.

DEE

I shift my head. The knife lies beneath the buffoonery of my tiny hat, and I know I will use it. I glance at my brother. He smiles and nods, and for a brief moment I feel the rush of our conjunction. Then a blank expression washes over him, and I turn so he won't see my tears.

His mind has been shattered by crows, his thoughts dispersed by attempted murder. Our link has become an illusion, more tenuous than a fractured rattle. Our merged perspective lies strewn like fallen chess pieces. We've gone from sharing each other's thoughts, to fulfilling past confidences with nohows and contrariwise exclamations.

Will he ever grasp what I'm doing for him, for us? I fear his mind no longer travels the same deep gullies of perception now that it's been unchained from my intellect. Does he even feel the same magnitude of loss? I will never know.

"She waits." He jostles forward.

"For no one." I finish.

The Queen has stopped with the yawning bank of a river at her back. Gaily-clothed sycophants hover like hummingbirds, as restless as I myself have become. I edge closer. I raise my hand, seeking my cap. My brother does the same, his innocent actions mimicking my own.

My heart surges with sorrow. I can wait no longer.

The knife leaps into my hand. I run, climbing the scattering crowd to reach her. Fear tints her heart-shaped pupils red, but her gaze travels behind me, to my brother.

He's followed. His thoughts are identical to mine, his thirst for vengeance as strong.

But his blade is much larger.