Despite her earlier comments, Tran actually didn’t show up to oversee Ryan’s first examination of the office. The police officer present simply crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway, glaring at us with dark-ringed eyes.

I suppose I couldn’t blame him for feeling testy. The place was ransacked, with drawers thrown open and pretty much every paper in the place thrown out. It would take hours just to look through all of those. My job during most of these things was mostly to take pictures, but the police seemed to have already done a decent job at that. So I merely peered over the table at the insect samples.

They were all pinned to corkboard, with laminated labels glued below them. Iridescent butterflies and fuzzy moths galore, but also some more interesting things; a whole row of bombardier beetles and a giant stick insect so lifelike I would’ve used it to play fetch. You could see rips and tears where certain samples had been taken.

“I’ve been thinking about what that turban guy told us.” I said. “About why only some of these were taken by our burglar. These would be a pain in the ass to carry around, but would it really be that much easier to just stuff them in the bag and run off with it? Especially without damaging those samples?”

“You’re right.” Tran said, marching back inside and pulling on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves. “But you’ll notice some of those drawers were broken into as well. I’m guessing any money or valuables stored in this office were taken. Probably the real main reason our guy broke in here. He or she probably looked at the table and grabbed a few random pieces they liked the look of, or thought they could sell.” Ryan clicked his tongue. He was still studying something in the file cabinet, his back turned towards us. “Doesn’t that strike you as a little… spontaneous? Especially since your theory involves climbing up to a first-floor window?” Then he added in a slightly lower voice. “And apparently doing so while leaving no traces whatsoever.”

“See, that’s exactly the point I’m making here. This place looks real nice, doesn’t it?”

I glanced over the room and shrugged. “Eh.”

“Okay, so maybe not that nice, but still too much so for someone making the paychecks she does. New Zealand wool carpeting here, a brand new motorbike parked in her space. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you haven’t been the one funding these little splurges?”

My brother hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “Cori cut ties with most of her family. And yes, she hasn’t brought up the topic very often. But she did bring up a great-uncle a while back. One who died and left her a share of her inheritance before all this happened.”

“A nice rich great-uncle, huh.” Tran shook her head. “Man, what I’d do to get one of those. All right, I suppose we could check up on that. But the thing about getting free money is that you’re going to find any excuse to spend it, and after you’re done you’re going to be both broke and have acquired terrible spending instincts.”

I scratched my head. “Considering Cori was getting her leg snapped like a twig around the exact moment this happened, I don’t see how her budgeting affects any of this.”

“It means everything to this crime.” The detective said. She glanced over at Ryan, who had come over and taken a seat, opening up a fat pile of notes. On the front page, Cori had marked with bright purple ink that this was a thesis draft. Tran took a deep breath and shook her head.

“Look, we all agree with that its strange that a random person on campus coming in and doing this, on the one week where Ms. Waters had something worth stealing. And the fact random specimens were taken is a good indicator whoever did the stealing didn’t come here to sell them for cash. They probably did all this in a rush. So it would be someone who knows the potential value, but not enough to identify it.”

Ryan held up the book of thesis notes, having finished going through it. “You don’t mind if I bring this over to the hospital for Ms. Waters, would you?”

“That was checked for fingerprints, right?” Tran asked with a scowl. “Yes? All right then, knock yourself out. Now, what was I saying?”

“So you’re suspecting a student, aren’t you?” I got the sense Ryan wanted me to keep her talking, even as he walked over to the door and started peering closely at the lock. “Got anyone in mind? One of Cori’s students, maybe?”

“Maybe. But all of them were given study leave before she was entrusted with the specimens. That’s why I’m so concerned about your brother’s girl.” She drummed her fingers against the desk. “I’m investigating a theft against the university, and even if she wasn’t directly involved, it seems to me this kind of thing only makes sense if she was talking about her work with the wrong person.”

“And you think that ‘wrong person’ is whoever she got all her extra cash from.” I said, nodding. “What, you think she was selling weed to the undergrads or something? Though I suppose at this time of year Adderall would be more profitable…” I blinked. “Not that I, um, would know much about that kind of thing.”

She took that statement a lot more pensively than I thought she would. “Weed selling does seem a little too low-grade for a teaching assistant, even a poor one. But in any case, it’s a good reason why someone would’ve trashed the entire room. They were looking for something, and perhaps they thought they could steal whatever Ms. Waters had in the process, with those specimens taken as they were on the way out.”

