Vigil by Z. A. Maxfield

cheeks had nothing to do with the
    sweat beading on his forehead. He didn’t bother to hide the sob
    that escaped him. Bran sat placidly while Adin wept, one finger
    stirring Adin’s bathwater, the other hand holding his chains up
    so they wouldn’t get wet. When he had no more tears left Bran
    handed him a small, thick towel and he dried his face with it.
    “Thanks.” Adin handed it back and began the effort of
    soaping himself up and rinsing off, determined that if it didn’t
    Vigil 43
    seem unusual for the boy to be in the bathroom with him, he
    wasn’t going to go out of his way to make it weirder than it had
    to be. Bran remained silent, and when Adin looked up Bran’s eyes
    shimmered with unshed tears. “What?”
    “Beautiful family,” Bran said in perfect Urdu. “Much love.”
    Adin’s breath caught. “What are you?”
    Bran smiled faintly. “Yes. Exactly .”

ChAPteR fiVe
    Adin fell into bed and slept. If it was uneventful for most
    of the night, dream-wise, it more than made up for that in the
    seconds before he woke, when hundreds of images, mostly faces,
    flickered like paparazzi flashbulbs going off in his head, pop , pop ,
    pop .
    It was as if everyone he’d ever known, every person he’d
    ever seen, was displayed before him in a lightening round. A
    PowerPoint presentation slideshow of old love and painful loss,
    of things that were frightening, and people best forgotten.
    “Stop,” Adin ground out when he realized he had no control
    over what he was seeing. Adin heard a noise near him that might
    have been a sigh, and might have been a smothered laugh.
    Adin threw the sheet off his body and swung his feet over the
    side of his bed. Silk sleep pants clung damply to his sweaty legs.
    He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands.
    The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Bran, who
    lay curled on the floor around a pillow like a cat.
    Adin watched the boy for a minute and realized he was
    pretending to be asleep.
    “I can see you’re awake.” Adin drew his feet back up into
    the bed, as if the boy was going to chew off a toe or something.
    “There’s no point in pretending. And stop rummaging around in
    my head, Bran.”
    “But I haven’t gotten to the best bits yet.” With a heavy metal
    scraping noise Bran unfurled himself and sat up. “To look at you
    a bloke would think that you’ve never had a moment of anxiety
    in your life, that it was all pricey and painless—”
    “I don’t appreciate you fooling around with my memories.”
    Adin leaned back against the well-crafted mahogany headboard.
    When Bran would have joined him on the bed Adin pushed him
    back. “Get a chair.”
    46 Z.A. Maxfield
    Bran tugged one of the leather chairs to the spot where he’d
    been sleeping next to the bed and sat in it. He slid back and
    lifted his legs to rest his feet next to Adin’s. His eyebrow rose in
    defiance, daring Adin to complain.
    “Is that why Harwiche wants you? Because you can get inside
    of people’s minds?” Adin asked.
    “I don’t know why Harwiche wants me.”
    Adin frowned in disbelief.
    “ No . It’s true! I don’t know why he wants me. I don’t know
    what anyone would want with me.”
    “That’s probably true,” Boaz spoke from the doorway. He
    entered the room holding a tray of coffee, carefully setting it
    down between Adin and Bran and then climbing onto the bed.
    “He doesn’t know.”
    “Make yourself at home.” Adin grumbled.
    “I am home.” Boaz smiled. He handed Adin a cup of coffee
    then offered one to Bran, who shook his head. “Bran was probably
    kidnapped for something random. Perhaps someone saw you do
    something unusual and they put two and two together, yes?”
    “For the love of heaven, Boaz. Just tell me what he is.”
    “That’s part of the problem. If I’m not mistaken, Bran isn’t
    any one thing.” To Bran directly, he said, “Am I right?”
    Bran stayed silent.
    “Look.” Boaz turned back to Adin.