In my dreams I returned to that day with the sun slanting in past his shutters, when Garyus had folded my hands around that locket in his own, large-knuckled, liver-spotted, and tremulous. “Your mother’s likeness,” he had said. “Keep it safe.” And safe meant secret. I knew that, even at six.

I’d sat and watched that old and broken man. Listened to his stories, laughed at them as children do, sat silent and round-eyed when the tales turned dark. Most of that time I never knew him as my great-uncle. And none of that time did I know him as brother to the Silent Sister—though of course it seemed only right the Sister should be someone’s sister.

I wondered if Garyus were scared of his twin, the blind-eye woman, his silent sister. Could a person be scared of their twin? Would that be like being scared of yourself? I knew that many men were scared of themselves, frightened that they would let themselves down, that they would run rather than fight, choose the dishonourable path, the easy path rather than the hard. Me, I trusted myself always to do what was right—for Jalan Kendeth. The only times I scared myself were the rare occasions I was tempted to stand and fight, those few times when anger had gotten the better of me and almost stepped me into danger.

How much did Garyus, there in his tower with his stories and gifts for children, know of his sisters’ battles? I looked at those memories now as a puzzle. Was there another way to see them? Like those trick drawings where everything is obvious until someone tells you “the lump is a dent” and suddenly you see it—what was a bump is now a hollow, pushed in, not standing out—they all are, every rise and hollow reversed, the image has changed, its meaning flipped around, and try as you like you can’t see it as before: solid, unambiguous, worthy of your trust.

Did Garyus know his younger sister thought she knew where death’s door lay?

“Jal.” A tired voice. “Jal.”

I thought of Garyus, the Red Queen’s brother, eyes aglitter in that narrow bed. Older than her, surely? Had he known her plans? How much of all this had that crippled old man set in motion?

“Jal!”

Shouldn’t he have been king? Wouldn’t he have been King of the Red March if he weren’t broken so?

“JAL!”

“What?” I stumbled, almost fell.

“We’re stopping.” Snorri, bowed and tired, the ice wastes making mock of his strength just as it did of all men’s strength. He raised a hand, pointing within his glove. I followed his direction. Ahead of us the walls of the Bitter Ice rose without preamble: sheer, beautiful, taller than my imagination.

• • •

We ate despite the effort it took, fumbling with dead fingers to make a spark, using the last of our kindling, lighting the charcoal to heat a pot and knowing there would be no heat but what our bodies made from then on.