Arabelle did not flinch. She had painted angels with rusted halos and devils with kind hands. A boy in a box was just another Tuesday.
She picked up a palette knife.
Arabelle looked at the painting. The woman was still sad. The woman was still furious. But she was also, impossibly, holding a small cigar box in her hands. And inside the box was a single star.
“Stop,” Arabelle said.
He was small, no older than seven in the way a star is no older than its light. His hair was the color of a coin spun in the air—both heads and tails at once. One of his eyes held the manic glitter of a sunrise, the other the patient void of a midnight rain. He was sitting cross-legged, building a tower out of broken pocket watches.