This will be a small one, I told myself. Barely a drabble, I told myself.

Well I’m a fucking liar, I guess.

————

Luca was laughing. He laughed and laughed, and it made Leopoldo angrier and angrier.

“Ah…” Luca wiped the tears from his eyes. “Really, planting Enzo’s button under the cupboard was a stroke of genius. You almost got caught though.”

“I wouldn’t have had to do it in the first place if you hadn’t messed with the cake,” Leopoldo lashed out. It was scary, in honesty – if he got caught, Aunt Eloisa might have thought that he was the cake thief, and that would have been most unfortunate.

“Oh, come on, it worked out, didn’t it? He shouldn’t wear such fancy buttons, really. Or keep a better eye on his clothes.”

“Whatever,” Leopoldo grumbled. “Did you at least save me a piece?”

“Sorry!” Luca chuckled and whispered in his ear, “The great thing about stealing someone’s birthday cake is that you don’t have to share.”

And off he went, in search of new mischief. Leopoldo should have just let him get caught – but he didn’t. Couldn’t.

This was what big brothers were for, wasn’t it?

—

“Oh, will you stop nagging,” Luca waved Leopoldo off. “Who cares?”

“I care,” Leopoldo hissed, frantically hoping no one was listening at the door. “He was hurt, badly.”

“That was the whole point,” Luca pointed out. “Because he’s an asshole and he made fun of my hair. And I don’t like how he looks at Mamma.”

“That’s no reason to push a guy off the roof,” Leopoldo’s pleading fell on deaf ears. “What if he wakes up? What if someone saw you?”

“Nah,” Luca smirked. “I wiped his memory. Want to try, too?” He twirled the chain of his pendant around his finger, and goosebumps ran across Leopoldo’s back.

“Leave me out of your weird games,” he snapped. “Just… stay in your room. I’ll go check the roof.”

“Do you have to?” Luca rolled his eyes. “Won’t that just attract more attention?”

“You’re missing a button,” Leopoldo pointed out, jabbing a finger at the empty space on Luca’s waistcoat.

Luca looked down. “Ah,” he laughed softly, “so I am. What would I do without you?”

Indeed, what?

—

“You messed up.”

“Look, you don’t have to tell me that, I just need you to help me fix it.”

“If the police comes, there’s nothing I can do, Luca.”

“He heavily implied blackmail.”

Ah, of course. So much better.

They were walking through the dim streets, Leopold wasn’t sure where. He still didn’t know this town very well, and Luca’s absolute refusal to try and keep a low profile didn’t make things easier.

“Well, what do you want me to do? Beat him up so he doesn’t tell anyone? I hardly think that will work, besides, he’s twice my size.”

“Shut up and let me think.”

Luca had always considered himself the thinker in the family, severely underestimating the amount of planning that had to go into bailing him out of trouble – to say nothing of Leopold’s mental gymnastics to justify doing so.

They arrived at a small house, secluded enough that Leopold let himself relax a little.

“So, what now? Knock and try to reason with him?”

“No, no, we need to get in quietly. Can you pick the lock?”

There was light inside, and Leopold winced as he got the set of lockpicks out of his pocket. The lock itself wasn’t difficult, but he ran into an unfortunate problem once he finished with that.

“It’s bolted from the inside.”

“Can’t you do something with it?”

Leopold listened to the quiet of the nighttime street, already disturbed enough by the clinging of the picks.

“Not unnoticed. Look, just… let me talk to him, we’ll figure something out.”

Luca shook his head. Leopold was almost surprised he didn’t stomp his foot. After looking around, Luca suggested, “Can you get in through the chimney?”

“Are you an idiot?!” Luca shushed him, and Leopold continued in a quieter voice, “Unless you know some mumbo-jumbo to make me three times smaller and fireproof, that’s out of the question.”

Luca bit his lip and then his gaze finally landed on Leopold’s coat. His eyes lit up, “These are ivory, aren’t they?”

He plucked one button off with surprising strength, and Leopold protested, “Oi, that was Dad’s!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up.” Luca bit his finger until it bled, pressed it to the shiny white surface. Leopold watched, desperately suppressing his disgust, as the droplet of blood boiled on top of the button, grew and solidified into a fleshy impression of a four-legged creature, the original ivory barely visible on its forehead.

The creature was thin and ugly, barely resembling the pictures of elephants Leopold had seen in books. At the command of Luca’s finger, it climbed the wall as if it was a spider, then disappeared in the chimney. In a few minutes, Leopold heard the latch quietly drop, and pulled the door open as quietly as he could.

With another sharp flick of Luca’s finger the creature dropped to the ground, dissolving into the carpet and leaving behind the slightly dirty button. Luca picked it up and pressed it into Leopold’s hands with a wide, unnerving smile.

When Leopold pressed the edge of his rapier to the blackmailer’s throat, he thought the hard part was over. That was what Luca wanted him for – the sneakiness, the light steps, the ability to take someone by surprise to give Luca a chance to find the papers and burn them.

But then Luca turned away from the fire, face cast in moving shadows, and smiled.

“Don’t,” Leopold tried to say, but Luca interrupted him.

“You know, there’s been this one thing that I’ve been meaning to try on a person. Get some feedback. Maybe teach someone a lesson on snooping in other people’s affairs.”

He stroked the chain around his neck and his smile grew wider.

And then the man screamed.

He jerked, cutting his throat against Leopold’s rapier – not enough to kill him, but more then enough to bleed. Leopold drew back, jumped off the chair he was standing on to avoid being accidentally pushed off.

“What are you doing, stop!” he hissed at Luca, unsure why he was still trying to be quiet – the screams must have alerted everyone in the neighbourhood to their presence.

“Teaching him a lesson,” Luca didn’t take his eyes off the man writhing in front of him in agony. “Just in case he had the idea to try this again.”

“Enough is enough,” Leopold stalked towards his brother, getting more and more enraged. “This is how you get caught, don’t you realize?”

He tried to pull at the chain of Luca’s necklace, hoping it would interrupt whatever magic was going on. Luca leaned away, turned to him, and then –

Everything was on fire. His body was burning, every nerve ending screaming for the torture to stop. He fell to his knees, unsure if he wanted to try and fight whatever was causing it or beg for mercy, and then –

It was gone.

As quickly as it came, the pain stopped, leaving him gasping at Luca’s feet.

“Well, then,” suddenly, Luca was all business. “I suppose now he’s seen too much, and his neighbours have heard too much. An accidental fire, what do you say?”

Leopold didn’t dare do anything but nod, and Luca leaned down to him with a smile.

“I knew I could count on you. Get what you need ready. I’ll take care of him.”

—

“Did you have to kill him?”

“He’s the reason Grandma’s dead, don’t you have any sense of pride?”

It felt like the same conversation all over again. His voice argued, but his mind was already running through the possibilities.

It was a big party – hiding the body wasn’t a possibility, but they could make things confusing. Those detectives, their cousin’s friends – they were a danger, but one that could possibly play in their favour.

The study – Archibald had another key, didn’t he? It would be easy enough to stumble into him, slice off a button off his frock…

“You said these detectives know magic?” Luca nodded.

Leopold looked around the study. Ah, a letter opener – wonderful.

He stabbed it into the dead body’s chest and turned to Luca. “Make sure if they look, they see what they need to see. Can you do that?” Luca nodded. “Ah, and make sure we’re heard somewhere… downstairs.”

The parts of a plan were coming together, the reluctant perfection of cover-up.

“I knew I could count on you,” Luca smiled, and Leopold shivered.

“Anytime,” he echoed.

That was what big brothers were for, wasn’t it?