When Zeke's Words appear on his wrist, they confuse the blinking daylights out of him. One, because he has two of them, not just one like everybody else. And two, they aren't even names, just...well, words.
Prodigy and Champion.
When he's finally old enough to go to school, he asks the teacher for a dictionary and looks up his Words, wanting to know what they mean.
Prodigy – noun; a person, especially a child or young person, having extraordinary talent or ability; something wonderful or marvelous.
Champion – noun; a person who fights for or defends any person or cause; a fighter or warrior.
Zeke is so proud of his Words then, once he knows that he has someone so smart to look after him and someone else so strong to take care of him.
His Words change not long after he picks his first pocket and steals enough money to buy himself something to eat.
There's nothing to eat at home, that tosser his mum is "dating" drinks all their money.
Prodigy becomes Lost, and he feels the loss hollow out his own chest.
Champion becomes Liar, and he feels it ache in all his bruises and scrapes.
Zeke starts calling himself by his full name when he's put into foster care.
Just like that stupid poncy poem says, he puts aside childish things and whatever else.
He's Ezekiel Jones now, and no matter how long it takes or who he has to steal from, he's never going to be laughed at again.
He's a thief, and nobody laughs at a thief.
Ezekiel knows that thieving is the one thing he is good at, the only thing he's good at, so he strives to be the best, always the best.
But still, there is a part of people that doesn't like to do bad things, even in world-class thieves like him.
Sometimes, he'll lay in his bed with its silk sheets and down pillows, staring at his Words, and he knows that whoever the Liar and the Lost are, they won't love him, if they ever meet him.
Nobody could love him, not after all the bad things that he's done, all the people he's stolen from.
Nobody loves a thief.
When Liar becomes Stone, Ezekiel feels a relief that takes him so completely by surprise that he has to sit down.
When Lost becomes Traitor, Ezekiel feels like punching that stupid bloody cowboy right in the mouth. Or getting Baird to do it for him. Either way.
Ezekiel sees the way Cassandra gets close to Stone, sees how the cowboy always glances back to make sure she's okay, sees how she tucks herself into his side after a math spell leaves her with a roaring headache.
He risks a glance at his Words again, and how about that, it's Cassie and Historian now.
He goes to rob the Antiquities Floor of the British Museum just so he doesn't have to see them together.
He knows he's being left out, and he tells himself time and time again that he doesn't care.
He's Ezekiel Jones, he's the best. He doesn't need those two to be happy.
The consistent aching longing in that's taken up lodging right beneath his breastbone says otherwise, though.
Doesn't matter. He's still a thief. Nobody loves a thief.
The first time he thinks that he might actually belong here, in the Library with Cassandra and Stone, with Baird and Flynn and the old codger, it's after he nearly dies.
Figures.
A bunyip has hold of his ankle with its fifteen-foot tongue and is yanking him towards the water, jaw gaping wide to turn him into monster munchies.
Except that the cowboy's there, holding onto him with arms that are used to physical labour, digging heels into the ground, refusing to let go even as the monster pulls them both towards its jaws.
And then Cassandra is there, too, snatching up the axe that Stone dropped, and she whacks off the last foot or so of the bunyip's tongue in a spray of blood that looks like thick ink, spattered on her white skirt and raspberry tights.
The bunyip shrieks and vanishes in pain.
Stone falls back limp on the ground, panting, one arm still looped around Ezekiel's chest; Cassandra drops the axe and lunges forward to hug him, pinning him somewhat awkwardly between herself and the cowboy.
"Don't ever do something so fucking stupid again, Jones," Stone growls in that low southern twang.
"Please, Jones. Promise," Cassandra whispers.
He hasn't been able to promise that since his Prodigy and his Champion left him. But they are so worried about him, and he nods in silent agreement.
He might still be a thief, but maybe he can be just Jones, too.
They're actually bloody camping. Out in the woods. In a tent. It makes him shudder. Have neither of them heard of a luxury RV before?
"Zeke," Cassandra murmurs as she leans against his shoulder, half-asleep in front of the campfire, and Ezekiel tries to shy away from the name. He isn't Zeke, he hasn't been for years.
Zeke was a stupid kid that everybody made fun of for being poorer than dirt, Zeke was a good kid that people could love and care about.
He is Ezekiel Jones, and he is a thief.
He is not poor, and he is not good.
He tries to squirm away, but Stone sits down next to him and drops a heavy arm across his shoulders, holding him there.
"Quit squirmin', Jones," the cowboy rumbles, the corner of his mouth curling up.
He stops squirming.
The first time Cassandra and Stone invite him into their bed, he thinks they've both gone completely crackers.
That is, of course, until they both show him their wrists and their Words.
It doesn't say Thief on either of them. It's Jones.
Nobody loves a thief...but he's not a thief. He's Jones, and he's theirs.
Alright, so he isn't Zeke anymore. He's not that good kid that everybody makes fun of because he's poor.
He isn't the best anymore, either. He's not the world-class thief that nobody laughs at and nobody loves.
He's still Jones. He's a Librarian, he has a Guardian that's more like a mum than his own mum, a Library that he loves more than his own flat, and he has his soulmates. Both of them.
And when Stone puts a warm, strong arm around his shoulders, or when Cassandra wraps herself around him like a cuddly math-spouting blanket, he thinks that maybe one day, he can be their Ezekiel.