I turned to see him frozen in the doorway. “Oh God,” he said. “Who died?”
My eyebrows slammed down. “What?”
He nodded to the stove. “The only time you cook breakfast for me is when there’s bad news.”
I dismissed his concern with a wave of the spatula. “Not this time.” I jerked a thumb toward the fridge. “Get the OJ, will ya?”
He shot me a dubious look before he shuffled to grab the juice. Once he’d set it on the table, he said, “So … you going to tell me why you’re suddenly pretending to be June Cleaver?”
I sighed and turned to face him. “All right. I guess I felt bad that we fought on your birthday yesterday.” I picked up a strip of bacon I’d already cooked and offered it to him.
“So … what?” He took the bacon. “You’re bribing me with pork?”
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
He raised it to his mouth and chomped a large bite. “Works for me.”
I smiled at him, realizing suddenly that I was looking up at him. When had that happened? He used to be the kid who clung to my knee and now he was almost a full head taller.
I turned away quickly so he wouldn’t see the tears that suddenly threatened to give me away. I hadn’t been lying when I told him breakfast was a makeup birthday peace offering. But it hadn’t been the whole truth, either.
“So what do you have going on at school today?” I asked.
The sounds of the silverware drawer opening and shutting told me he was setting the table without being asked for once. I’d bribed him with bacon, and he was responding by being helpful. I could get used to this quid pro quo.
“Not much,” he said. “There’s some assembly this morning.”
“About what?”
“Oh, you know, one of those Just Say No to Magic programs.”
I stopped and looked at him. “Really?”
He nodded. “Guess after what happened to that one kid in the lower school, they’re cramming the antipotion campaign down our throats.” From the look in his eye, he expected me to launch into another lecture about the dangers of magic. My conscience prickled because it had been a couple of days since I’d talked to Pen about anything other than my own problems. No doubt she was hurting over that kid’s death, but here I was calling her for favors to save my brother from suspension. Yet another personal thread that ended up neglected because of the job.
“All right,” I said instead. “Sit down and eat before this gets cold.”
He did as instructed, but before he dug in he stopped and looked at me. Really looked, as if he was seeing me as a real human instead of the harpy who made him do his homework every night. “Look, I—I know I give you a tough time a lot.”
I opened my mouth to dismiss it, but he held up a hand.
“Let me finish.”
I sat back and nodded.
“But I just want you to know that I get how hard you try. You know, to raise me and stuff. I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk lately, it’s just”—he sighed and shrugged—“I don’t know. It’s just becoming more and more clear that I’m different from the other kids.”
I tilted my head. “How?”
He raised his left hand, which held his fork. “This for one thing. I’m one of the few Lefties at school. I might as well be wearing a sign that says ‘Freak’ on my back, you know? But I’m a freak to the Adepts, too, because I’m not allowed to touch magic.”
“Look, I know it’s not easy, but kids your age? They jump on anything that’s different. In my school, where most everyone was Adept, they picked on the only kid with red hair. It has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with kids needing to persecute others to make their own insecurities less painful.”
His lips quirked. “You’ve been hanging out with Pen too long.”
“It’s true.” I laughed. “But she’s pretty smart.”
He nodded. “Yeah, she basically said the same thing when I told her.”
My chest tightened. How many other issues had Danny gone to her with first because I was working? Or because he thought I wouldn’t listen? I reached across the table and grabbed his left with my left. “We’re Adepts, sure, but that’s just genetics. Same as your blue eyes or the color of your hair. Your choices make you who you really are.” I paused to let that sink in. “When I was young, I didn’t have a choice. Cooking potions was expected of me and I went along because I didn’t know any better.”
“But don’t you see? You’ve dictated a magic-free path for me, so I don’t have a choice, either.”
His words were like a bucket of ice water waking me from a deep sleep. I’d been telling myself I was doing right by him to forbid magic. Instead, I’d managed only to drive a wedge between us. Danny and I were on the other side of the same fucked-up coin Uncle Abe had used to control me. And for the first time, I felt deep in my gut that if I continued to forbid Danny I would lose him—just as Abe had lost me.
“Okay. I get it.” I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat. “Maybe later we can go through the boxes in the attic together. You at least deserve to know more about where you come from. If you still want to learn about magic once you learn what it did to our family”—I took a deep breath, as if I were about to jump off a cliff into deep, dangerous waters—“I won’t stop you.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
I nodded because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
He jumped out of his chair and came to hug me. In his excitement he didn’t notice the stiffness of my limbs. Worry made my chest ache. I closed my eyes and tried to absorb some of his happiness into my skin.
He pulled away too quickly. Before I felt any better. Before I was ready to let go and head out to face Bane. Before I could pretend I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
“There’s something else,” I said, removing the small box from the pocket of my robe. I set it on the table. The simple brown paper wrapping looked so unexciting on the white tablecloth. I suddenly was afraid he’d find the contents unexciting, too, but it was too late to take it back and give him some electronic gizmo instead.
He paused and stared at it. “What’s that?”
“Happy birthday, Danny.” I nodded at the box. “Open it.”
He smiled self-consciously, an expression that took years off his face. His fingers fumbled with the paper, but soon enough he pulled the lid off the box and tossed the cotton square aside. Then he stared into the box with a face I couldn’t read for a good, long time. “Was it hers?” he whispered finally.