Lost Destinies

↳ 26: In Which Time Runs Out

Talk.

He couldn't even remember what he'd said that day, but he forced every bit of suave and charm into his monologue, maybe even dished out a couple of good old-fashioned bloody noses, and one way or another he'd left with a skimmed wallet and a grateful eighteen-year-old criminal. The thing was, Claude wasn't anybody's hero. No one knew his story. He was a nobody, someone who only served to sit on the sidelines and fill up empty space. That was what he'd always been, and, unless the entire natural order of Fairytaletopia decided to flip upside down, he always would be. But that day, just for a single, fleeting moment, a stranger grinned up at him with red-soaked teeth and he wondered if this was what it felt like to be the good guy.

Once they'd run three streets over, panting and thankful to be alive, the girl he'd saved promptly turned to him as if nothing at all had happened and held out her hand to shake.

"Ramona Swan," she said breathlessly. Godmothers, her haircut was terrible.

Dazed, he'd taken it. "Claude. Claude Verelia."

"What'd you help me for?"

"They would have killed you. Or worse. Believe me, I know."

She shook her head. "So what? Why's that matter?"

Claude had found himself short-circuiting. "Well... I dunno," he said eventually, dumbstruck at his own actions. "I guess I just think us thieves would be better off looking out for each other than going around killing each other. The nobles kill us off just fine already without our help."

She had smiled wryly. "So you fancy yourself a thief, do you?" He'd held up the wallet and she'd barked a laugh. "You wouldn't be interested in robbing the Brimstone Street Bank...?"

Call him simple-minded, but that was a very, very tempting offer. "What have you got?"

"A beat-up van with a few nice add-ons. A handful of fake passports. Stolen gold. The kind of protection only thieves can offer each other. And a reputation I'll never live up to."

A smirk crept its way across his face, and Claude smoothly slid the wallet into his pocket, straightening.

"Sounds like a hell of a good time."

🙤 ˖ ࣪⭑ ┈┈┈┈ · ✦ · ┈┈┈┈ ˖ ࣪⭑ 🙦

One heist. One heist. It was only ever supposed to be just the one. But the friendship that bloomed along the way was more precious than anything kings and nobles had to offer. Claude and Ramona talked about forming a crew for a long time before they finally found Minerva. Then Penny. Then Bear. It seemed fairytale losers attracted each other.

He'd never told her about the sister he'd lost, the way that had affected him. He'd almost said it hundreds of times—once, when the two of them were sitting outside in the freezing night because they couldn't afford a roof over their heads. "You ever regret the life you left behind?" she asked in the silence.

Claude had opened his mouth to tell the truth, but a lie came out instead. He shouldn't have been surprised. That happened often. "Never had one to begin with."

It was too difficult, even still, to linger over Bernadette's name. There was cruel irony in the way Sicilienne had been born with magic after Claude had lost his older sister—the sister she never knew existed—to the stardust plague. He'd always figured the Writer had to have a sense of humor. All his guilt—could I have done more, could I have done anything—and all his love for her had to be shoved into Sicilienne instead, even when she didn't want it, even when it didn't fit. He was a fatherless child caring for an infant, a bizarre sight to see that made no one bat an eyelash because they went so criminally unnoticed. Every time little Sicilienne would get sick, even with just a cough, terror consumed him.