Ryan opened the door and peered behind it, frowning. “Drugs, Detective Tran? That can’t possibly be your leading theory.”

Tran crossed her arms. “I never claimed it was, Mr. Neville. Only that, as I said before, we can’t let our personal biases color our perspective.”

Ryan brushed his hands off and turned around, unable to hide a small smile growing on his face. “Really? Because I was thinking that theory seemed a little outre, even for you. Somebody planted that idea in your head. Or at least something similar enough to it. Who did it, I wonder?”

“I didn’t -” Tran shook her head angrily. “It’s a miracle you can get anyone to work with you without them bashing your head in. A miracle, damn you.”

“Well I’ll be sure to thank my lucky stars, then. But very well, Detective. I’ll try not to weary you with much more of my company. So I’m going to tell you a few of the conclusions I’ve come to since entering this room.”

He walked over to the windowsill. “This was opened up from the inside. Even if the complete lack of traces on the wall outside wasn’t enough to convince you, there’s plenty of recent scratches in the metal here that indicates the bolt of the window was pulled shut.”

“That’s no evidence it was bolted tonight.” Tran argued. “I somehow doubt your forensic skills are up to proving that.”

“But it shows that Cori did it regularly. And I’m sure if I go back and ask her in the hospital about it, she’ll affirm she bolted the window before she left. No matter what your theories are, Detective, I’m sure you’ll agree she has no incentive to lie on that point.”

Tran threw up her hands. “So you’re saying, what, someone picked the lock?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And whoever did it did an excellent job.” My brother tapped the side of the door with his pocket magnifier. “I can’t say I blame your people for missing it.”

“A professional burglar, then?”

“That would be one description.” Ryan grinned. “But it is quite late, and while I’m certain I can put something more definitive in front of you tomorrow, right now I lack the evidence to draw more solid conclusions. Is the Professor still around here, by any chance?”

The detective shook her head. “No, I told her to go home. And frankly, if you start going on house calls at four in the morning -”

Ryan yawned. “That probably won’t be on the cards. Come on, Dy.”

But all the same, the moment we turned the corner he made a beeline for the Professor’s office. The place was locked and empty by the time we got there, but he still stood in front of the door, with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. Thinking.

“Why do the two of them not like each other?” I asked suddenly. “Moura and your girl, I mean. They still seem pretty close, what with the babysitting and everything.”

“Closeness isn’t always a net positive, Dylan. With some things, it would be far easier to forgive a stranger than it would be to forgive a friend. And when someone stops being just a friend and starts to become more like family…” He shook his head.

I suppose he had his own experiences with how messy those could be. He got trained as a detective by a guy who basically became our uncle at one point. That same dude had also nearly gotten both of us killed several times by dragging our family into his problems. Cori’s dynamic with her supervisor felt downright wholesome in comparison.

“I’m guessing this has something to do with the job she’s taking abroad, then.”

“Almost certainly. The team she’s joining is headed by a man Moura used to work with, Horikoshi Williams. The why behind that particular feud is something the Internet refuses to divulge.” He reached out, placing a thoughtful finger on the plaque of Professor Moura’s door. It was made of faded brass, far older and more fancy than the one for Cori’s office, with the same bright gleaming nails.

My brother drew his hand back, stepping away. “The field is still wide open, unfortunately. You saw how the ichthyology professor spoke about Cori, after all. The rest of the faculty may need to be questioned.”

He looked up at the room and shook his head. “The few CCTV cameras in the vicinity of this building haven’t been maintained properly. Though it might be worth checking the perimeter cameras if someone outside saw something.”

“Seems a bit too dark for that, right?.”

“And that’s hardly an excuse not to be thorough.” He took a deep breath and straightened his jacket. “Well, I think that’s about it for the night.”

His voice shook a little with those last words, whether from exhaustion or from something else. But he never lost that cold focus etched across his expression, even as we stumbled our way back home and he settled himself in front of a computer. I still heard him tapping away, key after key on the keyboard, even as I fell asleep. And when I woke up, with bright sunrays fading in through the windows, he was sitting at the side of my bed, wearing his dark jacket and tapping his foot softly against the tiles.

