[Laws surrounding child welfare weren’t exactly the most robust in Kieran’s time, but even back then, buying and selling children was seen as, for lack of better words, fucked up. Sure, orphanages ran their own crazy racket, sending kids to parents on trains with signs tied around their necks, but much like Ben’s father, they were resorting to dangerous, sometimes cruel, measures to ensure what they saw as the ‘greater good’. It was a bullshit ideal whenever proposed by adults, and even more heinous when children were involved.]

[Kieran huffs, brow furrowing.]

You and yer siblin’s aren’t things and he ain’t worthy of havin’ you in his family if he can’t see that.

None of the buyin’ and sellin’ and whatever he went and did was necessary. Especially not if it’s made ya feel like this.