Phoenix Maplewood daddy

Timberlake - it sounded like a Morningside sort of name, unlike Kasatka and Aditya. Was this Sunny and Dawn's younger brother, then? He had the same eyes, but so did Aditya, who (allegedly) shared no blood with any of the Morningsiders. What a puzzle. Alya decided to stop caring about his parentage. He'd failed to provide her with a name to go with the description, but she was not going to expend effort interrogating the boy.

"I haven't seen him," she said, seeing no reason to lie to the child. "But here - I will clean you up, so that he will not think you are a dust bunny when he returns."

She lowered her haunches (slowly, painfully) to the ground, and waited expectantly for Timberlake to approch her and consent to his bath. She guessed that a lot of the dirtiness she saw was just his fur color, but the urge to do something to exert control over the sinking ship she perceived to be the boy's life was too strong to ignore.