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“You know this is a terrible idea.”
The absolute absurdity of you voicing a caution or concern is communicated by Julian’s bright laugh. It should vex you, but it doesn’t. You resent being mocked, of course, but Julian never mocks you—he is only teasing.
“Cassius, don’t be leaden. We’ll return everything to precisely where it came from.”
Your twin is only bold when he knows you are his partner in mischief. Today, that meant filching a pair of glittering dice from the antechamber of Karnus’ rooms. Karnus, by all accounts, is not due to return to the Trevian Estate for two weeks more—he is taking one of his brutally decadent holidays in the wake of Father’s shadow. Father is overseeing honor ceremonies held in Agea, and Karnus followed; ostensibly to fulfil the duties of an eldest son and someday heir, and in truth, to indulge his thirst for all pleasures to the point of inebriation. He left a few trinkets behind him—strewn about his chambers in a false show of carelessness. Karnus loves gaming and violence: dice that transform into wicked-edged throwing stars are a prime combination, to him.
And, you must confess, to you. You are sometimes like an acrobat, testing your limits through tricks that could kill you.
Sometimes, you do not know what you are made of.
“Come now,” Julian pleads, the die gleaming in his open palm. “He won’t find out.”
To be fair to Julian, Karnus doesn’t—but later, you will think that this sort of silly victory, this too-easy escape, was half your trouble. All your lives, Julian coaxed, and even reasoned (he was, after all, much cleverer than you), and you gave in. If your mettle had been fiercer, if your heart had burned, perhaps, a little colder—you would have shamed him and frightened him about his chances at the Institute, and though half of your world would have been left behind you, half of you would not now be forever-dead.
You are sulking. You shouldn’t—sixteen is too old to sulk—but it is another day in which you have been denied the wonders of Agea, and you do not give a flying gilded fig for the view of the cityscape outside the lunar glass windows.
“We’ll sneak out,” Julian offers, “If that’s what you want.”
Impossible. He is already in his carpet slippers, and besides, you could never stomach dragging Julian to a Pearl Club, where the sights and sounds and sensations imprint themselves permanently on the mind, and in muscle memory. No—you wanted to be chosen, really chosen for such an outing by Karnus and his friends, not forgotten like an unwanted dog.
There is no substitute for power. So—
“No,” you say snappishly. “I don’t want to.”
He’s silent, and you are immediately guilt-stricken. You watch him from the corner of your eyes as he paces the luxurious quarters your mother selected for you.
You do not expect the question that follows.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“What?”
“A Rose, trained in the Gardens?” It is strange to hear Julian speak of such things. “Or a dozen Pinks at once, whatever their training?”
“I—” You are blushing, and you don’t like it. You don’t like the self you are becoming, longing for vices more than his company.
“You’re nothing like Karnus,” Julian says. He has folded his hands in front of him as if he was an orator, but his right index finger taps his left-hand knuckles, a nervous tell. “And though I love him, thank the stars for that! But really, Cassius, Antonia wasn’t kind to you. You needn’t regret her.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why the sudden pursuit of…” He winces, which makes you wince. You can always feel his pain, no matter how fleeting. “Of the physical? The—carnal?”
You clear your throat. “I want to be a man of the world.”
He doesn’t chide you for that. Doesn’t tell you to become something better. He reconsiders whatever plan of gentle attack he had been launching, and turns to lift one of the dish-covers on the laden table in the corner of the room. “Come. Let’s have dinner.”
“You’ve been very quiet,” Julian says. Another year—another season spent among the Trevian fountains. You watch the rainbow waters plume and plummet. You are stripped to the waist, the heat of the day like a caress on your skin. There is a basket of fruit and sweetmeats tumbled beside you, but just now, you feel like you’ve been poisoned.
With effort, you say, “I’m thinking.”
Julian is sitting on the step above you, undoing the tangles in your water-matted hair with nimble fingers. You have acted like a pair of absolute fools today, cavorting in and out of the waterways. Julian has put aside his books, and his drawing paper, and has even neglected his balance exercises for kravat.
But such carefree antics were all part of a stratagem, you understand. He wanted you to be in good humor when he told you that he, too, would be applying for entry to the Institute.
He has failed to account for how changeable your moods can be. He has failed to account for how stubborn you can be, how skillful with arguments as well as fists when you are motivated to fight. He has failed—
Hasn’t he?
By all the Sovereigns, past, present, and future, hasn’t he already failed?
Yet… you are silent. You said, I’m thinking, but your thoughts float like a Pixie on mismatched gravboots. You shiver, suddenly conscious of a chill. The flesh on your arms prickles: a physical symptom of weakness unbecoming in a High Gold. You jerk your head away from his knees and twist your neck to look at him.
“I’m done,” you growl. “But you ought to start. Thinking, I mean.”
He is smiling. Always smiling. He even smiles when he cries, like he’s trying to be brave. And of course, Julian still cries—cries over a sad song, or an epic theatric, or a harsh word from your father. Your mother and you do not get on particularly well, but you are in full agreement on the subject of Julian. He is the best of your family, tender and brilliant and deadly in his own way. But not—not meant to be a Peerless Scarred. Not meant to even try for such as that.
That is for Karnus.
That is for you.
“Start thinking?” he asks. “Oh, but I have. Cassius, you tell me all the time that I’ve made my body a secret weapon, and my mind as well. You know I wouldn’t dream of achieving what you can, but I ought to bring a little honor to the family before I’m old. You know I should.” The smile softens on his lips. It becomes the one that is only yours to share, for you used to see it through slow, sleepy blinks in your crib when you both were small. Father thought it unseemly coddling to allow two babies to comfort one another at night: children must learn that darkness is nothing more than the balance of day. But Mother said two sons who had shared one womb ought not to forget that they would share a little of each other always. She said that you would be stronger together.
This is the argument Julian makes now.
“You know,” he says softly, “you’d be dreadfully lonely without me.”
And you have nothing to say to that, for he is right.
“You know,” he says, gripping your gloved fingers the last moment you are alone before the Draft, “I’m beginning to think this was a terrible idea.”
You choke. Thankfully, nobody is nearby. “Julian, what a gorydamned moment to—”
He laughs under his breath. “You didn’t let me finish. I was admiring your profile, Cassius, and I really think you look better without a scar.”
He only makes jokes with you. He’s as serious as a White around everybody else, for all that he’s friendly. Worst fellow at larking you’ve ever met when his back is up.
At the moment, you can barely bring yourself to answer him. Your stomach is in knots.
“If we don’t both earn one,” you say, the words lighter than your tone by far, “everyone will be able to tell us apart.”
There isn’t much time. You will be seated separately from one another, High-Draft and Mid-Draft, and you won’t know which house he is in until the end. Karnus wouldn’t provide you with more than the barest bones of an outline as to how the whole series of tests will unfold.
This is a School, you tell yourself. You don’t need Karnus. You need—
Order, cunning, endurance…
Julian is as capable of rising to a challenge as you are. You nudge his elbow and glimpse his smile, more familiar to you than your own. You do not throw your arms around him.
Someone might see. Julian might cry. There isn’t much time.
Then there is. Afterwards, of course, time is all you have.