Brendan said, “Coffee, please, Neksa. Jess?”

“Coffee,” he said. “Thank you.” Jess watched the girl go her way and waited until she was out of earshot before he said, “You know, you don’t have to pretend with me.”

“What?”

“She’s no servant.”

Brendan, to his credit, didn’t give it away if Jess’s observation surprised him. He sat down in a gilt-framed chair with lion-head arms and covered a healthy yawn. “What if she isn’t?”

“Well,” Jess said, and took a chair across from him, with a wide black table between them, “that would explain why you haven’t gone home. She’s pretty.”

“My personal life’s none of your business.”

Jess grinned. “Scraps, it’s always been my business. So, what’s the difficulty? Father doesn’t like her? Mother wants you married off to some bloodless girl with twelfth-removed royal connections?”

“Jess,” Brendan said, and rubbed at his forehead, “why are you here? Please God, tell me, so I can get back to bed again before dawn arrives.”

I needed you. And I worried, Jess thought, but he could never say that. He and his brother had never been close, not nearly as close as he felt to his friends, but they were brothers. And he did worry. “Father sent a letter. You were supposed to be home long ago. I know you’re not staying in Alexandria to look after me.”

“And this isn’t a question you could ask me in the daytime?”

“We aren’t daytime people,” Jess replied, to which truth his brother had to give a smile of acknowledgment. More of a grimace, but still. “You can’t be staying this long in Alexandria for entertainment. It’s business.”

“Why would I tell you? You’d just run back to your real Library masters and tell all.”

“Scraps.”

The flash of temper surprised Jess, as his brother leaned forward and all but shouted, “Stop calling me that!”

It never failed to get a rise out of him. “You don’t trust me—I know that. I even understand why. What happened? Why didn’t you go home?”

He didn’t really think his brother would answer, but Brendan finally looked away and said, “I lost a shipment. A large one. Rare books.”

“Lost it—”

“To the Library. It was a mistake, and, yes, I should have known better, and Father’s never going to let me forget it until I make up for it. So, yes, you’re right. I’m after something big. Big enough to make him forget his disappointment.”

Jess shrugged. “Cost of the business, isn’t it? Father already wrote me off as a lost cause; he won’t take the chance of losing the only son he’s got left.”

“You’re dreaming. Do you actually remember our father?”

Brendan might have been right about that. Eerie. In some ways, talking to his twin was a bit like having a conversation with himself. “Maybe the books are better off with the Library. It’s a long, dangerous trip for them all the way to London.”

“I knew it,” he said. “You’ve gone over to the other side, haven’t you? Trouble with being a spy: sometimes, you start believing your own lies.”