I groaned and sat up. I have to admit I do enjoy my waterbed mattress, which Ryan and I basically had to scrounge out of a neighbor’s storage. You can plug it in and press a switch and then you get to feel toasty warm all night. The downside is that once you’re in, you never want to leave. That and the fact the liquid inside the mattress tends to fill with bugs, but that’s a little less relevant here.

I groped around for my watch. “Damn you. Do you even know what time it is?”

“You slept about 4 hours, give or take.” Which made me suspect he’d slept exactly none. Didn’t stop him from looking as fresh as a dew-dropped daisy. Some day I’ve got to head down to whatever basement he chains up his Disney princesses, or whatever cursed bargain he undertook to get these powers.

“I wanted to take another look at the park before the sun came up fully.” My brother continued, as we both heard a yowl coming from the other room. “Get a better idea of how Cori fell the way she did. What I found there was pretty much as we expected. Someone dug a little bit around a natural ravine, widened it up a bit, then covered it up well enough for someone to miss it in the dark.”

I held up a hand to cover my eyes. “If you’re going to monologue at me again, at least let me get myself some cereal or something first.”

He actually held back long enough for me to go through my whole morning routine, even pouring himself some coffee and setting out the cat food in the meantime. But whatever it was he’d woken me up for, it was tensing his every muscle. Even Beelzie noticed it, looking up at him and yowling as my brother changed his litter box. Ryan reached down and scratched at the golden fur under the cat’s chin. He sipped at his coffee with his other hand, and I noticed it still trembling, just a little bit.

“Are we on a timeline or something?” I asked, leaning down to give Bee a pat and getting hissed at for my efforts. “Or did Tran accuse someone already? I thought she’d have a better head on her shoulders than to do that before getting a full night’s sleep.”

“No, no. It’s not urgent. At least, no more urgent than any other case.”

“But you have figured it out, right?”

My brother grunted in response. At last I took pity on him and announced I was ready to leave, and he practically leapt out of his seat.

My impression of Incarnadine College didn’t change much with the influx of sunlight. The place looked gorgeous, I’ll give you that much; dotted with spring flowers and plenty of brownstone and marble. But you could still sense the feeling of impending doom of the students in the air, and everyone we walked by had their heads down and pointed right at their destinations. All except the one man who was there to greet us.

He was short and tubby, wearing a dark blazer over a purple turtleneck, but he walked less like a professor and more like he owned the place. The man leaned on his cane, beady eyes going from one of us to the other before coming to some sort of decision.

“Collen Ketch, Vice Chancellor.” He said, shaking both of our hands. A secretary or other hanger-on of some sort appeared behind him, raising his finger nervously to get his attention. Ketch ignored him completely. “We here at Incarnadine make quite an effort to keep a good relationship with our city’s finest, but I was still right shocked when I heard you’d been taken on as a consultant.”

“My father’s told me a lot about you, sir.” Ryan said with a nod.

“Oh, Richard and I go way back.” Ketch snorted. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard about you in your own right. Not to mention your brother.” He turned to me with a shiny grin. “Incarnadine would be honored to receive any Olympian, and that goes twice for a medalist!”

“You heard about that, huh.” I can’t say I was exactly overjoyed about it. Anyone who knew I’d got a medal also knew why I’d gotten banned from ever trying to get another one. And Ketch would probably also know why I’d gotten expelled from Incarnadine’s sister college, not too far from here.

I kind of have a talent for getting banned from things, you see.

“I hear about many things, my boy.” The vice chancellor continued. “And this community work with the detective stuff is truly inspired. I thought I might hang around you two for a bit, see how you do your stuff, so to speak.” He tapped his shiny, dark forehead, still grinning at us. “Might as well do something fun with my rare free morning.”

My brother does like having an audience for his performances, but certainly not for his backstage work. I could see him opening his mouth to spin out some excuses before something else occurred to him. “Sure, sir. I was just about to properly interview Professor Moura.”

“Ms. Waters’ supervisor, eh? I haven’t spoken with a Lessie in a while, anyway, not since that business last year with the Koreans.” He scratched his stubble thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Lead the way.”

Just as we did last night, we passed through the doorway with the wolf’s mouth. The animal carvings still glared daggers at us as we did so. If anything, the daylight seems to have sharpened that stare. We walked down to Professor Moura’s office door, and this time Ryan paused at the threshold only a moment before knocking on the door.

