no subject

[ His brothers are scared of him (and with good reason). They hadn't been, for a while. They had called him soft when he carried Philomela about on his strong shoulders, had smiled at the girl child and taken care of her as a brother and in a way that their father, now permanently absent, could not. He had smiled at her and his eyes had been warm and his brothers had taken that as a sign of weakness. And then, one day, Mutius was dead and devoured, Valentine had blood upon his front and little Philomela had a bloody lip print upon her forehead. A contract signed and sealed, an I'll take care of you. And that had been the end of those particular rumors and the beginning of a whole new set. ]

You think so? [ he asks, and it's idle questioning rather than argument. ]