human fluidity. Margrit lurched into step behind her, wondering if she could turn the Old Races grace on and off, or if her human upbringing had tethered her to the earth.
Kate led them into a kitchen-dining room at the back of the house, where a bowl of cereal was growing soggy on the table. She picked it up and dropped into a chair, then gestured with her spoon. “There’s water or juice if you want some. Or cereal. Or toast.”
Ursula gave her sister another hard look and went to fill a glass with water, handing it to Margrit. “Would you like anything else?”
Margrit curled the glass against her chest and shivered as a draft caught her. “No, this is fine, thanks. I ate breakfast before I came out here.”
“All right.” Ursula poured granola into a tub of yogurt and joined Kate at the table, inviting Margrit to join them. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, she did, and clutched her water glass as she studied the sisters.
They weren’t identical, but nor did Margrit doubt they were twins. They looked to be somewhere in their twenties, younger than Janx and certainly younger than Daisani, though like them, there was something about their hazel eyes that hinted at more years seen than their faces acknowledged.
They shared a high roundness of cheekbone that must have come from their mother: neither Janx nor Daisani had any such roundness to their features. Kate’s hair was a flawless shade of auburn, so perfectly caught between brown and red it was impossible to say one or the other dominated. Ursula’s was black, reminding Margrit that she’d heard red hair was only one genetic marker off being black. Even though Kate was barefoot, they’d both stood taller than Margrit. Given that they’d been born in an era where the average height was considerably shorter than in modern day, that struck Margrit as unfair.
“So whose are we?” Kate said when she evidently thought Margrit had looked long enough.
Ursula rolled her eyes. “Don’t be rude.”
Margrit, too curious to be cowed, shook her head. “I honestly can’t tell. Don’t you know?”
“Of course, but we hardly ever get to ask. What are they like?” This time, despite Kate’s bluntness, even Ursula sat forward, a shard of interest changing the color of her eyes.
Surprise thumped through Margrit. “Alban hasn’t told you?”
“Of course he has, but he’s a gargoyle. Ow!” Kate glowered at Ursula, whose weight shifted again as she drew her feet back under herself. “This woman wouldn’t be here if she didn’t know about all of us, Urs.”
“Margrit,” Margrit said. “Margrit Knight.”
“I knew that,” Kate said with asperity. “You do know about us, right? You see?” she added in triumph at Margrit’s nod. “So tell us about them.”
“Katherine, if she’s here, she’s got something more important to discuss than their personalities.”
“Oh, now I’m in trouble.” Kate rolled her eyes, making her look even more like Ursula. “She dragged out the full name. Mother got to do that successfully, not you, Urs.” She turned her attention back to Margrit, expectation lifting her eyebrows.
“Janx eats up all the air in the room,” Margrit said. “Just by being there. It’s hard to breathe, as if your chest weighs a hundred pounds more all of a sudden. He likes to tease. Eliseo’s sort of more ordinary, except he bulldozes you to get what he wants and you’re kind of left wondering what hit you. They both subscribe to getting more flies with honey, but Janx is better at making people laugh. They’re lonely,” she said, surprising herself with the qualifier. “And they just learned that you survived.”
CHAPTER 23
Both women went still with a fullness that removed any question of their heritage. It wasn’t a gargoyle’s absolute immovability, but it went far beyond human, coming from their centers and moving out until they were wholly encompassed by it. Their gazes were locked together, giving Margrit the eerie sensation that they communicated wordlessly. Twins, she knew, were reputed to share each other’s thoughts and mental processes to a greater degree than other siblings. Adding nearly four centuries of practice to that made her imagine their ability to come to silent agreements was quite literally inhuman. A draft spun through the air, chilling Margrit as she watched the two.
Ursula, clearly the dominant of the pair, broke away and returned her attention to Margrit. “What happens now?”
The question, so pointed and pragmatic, surprised her. “I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone will come hunting you, if that’s what you’re worried about. The injunction against breeding with humans was lifted just a few weeks ago.” She hesitated, struck by the enormity of what she was about to say. “I think you’re basically full citizens now. You could be part of Old Races society, if you wanted.”
“And if we don’t?” Ursula asked, words weighted and cautious.
Margrit shrugged. “I don’t know. Janx and Eliseo are going to start looking for you now they know you survived. But you’ve got a three-hundred-fifty-year head start on hiding. You can probably keep it up for quite a while.”
“But not forever.”
More dourly than she intended, Margrit said, “Nothing is forever.” Ursula arched an eyebrow and Margrit passed her own moodiness off with a wave. “There are, what, seven billion people on the planet? I honestly don’t think that’s enough to hide among if Eliseo Daisani really wants to find you. He’s got unlimited funds, a great deal of motivation, and he’s faster than a bat out of hell. I think he’ll catch up with you eventually, and maybe even sooner rather than later. In fact, if you’re really unlucky, he’s already having me followed and knows where you are. Sorry,” she added to two near-identical expressions of shock. “I only just thought of it. I’m not that good at cloak-and-daggering.”
“What would you do in our position?” Ursula had evidently been voted spokeswoman in their unspoken discussion; Kate still sat wrapped in a thoughtful silence.
“I’d decide what I wanted from the Old Races and then present myself, fait accompli. Everybody is going to want something from you. You may as well start out as strong as you can.”
“When you say everyone…?”
“You can assume pretty much all the Old Races in the city know about you by now.” Margrit sat down, explaining how the twins had been discovered as briefly and thoroughly as she could, then outlining the chaotic state that had developed over the past few weeks. The twins absorbed her words with little more than occasional glances at one another, waiting until Margrit finished before Ursula nodded.
“We’ll consider your advice. And you won’t find us here again, Margrit Knight. Don’t bother looking.”
“Should I tell Alban anything?”
The not-young women exchanged looks again, Ursula finally replying, “Tell him we’ve gone home.”
“I will.” Margrit stood and found herself fighting the urge to bow slightly, as Janx might have done. “I’m glad to have met you. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
“Were they glad?” Kate’s voice arrested her at the kitchen door. The auburn-haired woman sounded young and uncertain, as if preparing herself for a disappointment she didn’t think she could face.
Margrit turned back, one hand on the doorframe. “They were both furious with Alban for not telling them your mother had survived the fire. That you’d survived. They were…I don’t know if glad is the right word. Greedy. They were greedy for news of you.”
Kate nodded, and after a moment Margrit took that as her dismissal and slipped away.
She turned back at the street, looking at the twins’ home; looking at the other houses that stood straight and tall alongside it. There was nothing to hint that the women who lived at the corner house were anything less or more than human.
Four centuries of pretending. A shiver lifted bumps on Margrit’s arms. She had enough trouble with a few weeks of hiding and lying. Being condemned to a lifetime of it—more than a lifetime—was difficult to contemplate.
But that was what she was signing on for, if she wanted to make a life with Alban. It would be a lifetime of secrets and hidden worlds, and despite some bold words to Daisani weeks earlier, Margrit doubted that the Old