“Come in.” A voice called out immediately. The professor must not have gotten much sleep last night, but after meeting her at the hospital I can’t say I was very surprised. She still retained some of that alligator-boxing vigor, but the strain was clear in the corners of her eyes, and the white in her hair shone in the morning light. Her desk was surrounded by piles of worksheets and assignments, one of which she’d been marking with red pen.

She stood when she saw us, extending her hand first to the vice chancellor. Ryan, for his part, immediately yawned and picked something off her desk.

“A phone book, huh?” He said, “That seems a little outdated of you, Professor.”

She frowned, reaching almost immediately to take it back. “It might be so for a young pup like you, Mr. Neville, but I’m a very busy woman who has to oversee many projects, and I personally still find its contacts quite useful, and I’m sure many others do.”

“What the hell is a phone book?” I asked.

Moura scowled, wrenching the book from Ryan’s hands and tucking it deep into her desk drawer. “In any case, I wager there’s only one thing that brought you all here this early in the day.”

“Yeah.” I said. She seemed like the type who’d appreciate directness. “I mean, when someone’s a victim of a crime, the first suspects are the ones the victim had beef with, you know?”

“I do know indeed.” She said, sighing. “It was Satya who told you about all that, wasn’t it? I have no idea what that idiot was doing here at that time of night. But never mind. It still strikes me as superfluous that you start poking at internal gossip when you’re dealing with a burglary—"

“It’s not your job to decide what’s relevant and what’s not, Lessie.” The vice chancellor told her, crossing his hands over his cane.

“Understood, sir. The truth is that, well, Cori and I were fighting for the last year. You might have heard about her preparing to leave, Vice Chancellor, but that was more of a culmination than the beginning of everything that happened.” She shook her head. "Cori—Miss Waters—has great ideas, and grand ambitions, for her age. But that’s always meant she’s been willing to take shortcuts. And our fighting began when I believe she took a shortcut at the expense of our work together.”

Collen Ketch’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about the research you said was leaked last year? You never even hinted to me you thought one of your grad students was behind it.”

“I had no proof on hand, sir. But when I saw Horikoshi had offered her a job, and that she was considering accepting it… I suppose it was hard for me to consider other possibilities.” The professor took a deep breath, and looked the vice chancellor in the eyes. “But all things said and done, I love that girl like I do my own daughter. I swear to you, I’ve always meant the best for her.”

I could see Ketch was buying it, and he didn’t seem the type of man to be easily fooled. Truth was, she felt sincere to me as well. Ryan nodded and stood up, walking over to the window.

“In that case, Professor, I hope you don’t mind if I check your window for a moment.”

Moura looked up, rubbing at her eyes, then nodded vigorously. “That’s how the thief got into the office, isn’t it? Of course, of course. Whatever you need.”

“Excellent.” Ryan peered at it. “Hmm, yes. Same materials, same design. Whatever renovations have been going on, they’ve been quite consistently planned. I’m sure you know better than I just how difficult that can be to arrange over the years, vice chancellor.” He clicked his tongue and glanced at Professor Moura.

“But I notice you oiled this hinge a little while back. Or did you ask a janitor or someone… no, that doesn’t feel likely, does it? No doubt a woman like you has had to set up and monitor research stations on her lonesome. You probably use your own tools, and use them well. So I have to ask,” He said, looking up, “do you have a screwdriver in those drawers, by any chance? Maybe in the same one you kept that phonebook?”

That has to top the list of most mundane questions ever asked, but the vice chancellor and I saw the professor's face turn pale as a specter. For a moment, I thought she would drop dead in her chair.

“I - I don’t -”

“I’d use my own multitool, of course.” He said with an almost genuine note of apology in his voice. “But my screw extension just doesn’t support Robertson screws. In fact, I don’t think I noticed any Robertson screws used here on campus. Well, except for a few spots. And I’m willing to bet a box of those screws would is in that drawer. Would you care to show us?” His eyes went to Collen Ketch for a brief second.

“Open it up, Lessie.” The vice chancellor said, drumming his fingers on the table. “After all, it’s only a screwdriver.”

Professor Moura wrenched the drawer open and stepped out of her chair, backing away towards the wall. Ryan reached inside. Sure enough, from there he pulled out the phonebook, a screwdriver, and a bunch of shiny metal screws. Something about that sight finally got the rusty cogs in my head turning. Why did those look so familiar?

“The signs.” I gasped. “The signs on the doors.” I pointed at the doorway. “The plaques on this door… and on Cori’s door… they had new screws.”

