A Book of Spirits and Thieves

“What are you doing?” Farrell demanded.

“Enough of this laziness,” Edward Grayson snapped. “It’s gone on for far too long. Get up.”

“I’ll get up when I’m finished sleeping. Not there yet.”

“You need to start thinking about your future, Farrell.”

He fell back down against his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Today?”

“It’s been a difficult year. It’s been hard for all of us. But it’s time to be a man, time to start taking responsibility.”

He couldn’t deal with this right now. “How about I take responsibility in a few hours?”

His father moved toward the bed and, in one quick motion, yanked the covers off his son. “Get up. Or else.”

The words Or else what? rose in his throat, but he swallowed them back down before he could speak. What? Were they going to disown him? Cast him out onto the streets without a cent until he turned twenty-one and got his inheritance?

Not a chance.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“School or work. Pick one, but you need to make a decision.”

“And I have to decide at this very moment?”

“No. But at this very moment you can make yourself useful by talking to your brother. He’s in his room, claiming he’s sick. He doesn’t want to go to school. It’s unacceptable.”

“If he is sick . . .”

“He isn’t.” His father’s lips thinned. Beneath the storm in his eyes, Farrell could see the worry there. “He isn’t taking the events of Saturday night as well as I’d hoped he would.”

Farrell took this in and then swore under his breath. “So what does that mean?”

“It means he needs his brother.”

Adam had kept to himself on Sunday, and Farrell had been out for most of the day and night anyway, partying with a friend who’d come home from college for the weekend. Most of Farrell’s friends had left town, scattered to schools all over the continent, leaving him mostly on his own to meet new friends each night he went out, whom he usually forgot by morning.

Farrell didn’t bother getting dressed. Wearing only his loose black pajama bottoms tied with a drawstring at his waist, he left his room barefoot and headed for Adam’s. Ignoring his throbbing head, he knocked on his brother’s door.

“Who is it?” Adam asked sullenly.

“Me. Can I come in?”

“No.”

Farrell pushed open the door. “Thanks so much. Good morning, sunshine.”

“I said no.”

He shrugged. “I’m a rebel.”

Adam sat in a chair by the window on the other side of the expansive room, which was decorated in the style of the rest of the Grayson estate—expensive and to their mother’s tastes, via her favorite interior designer. Only a couple of rock band posters taped to the gold-and-bronze designer wallpaper claimed the space as Adam’s.

“So what’s the problem?” Farrell asked, taking a seat on the edge of Adam’s messy king-sized bed.

“I don’t know.” Adam raked his hand through his light brown hair. Farrell’s was several shades darker and always a mess—luckily, it was a look that was currently in fashion.

In last year’s photo spread in the FocusToronto magazine, Adam had been referred to as the “angel” of the Grayson family because of his innocent, boyish looks and polite demeanor. Connor had been the “gifted artist.” Farrell hadn’t been referred to as anything except “the middle child” of one of the richest men in Toronto. And this was the publication that had removed his birthmark without question or consultation.

Asses.

“Come on,” Farrell prodded when Adam fell silent. “Talk to me. Something’s up.”

“I can’t stop thinking about when Markus stabbed that guy. I don’t want Dad to know I’m still messed up because of it, but . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”

“‘That guy’ was a murderer,” Farrell reasoned. “A drug lord. Who knows how many people he would have killed if he hadn’t been eliminated?”

“Okay. Maybe that’s true, but it’s just . . .” Adam hissed out a breath. “Why not call the cops? Give him a real trial? Life in prison?”

“That’s not how the society works,” Farrell explained calmly. “Everything has a reason, kid. Trust me on that. How’s that arm of yours feeling today?”

“Sore.” Adam ran his fingers over his forearm, frowning hard. “What was that symbol he carved into me? What does it mean? What does it do?”

Farrell spread his hands. “It’s protection—it keeps us from getting sick. No cancer, no diabetes, no nasty debilitating diseases. It’s his gift to us, exactly what he told you.”

“Who is he? I mean, what is he, that he can do something like that?”

They weren’t supposed to discuss any of this outside society meetings, but Farrell felt that he had to reassure Adam that everything was okay. “You don’t have to worry about any of this, Adam. Markus is what he is.”

“Which is? What? A wizard?”

“I don’t think he went to Hogwarts, no.”