The Hidden Twin (2 page)

And then I am staggered by a twisting at my center. A hot
potentiality
at my core, just above my stomach. I stop, a hand flat against the flaking doorframe, holding still, trying not to breathe. My feet burn.

Something in my brain tells me that if I just breathe in, take the long, gluttonous draw of air that my instincts so desperately want right now, that balled-up potentiality will expand and devour and fill me to my fingertips. I feel as though I could rip the doorframe from its wall, and the door with it. And the wall. And the whole alleyway.

Redwing.
My skin buzzes and my blood itches.

I press my back to the door and clench my fingers. “Get away, and I will leave you be.”

The men advance, knocking rotten crates sideways and causing hurried little swirls in the gathered fog. The one who spoke first looks weary. The other is angrier, spitting, “Our duties were laid out by Rasus himself.”

Before I can respond, a young man emerges from the fog, slighter and shorter than the priests, wearing workman's trousers and a simple gray duster. Over my attackers' shoulders, I see him take stock of the situation and start to approach, concerned. I try to wave him away before they notice, but he calls out, “You there!” and the priests turn.

“Keep back, Beloved!” the angry one says to him. “This is a Temple matter!”

“Come on, you,” the other priest says, grabbing my arm. I try to wrench free, but he is tenacious and shoves me into the metal door.

“Leave that girl!” the workman says, drawing himself up to his full, unimpressive height and raising his fists.

“Get out of here!” I try to yell to him, but heavy fingers choke my words. The priest who isn't strangling me swings a heavy fist into the air over the young man's head.

Papa says I'm a good girl, and he's right. But as the priest tightens his fingers, and sparks of air-starved blackness start to crowd my vision, I let myself fight back just a little bit. I have to, I tell myself. There's no other way out. When he relaxes for a moment—possibly so as not to actually kill me—I inhale broadly, granting my lungs a greedy draw of air that electrifies my fibers.

And for the first time, I feel it—a burning, stabbing surge that shoots from the soles of my feet up through my legs, my guts, my heart, out through my fingers. The hot core of the land, the scalding blood of Caldaras itself, rises through my body, joins with my spirit.
We are one,
it whispers wordlessly.
We are everything.

I lash out at the priest, a release, an exhalation. After only a moment, I tamp the surge of energy back down into my core, into the earth below, terrified of what I might unleash.

But now the priest is on fire.

Well. I've never done
that
before.

He rolls on the dirt, trying to suffocate the flickering red edges of his robes. His face is bloodied and charred, his pistol glowing nearby.

The other priest stares at me. “How in wet hell—?”

But I am off, running back down the alleyway. He fires his pistol; a crate explodes in front of me. But I keep running, and he doesn't pursue. He could not catch me now. I am too fast, and he knows it. I pause, ducking into a grimy alcove, and peer back through the mist.

Damn.
The second priest has turned his anger on the young workman who foolishly tried to help me.
Damn, damn, damn.
The workman tries to protect his face with his forearms as he backs away from the heavy swings of the priest's fists.

I creep toward them several paces, careful to keep to the grungy, dark edges.

“You have no idea what that
thing
was you just helped escape!” the priest yells. The workman staggers as a blow connects with his jaw. I cringe at the crunch. “You half-boiled, featherless son of a dead stritch!” He lands a wallop, and the workman collapses, blood running over his chin.

I have spent my life trying not to be noticed. It would be wise to turn back down the alley to Mad Lane, to try to salvage what safety I can and escape these priests and their Temple duties, to forget the exhilarating rush of violence.

But a swell of nausea seeps into my stomach as I watch the bloodied face of the workman, who can't be much older than me, his eyes squeezed closed to fight the pain. The blue-robed priest is kicking him now, shiny boots landing blow after blow on the still body on the ground. He is being beaten for trying to help me.

The workman manages to get his arms up over his face, but the holy man keeps striking. The sounds are sickening—dull thumps and cracks and strangled cries. “Who in wet hell do you think you are?” the priest growls at him. This gives me pause. It is a question I have never been able to answer successfully.

