PRINCE PILATE
tell PETA my mink
is dragging on the floor
I
like to say I don’t play favorites. It is always said teasingly, because I think even the average person—stranger or otherwise—plays favorites with their family members; their friends; even their lovers, as time passes. It is a sly admission of guilt, a jest I make to get others to trust me, because why would a prince open himself up to ridicule like that to just anyone? I know it makes them feel special. I know that little laughing confession, coy smile included, softens people’s fears that I am the poison prince, a boy made of magic sand. But I do play favorites. Obviously.
Delilah sits somewhere toward the top of my roster—below Hagar because she is not my twin, and below Miriam because she is far more conniving—but leagues above both of my brothers. It is a safe spot to be in. Some would even envy her. I adore her like she adores her dolls: not quite a real girl as much as she is a reflection of whoever controls her, built too perfectly to be natural but so beautiful you cannot look away. I see a lot of myself in her. And I can never decide if that’s good or bad.
So when I hear from Dahab the courier that my sister is on her way back from her big dance tour, I react with a mix of surprise, mirth, and a little dash of suspicion around the timing of it. And the lack of fanfare—usually she at least sends a letter in advance. It’s only on the morning of her arrival that I’m told she’s almost here; but that gives me just enough time to steel myself before the moment when she blows into the dining room, one girl-shaped flurry of black silk and green eyes and fire-red hair.
Pilate! She races toward me, bullet from a gun, and is collapsing against my chest in a heap of sisterly affection almost before I’ve regained my feet. I make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a gasp as the breath is knocked out of me.
There are moments where I remember why I love my siblings, and the fact that I love them at all. This is one of them. My sister crashes into me, and she is the only one of us still child-small and fragile; I know her weight in exactitude, from the many times I’ve held her before; she smells like all the places she’s visited, smoke and spice from places I’ve never been before, but mixed with the familiar alcohol of our mother’s perfume. (That part hits me like a truck. All of a sudden, I feel nostalgia so strong it’s sickening. I have to close my eyes, and when I step back my smile is reeling.)
“Of course I’ll have tea with you.” I sink back into my seat. Between us, a servant pours a long, steady stream of amber-colored tea into identical china cups. Steam rises in a thin white question mark. When she tells me about her new drink habits, I laugh warmly and say: “Ah, so you’ve finally finished growing up, little sister. What else have you learned in your time away? I do hope you’re happy to see us.”
