Of Delicate Pieces by A. Lynden Rolland

here. Generation after generation, they do nothing but make mistakes to the detriment of our society. Apples don’t fall far from the tree.”
    “The detriment of our society.” Alex scoffed. “That’s extreme, don’t you think?”
    Xavier shook his head. He grabbed Alex’s hand, and she gasped as a surge erupted up her arm, like an injection of winter itself. “Follow me,” he ordered.
    They zigzagged through the forest of names. Xavier stopped when they came upon a giant pine. Alex squinted at the names, but they were impossible to make out through the snow.
    “Colorado Blue Spruce,” Xavier announced proudly. “The Darwin family tree.” He pushed aside a branch of thick needles, and there, like holiday lights, twinkled the letters of his name. Tess’s and Linton’s names clung to his.
    When Alex stepped close enough, she heard crying. She ran her finger over their branch, names with identical death dates.
    “You three died on the same day?”
    Xavier nodded.
    “An accident?”
    He shook his head. “It isn’t a pretty story.”
    “Death usually isn’t,” she said, watching Xavier pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”
    Xavier shooed off her apology. “It’s fine. My father, he drank a lot.”
    “We have something in common.”
    He nodded with his jaw set tight but bowed his head in this moment of camaraderie. “I was the oldest. I should have protected my brother and sister.”
    “From what?”
    He jutted his angular chin toward the tree. “Him.” He showed her a toothed name over his own. Jesper Darwin, his father. A name that didn’t glow. “I don’t know how, but he knew about the afterworld. On the last night of my life, he staggered around our shoebox of a house, drunk and screaming about how he couldn’t find something. He kept saying we would be better off if we went to a different place, a place he hadn’t screwed up, a place where we would be royalty. I thought he was just drunk as usual, looking for a hidden bottle. He was a screwup, my dad. The rest of our family wasn’t too proud of him. He realized that, though, because he said this was the greatest thing he ever did for us.” Xavier’s voice trembled. “Turns out, he wasn’t looking for another drink, he was looking for his gun.”
    Alex raised a hand to cover her mouth.
    “It’s fine.”
    In that instant, colors rained down from his eyes to his cheekbones. His emotion painted a rainbow of tears over the white canvas of his face.
    “The bastard shot himself after he realized what he’d done. He was right about this place. How he knew about it is a mystery, but he knew.”
    No wonder the Darwins took this world and this city so seriously. “I’m sorry.”
    “No pity for us, please. We all have our sob stories from life.”
    True. “You haven’t explained why the Bonds aren’t invited here.”
    “Oh.” In a flash, Xavier’s sharp cheekbones held no more stains. He picked up a nearby stick and lifted it to a branch near the middle of the tree. Some names appeared as they would be carved on a normal tree, names like Jesper Darwin. Dull and lightless, these were the ancestors who had lived a normal-bodied life. Some sparkled but with clouded brilliancy—the light behind the diamond had vanished.
    “The ones who lost their light were killed before their minds expired here. Those names here …” He tapped a cluster of cloudy Darwins. “Those are my ancestors who died because of the Bonds.”
    “What? How?”
    “The Witch Wars during the 1800s. The Bond family directed the Interactions Department of the government, and they were openly anti-gifted. When the gifted retaliated and tried to fight back, the Bonds enlisted the help of a certain hunting family I’m sure you could guess.”
    “Seyferr?”
    He nodded. “Their deal with the hunters made everything worse. Spirits against the gifted. The gifted against the hunters. Battles broke out and spirits tried to put out the flames to keep our secrecy.