We should have run.

“We should have run.” She repeats her other self’s words, bolstering herself with false courage. Her insides are still quavering from the Redcap, but that doesn’t reduce the sting she feels when she sees her reflection in Caolan’s eyes. Croi takes a deep breath. There’s nothing wrong with the way she looks. Nothing at all. Not everyone in the world, any world, can look beautiful.

“My brothers!” Caolan ignores her for the kin drooling behind her. He shakes one, and when he gets no response, he turns to her with imploring eyes.

“Can you wake him?”

“Maybe.”

“How did you wake me?”

Croi refuses to answer his question. As if she’s going to confess to bleeding all over him. “Look, if I start waking up the kin, that thing, the Redcap, will come back. He came when I woke you up, didn’t he? Do you want to attract his attention again?” Actually, Croi’s not certain why the Redcap came; it could have been because of the noisy night crow, but Caolan doesn’t need to know that. There is more than one way to lie.

The catkin stares at her for a long second. Then he shoves her aside and clambers over the unconscious kin to a small form snuggled up against another.

“This is Aindriu.” He speaks softly, patting the little catkin’s hair. The little one has the same coloring and stripes as Caolan, though his skin and stripes are a darker brown.

“Were all your brothers taken?” Croi asks. She looks around the cage and wonders who else Caolan is related to.

“Four of them. They were out playing in the hills even though I had told them not to. I’d told them countless times to stay close to home. But they didn’t listen. They don’t like it when I tell them what to do,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I wasn’t around. I went fishing. My da’s dead, so it’s my duty as the eldest to feed my family and keep them safe.”

“Are they all here, then? Your missing brothers?” Croi asks.

Who is feeding his brothers now that he’s here? Who is keeping them safe?

Croi doesn’t repeat her other self’s questions out loud. She doesn’t think Caolan would want to answer them.

Caolan searches through the cage while she clings to a corner as though her life depends on it. It probably does because Caolan is none too gentle with the kin he’s not related to. He finds an older catkin he calls Diarmaid and another one named Orrin.

“I can’t find Bearach.” He turns to her, desperation adding frenzy to his movements. The cage lurches and Croi stiffens, waiting for the Redcap to return. Thankfully, he doesn’t.

“Maybe he’s in one of the other cages,” she suggests. Caolan looks uncertain. He tries to look into the cage behind theirs, but he can’t see through the mass of kin to find his brother.

“Maybe, but what if he’s not? Why would they put only him in a separate cage? What if they did something to him? He’s the youngest! My mother will never forgive me if something has happened to him.” He comes and kneels in front of Croi, catching hold of her hands in his much larger ones. Croi goes still, deciding that she doesn’t like to be touched.