After a time she said, "Yes, we were twins." Then,
after a long silence, she added, "But she was always much the older."
And that was all I ever knew of whatever obscure pressures had shaped
Dallisa into an austere and tragic Clytemnestra, and Miellyn into a
pixie runaway.
Outside the drawn shutters, dawn was brightening. Miellyn shivered,
drawing her thin draperies around her bare throat. I glanced at the
little rim of jewels that starred her hair and said, "You'd better take
those off and hide them. They alone would be enough to have you hauled
into an alley and strangled, in this part of Charin." I hauled the bird
Toy from my pocket and slapped it on the greasy table, still wrapped in
its silk. "I don't suppose you know which of us this thing is set to
kill?"
"I know nothing about the Toys."
"You seem to know plenty about the Toymaker."
"I thought so. Until last night." I looked at the rigid, clamped mouth
and thought that if she were really as soft and delicate as she looked,
she would have wept.
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