“You and your ducks.” He scowled as he rubbed his wrist. His left hand was like a claw, the fingers curled and crabbed.

“Does your arm hurt?”

“No! Lady Simeon must be gone by now—why don’t you go play with your ducks or dolls or something?”

“Because I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.” Briony was on firm ground now. She knew this negotiation as well as she knew her morning and evening prayers, as well as she knew the story of Zoria’s flight from the cruel Moonlord’s keep—her favorite tale from The Book of the Trigon. It might last a while, but in the end it would go her way. “Tell me.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He draped his bad arm across his lap with the same care Briony lavished on lambs and fat-bellied puppies, but his expression was closer to that of a father dragging an unwanted idiot child. “Stop looking at my hand.”

“You know you’re going to tell me, redling,” she teased him. “So why fight?”

His answer was more silence—an unusual ploy at this stage of the old, familiar dance.

The silence and the struggle both continued for some time. Briony had moments of real anger as Barrick resisted her every attempt to get him to talk, but she also became more and more puzzled. Eight years old, born in the same hour, they had lived always in each other’s company, but she had seldom seen him so upset outside of the small hours of the night, when he often cried out in the grip of evil dreams.

“Very well,” he said at last. “If you’re not going to leave me alone, you have to swear not to tell.”

“Me? Swear? You pig! I never told on you for anything!” And that was true. They had each suffered several punishments for things the other twin had done without ever breaking faith. It was a pact between them so deep and natural that it had never been spoken of before now.

But the boy was adamant. He waited out his sister’s gust of anger, his pale little face set in an unhappy smirk. She surrendered at last: principle could only stretch so far, and now she was painfully curious. “So, then, pig. What do you want me to do? What shall I swear to?”

“A blood oath. It has to be a blood oath.”

“By the heads of the gods, are you mad?” She blushed at her own strong language and could not help looking around, although of course they were alone in the pantry. “Blood? What blood?”

Barrick drew a poniard from the vent of his sleeve. He extended his finger and, with only the smallest wince, made a cut on the tip. Briony stared in sickened fascination.

“You’re not supposed to carry a knife except for public ceremonies,” she said. Shaso, the master of arms, had forbidden it, fearing that Briony’s angry, headstrong brother might hurt himself or someone else.

“Oh? And what am I supposed to do if someone tries to kill me and there are no guards around? I’m a prince, after all. Should I just slap them with my glove and tell them to go away?”