Vigil by Z. A. Maxfield Page A

“You have to trust me
    when I say if I knew more, I would tell you.”
    “Like you’ve always done in the past,” Adin replied sourly.
    Boaz frowned. “Here’s the thing. Every culture in the world
    has a variation on the theme of the changeling, am I right?”
    “He’s a changeling ?” Adin chuckled. “A fairy baby switched at
    birth with a human?”
    “Yes, and no. You’re so disrespectful, and it ill becomes a
    man of intelligence. Put aside Disney for right now. A changeling
    child is believed—in most cultures—to be a magical being that is
    Vigil 47
    switched with a human child at birth. Whether it’s hell tithes, or
    mischief, or a way to prevent magical inbreeding. The point is, no
    one really catches on in most cases.”
    “Right.” Adin sipped his coffee. “And no one has considered
    the possibility that the entire genesis of these tales is a way for
    superstitious or hyper-religious people to explain away children
    with illnesses or birth defects or autism.”
    Boaz’s mouth dropped open. “You have studied this.”
    “I’m a professor of literature, and I vet old documents
    and manuscripts all the time. Fairy tales are some of the most
    profound and interesting things people have ever written. Of
    course I have.”
    “All right, all right.” Boaz winked at Bran. “I told you there
    would be puffery involved.”
    Adin sputtered, “I beg your—”
    “The point is, even Bran can’t tell you what he is, because he
    doesn’t know.”
    Adin digested this and frowned at Bran. “How the hell can
    you not know what you are?”
    Bran sucked in a breath and held absolutely still for a single
    second, then burst into tears and ran from the room. Adin heard
    the nearly obscene clank sound of his manacles as he slammed
    the connecting door between their rooms.
    “If you can be any more insensitive, this might be a good
    time, Adin. After all, I don’t completely despise you yet and even
    though Santos never liked you in the first place he could probably
    like you less.” Boaz got up and then removed the tray from the
    bed. He reached out and pulled Adin’s half-finished coffee from
    his hand.
    “ Boaz .”
    “Think about it,” Boaz ordered Adin sternly. “Think about
    how you know who you are and then come down for breakfast.”
    Adin thought of all the memories Bran had accessed. He
    thought of his mother and father and their stories of their parents.
    48 Z.A. Maxfield
    If he didn’t have that…if he didn’t remember that, he’d have no
    idea what he was either. “ Boaz .”
    Boaz had gotten to the door, but he turned abruptly. He could
    be at least as impatient as Donte. “There is folklore suggesting
    that a changeling child becomes a human child over a period of
    time. It’s a process. At some point, the child in the process of
    becoming is neither one thing nor another. Santos speculates that if
    the process was interrupted, someone like Bran might be… Well.
    Certainly he’d be outside the norm.”
    Adin frowned. “How outside?”
    Boaz measured his words more carefully than Adin had ever
    seen him do, “Entirely new. He’s neither. He’s not something .”
    “Boaz. Of course he’s something. He eats. He stirred my
    bathwater. He cried.”
    “He stirred your bathwater ?”
    “It’s a long story. The point is he’s entirely corporeal. He’s
    very much a human boy.”
    “Yes.” Boaz chewed his lip thoughtfully.
    “He couldn’t be held in chains if he weren’t.”
    “There is some speculation that iron weakens him.”
    “It’s all conjecture?” Adin entertained the idea that he’d
    purchased boy who was some sort of magical being with mental
    Houdini fu.
    “I’m making eggs.”
    “Quel surprise.”
    Once the door slammed behind Boaz, Adin cursed and ran
    his hands through his hair. He knew he should get up and put
    on clothes, clean his teeth, and leave. He should take his luggage
    and go back to the hotel and leave all the magical machinations
    to Boaz