“Very sharp, Dylan.” My brother said. “You wouldn’t’ve noticed that just a few months ago. None of the other title plaques in the building have had their screws replaced. As for why anyone would do such a thing, well…”

He opened up the phonebook carefully, flipping through a few pages with just his fingertips. “Aha. There’s a recent nail mark here, which is lucky for us.” He flipped the book around to show us the contacts and phone numbers lined up on a page.

“Locksmiths.” The vice chancellor said.

“There’s only two here who are advertising 24-hour services, and only one remotely close to this neighborhood. But even if I had no idea which one it was, I would still go through the list one by one, showing each of these locksmiths a picture of your face, and find out which of them you called to the university premises last night. Heck, I could probably get the security team to help me out with this. There might not be any CCTV in this building, but the footage from the outer gates would work more than well enough for our purposes, eh? Point is, once you got someone over here, all you needed was to show the locksmith your ID and you’d be golden.”

“So you’re saying she broke into her own student’s office? I can’t believe it!” The vice chancellor cried. He was clutching at his temples, staring at his employee.

“I appreciate the confidence, sir.” Moura said, her knuckles white from the clenching. “And you haven’t explained to us why exactly I would steal a few random specimens off the desk. Surely, if I were to risk the reputation of my own department, I would do so for a larger paycheck.”

Ryan grinned. “Oddly enough, that was one of the things that pointed me towards your direction. Think about it. It’s not like identifying the value of those specimens is exactly rocket science. Especially not with a functioning smartphone and a few minutes of time. Why would our random thief just grab a few and run? If you look at how thoroughly the rest of the office was searched, every single document pored through, then our burglar had plenty of time to look, and knew it. No, whoever took those specimens on the cheaper end of the spectrum just did not do so for profit at all. It’s too easy to look up the rarest types. Hell, forget the Internet. You can probably figure it out just by looking at Cori’s notes.”

He pointed at the phonebook. “The moment you told me you used these on a regular basis made me realize that was the exact kind of mindset that would overlook how easy it would be to identify the rarest specimens. So that was enough to conclude I was dealing with an expert on insects, and probably not a very tech-savvy one at that.”

Moura tried to defend herself again, but Ryan refused to hear her out.

“But the most damning thing, to me,” He continued, “is the part of events the Vice Chancellor here may not be fully familiar with. And it’s that Cori got her leg broken in such a way that made sure she would not be anywhere close to her office that night. Because it wasn’t enough for you that she probably wouldn’t be there. You had to be sure. And for that certainty, you set up a little trap, luring in Cori with the promise of a special glow-worm with red light. Perhaps even a new species. It had to be someone who knew the park, and knew Cori’s interests and schedule, well enough to manipulate her. With that in mind, it was actually very difficult for me to consider any other suspect than you.”

“I wasn’t anywhere near that park last night.”

“It doesn’t take a lot of skill to wave a red light behind some bushes.” Ryan said with a roll of his eyes. “No doubt your grandson did an admirable job after some appropriate bribery. But that leads us to the most important variable in the equation: why?”

Moura stared at him in silence. The vice chancellor still had his head in his hands, no doubt wondering if Ryan was insane. Or hoping, maybe.

At last she couldn’t bear it anymore. “Cori would never have lost her job here! I would have made sure of it, no matter what. It’s not like the administration here would be such idiots as to blame the whole thing on her.”

“But she probably wouldn’t get that job in Korea, either.” I guessed. “After compromising a collection that valuable, she probably wouldn’t get her thesis through for a couple years, either. That kind of incident loses a lot of goodwill.”

“And that would have been the best for her!” The Professor snapped. “Idiot girl never understood what patience meant. What humility meant. If she had, she never would have stolen my own work in the first place, and sold it off to Hirokoshi and his cronies at that!” She bared her teeth at my brother. “But that’s not the crime you were interested in solving, was it, Mr. Neville?”

“So that’s why you were going through all her papers, wasn’t it?” My brother said. “You were looking for proof. What would you have done if you had found something, I wonder? Blackmail her into staying forever? I suppose good assistants can be hard to find. And it’s always nice to keep family close at hand.”

Ryan stood up, pulling something out of his jacket. “Look. In any case, I doubt there’s much chance I could find out the truth of what happened to your work. Not after all this time. But I can make a guess. You’d be surprised at how much of this job of mine pivots on guessing.”

