Page 12 of Made

After a handful more failed attempts, two ideas she thought of as brilliant tumbled into the mix of factors straining to be part of a perfect equation. The first was that her sephalian would begin life in early childhood and mature over the course of six seasons under her supervision. She reasoned that was the surest path to independent good judgment.

To ensure control over the young prototypes, she restricted her creation’s ability to fly so that it wouldn’t mature until close to adulthood. She’d be able to manipulate development at every stage so that the result would be the perfection she sought.

The second was that she’d create three, just in case. At least one would be her ideal. The first she named Kagan. The second was Killian. The third was named Keir.

She hired an even-tempered nanny named Grenvelma, who was an ogre shifter. Grenvelma wouldn’t be able to curb the behavior of fully grown sephalia, but in her ogre form, she could manage to keep them in check while still very young. If the planwas sound, by the time they were strong enough to overcome an ogre shifter, they’d be conscious of their own behavior and raised to make good choices. Should there be any undesirable traits unaccounted for, they’d be caught and addressed during upbringing before they had a chance to became a problem.

Next, she hired a tutor to make sure the enforcer-to-be wouldn’t be missing a single nugget of information necessary for brilliant performance on the job. He wasn’t Merle the Mathemagician, of course, but he’d be able to match wits with almost anyone.

In an instant, Maeve rearranged the castle and added a nursery with tower. The castle staff wasn’t the least fazed by floor plan changes because they were a common occurrence. There was nothing remarkable about reporting for work in the kitchen only to find the kitchen had been moved to the wing where the ballroom had been before.

Staff jobs weren’t affected because their jobs were mostly decorative in nature. Maeve made sure the castle could clean and maintain itself without external support, but insisted on a full complement of staff so that she’d have admirers at all times, at every turn.

It didn’t take long for castle occupants to fall in love with the sephalian triplets. They were beyond adorable, but it was still remarkable to have infamously narcissistic fae gush over others. Maeve wasn’t jealous of the attention the young sephalia commanded. After all, in her mind, the fact that hercreations were irresistible was further testament to her genius.

The little ones grew visibly day by day. They played in the tower playroom next to their bedroom, learned command of wheeled vehicles in the long hallway, and studied liberal arts in the classroom next to that.

One day, Killian grew angry when Kagan threw his favorite toy through the tower window. Killian’s little brow tried to crease as he attempted a snarl for the first time. It didn’t sound like a snarl. More like, “Pffffft.” His tiny fangs, new and white as snow, involuntarily popped out. When Kagan got over his surprise, he laughed at his brother while pointing at Killian’s mouth. Of course that made Killian even angrier. He lunged at Kagan, but Grenvelma arrived just in time to separate the quarrelling pair, holding them aloft by their collars, one in each hand.

Keir, who was the most even-tempered of the three, was indignant on behalf of his brothers. He didn’t understand how he knew that they were too proud a species to be held by the scruff of the neck. He just intuited that it was wrong. To the shock and amazement of Kagan, Killian, and Grenvelma, Keir shifted into his small sephalian form. When his wings spread, they made a thunderous pop, but after filling his lungs with air to give Grenvelma a mighty roar, what came out was more like a squeak that caused his small body to bounce a little.

When he stood there looking more comical than ferocious, with one ear up, the other cocked to the side,the nanny laughed. She might’ve exercised some effort and restrained herself, but she didn’t try.

Keir remembered the toy that had been chucked out of the tower window. He’d been surprised by the sprouting of wings, but reasoned that, if he had wings, he might be able to fly. On impulse, he willed himself aloft. Once airborne, he cleared the window ledge and tucked all four feet for a nosedive, looking for Killian’s toy on the way down.

Grenvelma dropped the other two and rushed to the window from which he’d launched himself. “Well!” she said. “Would you look at that?”

Kagan and Killian weren’t particularly interested in her question. They stared at their nanny for a couple of seconds before their baby brains reasoned that, if their brother could become a winged lion, they could, too. Within seconds, they had shifted and flown through the window after Keir.

It seemed that Maeve’s built-in safeguard of restricting flying until late adolescence had been overpowered by Keir’s will, which wasn’t a trifle even as a baby sephalian. From that time forward, he’d most often been the one the other two deferred to for guidance. Or tie-breaking when necessary.

CHAPTER FOUR Waters Still and Deep

“What is wrong with you today?” Keir demanded, standing in thigh-high waders in the river below Kagan’s ruin of a Scottish castle. The question didn’t spring from an observation that Kagan was in a bad mood. Kagan’s features were permanently locked on brooding. Only magic had kept his forehead free of rifts between his brows.

Unsurprisingly, Kagan’s expression didn’t change upon hearing his brother’s question. Nor did he answer right away. He deftly shifted his rod back then cast with the fluid grace of a Baryshnikov grand jete´.

Keir shook his head, wondering how his brother had mastered fly fishing while he’d managed mediocre at best. At times, he’d considered that perhaps he and his brothers were identical only in looks and the unusual ability to shift into gigantic, winged lions. Of course, the answer might be found in the principle of practice making perfect. Kagan fished every day while Keir passed his time as master of the sports bookie universe.

The enforcer knew there was no point pressing Kagan for either speech or information. He’d answer when he was good and ready. If at all.

At length, he said, “Esme does no’ want to see me anymore.”

Keir had to take a minute to process that. The idea that his brother might be rejected was unthinkable. Yes, Kagan was surly. But he was also a sephalian! Any woman would be lucky to land him. For confirmation of that, one need only ask his spouse.

“What makes you think that?” Keir asked casually.

“Said so.”

“She told you that?” Keir sounded every bit as amazed as he was by the unexpected turn of events. Kagan replied with a barely-there nod. Keir paused to process that. “What did you say?”

Kagan looked at his brother like he was institutionalized and overdue for meds. “Nothin’.”

“Nothing?” Keir didn’t expect a response to his question, and he didn’t get one. So, he asked another that was more to the point. “How did she tell you?”

Kagan’s gold-green eyes, identical to Keir’s, flashed a look at his brother. “What do you mean?”

Keir scoffed silently. If he told his brother what he was thinking, which was that it was a dumb question, that would be the end of fishing for the day. So, he swallowed the sarcasm with a gallon of patience and said, “Was it by phone or text or in person?”

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