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Quin

“Liar!”

The voice echoed through Quin’s brain, stabbing through the memories. Liar. Didn’t think you could have kept it from them, did you?

A rough hand grabbed his shoulder, and pain gripped his bruised ribs and shot through his missing toes.

“Stop it!” he yelled in Quin’s ear. Quin shrank back and looked up at him in confusion. Who is he? Where’d he come from?  “You’re not going to listen to it, are you?  Don’t you know it’s lying?”

It’s not lying. Ask Qatar.

The man let go of his shoulder and caught his breath.

Quin scooted away from him, eyes fixed on his face. Something other than anger lay behind his dark eyes. Something like fear.  Recognition dawned. {@calidris, I forgot what color Basil’s eyes are!}

Basil.

“I’m so sorry,” Basil whispered.  He looked away, his shoulders suddenly dropping.  “I am so, so sorry.”  He glanced back, then his eyes flickered away, as if scared to even look at him. “But I don’t believe you’re a murderer.”  He sniffed.  “Yila?  That’s no surprise.  She always looks like she wants to kill someone.  But I don’t believe that you murdered anyone.”

Basil crossed his arms.  “You need actual malice to be a murderer.  Besides, you’re too timid.  You probably don’t even kill spiders, do you?”  His breathing was quick and ragged.

“Timid!” Quin spit the word out between his teeth.

That’s what everyone says. No one had said it in words, but every time they looked at him, every time they missed Mama, he knew what they were thinking. Coward. Yellow-livered. Timid. Pa, Garrick, Qatar–even Grace. He glanced at his brother, but the eyes that met his were cold, impassive.

He clenched his fists.

“It was right. Even if it wouldn’t stand in a court of law, I killed someone, and that’s murder.” His voice was rising to a shout. It had a ring to it that was almost dangerous. “Maybe I’m the liar. Maybe it wasn’t an accident. It’s all so new; so real; so eternally horrible, and if I wasn’t me–if I wasn’t timid, she’d still be alive.”

A little voice seemed to prick into the back of his mind. He said he was sorry.

“She–” Quin stopped abruptly, almost interrupting himself. He sat still, staring at Basil and breathing, hard. Deep in Basil’s eyes lurked something cold; raw. Something he didn’t want anyone to see, that he had shoved down into his soul by force, but  gnawed at him every day.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop from shaking. “I’m sorry too.” He opened his eyes. “I…I shouldn’t have shouted.”