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older brother?” Mikhail asked after an awkward pause.
    “Twin,” Shane told him, wondering if he should be affronted.
    Mikhail blinked and looked at him as though he hadn’t actually seen him the first time. “You two are nothing alike,” he decided with a sniff, and Shane knew his cheeks grew pink.
    “She’s always been real graceful.” He had to look away. “Clothes.
    What sort of clothes should I buy?”
    “You are graceful!” Mikhail said, surprising the hell out of him. “But you move like you have somewhere to go. She moves like the world will come to her.”
    “I heard that!” Kimmy shouted from the tent, and Mikhail rolled his eyes.
    “I hope you did!” he called back. “Your brother is here, and he wishes to go shopping, and you are wasting your break trying to make your breasts look bigger. They’re small. Be happy. They do not get in the way.”
    “Look, you queer Ruskie bastard, I’ve got forty minutes until my next gig, and I have to look like a fucking peasant, so would you cut me a fucking break?”
    “If you have to look like a fucking peasant, I suggest you call Kurt over here, because the only part you are going to get right is the fucking.
    Now get your ass out here, you silly girl, and greet your family.” Mikhail gave the tent an ill-tempered look. “It’s inexcusable. She’s spent weeks talking about nothing but seeing you, and now she’s hiding in there like a frightened child…”
    “I’m not hiding!” Kimmy snapped, coming out of the tent and tying the front of her bodice, but she gave Shane a sidelong look, the kind he recognized from childhood that said she was only telling half the truth.
    “Not anymore,” Mikhail said, his sulky little mouth curving up on one side smugly.

    Shane had to laugh. “You’ve worked with her before?” Mikhail shrugged. “I have subbed in her troupe many times. She’s very sisterly—I think she needs a real brother to squander some of that attention on.”
    Kimmy flushed and then took Shane’s arm. “Well, then, let me get to it,” she said brusquely, but she wasn’t meeting Shane’s eyes, either.
    “You want to come along?” Holy cats. Shane couldn’t believe he actually said that. It was almost… smooth or something, like he was a whole other person. Almost like he was talking to Deacon or Crick.
    Mikhail looked like he was on the verge of saying “No,” and Kimmy said, “Please, Mikhail—you never wander the Faire. You just hang out in the tent listening to music!”
    Shane heard Mikhail’s little sigh as he came alongside. “I have no money for the Faire,” he muttered, then he brightened. “But I am not spending my money, am I?” He turned a blinding grin to Shane. “I am spending yours. Excellent—this should be very fun!” Shane had to laugh. “Glad to oblige.” He let Kimmy lead him past the tents that housed the performers (fairly close to the bathrooms, he noticed with a grimace) and into the Faire proper. He got his bearings quickly—it was laid out on a simple loop, with the food court forming a cul de sac off to one side and the jousting area off to the other.
    “Keeps the horse shit well and good away from the food,” Shane observed thoughtfully, and Mikhail smiled.
    “You know something about horses? Here—let’s go in here.” Shane allowed himself to be led into a vast tent full of what appeared to be machine-sewn cotton clothing and hustled into a corner and told to stay put. Kimmy and Mikhail whirled around the store, coming to him with trousers—both fitted and loose—and shirts in a variety of colors.
    “White!” he said at one point. “I know there are six zillion colors for the shirts—”
    “Tunics,” Mikhail supplied blandly.
    “Whatever—but I want white.”
    “Gold would look very good with your complexion,” the little dancer said, holding up a bright gold shirt… tunic … judiciously under Shane’s chin.

    “But white would look better with a black leather