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Neither of them remembered it.
Before the world changed (except perhaps it was not that long ago, not really, but they were young, still, so the before seemed so far away from the now), they knew nothing but the walls of Castle Candy. The world loomed outside, and though their father spoke of rolling sugar fields and chocolate-chip trees, they could not see it, were not allowed to see it. Jet asked their mother, and she said no, and Ruby asked their father, and their mother said no, and then they swapped who asked who, and their mother said no twice again, so that was that.
It would have been that if the Rocks twins took no for an answer, which they did not, so that was, in fact, not that.
Jet became the mastermind first. It was not that Ruby lacked the cunning mind and sharp wit, but it was that their mother was, by the smallest amount, stricter with Jet. Because the throne would one day be Jet’s, her attitude and actions required more shaping, which meant she needed all the time in the world to concoct her next escape plan. And time she spent. During lessons, before bed, while eating, she kept eyes on every exit and entrance, on anything to be utilized to cause a distraction, on every moving body and figure in the room.
Ruby liked to plan, too, but more than anything, she liked to act. The twist and turn of escape thrilled her more than the thought of getting to that point. Her brain memorized the set-up of the castle, but she knew the creakier floorboards more than the exits, and recalled the shortest and tallest walls of the castle better than the entrances.
It made them an exceedingly talented pair, which was not surprising to any of the castle’s attendants, and not shocking to their father, either, who still sparred and trained like the nation was at war. Thus, most of their childhood consisted of whatever trick either twin could pull first and, naturally, the consequences that followed.
They learned fast. Their mother hated the shenanigans of her daughters—it bred danger, uncertainty, peril that they could not afford—and tried to iron it out of them as quickly as possible. It was not that she did not love them; in fact, the twins were well-loved by every soul in the castle, even those that floated, that observed from spectral eyes. They did not know it, for they were too young, but if given the chance, any one of their knights would have given their lives in an instant if the princess could live a moment more.
In contrast to their exacting mother, their father often encouraged them. He carried them up the stairs, one in each arm, pretending to steal them away from the parlor or foyer. He ducked and swiped at them when they roughhoused, and when the event ended, Caramelinda pulled her husband aside, shut the door, and spoke to him in a tone so sharp it could have cut.
The fourth time this occurred was when the twins knew something was different about their parents. Behind closed doors, their mother and father always quarreled, always had one issue or another. Caramelinda despised the position that Amethar put her in (which was to say, the tough parent, the mean one, the one with rules); Amethar failed to understand how his attitude forced her hand. This was something they never forgot, not for as long as they lived: Mom and Dad did not love each other like other parents loved each other.
Still, Jet and Ruby caused problems, because their faces still carried that youthful gleam and there was nothing else to do. Well, that part wasn’t true—they could have invested themselves in the study of the past, of the war, of religion, of anything, really, but they did not, because they were Jet and Ruby, and so they kept getting into trouble.
But they always acted together. This was the standard: Jet worked with Ruby, and Ruby worked with Jet.
There was one time this was not true, and only one time. Again, neither of them remembered it. The memory itself lay buried underneath hundreds of other thoughts and emotions, feelings, sensations, frustrations and kindnesses, faces and eyes of foreign envoys. But it had happened, and it was still there.
Jet was twelve and very unhappy with the way her life was unfolding.
See, Jet had always been at Ruby’s side, and Ruby had always been at Jet’s, and this had been made untrue recently. As the heir to the throne and the to-be queen of Candia, Jet learned that some things were for her alone. When Ruby asked for early dismissal from dinner to work on her new sewing project, she gaped when Caramelinda agreed.
“Can Jet come too?”
“Your sister hasn’t cleared her plate yet,” Caramelinda said, “but when she’s done, perhaps.”
“Okay!” Ruby and Jet shared a grin, and Jet picked up her fork, stabbing it into the cotton-candy mutton on the plate. Ruby dashed off, and her footsteps echoed in the hall before disappearing up the stairs.
Jet chewed faster. Maybe she could hide some of the candied apple greens in her pockets, and she could go hang out with Ruby for longer before someone came in and told them to go to bed—
“Jet,” Caramelinda said, and Jet looked up, still chewing. “After you’re done, I’d like to show you some of the maps of Calorum. I know Lapin’s probably showed you some already, but I think you’re old enough to know about your eventual duties as the queen, and that starts with me teaching you about the continent and its people.”
Jet’s brows furrowed. The food in her mouth tasted sour, and she swallowed before speaking. “Without Ruby?”
“She’ll learn, too,” Caramelinda explained, “but you’ll learn first.”
“We can’t learn at the same time?”
Caramelinda gave her a half-amused smile. “We both know you wouldn’t pay attention if Ruby was there.”
Jet put her fork down (not on the napkin, thank you very much). “I don’t really wanna,” she said, simple and plain, and stood. If she got away fast enough, could she get out of it? She took three large steps away from the table, giving her mother a noncommittal shrug. “I’d rather just go hang out with Ruby. She was gonna sew me a plushie, and I wanted to show her this really cool tuck-and-roll that I saw Theobald do-”
Caramelinda moved faster than the wind, appearing at her side. “There are other nights to spend time with your sister, Jet,” Caramelinda said, and Jet’s stomach sank. Her mother’s voice struck that untouchable tone, that candysteel against caramel rock, and no amount of arguing could get her out of it.
