The Hidden Twin (23 page)

Balderdash,
I say to myself in my best Elena voice.

*   *   *

The air is wet and thick in the jungle outside the palace walls. Here everything is as messy and untamed as the Empress's gardens are orderly and manicured. Despite myself, I am swept up in the excitement this wild place carries, gawking at all the strange life—twisting vines in moonlit greens and blues, brazen, ragged flowers, and insects like jewels, engorged with nectar. While the Dome and Copper Palace boast species from all over Caldaras, the jungle of Roet Island is inhabited entirely by native specimens—plants and animals who belong here. It's strange, but part of me feels like I belong here, too.

I weave in and out of bent trees and broad, slick leaves, following the path Horro said would be there. It ends at a shadowy depression of lumpy black stone that contains stagnant water cool enough to drink. Next to the pool is a toppled, overgrown statue—the Long Angel, one clawed foot sticking out from a generous robe. I seat myself on its mossy hip and wait. All I know about my fellow infiltrator is that she will meet me here.

It's her footsteps I hear first. No wild creature would be so obvious, swishing its way along the path, rustling the underbrush. I rise, wiping condensation from my face. A cluster of big, rubbery leaves shudders, and my contact emerges.

I freeze.

“You must be Lin,” the Butter Yellow Girl says. “I'm Sunny.”

Of course you are.
Up close, she is as beautiful as a wild stardrop, with flawless skin and shiny hair. She looks at me appraisingly as I stammer an unintelligible greeting.

“Where did Monty find you?” she asks, then narrows her eyes. “Have I seen you before?”

“Perhaps,” I say, collecting myself. “And Nara found me, not Monty.”

Her plucked eyebrows arch dramatically at me. “You're in thick, then.” A conspiratorial smile. “Good for you.”

I nod. “Just another Fog Walker, I guess.”

“You are?” Sunny tilts her head in surprise. “I thought you were an agent. I don't think I've ever seen a Fog Walker. Except Fir, who set me up with a nobleman agent who passed me off as his daughter. That was my way onto the island, you see. Most of us are nobility or close to it.” She doesn't say it with pride. The pride of generations of aristocracy is so thick in her bones, it doesn't need to creep into her voice.

I change my tune. “Oh, aren't we official Fog Walkers? I guess I'm confused. But yes, I'm posing as Monty Horro's assistant.”

Sunny sits on the overturned statue of the Long Angel and I join her. “I know where the Heart is.” She speaks in a low voice, as if the mossy trees might betray us. “But it is well hidden—and protected.”

“So I would imagine,” I say. Will I be able to protect myself? Nara thinks so; she knows what I did to the priests in the alley. She doesn't know I was utterly useless in the Temple, where my enemies were actually prepared to face me.

Sunny inches closer to me. “I've been talking to Zahi—Zahi Zan, you know, the Empress's second son”—
oh, I know
—“and it's taken me a while, but I finally got it out of him. He's, uh, he's less guarded when he's … drowsy.”

She must be drugging him. I'm going to choose to believe she's drugging him.

“Anyway,” Sunny continues, “I got him talking about the secrets of the island, and he let slip that there's a hidden underground passage in the Empress's personal garden. And he told me
never to go down there.
Quite telling, yes? The perfect hiding place!”

“How revealing,” I say flatly. “Are you sure you weren't reading a penny pulp?”

Sunny crosses her arms. Roet Island's impossible moonlight drips green and gold through the leaves onto her face as she studies me. “Look, it's the best lead we've got. Nara's agents have thoroughly combed this island. We've been planted here for months, and nothing. Sometimes I think she should listen to the old legends, try to get help from one of those—
things
.” She hacks out a bitter laugh. “It's crazy, isn't it?”

“I— One of what things? You mean a redwing?” I force a laugh, but the hair on my arms tingles
danger.
“I'm still surprised people actually believe any exist. I mean, I don't know about you, but I haven't exactly seen any Others wandering the streets of Caldaras City.”

Sunny nods, her shoulders relaxing. She flicks a green insect off her forearm. “But if we don't find the Heart … The Others do exist, you know. Of course you know. What am I saying? That's why you're here. I just— It's vital we find it.”

