There are plants that thrive on entrancing their insect prey. Sweet smells, seductive shapes. Naella was that kind of creature, but her appetite was self-destruction on vine-veins that hummed with her brother’s blood. Iris was encouraged when he did not intend it. She was a slave to his other muscles, those which were most honest for them both. She stared at him with her summer-sky eyes and seemed genuinely afflicted by his disbelief. Or maybe it was the firmness with which he had gripped her arm. The nymph was, after all, as easily lost as he could lose her. “It’s not?” she asked, like he’d said something terribly strange. Even her antlers, which had not shrunk away on Greta’s brow, were absent here. He’d given her a name, something decisive, and received it in return.<br/><br/>“Am I not your sister now, then?” she asked, and it was Naella’s softly husky voice. Her syllables had always been more mature than her years. It made boys fall in love with her over the phone, and she’d gotten in trouble for it on occasion. “What am I, if not?”<br/><br/>She frowned. “I’m not borrowing a face.” She said. Who was Iris anyway, if not what he desired? It was her reality. If he called her Naella, she was Naella. She held his stare when his thumb dragged over her lips. Naella didn’t look away from her brother. Not unless she believed she’d done something wrong. She held his stare when he stretched her lips, manipulating her mouth like it was a game of little grotesques. Long lashes, white teeth, that tiny birthmark under her left eye. “Brother, what are you doing?”<br/><br/>Naella made muffled sounds against his kiss. Not exactly protest—she didn’t pull away—but the sort of surprise she offered when she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t allowed to. She’d taste the way he hoped, whether he recognized it fully in himself or not. Greta’s lewd, Iris’ sweet, a memory of Naella’s breath when she’d slept in his bed after a terrible breakup with a worthless boy. Enough that he was left with an excuse to explore her, a safety net, without breaking the reality of his sister’s presence. Naella breathed deep and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand when he pulled away. “I’m not?” she asked. “Why?” she asked. Sincere disbelief. She raised the hem of her skirt until he could see the tiny needlepoint scars high on her thigh. “Aunt Lisbeth’s little dog bit me when I was eight.” She said. She reached for him. “You held me until Mother came and I stopped crying. I was scared of dogs for years after that. You wanted to dress up as Riding Hood and the Wolf when I was twelve and I didn’t talk to you for a week.” Naella touched his cheek. “But I’m not your sister?”