Chapter Text
I have a brother.
Okay, I've had several, though all were dead long before my birth. This is different. Better to say my mother had another son. I knew she died only a few short years after escaping my father, but it never occurred to me it was enough time to start a new family. I never expected my sudden curiosity at what she'd done in that time to yield such strange fruit, but it's there in the microfilm archives of the Omaha Herald. Harry Dresden, son of Malcolm and Margaret. Not Harrison or Henry. Harry.
His birth announcement and mom's obituary are on the same page.
The quiet murmur of the library continues unabated, utterly failing to acknowledge that the earth has just been jolted off its axis. It's not unlike first learning the truth about my family: my world gets a little bigger and scarier and more difficult to understand or control, but the rest of the planet thinks it's just another day. Sometimes, I envy them.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" the prim young librarian asks. Spots of color ride high in her cheeks, and her breathing is quick and shallow. She isn't particularly pretty, but she has the kind of rigid restraint that's always fun to shatter, releasing the wildcat within. My mind is elsewhere, however.
"Not at all," I say.