My, that man in Ravenscar must have offended him quite thoroughly. Or perhaps he simply held onto those things tighter than the average person would; Malachi could not fault him for it, if he did.

The list continued on, growing with each person named… and the admission that he’d kill Malachi himself did not seem to come as a surprise, but – brothers? Arthur had brothers? It was so strange to think of him existing in a family unit, growing up alongside other people. It was difficult to imagine him having ever been a child at all.

Arthur might have settled on the so-called Ravenscar Idiot, but Malachi’s soft hum suggested that he did not fully believe it. Why settle?

He murmured, “it doesn’t have to be just one.”

But the doctor had answered his question, and he was satisfied enough with the list.

Malachi’s teeth worried at the inside of his bottom lip, more out of habit than anything else.

“I have,” the priest confessed, staring forward at the road ahead. It was getting easier to say it every time he did. Less emotion caught in his throat with the words’ every passing, as if the guilt had simply been a block in need of clearing through the admission.

“I would kill…” he let his eyes fall to the space just before his feet, watching each impending stone before he stepped over them. “My mother. It would only be returning the favor.”

She couldn’t rely on his money to fund her lifestyle if she was dead, that was for sure.

“Why your brothers?”