Bran's fingers tensed around the tub in his lap and his whole body unconsciously drew back to settle into something tense and wary as he stared at her like she was a mystery, but a dangerous one. "Because you're not old enough to be the Mother or the Crone...so there was only one left..."

He shook his as though that would settle her jumble of words into a neat explanation. "No, that's. No. There's only six things there, anyway, and you can't just..." He bit his lip hard enough to hurt. Destiny and Death and Destruction and Despair and bad things, they were bad things, and he didn't know what to do. "Don't pretend, it's not a joke. So stop pretending."