The Judgement Of Divinity (TMOE #2)

Chapter 26: Fairy boy

This was even worse. There were so many. How could there even be that many moths in one place?

"They're harmless." Anthony dismissed the whining with a shrug. "Aside from the larvae eating clothes I suppose."

"And books!" Lucius hissed while waving even more of them away, goosebumps prickling his skin at the sight of their beady, pink eyes. "This has got to be a nightmare if he's got a bunch of books in there!"

"I doubt they eat books. Or clothes, really. I think he feeds them other things."

Lucius wrinkled his nose.

"He wants them there? So what, he prefers moths before people?"

"It shouldn't surprise you that this is an eccentric person."

"But could it not have been anything else?" Lucius whispered as he cautiously followed Anthony inside, shuddering at the moth-infested wall.

"Cyril?" Anthony called out, looking around the dark, empty hallway for signs of human life. "It's Anthony. We want to ask you something, unrelated to the BBT."

"I know," a voice replied from a room further down the corridor, and Lucius blinked as the person it belonged to appeared in the doorway.

Then he groaned, failing to keep it in his mind only.

"Another child?" He threw his hands out at the dark-haired boy in front of him. Not as much of a child as Frey, but certainly not an adult. "So is the BBT like, half ancients and half babies?"

The boy presumably named Cyril gave Lucius a dead smile before shifting attention to Anthony.

"I'd make tea, but I ran out two years ago."

"It wouldn't hurt you that much to leave the house, Cyril."

"But I don't need to." Cyril shrugged, gesturing for them to come in before heading back into the room.

Anthony had not been exaggerating when he said Cyril had books. There were no walls to be seen. It was all bookshelves, each of them filled to the brim with leather-clad books. Lucius forgot about the disappointing teenager for a while and just stood there in awe.

"You wrote all these?" he asked under his breath while looking around once again. "How?"

"It occurs to me that my appearance will be horribly distracting to you," Cyril noted, obviously annoyed. "So we'll get this out of the way before we continue."

He then looked at Anthony, who stared back in anticipation before realising Cyril was waiting for him to speak.

"Wh-- Me? Why would I explain it?"

"I don't want to."

Anthony pursed his lips, unable to deny such a solid argument.

"Cyril is a part of the original BBT," he explained to Lucius with a vague gesture in the boy's direction. "He's much older than he appears to be."

"Oh." Lucius' eyes widened in realisation, but he couldn't help but silently criticise the poor choice of age. The boy's olive skin had suffered some unfortunate run-ins with pimples around his nose and hairline, and awkward body proportions could probably have been adjusted by giving them a couple more years to even out.

"I didn't choose my age," Cyril said dryly, and Lucius quickly stopped staring. "Unlike the others, I had no say in the matter, and they had my painting done before I could get away."

"Before you could...?" Lucius frowned, looking over at Anthony. "... They made a painting without his consent?"

"Well..." Anthony made a face. "... They didn't want him to do something... Drastic, before a more appropriate age had been reached."