The Hidden Twin (21 page)

“I heard Monty say he got you a fetching little ensemble,” Fir says. “Lady Pink Petals the Unclothed. Not much more than an elaborate wig, I understand. And some … foliage.”

“Why, Fir,” I say lightly, “you've acquired a sense of humor. Did you cut someone's throat for it?”

Fir snorts. “Anyway,” she says, “I hope you've bathed recently.”

“I haven't.” Though I wish I had; the light fog is already dampening my clothes.

A carriage, gleaming yellow in the tilted beams of the low sun, clatters up outside the shop. In front, two cantankerous-looking stritches with festive red satin ribbons around their necks shuffle their clawed feet impatiently.

A carriage. I have read about them, certainly. I have seen them rolling by on the street. But why does this one seem so large and unstable? Fir goes to talk with the driver.

Corvin's face is grave. “Remember, Horro doesn't know about you.”

“What I am.”

“Who you are,” he says. “He doesn't know to protect you from the bonescorch orchis.” He looks into my eyes. “Keep away from it. It will reveal you.”

I grunt in frustration. “I don't even know where it is!”

He leans against the gate. “Our spy says it is well protected, and will only be brought out to be unveiled by the Empress. Just stay away.”

“I'll try.”

“Remember what I said before,” he murmurs. “It's your choice to do this.”

I fold my arms. “Not much of a choice, is it? If it can only be done by a—me. A Lin.”

“I love my sister,” he says quietly, “but she is not always right.”

I can't make sense of his grim expression. Surely this will be a dangerous undertaking, but there is something else simmering under his surface. “Do you believe in this cult of Bet-Nef?” I ask him. “I mean, are they really up to what Nara says they're up to?”

He nods. “Certainly they are. We have been spying on them for months. Thanks to you, now we know the executions that have been taking place are orchestrated by the Onyx Staff himself. He has sown fear of redwings into the priests of the Temple.” He studies me. “And you don't think it was your imagination that almost kicked the life out of me in that alley, do you?”

“No.” I see Fir peering across the street, her shoulders rigid. Always vigilant. “And I'm—sorry about that.”

Corvin gives me a half smile. “I feel more foolish about it than anything. You didn't need my protection. Not mine nor anyone else's.”

“That's not true,” I say softly.

“I just,” he begins, “I feel there is something Nara isn't telling us.”

I give him a hard look. “You think she's lying? And I'm going in there to risk my life?”

“No.” I have his full attention now. “No, she's not lying. There's just so much we don't know. So much we can't know until it's done.” He touches my arm. “Until it's done by a Lin.”

I smile. “Thanks for my name, by the way.”

He leans back against the fence, his gaze elsewhere. “You don't have to keep it.”

“It's the only one I have,” I say.

“Be careful.” Corvin brings his attention back to me. “Zahi Zan is not to be trusted.”

“Don't worry.” I put my hands in my pockets. “I can handle Zahi Zan.” The reality settles on my shoulders, and I shiver even in this warm mist. The Copper Palace. The grass. The peonies.

And … a heart?

Fir comes over. “Horro should be back any moment. You'd better get in. Best not stand in the street if you don't have to.” She opens the door to the carriage, and a metal step unfolds. I peer into the shadowy compartment. After a moment, she asks, “What's the matter? Have you never ridden in one of these?”

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

“No.”

Corvin puts a hand on the door. “Are you all right?”

This is ridiculous. I'm fine.
I'm fine.
“I, uh … I guess I just don't like the idea of not having control over where I'm going.” I'm doing this all backwards. I should be telling myself the truth and lying to them.

Corvin steps into the carriage, which creaks and rocks with his weight. “I understand,” he says, extending a hand. “Look, it's not going anywhere yet. Come sit inside for a minute. You'll get used to it.”

I inhale and entwine my fingers with his, and he gives me a reassuring nod. But just as I put a toe onto the metal step, Monty Horro's voice bark-wheezes through the street.

