“Excuse me, Prada is not worthless. It’s priceless. It’s—”

“Enough, Charlie!”

The cornstalks across the road swayed as if leaning away from Reg’s outburst, and I swayed with them. It wasn’t like my brother to lose his temper. That was usually my role, and he was upstaging me.

I stepped over a suitcase and joined him in the middle of the mess.

“You okay?”

It was a ridiculous question. Of course he wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. But it was Reg’s job to be the levelheaded one, and I needed him to snap out of it right about now.

“I am . . . unsettled.” Reg collected himself. “But look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

“They didn’t stake us. Perhaps that’s a sign this is only temporary, and the Elders are attempting to teach us some sort of lesson.”

The idea that the Elders would go through this much trouble just to play games with us was as ridiculous as asking Reg if he was okay.

“Like an elaborate trick? Can you just imagine?” I smiled, even though I didn’t mean to, and my voice took on a high pitch alarmingly close to a giggle. “It’s almost kind of funny, right? Isn’t it kind of funny?”

Reg took my hands as they started to tremble.

The tremble rippled up my arms and into my chest until my whole body was shaking and my legs were Jell-O. I collapsed onto a mound of duffel bags and hatboxes. A strangled sound like a hiccup escaped my throat. Reg knelt in front of me and wiped something wet from my cheek. We both stared at the moisture on his hand in wonder for a moment, then my hands flew to my face.

Tears.

New again.

I felt another one slip from the corner of my eye, and all at once it was a flood. I collapsed into Reg’s arms, letting the tears come. I don’t know how long we sat like that in the dark, with my eyeballs leaking all over Reg’s shirt, but I was vaguely aware of him carrying me into the cottage, huffing and puffing the whole way, and settling me into something soft and warm. My last thought, as sleep finally stole the tears away, was that Reg was dead wrong.

This sentence was far from temporary.

We were permanently, infuriatingly, hopelessly human.

Three

Sunlight & the Assassin

I woke up to something warm but intangible coating my skin and a glow behind my eyelids. My eyes fluttered open, seeking the source of the heat and light. I found it immediately, but it took me a moment to process the sunlight pouring through wide-open curtains.

Wait. Sunlight?

My brain snapped awake as my eyes snapped shut.

Sunlight!