Kronos groaned again, a dreadful sound that rattled in his lungs. Jameson wanted to look away. He wanted to turn around and occupy the nearest corner, but that thought had already been taken. All four of the girls were there, busying themselves by consoling a weeping Hester. The youngest one there, he was practically a baby in a room full of stoic children. Only his sister, older than him by a few years, could touch him. He swatted the others if they got too close, so he sat in her lap, quieted down by her gentle strokes across his back.

“He shouldn’t be here, Selene,” one of the girls said. Angelina, Jameson believed her name was. She placed a tender hand on her cousin's shoulder, her long, dark curls sweeping past the shoulders of her red dress and nearly obscuring Selene's face. She reminded him of a weeping willow, if such a tree became human. “He’s much too young to experience this. He should be home in the nursery.”

“He’s fine,” Selene sighed. “Just… give him a second.”

“Funny,” Balthasar sniffed. “A girl that can’t get a babe to stop crying. Wonder what that says about you?”

Selene’s eyes, normally a calm dark gray, suddenly flashed bone white as she glared at him from across the room. “Don’t be fooled, cousin. My love for my brother is strong, almost as strong as my ability to turn your arm into one of my mother’s sickles. Would you like to see?”

Balthasar paled. Even though he was far away from the young girl, he still took a cautionary step back. It was enough for everyone, including a cold Hannibal, to crack a smile.

But not everyone was in a laughing mood. One of the girls pushed herself away from the wall to walk over toward the king’s bed, and at that moment, Jameson realized that no one had even dared to touch the old man. Yet she did. With careful hands, the white-haired child slipped her fingers around the fists of the frail and dying king.

Immediately, his eyes opened, and Jameson gasped. They were so cold, like broken ice in the middle of winter, and as unforgiving as their wielder. They raked across the children’s heads, taking them all in with what little light spilled through the single window, before taking in an uneven breath.

“Who… is… that?” he growled.

All eyes went to Jameson, even the tiny, watery gaze of baby Hester. But although he knew why they looked at him, he still couldn’t help but squirm. Did they have to make their displeasure of his appearance so apparent? It wasn’t as if he wanted to be there, either. He was sure that there were rooms that needed to be cleaned back at the Temple, or perhaps food that needed to be cooked? Whatever the task, no matter how strenuous for someone like him, at least it would have been his place. He would have belonged there, rather than taking up the position of someone else.

Selene stood as Hester sucked his thumb on her hip. “Forgive me, uncle,” she said, approaching the Kronos' bed, “but Leopold could not come. He’s─”

“Dead?” he asked.

Selene didn’t answer but simply shook her head.

Jameson wrung his hands. It was a travesty, what happened to the late prince. It was even worse to know that he wasn’t dead, at least from what he knew. It had been said that Leopold had been taken while out on a midnight stroll, but Jameson doubted that the moment he first heard it. No one could kidnap a god. They were too powerful, even the children. Just one glance at Hannibal’s unforgiving gaze told him that. But at the same time, no one could simply vanish, god or otherwise. There had to have been something, anything to hint as to what might have caused Leopold’s disappearance. But, no. It was as if he had never even existed, much to his family’s dismay. Much to his own sadness.