“Get in, get in! Rasus, we're running late.” He reaches us, lugging a leather bag and wearing an outfit even more ridiculous than his last one. I have no idea who he is supposed to be dressed as—I can't imagine that anyone in history or literature has voluntarily sported such a violently golden duster coat and sky-high tendriled collar. “What do you think you're doing?” the vision says, pointing at Corvin inside the carriage. “Get out of there. This isn't a taxi service.” He looks at Fir. “You two follow us in. Be aristocrats, all right? But don't make too much of yourselves. Those invitations were not easy to come by, and they won't hold up under scrutiny.”

Fir backs out of Horro's way as Corvin swings open the little door on the other side of the carriage and jumps down. Before I can process what is happening, Monty Horro has pushed me and his bag inside, clambered onto the seat across from me, and called to the driver to get going. We lurch forward and I'm tossed against the backrest. By the time I've arranged myself enough to look out the window, we've bumped around a corner and Corvin and Fir are no longer in sight.

Nausea hits. I close my eyes. How do people do this on a regular basis?

“Here's your costume.” Horro throws a bag my way. His gold satin duster gleams dully in the dirty light from the windows.

“Very well.”

He taps his fingers on his knee. “Go on, then.”

My guts wrench as we turn another corner. “Is it safe to change clothes in a moving carriage?”

Horro snorts. “Open the bag, you little fathead.” I do so, and find only a glittering red mask. “We don't need to win the costume contest,” he says. “We just need you not to be recognized.”

“Ah. Of course.” I slide the mask over my face, pulling the ribbon tight at the back. Stomach flipping, I attempt to smile. “How do I look?”

“Nondescript,” he says, “which is just what we want.” He leans forward. “Remember, this is our last chance. And if Nara says it has to be you, then it has to be you. I don't question her. She's all that stands between this city and destruction, so you sure as wet hell better make her proud or I'll gut you myself. Now, listen, the Onyx Staff will make his move when the star Bel rises. You have until then to find and destroy the Heart. If you fail—well, I happen to enjoy not having my home burned to the ground.”

Having one's home burn to the ground is certainly not enjoyable, as I well know. But being burn-suffocated by lava is worse. Horro doesn't even mention the people of this city who wouldn't be able to get out in time should Mol erupt.

I turn my head. None of this seems real. I am caught up in mythology. But perhaps that is the only reason I exist. I would be impossible in the real world.

“As my assistant, you will accompany me to the salon when we arrive.” Horro adjusts his lace cuffs as we rattle along. “I will be attending to Her Imperial Majesty, and I will send you off on some trivial errand. Follow the stritch path outside the gates to the Pool of the Long Angel. Sunny will meet you there—she assures me she has made progress.” His eyes narrow. “Make sure you get her to open up. Someone at the palace knows where the Heart is. Honestly,” he mutters, “we should just take the Empress's pretty-boy son and
slice
the information out of him.”

I watch the gray streets of Caldaras City shudder by, flashes of misty bricks and faceless people. It's difficult to envision something as fierce and bright as a wave of lava existing here. None of it—the Heart, the cult of Bet-Nef, Mol—even seems possible. The Deep Dark is years, eons away, not hours. But now, with Monty Horro's callous words still hissing in my ear, my chest burns with a new determination.

No one is going to put their hands on Zahi Zan.

*   *   *

The servants are dressed in glass-smooth white jumpsuits; there is no need for dusters here, since the ash is kept at bay. They wear their hair short, as their station demands, combed and stiff like dolls' hair. A man extends a white-gloved hand to assist Monty Horro down from the carriage, which bumps and tosses with his every movement, and a woman pulls the leather bag from under the seat. No one assists me as I clamber awkwardly out of the compartment. It's just as well.

As I step into low sunlight, I am overwhelmed again by the crispness and color of Roet Island. Green lawns, decadent flowers, a sky more blue than anything real has the right to be. The extravagance of it all is dizzying. Blood blossoms through my heart again and again as I stare, the rhythm of it in my ears, the slosh of its movement buzzing my veins.
This is lust,
I realize. I lust after this place.

Even though Crepuscule isn't set to begin for a few hours, the aristocracy has come out to watch the sun set. The lawns, dotted with Zahi's friends the last time I was here, are already teeming with brightly colored guests of all ages, many of them hiding behind jeweled masks or flaunting feathered collars or wide, shimmering wings. I look down at my silk shirt … adequate.

