Page 16 of Thornlight

“I can’t ignore a summons from the queen.”

“You can hardly walk!”

“Oh, so I should tell the guards, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well, so I’ll just stay home, if it’s all the same to you’?”

“No.” Thorn stood, and if her heart had been pounding before, it was now ready to fly out of her chest. “I’ll go instead.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Brier spat. “You don’t have a burn on your chest, you don’t talk like me, and the minute the queen sees you going all trembly and weepy, she’ll know you can’t possibly be me.”

Thorn’s eyes stung. “I thought I wasn’t as stupid as everyone says.”

Brier’s face softened a little. “You’re not. But you’re also notme.”

“Believe me, I know that very well.”

“Let her do it,” said Noro, his voice floating up through the window from the balcony below, which joined with their father’s gardens by way of a stone path. “I’ll help her.”

Brier narrowed her eyes at the floor. “You won’t be able to ride him. The Old Wild only permits one rider per unicorn. You know that.”

“I can bear the pain,” Thorn said. “And maybe it won’t be so bad for me. We are twins, after all. We share more than most.”

“And the burn?”

“Wait right here.” Thorn hurried downstairs to the sunroom and gathered the supplies she needed. She ignored the front door and the shifting shadows outside the windows as the queen’s guards no doubt grew impatient. Hopefully Bartos could keep them distracted for a few moments longer.

Back in the attic, Thorn sat on the floor across from Brier and thrust a small mirror into her sister’s hands.

“Hold this,” she instructed, and then, before she could talk herself out of it, Thorn got to work. She examined Brier’s burn closely, then unbuttoned her own shirt, dipped her fingers into a jar of lumpy, charcoal-based paint, and smeared it onto her chest. Her fingers were deft and sure—first black paint, then silver.

She cleaned off her hands and hurried to the closet door. She grabbed Brier’s harvester coat and the singed tunic beneath that. Gingerly she changed, careful not to smudge her paint job, and then gathered her long hair into a tidy knot on the top of herhead with a cord of blue-dyed leather, as Brier liked to do when she went up to the mountains.

Thorn took a deep breath.

Be Brier. Be Brier. Be Brier.

She turned around, straightening her shoulders.

Mazby trilled with pleasure. “Oh, that’ll do nicely!”

Thorn tugged on the end of Brier’s coat sleeves. They were a little too long for her.

“Well?” she managed.Be Brier.She tried on Brier’s smile. No matter how many times she’d practiced that easy grin in the mirror, it still felt strange, like too many teeth were trying to fit into one face. “What do you think?”

“Stop fiddling with your sleeves,” Brier said at once. “I don’t do that. And can your smile be a little less—”

“Thorn,” came Noro’s calm voice, from below. “The queen’s guards are getting quite restless.”

For a few seconds, Thorn and Brier stared at each other—one in a singed harvester’s coat, the other in a faded sleep-shirt. Brier moved first, opened her arms. Thorn’s breath caught. Brier wasn’t a hugger.

But then Brier hesitated and stepped away. “I suppose I shouldn’t. I don’t want to muss the paint.”

Thorn’s disappointment left her speechless.

“Go on, then.” Brier limped back to bed. “Don’t lose my job. And don’t be too...you.”

Too soft, in other words. Too scared. Too trembly and weepy.

Thorn bit her lip and nodded, tugging her coat straight. “Mazby, stay here.”

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