Cassian rolls his eyes.
The gesture is full-bodied—not the subtle, performative eye-roll of polite society but the complete, gravitational rotation of someone who has been subjected to his identical twin’s particular brand of emotional deflection for over three decades and has developed a physical vocabulary specifically for responding to it. His gray-blue eyes complete their circuit and return to forward facing, landing on the worktable with the focused attention of someone who has just noticed something that doesn’t belong in the current crisis.
“Are you already thinking of attire for this grand masquerade we’re supposed to attend?”
The question carries a note of incredulity that I find personally offensive because preparing for a masquerade is not a frivolous activity—it is atacticalactivity, and the fact that my twin can’t distinguish between vanity and operational planningdespite sharing ninety-nine-point-nine percent of my genetic material is a mystery I will take to my grave.
I chuckle—low, warm, the sound finding its natural register in the cedar-scented space between us.
“Well, we’d need a few.” I run my thumb along the edge of the midnight silk, testing the weave’s integrity with the unconscious appraisal of someone who learned to evaluate fabric quality before he learned to evaluate people, though the skills turned out to be transferable. “Seeing as things may get bloody, yes?”
Cassian shakes his head.
The motion is slow, resigned—not disagreement but the physical manifestation of a bewilderment so chronic it has become affectionate.
“How you’re always so thrilled with the unexpected circumstances of our life is beyond me.”
I laugh again—brighter this time, genuinely entertained by the idea that my response to chaos is unusual when the reality is that chaos has been the only consistent feature of our existence since we were old enough to understand that the world we were born into was designed to eat us alive and our only options were to be consumed or to develop a palate for the absurd.
I lift a different fabric—a shimmering gold that catches the afternoon light and holds it, transforming the material from textile into something closer to liquid metal. The color is vivid, unapologetic, the kind of gold that doesn’t whisper about wealth but announces it with the volume of a trumpet section.
“That is again why I came to the world first,” I say, letting the gold fabric drape from my fingers like a flag being unfurled. “To carry the heavy burdens of the world to lessen your level of anxiety revolving them.”
I let the fabric fall gently to the table, my expression shifting from theatrical to genuine—the transition that only Cassiangets to witness, the one that reveals the person behind the performance.
“Thankfully, we’re two peas in a pod. And we always are victorious.” I meet his eyes—my gray-blue finding his gray-blue, the mirror recognizing itself. “So setting victory in such a plague of uncertainty should be our specialty.”
He doesn’t respond verbally. He doesn’t need to. The twins’ language operates on frequencies that don’t require words—a raised eyebrow, a softening of the jaw, the particular way his shoulders drop by a fraction when the tension leaves them. These are the words. These are the sentences. Thirty-four years of shared experience compressed into muscular micro-adjustments that communicate more than any speech could.
Cassian crosses the room to the window.
It’s a tall window—floor-to-nearly-ceiling, framed in the same pale wood as the wall panels, offering a view of Savage Knot’s upper compound that would be pleasant if the compound weren’t functionally a gilded prison for people whose primary recreational activity is avoiding being killed. He sits on the ledge—his lean frame settling against the sill with the practiced ease of someone who has made window ledges his preferred seating in every space he’s occupied since we were old enough to choose where to sit. Something about the proximity to open air. Something about the escape route.
He opens the window.
Just slightly—an inch, maybe two—and the afternoon air enters in a thin stream that carries the scent of the surrounding forest: wet pine, mineral earth, the particular ozone-tinged coolness that Savage Knot’s elevation produces at this hour. The temperature in the room drops by a perceptible fraction, and I register the change against my exposed forearms with the mild irritation of someone who prefers controlled environments and has been paired since birth with someone who prefers windows.
He pulls out a cigarette.
I watch the extraction with the specific attentiveness of a brother who has opinions about this particular habit and has expressed them with a regularity that has accomplished absolutely nothing.
“Didn’t you say you were going to quit?”
Cassian shrugs.
The gesture is small, economical—a micro-movement of shoulders that communicates the same information that a three-paragraph essay on the relationship between intention and execution would communicate, but in significantly less time.
“Yesterday’s goals can be today’s turmoils.”
I smirk.
The expression finds my lips before I authorize it, pulled into position by the particular pride I take in my twin’s ability to weaponize aphorisms. He’s always been the more linguistically precise of us—not louder, not more verbal, but moreaccurate. Where I use ten words for effect, Cassian uses five for impact. Where I charm, he clarifies. The complementary architecture again. The two halves of a whole that functions best when both halves are operational.
I watch him light the cigarette.
The flame from his lighter—a slim, matte-black thing, understated where my own affectations are anything but—catches the tip and produces a thin curl of smoke that the cracked window draws outward in a lazy, sidewinding stream. He takes the first drag with the unhurried patience of a man who has decided that this particular vice will be surrendered on his timeline rather than the world’s, and the ember glows against the pale afternoon light like a small, persistent rebellion.
We’re in a pickle.