Redwing.
A creature of evil and menace, who doesn't care if some workman gets battered to death in an alley.

Other.
A being of strength and light, who stands against injustice.

Human …

Ver's ass, the priest has noticed me. I am still too far away for him to have a chance at catching me, but he reloads his pistol. The workman writhes on the ground, smearing his own blood on the dirt. I swallow.

The priest peers through the thin mist. “Have you decided to submit to judgment?” He fixes me with a beady gaze. He's brave, I must credit him that.

“No,” I call out.

He puts a hand on his hip. “Then what in blazes are you doing?”

I gesture to the bleeding heap at his feet. “Well, I'm not beating a man to within an inch of his life.” I step forward. “Yet.”

What the hell
am
I doing? Being a hero? I put my hands back into my pockets to hide their trembling.

The workman lies motionless. The priest raises his pistol. He stands chest first, his other arm hanging away from his body. Simian. Our basest selves, as the hungry, leathery creatures of old are to the graceful raptors of today.

But my blood is different from his. My blood whispers power and lava. It roils in my gut and dances in my fingers. It calls out to the hot blood of the land.

“She's dangerous!” the other one calls hoarsely from the ground, but I can see the priest working himself up, convincing himself he can take on the monster all alone. My lungs twitch, pleading for the lavish intake of air that will feed the ball of furious energy at my center.

I do not wish to hurt this man,
I tell myself. Wishing harm on others is wicked. I do not want to be wicked—but it felt so
right
when I cast the other priest away and bloodied his face.

No. No more violence. I intend to walk away—until the mangled workman lets out a wet gurgle. Until the priest breaks his focus on me and says over his shoulder, “Still here, scoundrel?” Until he kneels behind the workman, grasps his hair to raise his battered head, and presses the flared end of the black pistol against the underside of the prone man's chin.

It is only then that I allow the
potentiality
at my core to escape from my fingers in the slightest flick. Just a flick, that's all. I don't ball my fist. I don't pull back my shoulder. I just need to stop one man from killing another. There can't be anything wicked about that, can there?

A jet of fire lashes the back wall of a decrepit building, melting it. The burned priest on the ground groans and tries to slither away from the puddle of molten metal.

I stride toward the prostrate workman as the other priest watches, frozen, no longer a threat. He has dropped the pistol, and his eyes dart every way, scrambling to find an escape. Terrified.

I attack him anyway. I breathe from the tips of my toes, a wave of burning air that slams him into the iron gate at the back of the alley with such force that he doesn't come down. He is wedged, unconscious and quickly purpling with injury. He may be dead. They may both die. I don't know.

What have I done?
Protected myself, protected this brave young man. But it was too easy. Too thrilling. Righteous justification thrums in my chest, but something else pulses, too—something that stings as I gaze at the motionless, battered men. What else might I justify with this newfound fire?

The workman opens his eyes as I approach. I feel his rapid breathing as I pull him up against the wall. He watches me fearfully as I sweep a lock of light hair out of his eyes, my senses assaulted by the rush of power and the nearness of the dark red gash across his cheek.

“I've never seen someone … do that,” he croaks.

“You don't say,” I mutter, and he makes a gurgling sound that might be a laugh. “Are you all right?” It is an idiotic question; the answer is all too evident. What I need to know is who will care for him, whether he can stand, where he needs to go. But I look into his weary gray eyes and ask if he is all right.

He smiles at me. His voice is a whisper. “I'm fine.”

“I am a monster. I'm sorry. I—I wasn't certain of that until just now, to be honest.” I don't know why I say it.

But the workman just closes his eyes and leans his warm, bloodied head against my shoulder.

Voices. Our scuffle has attracted attention. Through the alley fog, I see the distinctive shape of two city guardsmen's tall helmets.

“Are you able to rise?” I keep my voice low. “Friend, can you rise?” The workman comes around, and I help him to his feet, the tendons in his neck straining with his effort. “We'll have to try these doors quickly. Don't want to be caught murdering priests.”

