Belladonna

Sebastian's cousin. In fact, she ... No, a prick of jealousy had spurred his assumption that she was defending a lover. But after making what he considered to be an honest mistake, she had helped him down the wrong path by not correcting that assumption. "She's got some brass to be blaming me," he muttered.
    "That's enough," Nadia snapped. She gave each one of them the Stare. "You're not little boys who can call each other names and waggle your privates at each other."
    "Trust me, Auntie," Sebastian said, "there's no one sitting at this table who is interested in waggling his privates at another man."
    "Sebastian Justicemaker." Sebastian winced.
    Michael felt a foolish urge to stick out his tongue and say "Nyah, nyah," but Nadia was standing next to him and beat his Aunt Brighid by a long arm when it came to retaliating against male foolishness. He hadn't had anyone whack him with a spoon since he was fifteen, and he'd figured he'd outgrown that stage of his life.
    Apparently not.
    "As I said" — Nadia gave each of them another dose of the Stare — "you're not little boys who can indulge in name-calling and taking pokes at one another. You're powerful men who have a powerful influence on this world. And starting trouble just to make trouble is unacceptable behavior from every one of you. And that goes for you too, Teaser."
    "I didn't do anything," Teaser muttered, slouching in his chair. "Just said the girl had a nice pair of tits."
    "Where I come from, if a man says something like that to a girl's brother, the next thing he'd better be saying is the date of the wedding," Michael said darkly.
    "Well, we're not in your part of the world, are we!" Teaser replied in a prissy tone of voice. "If you're going to get all scrappy about the way we live, go back where you came from."
    I don't know how.
    Powerful men ... who had a powerful influence on the world.
    Remembering the sandbox — and how the world had changed to reflect his feelings — he leaned back in his chair and looked out the kitchen window. Nothing appeared different, but how could he know how much influence he had on the world? Was a nearby village filling up with heavy fog at this very moment? Was some farmer's field suddenly full of stones that might lame a horse or break a plow? How was he to know?
    "Did I break the world?" He almost expected to hear Aunt Brighid's voice saying, You're puffing up your consequence, boy.
    But no one in that kitchen dismissed his question — and a true, pure fear began to shiver through him as he looked up at Nadia.
    "You said we were powerful men. I'm a Magician. A luck-bringer. An ill-wisher. The world listens to me. I can make things happen." Memories stirred, and he added in a horrified whisper, "Even when I don't mean to."
    Nadia tossed the wooden spoon onto the table, then hurried to the back door, pausing long enough to yell "Glorianna!" before she was out the door and running toward her walled garden. A moment later, when Glorianna rushed into the kitchen, Lee pointed to the door and said "Go."
    She hesitated a moment, and Michael saw the flash of understanding as their eyes met. Then she was gone, following her mother into the gardens. Michael's stomach started rolling. It was getting hard to breathe. "Rory Calhoun." The memory sank its teeth into his heart.
    He'd been sixteen years old and already planning to leave Raven's Hill the day young Rory Calhoun and two friends met their fate in the old quarry.
    He'd gone for a walk, wearing the new coat Aunt Brighid had bought him as a fare-thee-well gift. Inside, he was a swirl of fear and excitement at the prospect of leaving home for the first time since his father had settled him, his mother, and baby Caitlin into the cottage that, along with the land that came with it, had been the sole inheritance the man could offer his wife and children. Then his father had resumed the wandering life and, two years later, his mother had walked into the sea.
    But that day, Michael wasn't thinking beyond the dimly remembered romance of the wandering life, had seen it as a way to escape the looks people gave him and Caitlin Marie. He had seen a way to earn some coins with the music he'd taught himself to play on the tin whistle he'd found in a trunk of his father's belongings.
    That day, his mind and heart had been filled with the sense of adventure and the pleasure of wearing a new coat instead of a patched, secondhand one. Then Rory and two friends began following him, taunting