"The tourists are coming through to see the palace," Ry remarked casually as he wiped his practice blade carefully with a soft cloth. Tory's blade was already gleaming in the light cast by the fluorescent globes overhead. Power was carried through buried lines from the light half of the planet to keep the capital city of Lissia lit in the constant twilight. Tourists visiting nearby Casino City had need of the artificial lighting. Ry and Tory had learned to deal with the planet's unusual rotation, which kept Lissia in semi-darkness.
"Do you think we would be missed from class for a few minutes if I skipped us to the Green Fae village?" A slow grin spread across Tory's face. Tory was tall already—more than six feet—and looked older than his fourteen years. Ry was around five and a half feet tall and envied his brother's height at times.
"You'll have to skip us; if I use any ability, I'll get knocked back at the boundary. Dad limited my power on that sort of thing." Ry sometimes hated the limits his father placed on him. Tory, whose father was Gardevik Rath of the race of High Demons, had inherited his father's ability to deflect power. Garde and Ry's father, Erland, had experimented with the ability and determined it was only malicious spells or power meant to harm that didn't have any effect on High Demons. Neutral or helpful spells seemed to work just fine. That's how Tory could be healed or transported by others, but Ry couldn't place a mischievous spell on Tory, even if he wanted to.
"I'm just worried we'll get caught," Tory pointed out.
"We didn't get caught when we went to see those two in the dungeon." Ry nudged his brother as he stood to place his practice blade on the rack.
"But if we get caught, we'll end up washing dishes at Niff's or helping Cheedas in the kitchen or polishing the floor." Tory hated polishing the marble floors of the palace; there were miles of them and Web, the comesula in charge of palace housekeeping, was a hard taskmaster.
"Yeah. You think Web truly hates us?"
"He made us redo that stretch in the vestibule last time," Tory grumbled.
"He hates us," Ry heaved a self-pitying sigh. He ran fingers through his black hair for effect, too, but his dark eyes were laughing.
"We know those two in the dungeon are lying," Tory was still thinking about this.
"You got that from your Uncle Jayd," Ry nodded. "Who knew that you'd be a guli? When are you planning to tell your dad?"
"I don't know. Right now, it's more useful when nobody knows or suspects." Tory stood and stretched before hanging his practice blade beside Ry's.
"Yeah. Might come in handy sometime, if nobody else knows."
"Is Sissy coming for dinner?"
"If Uncle Shadow comes, he'll bring her."
"Mom's still mad, and that was six years ago."
"I don’t think I'd want to be hauled off to Grey House to be trained at six." Tory still remembered the argument between his mother, Uncle Shadow and Uncle Shadow's father and grandfather. Only their mother had enough courage to argue with those three at the same time. It ended up not making any difference—six was the age when all Grey House Wizards went through the rite and started training.
Uncle Shadow had insisted that Sissy would have one parent around her at all times. Their mother had then pointed out (rather loudly) that the parent in question was going to be Uncle Shadow most of the time. Uncle Shadow didn't have an argument for that. Sissy and Mom had both cried and Uncle Shadow had his hands full for a while trying to calm the women in his life.
"Sissy will be twelve in a few weeks. Do you think Mom will let us go offworld to get something for her birthday?" Ry examined a thumbnail—he'd bashed it earlier, practicing bladework with Tory. A half-moon of purple edged the bottom of the nail.
"Maybe. Dad might take us, if he's not busy." Ry looked up at Tory's words.
"You think your cousins might come?" Ry had such hope in his voice. Tory wasn't sure how to answer.
Ry almost drooled every time he saw Tory's cousins, Princess Jase and Princess Jehrie, King Jaydevik's twin daughters and heirs to the throne on Kifirin. The girls were nearly nineteen and identical, with long, platinum blonde hair they'd inherited from their mother. Tory didn’t have the heart to tell Ry that they'd already been promised since birth to High Demons from the houses of Weth and Greth. Yurevik Weth and Wendevik Greth were lucky and didn't mind telling anyone about it.
"Come on, let's go see if we can talk to that boy—the one who was beaten," Ry saw the look on Tory's face and decided not to ask questions. As long as Tory didn't say, then Ry's hopes concerning the Princesses remained intact.
* * *
"I told you this was a bad idea," Tory hissed later as the two boys made their way through rows of dried cornstalks. Tory's head could be seen over the tops of tall stalks if he stood up straight. With his height and dark hair, he would be easily seen amid dry, pale-brown cornstalks. Therefore, he was forced to bend over as they made their way through the maze of long, rustling leaves.
"You never said that," Ry huffed right behind Tory. "I've done my scry; he's here, somewhere."
"He's hiding, but then we're making enough noise to wake the dead," Tory muttered, angry now with his half-brother.
"Look for where the open field is; that's where he's finished cutting down the dry stalks," Ry whispered.
"What do they do with this stuff anyway?" Tory whispered back.
"Cut it up and mix it with the grain they feed the milk cows through the winter," Ry hissed.
"How did you find that out?" Tory almost straightened up to his full height to turn and look at Ry.
"I read up on organic farming, that's how. Dad made me do a report after I got in trouble the last time."
"Why farming?" Tory was ducking down and tracking through the rows of cornstalks again.
"Dad says it's a good idea to learn everything you can about the planet beneath your feet," Ry grumped. Ry had used a spell that Erland Morphis, his father, had forbidden. He'd paid for that with a twenty-page report.
"What did you do?" Tory wanted to hear this.
"I spelled the ice cream at Niff's. We ran out of strawberries. I improvised." Both of them worked at Niff's occasionally, waiting on customers. Niff's was their mother's business, although her ownership had been well hidden. She was partners with two others—her assistants, Heathe and Grant. The first and largest of Niff's Sweets and Goodies was located in Casino City, and Heathe and Grant often took Ry and Tory with them to help when tourist traffic was especially heavy.