I don't know what to do with the silence she wraps around the words that would come next. Her eyes are distant. Jey would prod and peel. But I'm not Jey, so I just wait.

After a few moments of stillness, Sunny says, “Horro doesn't realize it; he's bent as an old pipe and twice as mean. But I want you to know—I'm in this entirely.” She takes my hand. “I won't let everyone down like the others have. You see, I'm—I'm a twin myself. Not an unmarked human twin. I'm one of
them
.”

Be careful.
I grip every nerve in my face to show the correct amount of surprise. I mustn't appear overeager to talk about it, even though a bright pinprick in my brain screams for answers.

The first words out of my mouth are the wrong ones. “Where is your sister?”

She stiffens. “You mean the beast. It was destroyed, of course, shortly after it was born. By the Other creature who seduced my mother.”

“Your father.”

Sunny looks at me with a new hardness. “He was technically my father, just as that monster was technically my brother.”

Another redwing.
A boy who would have been my age. One who didn't get smuggled into the city in a raptor basket. One who spent most of his short life underwater, dying, rather than under glass. I turn my eyes skyward, focusing on the glittering canopy, willing the moisture in my lower lids to recede back into my body before Sunny notices it.

“It broke my mother's heart, you know,” she says. “She thought she was prepared. But the damned thing looked so much like a
baby
.”

I stand, twisting my arms in front of me, behind me, in front of me. “So what is our next step?”

Sunny stands, as well, smoothing bits of bark and leaves from her satiny yellow pants. “I have a date for Crepuscule. I'll see if I can get anything else out of Zahi, but my suspicion is you're on your own from here.” She extends a hand, which I take. “Death to Mol, sister,” she says. “Find his burning Heart and squeeze it until it's black.”

No
Save the city
? Or
Stop the Beautiful Ones
? Just—Death to Mol? I stare at her, with what expression I have no idea. Mol may be a god, or he may be only a volcano, but there is no burning heart in Caldaras I would relish extinguishing. I will do it only for the sake of my home and those who live here. As I look into Sunny's cruel eyes, I finally understand where Nara finds her “agents.” They are from the darkest edges of society—not the garbage-strewn alleys of Caldaras City, but its gilded, curving towers, where hatred is cultivated and prized.

 

fifteen

A glistening green nightmare and a giant snake pull me aside as I step through the jade arch and onto the grounds of the Copper Palace.

“Did you choose that costume to complement your forked tongue?” I ask as Fir slides off her mask.

“I chose it because it's not bulky,” she says, eyeing my mask. “Or sparkly. What did Sunny say?”

“Sunny is a bit scary.” I follow them into the dark corner of a geometric hedge sculpture. “As is that thing that is accompanying us.”

Fir reaches over and pulls off the green nightmare's face to reveal Corvin looking a little sweaty. “I'm supposed to be Ver,” he says.

I consider him. “Maybe after a hard night in the forest.”

“Or as a salad,” Fir says, and I snicker.

“Yes, fine.” Corvin tosses his mask onto the lawn. “So what's our next move?”

I lower my voice. “Sunny says there's a secret passageway in the Commandant's private garden. So we need to—”

“‘Snake,'
I said, not
‘lake'!”
a voice croaks through the night air. “Ssssssssnake! You know, your lonely mum's best friend!”

“Oh, sweet Ver,” Corvin mutters, and I follow his gaze. In front of the palace, amid all the fine carriages, a small person wearing a horrible coat and a paper sack on its head is yelling at one of the palace servants. “How in blazes would you even
dress
as a lake? You're going to be
in
the lake in a minute, buddy—”

“Hey!” Corvin yells.

The sack turns toward us at the sound of his voice. “Oh, there they are. Have a nice evening, soldier.” It shuffles over as we try to retreat farther into the shadows of the hedge sculpture.

“For the love of all that's on fire,” Fir says. “Take that ridiculous bag off your head.” She snatches the paper sack to reveal the filthy white hair and milky eyes of Teppa the Fowl.