“Bring my bag.” Monty Horro tosses the order at me before being whisked away by the servants—or whisking the servants away—through an elegant doorway that arches two stories up the gleaming copper façade of the palace. Our driver barks the stritches to action, and they pull the yellow carriage away. I am not sad to see it go.

Horro's leather bag is cumbersome, but I manage to navigate the large doorway and totter after him.

Despite its age—two centuries at least, if one doesn't count the modernizations—the Copper Palace doesn't feel like a relic. The long entrance hall that greets me shimmers with life. The last of this year's naked sunlight unabashedly pushes itself in through the clear, high windows of the entrance hall, illuminating wide stone flower beds and little trees. In the central fountain, boiling water streams endlessly from the outstretched hands of a woman on the back of what is surely the world's most amiable-looking stritch. A landscape of fat lilies floats below, and hardy little hot-budges, who don't mind the steam, sit happily on the fountain's bulges and edges, tweeting and puffing their feathers.

Past the fountain, Monty Horro and the servants veer left, and I follow them into a high-ceilinged room filled with gilded furniture and a floor extravagantly decorated with pictures of animals, gardens, and stars. The walls are tall mirrors alternating with tall windows. Out of the corner of my eye, I can't quite tell if my reflection is standing in this room or amid the rainbow of flowers that cluster outside in the setting sun.

“Over here, over here,” Horro says impatiently, beckoning me. I set the leather bag between the front legs of a purple lion painted on the floor next to him. He waves the two servants away and points. “I need my things. Get my things out. The Empress will be here any moment for her mask.” I click open the bag and pull out a silk-wrapped box. “There, there!” Horro points to a delicate side table, and I set the box down and start removing the bag's other contents—sewing supplies, a pot of glue, a pair of sharp scissors.

A few minutes later, we are joined by a group of people who emerge from an elaborate mirrored doorway. The procession reminds me of the priest-at-the-altar flower that lords over a particularly splendid corner of the Dome. But instead of a brilliant, pollen-laden stalk, a woman rises at the center of this botanical tableau, the satin of her pale lavender sleeves lustrous in the mirrored sunset. Surrounding her, an assemblage of white-clad attendants has gathered, their bodies curved like the flower's broad ivory petals.

The lavender woman is tall, with thick dark eyebrows and a nose whose bridge juts out at the top and descends in a nearly vertical line. She walks with the casual confidence of the very powerful. The Empress.

Monty Horro bustles over to her, fingers steepled and lips jutting with self-importance.

“Welcome, Mr. Horro,” the Empress says. “Thank you for attending to my disguise for the evening.”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Horro wheezes. “It is an honor to see you again. I hope you will be pleased with the quality and appearance of the mask I have designed for this momentous event.”

The Empress turns a bland smile; then her gaze finds me. I don't have to recall the chapters I've read on etiquette; under that authoritative gaze, my arms straighten and my body bends at the waist out of sheer instinct.

She is still watching me when I come out of my bow. “We haven't been introduced, have we?” she says. I shudder.
Eyes again, so many eyes out here in the world.

Monty Horro gestures. “This is my assistant, Lin.”

I smile politely, concentrating on appearing normal.

“I see you have already donned your disguise for the festivities,” the Empress says, and I involuntarily put a hand to my glittering red mask. I sense Horro stiffen, but the Empress offers no further comment and turns her attention to the silk-covered box on the gilded end table.

“We have chosen a lustrous satin, as you will see,” Monty Horro starts, undoing the box's fussy ribbon. “And before we begin”—he shoots me a look—“perhaps I might ask my assistant to go and fetch—” He cuts off abruptly when the door from the entrance hall opens and a man strides into the salon. He is tall and worm thin, with reddish, curly hair that hangs from the bald dome of his head like water weeds clinging to a stone. His bearing is that of nobility, but he wears a shade of green that, if it were rolled in dirt and boiled, might resemble the utilitarian green the gardeners wear. This man, then, must be Master Fibbori, the Head Gardener of Roet Island.