He handed something over to Moura. I got a glimpse at the title, just enough to recognize it as Cori’s batch of notes for her thesis. Like a freak of nature, or perhaps a fifth grader, she had written out the entire thing in a dozen different pen colors.

“She drafted her introduction in the last few pages.” My brother said. “I suggest you start with those.”

I didn’t get a chance to read those notes myself. I could probably find the thesis Cori eventually published, but I have a hunch that one looks significantly different from what Ryan handed over that day. All I know is that when Moura read those notes the rest of the world was dead to her. She just stared and stared at those last few pages, even as the vice chancellor began to dial the police.

*

“She’ll be fine, probably.” Cori said with a little hiccup. Her eyes were red, her dark hair twisted into a rats’ nest, but when she spoke again her voice was clear. “She can give back the stuff she stole, right? I’m sure she’s smart enough to keep the specimens perfectly preserved. And she has a lot of friends in the Senate… so long as I don’t press charges…” She wiped at her face again. “She’s a great teacher, you know? Despite everything. I don’t want to take her away from the students just because the two of us got in a fight.”

“I have strong doubts Detective Tran would tolerate things ending that way. She’s a good cop, and she’ll push to prosecute the case no matter what. But even more than that.” My brother squeezed her hand, and I saw her squeeze it back. “Moura nearly broke your neck with that fall she orchestrated. What exactly do you think she’s going to do the next time she thinks a student is in her way?”

“I know, I know.” She held out her arm and got Ryan to help her sit up. Her entire leg was encased in plaster, and every time I looked at it I thought about the red shiny mess it had become in the woods.

“Poor Tommy.” She said, reaching out to scratch at her leg and thinking better of it. “He must be devastated about what his Nana made him do. His parents have to have picked him up, right?”

“He’ll be fine.” Ryan said, though I could tell he was thinking Little Boy Blue would be lucky to miss a trip to the juvenile detention center. The little shit certainly deserved it, too.

Cori nodded, her fingers tightening on the side rails of her hospital bed. “Right. And Ryan, I should tell you something. It’s just… I’ve been thinking about writing a letter to Mr. Horikoshi. Asking for an early transfer.”

“That leg’ll probably take at least a few months to heal.” I pointed out.

“And I’m sure they could fit a wheelchair on the airplane, Dylan.” She shook her head. “But I can’t stay here any longer. You understand that, right? It’s not like I have much keeping me here, anyway.”

I saw something flicker in my brother’s silver eyes.

“Yeah.” He said in a low voice. “I get it.” There was a weight to their every movement and their every word, weighted like a heavy blanket that shields you from the world beyond.

I hadn’t gotten a chance to see them much together. I don’t think what they had was love, but then I doubt I’d recognize it if I ever saw it. From what I can tell, that word means different things to different people.

But I still wonder if I should have spoken up at that point. Tell them not to write something off before they could see what it could grow into. But they were two young people who were used to making up their minds. Busy people, too, with work they knew they couldn’t leave behind. Sensible people, who knew their situation would never be stable.

When they hugged each other goodbye—not for the last time, that wouldn’t be for a few weeks yet—I felt the agony behind my brother’s smile. So when we drove back, I wracked my brains for a way to distract him.

“I’ve been thinking about what the kid did, Tomas.” I said at last. “I clocked him from the start, I’ll tell you that. He was suspicious as hell. But what I’m wondering is this; where the hell did he get that red light from? Did he toss it back out into the woods when he was done with it? Surely it would have been found by now.”

Ryan threw back his head and started laughing, enough that he motioned me to pull over on the side of the road. “Oh, god… you still haven’t figured that out?” He laughed again, enough that he started coughing.

“ Ugh. Think about it. It was for a glow worm. It wouldn’t need to be a very bright glow. A dull one would probably work even better. And Cori would be seeing it behind some bushes, too.”

“A dull red light…” I still had no idea what he was talking about.

Even as he kept laughing, he flicked a torch out of one of his multitude of pockets and wrapped his fingers tightly on the bulb. Then he flicked on the switch.

A red glow shone through his fingers, lighting up the blood in his hand. \

“Wow.” I blinked. “Anyone really could have done that, couldn’t they?”

That only made my brother laugh harder, and soon enough I found myself joining in. It’s hard to understand it until you’ve done it yourself. But some laughter is bright and cleansing, like the last shower of rain that heralds the sun.