That night, Alix knocks on my bedroom door across the hall from his own. He enters wearing a loose shirt and linen trousers that match mine. His hair is tied back for sleep, his face freshly washed.

I lean back against the giant headboard of my bed, my legs crossed atop my silk sheets and a book open on my lap. My hair, golden blond, falls tousled over my forehead. The words on the page in my lap blur, my eyes refusing to land on them. The room is darkened, the only light coming from a candlelit sconce near my bed and the moonlight streaming through the sheer curtains over my windows.

Alix rubs a hand over the back of his neck. He comes and sits next to me, our knees and arms touching. He always crawled into my bed like this when we were boys; I’d wake up lying next to him, watching him suck his thumb in his sleep across the bed.

“I hate when he makes us watch his interrogations,” Alix says softly. He leans back, letting his head rest on the headboard behind us. I toss my book to the foot of the bed, abandoning my attempt at reading. I can’t concentrate.

“He means well,” I say with a sigh. “Flawed as his teachings may be.”

“Even when his teachings include beating someone to death?”

I shrug. “Father thinks we must be prepared to make hard choices sometimes.” Alix scoffs softly. I glance at him; his face is impassive. “I don’t like it either,” I add, my voice soft.

Alix stands from his place next to me on my bed. He crosses to the desk I keep near the giant stretching archway that lets out onto my balcony. The desk’s polished wood surface is mostly covered in leather portfolios of history lessons mostly covered with bored doodles. In a drawer, I keep an old kingfell board, gifted to Alix and me when we were boys.

The gridded marble surface gleams in the candlelight as Alix sets it on the bed in front of my crossed legs. I smile a little; we always played kingfell when we were young and couldn’t sleep.

Alix sits across the board from me, mirroring my posture. I watch as he arranges the pieces in their starting positions on the board, two single rows of marble figurines facing one another on either end of the board, one bright white, the other gold. The horses and armored figures are so finely carved, the candlelight shines through the translucent marble. When I look up from the board, my twin is wearing a small, expectant smile.

I grin at him and reach forward to move a piece. The tiny figure resembles an armored knight, his needle-thin rapier pointed triumphantly skyward. The game works on a points system; you have to capture other figures and accumulate the points to bring down your opponent’s king piece. The kings on the board stand proudly, their crowns tiny, delicate spears atop their heads.

“Do you think Hawkin planned all this from the beginning?” I begin.

Alix shrugs. “I don’t know. He was Odrendi, not Astrian,” he says. He moves a piece, capturing one of mine.

“He was working with someone,” I offer. The piece in my hand skips across a tile, moving out of reach of one of Alix’s figurines.

“The question is, who?” he says. “He was on Father’s council. How could an Astrian spy have snuck so deeply into the court?”

I shake my head as Alix captures one of my pieces, and I move a carved horseman to capture one of his. “He’ll call for an investigation,” I say. “He won’t rest until he finds Hawkin’s accomplice.” My voice is soft.

Alix is quiet. We both know our father’s temper. The way his face reddens with rage and he shouts so harshly, so suddenly, that it makes us flinch. Our father will stop at nothing to find the spy within his court. Hawkin’s interrogation earlier was child’s play to him.

My twin sighs. “We’ll just have to wait, I suppose,” he says. “If anyone can find the spy, it’s our father.”