30
Brewing Chaos
Stefan kicked the bundle of straw down the hall, pretending it was a ball and that he was preparing to win a game he had never played before, much less defined. It barely resembled a ball at all, haphazard straw bound with leather scraps, but he was no stranger to imagining things as he wished them to be, not as they were.
One of the Magi had rolled it together for him. He couldn’t remember her name, but she was very nice, smiling as she noted that a little boy should have toys. He happened to agree. He wanted to tell her that anything in the world could be a toy if you were inclined to think of it that way, but he didn’t know how to talk to adults who were not his mother. So he’d grinned in delight and accepted her handcrafted gift with gratitude.
“Careful, young one,
