She rarely indulged in such thoughts. There was no point. Years had passed before she realized that the bond was unique to the two of them. Years more passed before she understood that the bond was why she was allowed to live in the House as she did, why she was allowed to live at all; why the fiction was maintained, at solstices, that she was a treasured member of the family and Elban’s dead Lady’s pet, when in fact he could hardly look at her without sneering. When she was eight there had been long, awful days in Elban’s study when the limits of the bond had been tested. Those were days she tried not to think of at all. The scars, she told herself, were like the bond. They had always been there. They always would be. There was no point thinking about them.
She preferred to think of days spent playing on the parlor carpet in the sun, back when its colors had been bright and alive. Toy soldier campaigns under the table. Dirt-smeared, feral afternoons in the orchards and pastures, Theron frowning along behind and sneezing from the dust. They explored the old wing, uninhabited for generations save for spiders and sparrows and mice, and prowled the catacombs, tiptoeing with delicious dread past the crypts that held Gavin and Theron’s dead ancestors as marble busts of their occupants watched with stone eyes. Carrying flickering lanterns, they’d found the aquifer deep in the living rock that supplied the House with fresh water, and fled from the vast lightless stillness of it, giggling to hide their nervousness. Judah was never afraid in the dark because she could always feel Gavin somewhere in it. Over time the scratch code evolved and then each knew exactly where the other was, and what they were doing, and what they might do later. When they had a tutor, they used the scratches to snicker over his bad teeth or hairy ears (their tutors were never women) but most of the time, they had no tutor. Most of the time, they were ignored, and they were happy.
Now, none of them were ignored. Now, Gavin trained with the House Guards every day; at night, if there was no state event like the Wilmerian dinner, he either went to Elban’s study to listen to the old man talk about his campaigns, or did who knew what with the courtiers. Theron was supposed to train, too, but his poor eyesight and complete lack of killer instinct led him instead to spend most of his time hiding in the secret workshop he’d set up in the old wing. Eleanor, who would eventually be Lady of the City and Gavin’s wife, sat in the Lady’s Library for hours, reading protocol manuals and etiquette guides and the social diaries of Ladies long dead. Judah spent her days avoiding the Seneschal, who apparently spent his hunting for her so he could tell her about new things she wasn’t allowed to do: read freely in the main library, nose about freely in the map room, make a spectacle of herself in front of the courtiers.
But she was still allowed to sleep, and sleep she did, in her tiny alcove off Elly’s room. When she woke the morning after the Wilmerian dinner, Elly and Theron were already gone. Gavin sat on the threadbare sofa in the parlor, gray patches shadowing his eyes; but he smiled when he saw her. “Very sneaky last night. What makes you think you get to be free when none of the rest of us do?”
“Not my fault if I’m clever enough to escape.” She dropped into the sprung, leaking armchair that she liked best. “Pour me some coffee, Lordling?”
“I’m too important to pour coffee.”
“Too hungover, you mean. Elly said the courtiers got hold of you last night.”
“They did indeed. Stumbling all over themselves to ingratiate themselves with the future Lord of the City. Stumbling, period, if they’d had enough drops.”
“Sounds awful,” she said.
He grinned and leaned forward to pour her coffee. Let the courtiers high-comb their hair, decorate themselves with gems and kohl and scent: Gavin was twice as handsome with none of the effort. Judah knew him too well to be impressed by his future on the throne, but even she had to admit that he’d practically been made to order for the role, except for the awkward matter of her. “All joking aside,” he said, handing her the chipped cup she always used, “what happened to you last night? You didn’t answer when I scratched.”
Pain transmitted best between them but strong emotion would, too, particularly if it generated a physical response. Thinking of the Wilmerian filled her with something slithering and uncomfortable, and without bothering to examine her reasons, she knew she didn’t want Gavin to know what happened. “Nothing. I came back here and enjoyed the quiet.”
“Really.”
“Really.” She picked up a bun from the tray on the low table between them.
He let a breath’s worth of silence pass. “Did your new courtier friend enjoy the quiet with you?”
She threw the bun at him. It had been stale, anyway. “Go hang.”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for you, you know,” he said with a laugh. “The rest of us are busy all the time now. It’d give you something to do.”
“I have plenty to do. How late did Theron stay last night?”
“Not much longer than you. He said the smoke from the fire dancers made his chest feel tight. Funny how that never seems to happen with the torches and acids in his workshop.”
“Maybe it does. Maybe he just thinks that’s worth it.”
Gavin’s annoyance would have been obvious even without the scowl. “He snuck out early this morning. If he put half the effort into actually training that he puts into avoiding it, he’d be commander of the army already.”
It wasn’t annoyance he was feeling, after all, Judah realized; it was anger. In a few years, Theron would be commander of the army anyway, no matter how ill-suited he was for the job. That was what the second son did. Gavin had always been frustrated by his brother’s refusal to prepare for the role, but somehow this felt different. She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you so angry at him?”
Gavin chewed his lip for a moment. “He needs to start showing up to training. He needs to at least try.”
“It doesn’t matter how hard he tries. He still won’t be able to see past the end of his arm.”
“All the same.” His usually-easy grin seemed forced. “I didn’t know I was angry enough for you to feel it. Sorry. When he’s not there, I feel like I have to try twice as hard. And I already try pretty hard. So.”
That didn’t feel entirely true but Judah decided not to press it. “You could try a little harder not to get hit. If I’m going to end up with all the bruises anyway, they might as well put me down there with a sword.”
Gavin’s smile caught and spread to his eyes. “You’d be terrifying in battle. If you came at me with a weapon, I’d give you whatever you wanted. The whole country. Anything.”
“Make it so, Lordling. You were just saying that I needed something to do.”
“And you were telling me to go hang.” He yawned. “Speaking of training, I should get down to the field. My hangover pass won’t last past noon.”