used to dream of flying.”

Gary hovered over Trish, who crouched on the concrete, her eyes closed, swearing in a long whisper. I only caught “—I wanted to be a teacher, not a murderer.” The living birds shrieked and rasped.

Chris clawed at his throat, his chest. “We tried to get out,” he said. “His mistake was making us too heavy.” The sketches of wings in the shed, the cuts along Mitch’s arms … had they tried to graft feathers to him? “But they won,” Chris said. “Dad made us into boys, and you and Nerida turned us into monsters, and that’s how they’ll bury us. Bone’s a heavy cage, Tink. Even Old Dave couldn’t—shouldn’t have … trusted him.”

“You were meant to be birds,” I said, ruffling his feathered hair. He would never have let me, once. Feel something, I thought, but all I could think of was the cold pressure of filthy concrete under my knees; the reek of birds and blood; the terrible ruin of two boys who had tried to take themselves apart into whatever they believed our father had made them from. The flickering light made Chris’s expression shift and twist.

“You were an accident,” he said. “You shouldn’t have existed, and they both loved you best.” His voice bitter and strained, he said abruptly, “Why should you be treated better than us? I’m glad she got to you, made you into what someone else wanted you to be.” But he let me hold his hand. “You’re more her than you,” he whispered.