“Well, it’s not like we have anything else to do, since you had us turned into swords,” the bigger one muttered sulkily. “All we do is sit around on your back all day—when you’re not manhandling us, where’s the fun in that?”

“Look,” Nix said under his breath. “We’ve been over this. I couldn’t afford swords, I couldn’t even afford to feed you. It was your idea to solve both problems at once by having the wizard enchant you.”

“I didn’t know it would be this boring, though,” the smaller sister complained.

“Hush, you’re distracting me. It’s a good thing this talk is just inside our minds or else I couldn’t sneak around at all!”

Nix looked up. Case in point, his mark had vanished.