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He was about to respond when he saw the way his brother focused, forming the spell. He’d been taught how, so many times, but he had never been able to make anything happen. The only remarkable thing about him was that magic couldn’t touch him.
After his brother spoke the words of the nasty spell, the room went deadly quiet. Nothing happened.
Nothing shifted or moved, and he felt nothing either. Romulus stared at him for a split second, before he repeated the spell once more — again with no effect. The collar was working at least.
“What the fuck—” Romulus choked on the words, renewing his efforts to break free of the restraints that had been designed for vampires and werewolves, not pitiful magicless witches. “What did you do to me?” he snapped.
“What?” Kieran taunted, his voice turning vicious in a way that wasn’t familiar even to him. “Don’t like not being able to use magic?”
Fifteen years. Fifteen years of pent-up anger and frustration and envy, and here it was.
His eyes darted back to Romulus’s wrists, and he ignored the urge to look more closely at them. He wasn’t going to use some of their precious, too-limited medical supplies on a supe. Unlike werewolves and vampires, witches didn’t heal any faster than humans, especially without any magic at their disposal. But Romulus was healthier than most of the people in the Rebellion, and that alone gave him an advantage.
There was actual fear in his brother’s eyes now, which wasn’t something he’d seen often in his younger, more entitled sibling. It made looking at him harder, though, but there wasn’t much else to look at but the frantic twisting and yanking on his wrists.
And that spark of fear as it grew. He took a step back. He knew he needed to go, and he wanted out. Romulus couldn’t use magic, and he wasn’t an interrogator. He only made sure no one … died, during them.
Obviously, the witch wasn’t going to die, and he was more than ready to flee back up the stairs.
“Why are you doing this?” Romulus asked, his voice not nearly as snarky now, but tremulous instead. “Why are you being— What did I ever do to you that you’d—” None of those question got finished.
Kieran didn’t have the answers to any of them anyway. He shuddered, averting his eyes again. There, within the mess of his emotions, was an unwelcome stab of guilt. It wasn’t technically Romulus’s fault that he’d had magic or that his father and Kieran’s mother had wanted to turn him into the golden child after Kieran’s… failure.
But Romulus had never spoken up for him, either. He wouldn’t have lifted a goddamn finger while their parents took the steps toward erasing the embarrassment of their older child’s existence.
“It’s nothing personal,” Kieran said. “The only way out is to cooperate.” He paused, then added hastily, “And for fuck’s sake, don’t try to tell them you knew me.” Let alone that they were brothers — stepbrothers, maybe, but brothers all the same.
“Kieran, please!” Romulus pleaded. It would’ve been pathetic if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still stubbornly trying to somehow break free of those restraints. Futile as it was, he wasn’t giving up easily. “I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want me to. Please, please just tell me what the fuck,” a breathless gasp interrupted his frantic words, “what the fuck’s happening! I don’t understand. Why can’t I—” Romulus’ hands balled into fists.
For a moment, Kieran thought he might burst into tears. It was like they were young again, and Romulus was still just his overly tired little sibling who had lost at Mario Kart. It didn’t last long, though, and it soon faded for a calmer, but still frantic, look.
“Why can’t I cast? Please, Kieran…”
Despite himself, Kieran crossed the room, stopping himself just shy of reaching down to touch Romulus’s hair. He berated himself for even the start of a show of sympathy, but Romulus’s desperation…
If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have given a fuck. There was a part of him that might’ve given a damn about that once, that might’ve been alarmed by what it meant to be so distant, but he wasn’t going to face that.
“The collar around your neck,” Kieran said tonelessly, staring down at the floor in front of his brother instead of at him. “It nullifies your magic. I don’t have the key, and I don’t know who does.”
“But you could find out,” Romulus said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kieran could see the witch’s eyes welling up with tears. There was something pitifully hopeful about those words, and if he’d been younger, it might’ve moved him. He shrugged. “I’m not going to. I—”
The door opened, and he fell silent.
“Everything okay?” a female voice cut in.
Kieran glanced up to see Wren at the top of the stairs. “Yeah, you’re fine,” he told her. He realized how close he was to Romulus, how close he’d gotten to touching him, but it was too late to move away abruptly without looking guilty.
“Good. I’ll let the others know.”
The door quietly closed again, and Kieran’s shoulders sagged.
“Kieran…” Romulus said softly, pleadingly. “Please, Kier… What’s happening? What others? What’ll you do to me…? Why?”
Each question battered Kieran with every emotion he’d been trying to smother over the years. He had to swallow hard, once and then again, and he still didn’t feel like he could speak. He wouldn’t have much time before they came down to start the interrogation, and he hated the way his anger and jealousy kept melting into discomfort and guilt. It made him distinctly uncomfortable, and it was hard to ignore.
He was at war with himself, and he wanted nothing more than to leave, to get out from the glow of the LED lights stuck to the walls and shut the door, and he had to fight his cowardice every step of the way.
