Arawn stood in the hallway, staring into the depths of a linen closet. Bemused, I wandered over to him.

“What are you looking at?” I asked my twin.

Arawn closed the door and turned to face me, his eyes a puzzled gray-blue. He didn’t let go of the door knob. “This is the low wing of the castle, right?”

“Yes,” I said, playing along. That was usually the best thing to do when Arawn started acting strange.

“Built to add more multipurpose rooms, supposedly. That was just the official excuse, I think.”

“Eh?”

“Why is there a linen closet in the low wing?” Arawn opened the door and stood back to let me look inside.

Blank slate met my gaze. “That’s not a linen closet,” I said.

Arawn shot me a look. “That’s why I keep you around – your brilliance. That’s not stone, either.”

I knew that flecks of irritated orange were lighting up my eyes. “I know that. It’s a root of the World-Tree. I didn’t realize we were so close to it, though.”

“Neither did I.”

“Why…?”

Arawn raised a gloved hand. I fell silent. It was never a good idea to distract him when he was concentrating. Slowly, he stuck one hand through the root and turned to face me again. He was grinning.

“I didn’t know you could do that, did I,” I said flatly, nodding at his hand.

“Neither did I,” my brother said cheerfully. “But we’re about to get some answers.” He drew his hand back out, and I saw that he was gripping someone’s arm.

King Nathan stared up at us, indignation burning in his golden eyes.

“I thought so,” Arawn said with a toothy smile. He let go of Nathan’s arm a moment before Nathan would have moved away. Nathan, still silent, turned his stare on me.

I said the first thing that came to my lips. “I didn’t know you could pass through the World-Tree.”

Nathan sighed, a move perceptible only to those who knew him. “Landwights can pass through the flesh of the Tree, but not its blood. It’s living stone, of a sort.” He turned his blank stare back on my brother. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to figure out why there’s a linen closet in the low wing,” replied Arawn, still grinning. Needling rulers was my brother’s favorite pastime.