She turned away. “I don’t want to,” she said again, trying to mimic that same striking timbre. Maybe then her mother would back off. Maybe she’d understand then. “I told you and Dad, I don’t want to be queen.”
Her mother’s expression flashed brighter than Jet had ever seen before, and then it shuttered immediately after, as if someone had drawn blinds over her gaze. Her face had never been easy to decipher, and now it seemed hundreds of miles away. “This isn’t a choice, Jet—you’ve been raised in unprecedented peace, and this is as easy as it can get-”
Jet pulled toward the stairs, wishing she could just disappear.
“Jet,” Caramelinda warned.
“I don’t want to,” Jet said again, and she knew she sounded like a whiny little girl, but wasn’t that what she was? Could she not be a kid?
Caramelinda’s face tightened. “Then wash the dishes and dry them when you’re done. Licorina will appreciate it.”
Jet studied her mother’s expression for just a moment longer, could not bear the low disappointment simmering in her eyes, and stalked off.
A better heiress may have apologized or bowed before departing, but Jet was not a good heiress, though she did try to be a good daughter. She listened to a certain extent—it was the reason she ducked into the kitchen with her and Ruby’s plates—but whenever talks of peace or rulerships or anything like that came up, she would rather jump off the wall of the castle than have to listen for a moment longer.
None of her handmaidens bustled around the kitchen, though only because the Bulb had dipped low enough in the sky that most of the castle had taken their rest for the night. Not Jet, of course, which was punishment itself. Jet’s slippers slid into a puddle of water, and she clenched her jaw, tossing them both off. Whatever. She didn’t need them anyway, and if she tracked water into the dining hall then back to the kitchen, she risked a second scolding.
When all the dishware laid beside the large, square basin of a sink, she began to wash each dish with sparkling soap and a plain purple-and-yellow towel. The fabric scrubbed against the plate, then the fork, then spoon, then knife, and then she wrung it out and moved onto the next item. In another world, it would have been relaxing, something to keep her mind off the changing world around her, but in this one, it was everything she could not have. Jet did not wash dishes ever. It simply wasn’t her job, not as princess, to-be queen of Candia. Still, Caramelinda dangled it in front of her like she could take it if she wanted.
The water ran hot over her palms, almost scalding, but Jet did not move to change the temperature, even as steam billowed up into her face. Even as her eyes began to water.
Maybe in a different life, Jet thought, because surely not in this one. Every single road she’d traveled all insisted on her eventual ascension to the throne, no matter her attempt to upend the cobblestones of that path. Clawing at the grass, spilling oil on the slate, none of it got her any further from—
“Are you washing dishes?”
Jet did not need to turn to know it was Ruby. Ruby did not need to see her face to know it was Jet.
“Yeah. Mom wanted me to do more queen stuff, and I said no, so she told me to wash and dry all the dishes.” Jet put the towel down, turning to find Ruby holding a dry cloth, and she halted as if caught stealing.
Jet could have said, I think Mom doesn’t want you here, because she didn’t. That was not the point of her penalty; Caramelinda knew the power that their bond held and while she had not enough malice to think she could shatter it, she did exercise the ability to separate them, to draw that string thinner and tauter. The tie only ever seemed to bring danger, the sort that only grew more difficult to escape from as time went on.
Ruby didn’t really care. She would take all the danger if it meant she could stay by her sister. “Pass me the ones that are clean,” she said, sidling up to stand beside Jet and grabbing a damp plate. “Race me.”
Jet turned. “What?”
Ruby lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not that hard, Jet,” she said, holding a plate in one hand and a towel in the other. “If you can wash faster than I dry, then you win.”
Jet’s face shifted, then, and Ruby thought, there she is. She knew that face, knew that half-confused smile, those radiant eyes better than she knew any of Candia’s history. Just because they could not be in one of their rooms—just because Caramelinda intended this as a punishment, a solitary sentence—did not mean they would not come together.
(This, perhaps, was their greatest strength. Nothing could keep them apart.)
Jet took a dish, held it between her hands, and began to scrub as fast as she could, while Ruby, with such strange smoothness and precision, swiped the water off the plate. Ruby won first, then Jet, then Ruby again, again, a third time, so Jet grabbed a toffee sponge and started winning every round.
They went around and around again, washing dishes, and somewhere along the way, Jet splashed Ruby with water, and she got retribution immediately, and both sisters flicked soapy water at one another, even though they knew they shouldn’t. The floor puddled with it, and when the dishes found themselves clean and dry, they found new towels and mopped the water. Ruby slipped, and Jet laughed, and Ruby pulled her, so Jet slipped, too.
And they went upstairs, and Jet showed Ruby the tuck-and-roll move she’d seen Theobald do in the courtyard the day prior, and Ruby cheered with her newly-made pom poms, and Ruby produced two twin red and black blobs of sugar yarn, and Jet took them both and made them dance together, and the whole room darkened with the shadow of the night, but it was so very warm and light that it did not matter.
They forgot, of course. Not for any horrible or unpleasant reason, but rather just the natural passage of time. As they grew taller, new events occurred and settled atop the old ones, still glowing. When the world changed, everything before seemed as if it had occurred to a different Jet. To a different Ruby.
How could they still be the same when everything was different?
But somewhere out there—in a place where the realm was still the same, still untouched, still crystalline—Ruby and Jet stayed up all night, tucking and rolling and dancing and singing and playing until the Bulb came up in the morning.