He was no Onyx, but he was also no human. He was not what they were expecting. They had no idea how this even happened. But he was here.
He was here looking up at her. He spoke with the words she had taught him. He moved with grace she had let him borrow. He was their brother now. The others were pleased to meet him. But he would always be her little brother first. She was responsible for him.
He would follow her around, he would sit at her feet, he would listen to her stories. He would fix her crown and she would teach him how to hold his head high. She would run around hurling huge chocolate bars for him, she would dress him up, she would listen when he says he has a wish.
She doesn't understand why he wants to be human. But it's her little brother's wish, and she's responsible for him. She comes up with a strategy to fit his wish with her desire of a family. The rest of her siblings will understand one day, this is for the family, it has to be done, none of them know her little brother like she does.
Somewhere along the line, his wish turns into her plan and he thinks she would kill him for failing her. When he rejects her plan, she cries and he doesn't understand why. And it makes sense he doesn't, for all he had known was anger and resentment. All he had done was sit in the corner feeling sorry for himself, until she had walked up to him. He who had never known tenderness, couldn't have possibly looked beyond his sister's steely exterior, couldn't fathom that the real reason her sister wanted to reverse time itself was to keep someone like him forevermore.
She doesn't understand how he can think of leaving her when she loves him so. Leaving her family behind was the hardest thing Violet ever did. But if her little brother really wishes so, she'll let him go. Violet's little hands can't do much, but they'll work hard to free Nox, the brother who is so much younger than all of them, from his cage.
The dark figure sitting at the corner of the table is no Onyx, and no human, and one day he might not even be a key. But from here onwards, he'll always be her little brother, her little mister, her Noxy, the villian to her villianess, her family. And she'll watch over him.
"Do you have no home, no family?" "No"
"Well, would you like one?"
