Free The Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett

but these two were not among them. She said nothing, but her gaze darkened. It was May who spoke. “We brought you some breakfast, in case you’re hungry.”
    She drew back the cloth from the plate. A lifetime had passed since the toast had browned, since the omelet had slipped sizzling from the pan: the leftovers, cold and jostled, looked like the slops that get tipped into a trough. “Oh!” said the boy.
    “They’re trying to poison us,” snarled the child.
    May blinked at her mutant offering, swallowing hard. She stood on tiptoe to sit the plate on a ledge of stone. “I’ll leave it here. You can eat it later, if you’re hungry.”
    “Take it away! We’ll never eat that. I’ll tell our mother you’re trying to poison us! She’ll make you sorry.”
    This was too much for Cecily. “Where
is
your mother? I’d like to speak to her.”
    “She wouldn’t like to speak to
you.”
    “I think she would. I think she’d like to know that her son is awful —”
    “She won’t mind. She’ll laugh.”
    “Then your mother must be awful too!”
    The child gasped as if stabbed. “Don’t say such things about my mother!”
    “I’ll say what I like!” Cecily roared. “You need a good pinching, you do!”
    The child sprang forward, hair flying; he screamed, “Just try it! I’ll fight you!”
    His brother weighed him down with a hand. “Stop. Remember your manners. What did I teach you?”
    The child hopped about, seething like a snake; gradually, reluctantly, simmered. With the air of repeating a disbelieved mantra he stated, “Living among peasants shall not make us peasants. Living in wilderness will not make us wild.”
    “Behave as Mother and Father would wish. Apologise.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said, clearly not.
    “I’m not a peasant.” Cecily spoke like a shelf of ice. “My father is rich and important.”
    “Not as important as us,” retorted the brat.
    “Brother,” said the elder, “you are shaming me before our guests.”
    “Ah!” The child’s grin broke. “I am sorry. I am sorry now.”
    May smiled, and maybe she forgave the brothers their appalling behaviour: but Cecily never would. A younger sister, the softer-hearted sibling, she was accustomed to making peace: but she did not have to forgive these boys, and she never truly would. She made her tone affable, her expression friendly; but she sat down on a pile of rubble and made Byron sit beside her, and set about teaching the trespassers who was, and who wasn’t, king of this castle. Pinning her glare on the older boy she asked, “Why are you hiding in Snow Castle?”
    “Is that what you call it? I am surprised. To name a place makes it exist . . . and this place does not. Perhaps that’s why we are here: because this place does not exist.”
    The breeze blew, the girls stared. The boy was evidently sophisticated, with his words like poetry. Perhaps he hoped to scare them off with his depths. It would not work. Cecily, used to the world speeding past her, had long ago cultivated the patience of a Labrador. The only way to get rid of her was to give her what she wanted. “Why are you hiding?” she asked again.
    “We’re not
hiding.
” Though the younger boy was sturdily made and burdened with bad temper, there came from him a sense of lightness, as if he itched to zip round the fields like a hare. “We’re
here,
” he said, “you can see us, we’re standing right here.”
    “We were sent here,” said his sibling — there was lightness about him too, Cecily noticed, the vagueness of the physically fragile which seems to place them just barely on the earth. “We had no choice.”
    “We don’t
want
to be here.” The child sighed. “We
want
to go home.”
    “Oh!” Suddenly everything made sense, as if Cecily had turned a corner in a Maze of Mirrors and stepped out into the real world. “You’ve been sent up from London, haven’t you?”
    “Yes, sent here —”
    “And you’ve left your mother behind in