"This wasn't here before," his big sister told him staring intently at the painting in the manor halls as if it could move. It was a painting of the city streets, so many lights and so many reflections. She probably didn't know what it meant. Their father had never been one for art.

Callum almost scoffed, trying to be nonchalant, he avoided your eyes, shoving his hands into his pockets. Before what?" he hissed, jaw squared. “Cadev painted it a month ago.”

Callum watched his eldest sister carefully. Subtly. The Cadev in your universe probably didn't paint, he mused. “It’s been there while you were dozing off like a fucking vegetable.”

Cadev, the youngest brother, was grumpy, he was grouchy and petulant at times but he was already too mature for a kid his age and he was rude. But he painted. That was a fact. In this universe anyway.

They stole her from another universe. That didn't matter to any of them.

His home was her home. And his family was her family. And she belonged to family. That was what mattered to them, even if she wasn’t theirs at all.

They'd been clingy ever since she woke up a week ago, and said she was comatose for three months. (Which was a lie. There was no coma.)

Clingy. That was funny. They weren't a family of affection, not without her anyway.

She used to be the one who initiated all the hugs. Once their version of her died, everything spiraled. They were a family of misfits, just a bunch of half brothers raised in different places until their father finally found all of them. None of them asked for each other, but that was what made them click.

Truth be told, there was a little signature on the painting, cursive with Cad's name on it. There was proof, but there was no date. (It was painted a year ago, not a month ago.) All they had to worry about was the headaches she’d have from universe hopping.

She was confused, concussed, but they were good liars, especially Casper.

They needed her more than she needed them. They’d never tell her the truth.