Corvin sighs. “I thought Nara was going to sneak you in as a cook?”

Teppa shrugs. “They wouldn't buy it for some reason. But I found this bag and I improvised. That fathead guard at the gate gave me some lip, but I said, ‘I'm clean, friend! Got my costume on and everything! I got no weapons! Nothing! Strip me down and search all my crevices!' I meant it, too, got my pants halfway off and everything, and I guess that was good enough for him, because he just escorted me through like a fine lady.” She puts her hands on her hips. “So where are we headed?”

*   *   *

Teppa makes short work of the arched golden doors to the Empress's private garden. Corvin, Fir, and I stand strategically to hide her from view while she rattles the lock and grumbles, but there are enough people wandering the grounds to make us nervous. Luckily, after a few moments, a smooth click tells us our way is open.

“I'll keep watch out here,” Teppa says, looking shifty.

“I'm sure you'll keep a close eye on all the free champagne, anyway,” Fir says over her shoulder as we pass through the doors.

“Free champagne?”

I close the golden door behind me, and Teppa is already gone.

Corvin laughs. “We figured we might have to get into a part of the palace that isn't open to the public. It was always a possibility. So that's what we paid her for—to get us in.”

“And now that we're in, we can just fend for ourselves, is that it?” I say.

“That's Teppa.” He shrugs.

I step onto the path of brass stones, letting my mask fall to the ground. Even in shadow and silence, the Empress's garden is breathtaking. The colors are different at night. It still feels like a kaleidoscope, but instead of an array of jewel shards in all hues, it is set with a thousand subtly different pieces of one exquisite blue gemstone. I let my eyes travel the path, up the trunks of the slender trees, in and around the untidy shrubs.

“So where do we look?” Fir asks. Deduction isn't exactly her strong suit, unless she is solving the mystery of where the sharp end of her saber will go next.

Corvin takes a few steps and brushes the tip of a stone archer's arrow with his fingers. “If it's a secret the Commandant wants kept from the undergardeners and tourists, it won't be anywhere that requires maintenance or invites scrutiny.”

I close my eyes. “It will be somewhere unchanging.”

“Let's spread out,” Corvin says, and Fir and I nod.

I follow the path of brass stones to the right, past a dodder bush whose flowers reach high into the air. Around a curve, a stone bench in the shape of a giant feather sits empty amid a riot of gangly morning wisp flowers. Then I head through a little grove of miniature evergreen trees no taller than my head, each one pruned to symmetrical perfection.

The garden, while magnificent, is not enormous, and I can hear the rustles and crunches of Corvin making his way around the other side and Fir cutting across the middle. I stop when I reach the waterfall that streams down the dome into a brass pool. The wide sheet of water against the glass forms vast, ever-changing images of light and dark that hold me spellbound.

I stare into the brass pool, where the water keeps pouring but never overflows, disappearing into a wide grate. Despite its simple appearance, with no complex carving or precious materials, this is perhaps the most impressive fountain in Caldaras City. Outside, on a wild, moonlit meadow behind the garden dome, I see a little stream that winds back into an old grove of trees. So much planning, so much effort, for this vision of beauty.

“Lovely,” a voice at my shoulder says.

I spin around. “Nara?”

She stands, a hand on her hip, gazing at the waterfall. “Not so secret a passageway, is it?”

“I—” I start, and then I realize she is right. The grate at the bottom of the brass pool is more than big enough to allow a person to pass through.

“Nara!” Corvin hurries down the path. Fir appears a moment later.

“Now, how to turn off the water so we can get down?” Nara says.

Fir's expression is hard to read, but she seems a little more guarded than usual. “What are you doing here?”

Nara regards her from beneath perfectly curled eyelashes. “You didn't think I'd want to be there when the redwing saves us all?” She surveys the waterfall again. “So where's the switch?”

I lift my eyes, examining the top of the waterfall. An unassuming pipe fits invisibly into the seam between the large glass panels of the dome, and I follow it until it disappears behind the vegetation. “Is there a maintenance room below this one?” I ask.

“Not to my knowledge,” Nara says. “Though I'm not very familiar with this garden.”