Of the three people he’d now told, Arthur took the news of his being a murderer best, Malachi thought. A part of him supposed it was only natural; the other two had never experienced violence at his hands the way that Arthur had. Certainly never so brutally.

He did feel a twinge of guilt, every time his eyes landed on the poor nose he had broken – but it never lasted long.

It hadn’t killed him, and Malachi counted them both lucky for that. But he’d deserved it.

“Ah,” that seemed an appropriate answer to him. “Most people are. Mistakes, that is.”

He couldn’t help but wonder the specifics of it, though, if there were any to be found. What kind of a family produced a man such as Arthur? Were they all as twisted as him, or were they terribly, uncomfortably normal? It didn’t matter – it wasn’t as if Malachi would ever need to know – but he tucked the questions away, lest they consume him.

“Oh. She…”

Malachi bit his lip as he pondered that one. Admitting to his father’s murder was one thing, but he’d never talked about… the rest of it. Never even gave himself the time to think about it, now that it was over.

“When I was a child, she often tried to… get rid of me. I was- adopted,” that was the kind word for it anyway, “my father married her after he found me, and she hated me. Still does, I suppose,” he tilted his head from one side to the other, dismissive. “I already killed my father. So I’d kill her, next.”