Lennox, I assumed, and my lip almost curled in disgust. I was surprised to learn they were twins, because they looked nothing alike. An old story came to mind, the one Imonie had told me of the woman of the mountains and her twin boys. They had been identical, often switching roles to protect each other from punishments. I wondered what it would be like to so seamlessly change places with someone, fooling friends and family alike.

“Your brother must deeply care for you,” I said. “I assume the two of you are very close?”

Phelan was quiet, and it prompted me to glance at him. His gaze was distantly set on the shelves of books behind me.

“Our relationship is one built on favors and debts,” he replied, still avoiding eye contact with me. “And I swiftly learned that we don’t work well together, and I needed a different partner on the new moon nights.”

He needed someone to guard his back, which I understood. I had once guarded my father’s, and he mine. Strange, that Phelan didn’t want it to be his twin brother. Although Lennox was not a likable person.

“What were you wounded by?” I asked, my gaze drifting to his chest. To his perfect posture, which betrayed no visage of weakness, even as I knew my own magic had left lacerations on his skin earlier that day. Nicks and cuts that now hid beneath his garments.

“That I cannot tell you,” he replied with a lilt of mirth. “Unless you accept my offer, Miss Neven.”

“Touché, Mr. Vesper,” I said, and turned my attention away from the intensity of his gaze to the book of nightmares. I considered it foolish that he’d left something so vital and important sitting in plain sight on his desk until I dared to trace its battered cover and was rewarded with a sting.

The shock of it made me wince more than the pain, but I yanked my hand away as blood welled on my fingertips.

“It bites,” Phelan belatedly said as he walked to me, pulling a handkerchief from his inner pocket. “Here, I apologize. I should have warned you.”

I nearly accepted his handkerchief, my blood welling like a string of red pearls, but I felt a warning in the pit of my stomach. I needed to be careful and give him no piece of me. No strand of hair, no drop of blood, no breath of mine. Nothing that he might use to divine my true nature, should he come to one day suspect I was not who I appeared to be.

I set my fingers in my mouth and licked away my blood, to which he arched his brow, as if secretly repulsed. My blood tasted like warm iron, and I cleared my throat, drawing my fingers from my lips and pressing them against my palm, urging the wounds to clot.

“How long have you lived here, Mr. Vesper?”