Self-Made Scoundrel by Tristan J. Tarwater

too,” he said to the babe. “Maybe you can go swimming. Or just play in the garden and eat all of Gia’s herbs, you’d like that.”
    “He shouldn’t be eating herbs,” Jerila laughed, reaching over the table. Dershik set down his spoon and held the baby under his armpits, handing him over. “Only milk for little Deril, right?” Jerila cradled the baby in one arm, quickly bringing the baby to her breast so they could both eat at the same time. “Is Ceric back from Whitfield yet?”
    “He should be back at the end of the phase,” Dershik said, managing to keep the annoyance out of his voice. She asked him every day the last two phases. That and the constant reminder his brother had someone to love him wore at him. Ceric had been called back for testing and his father was paranoid they might assign his brother to another church. Dershik was worried as well, but he managed to put on a nonchalant face, which seemed to make his father more worried. Dershik thought about the clothes hidden under the tree, the cards lying on the nightstand. “Jerila,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “Do you love my brother?”
    Jerila looked up with a start, a slight blush coloring her cheeks. She nodded, a small gesture barely moving her head, her eyes set on his. “Of course I do. You know this.” Jerila stared down at the baby after she said it.
    “Would you do anything for him?” Dershik asked. He sat back in his chair and waited for her reaction and response. She must have started thinking about what that might entail exactly, because she looked down to the table, her eyes moving back and forth as she searched over scenarios in her mind. Jerila sat up straight in her chair, shifting the baby in her arms.
    “Yes, I would. And I am.” She wasn’t accusing Dershik of anything, nor did he fault her for anything. Her father had decided an alliance with the Baron would be best cemented by willing his mines to his grandson and not his daughter. If she was complicit, so was he.
    “You are good for him, you know that,” Dershik mused. He pushed his grains around his plate with his spoon, wondering what was being cooked in the kitchen right now. “You remember what he was like, as a boy. So nervous. Now he’s more sure of himself, more ambitious.”
    “More melancholy,” she said. Jerila moved the baby to her lap and patted him on the back. She looked at Dershik, tilting her head to the side. “And what about you? I remember you when you were young. You’ve changed as well.”
    “Taller, stronger,” he offered. “And I eat bloodroot now, I couldn’t stand it when I was little.”
    “That’s not what I meant,” she laughed. The baby burped loudly. Dershik watched as she held the baby to her, the little boy moving his head around to look about the room. Jerila put a diaper on her shoulder to soak anything the baby might spit up and looked to Dershik again. “You used to be so…you loved everything, you were so enthusiastic. You used to love playing, ‘Lead the Party.’ I remember you used to say, ‘When I’m Baron, we’ll have honeybread for breakfast, not porridge,’ or other things.”
    “I was a child,” he huffed. “These are the kinds of things children do.”
    “Everyone looked up to you,” she said. “Ceric most of all.”
    “Even after I locked him in the tunnel on the second floor,” Dershik sighed, remembering. “I told him if he would just come with me, he would be safe. There were books in there, old ones I wanted him to see.” Dershik shook his head, the memory old but still clear. He remembered grabbing Ceric by the shoulders and throwing him into the small space, holding the door closed with his back while Ceric pounded and screamed, his voice muffled by the wood between them.
    “He was scared of the dark for a long time after that,” Jerila said. Now she sounded as if she was chastising him.
    “Jerila,” he said, standing up from his seat. “Would you believe me if I said…I