He gives another strangled laugh, as though our punitive public boiling would be hilarious.

“Come on, fella, keep it together,” I mutter, pulling his arm across my shoulders so he doesn't collapse.

“My name's Corvin Blake,” he says. “And those priests aren't dead. At least, the one stuck in the gate isn't—he's still breathing. That other one, well, he's a little crispy, but he's moving.”

It's true. There is life in the burned priest, though he doesn't rise from the dirt. He may die yet. The guardsmen are coming. “Yes, well, we still have to get out of here quickly.” I steer Corvin toward the edge of the alley.

He twists, wincing, and says, “That one. That's where I was going.” We stagger over to a sturdy, flaking door, and he pulls a key from his pocket.

When we are through the doorway, I spin the hefty locking mechanism behind us. Corvin is growing heavier. I wrap an arm around his waist and half drag him down a narrow hallway into a small, dark office with a curtained doorway at the back that hints of industry and space and more people on the other side. Paper is stacked and strewn everywhere, as well as all manner of paraphernalia, from letterhead and grainy photographs to pencil nubs and stray metal bits that might be associated with the machinery I can hear in the back. A dingy portrait of a stern gentleman stares down a well-worn map on the opposite wall, and a woman with perfectly tamed red hair sits behind the desk, writing.

She leaps to her feet when we enter and rushes over to us. “Oh, Rasus, Corvin! What happened to him? Get him to the sofa.”

We carefully rest him on her worn silk sofa. Through the window, a bright sign hangs over the sidewalk:

CALDARAS CITY DAILY BULLETIN

Items of Import and Interest to All Citizens

The damn newspaper. This is
just
what I need.

The woman kneels beside him, her hand on his cheek.

“I was being accosted by some ruffians in the alley,” I say. “Corvin was brave enough to step in and got the worst of it, I'm afraid.” I open my eyes wide at him.
Please, friend, don't mention my fire trick.
I am not out of danger yet. This place means exposure—I have a face here.

The woman sweeps a straw-colored lock of Corvin's hair aside, the one that just won't seem to stay put. “Then that
was
a gunshot I heard. The guards will have heard it, too. Corvin, if they've hurt you—”

He puts his hand over hers. “Dear Nara,” he says. His smile stretches the gash on his cheek in a way that makes me wince. “I'm all right. A little banged up, that's all.”

The woman turns to me, taking in my appearance but not in the appraising way I would have expected. Facts without judgment. A reporter, then. “Who are you?” she asks.

I sense no hostility—or warmth—from her. My answer comes before I can think about it. “I'm not sure.”

The woman raises her neat eyebrows. “I see. Well, thank you for—” A sharp rap from the back hallway silences her.

“That will be the guard,” Corvin whispers.

“I'll take care of them.” She rises, pats her prim suit, and strides away.

I look at Corvin. “I should—”

“Shh.” He puts a finger to his lips. “Not the front door. More guards will be watching this street. Best to wait it out.”

I blink at him. Awfully knowledgeable about these sorts of things for an average good citizen. I hear Nara's voice raised; if the guardsman wants entry, he'd better have signed permission from the Commandant's proper authorities. I decide I like Nara.

But the office is stuffy, and the sun is getting high. I must get home. How long until it's safe for me again outside?

I cross the room, squinting at the window I dare not approach, my attention snagging on a copy of what must be today's
Daily Bulletin
on the desk. An impossible headline stares up at me.

COMMANDANT: “ARE REDWINGS REAL?”

My breath catches. My skin prickles. It must be a joke, right? The one thing that has kept me safe and hidden has always been that, to most people, I am a fairy tale.

“Something interesting in the
Bulletin
?” Corvin says. I turn toward him, expressionless. He cranes his neck, peering at the paper on the desk. “Ah. Our bedtime stories come to life.” I say nothing. Corvin watches me with curious eyes. “Do they scare you? Redwings?”