The Hidden Twin (6 page)

The bridge is quiet compared to the bustle of Caldaras City proper, but it is not deserted. A man in a green gardener's uniform like the one I'm wearing rushes past, but doesn't acknowledge me. It's for the best. Two city guards stroll by, heading back toward High Ra Square; they have not yet heard news of the murder. I keep my eyes on the sandstone tiles in front of me. I have never been this high before, not even in the aviary, and I don't want to appear as dizzy as I am beginning to feel.

As the bridge begins its downward slope, I get my first glimpse of Roet Island and the Copper Palace at last.

More jade, of course. An archway like the one cityside, with Mol and Ver and the Long Angel in high relief on its carved surfaces. I follow the sandstone road off the bridge to the arch, where tall stone walls wing off on either side, protecting the palace grounds from the tangled jungle that hugs the island. I can make out the brilliant copper domes of the palace at a distance through the mist—thinner here—and though I can't see it, I know a particularly impressive glass dome behind the main structure houses the Empress's private garden.

Through the archway, I pause, awestruck.

Blue.
There is
sky
above Roet Island, with a bright sun in the middle of it whose rays drape around my skin like a blanket. The blue of the sky is impossible, almost obscene in its clarity and conviction. How is there sky here? Where are the clouds? No doubt the Empress, with the latest technology at her disposal, has had some device fashioned to keep the mist away. My eyes stray to the palace, bulbous copper edifices that crowd together like mushrooms, shining gears running up and down their outsides that turn in a graceful, orderly dance.

And green. I knew it would be here. I knew grass existed, and that the palace of Roet Island was surrounded by it. But so much of it! I can
smell
it. It stretches away from me on both sides like velvet, a thousand different greens cradling spiral beds of robust flowers in bold pinks, yellows, and blues.

Fip-fip-fip-fip-fip-fip.
A worker pushes a device into my field of vision, two wheels on the end of a shaft with a spinning cylinder between them. I watch him curiously for a moment. The spinning cylinder before him is made of blades; he cuts the grass to keep the lawn down to the length of a luxurious carpet. This is why the leafy fragrance is so strong. The cylinder throws up bits of grass as it goes, and the worker, fingers on the handlebars, follows with an unconcerned gait. Instead of a gardener's jumpsuit, he wears everyday gray trousers, rolled-up sleeves, a rust-colored waistcoat, and no goggles—a house servant, perhaps. If Jey were Head Gardener, she might have given him this lawn-cutting task in order to admire his long torso and unkempt dark hair. And I can't say I wouldn't have done the same.

The scent of the lawn and the decadence of all this color radiating before me push the murdered man—truly, everything but earth and sky—from my mind. It is all I can do not to tear off Jey's dark goggles and stare, even as the vividness of this place makes me light-headed and shortens my breath.

“Miss Fairweather!”

The voice reaches me across the expanse of clean air. I freeze.

A young woman in a gardener's jumpsuit has popped up from a bank of flowers and hurries toward me.

I shrink into the shadow of the archway.
Oh, Mol on a muffin, she must know Jey.
The lawn-cutter has stopped at the edge of the grass and looks over with a bemused expression as the young woman waves at me.

“Miss Fairweather?” She reaches me, a little out of breath. “I'm so sorry. I was a bit early, and I just wanted to have a look at those amazing yellow pyxies—have you ever seen anything like them? I swear, I didn't touch, not really—there were one or two dead heads, you know, that I may have pinched—you won't mention it to Master Fibbori, will you? Oh, sweet Rasus, it's just it's my first day and—”

I put a hand to her shoulder. “I beg your pardon, Miss—?”

She inhales, her round, freckled face deadly serious. “Onna. I'm so sorry. Onna Twill. You're teaching me the dusting today. I mean, you're meant to. If you wouldn't mind. I mean—sweet Rasus, you
are
Miss Jey Fairweather, aren't you?”

I blink. “I'm teaching you the dusting? You mean the peonies?”

She nods, eyes wide.

Apparently Jey forgot to mention she was supposed to show some novice the ropes today. Ver's green ass, I don't even know where the ropes are. Onna watches me expectantly, so I peer over her shoulder, scanning the grounds for the masses of peonies that supposedly stand guard at the edge of the Copper Palace.

To my great relief, there they are, sprawling rows of them on the other side of a boisterous flower bed.

“Come on, then,” I say. “Bring your bucket.”

*   *   *

Swish, swish, swish.

The petal brush is as soft as my hair after a soapy bath. Jey's gardener gloves rest crumpled in the pocket of the jumpsuit, and I let the sun lie on the backs of my hands as I work. I could swear I feel the weight of its beams.

On another day, I might enjoy this.
Swish, swish, swish.

Onna is mercifully silent, intent on her brushing a few feet away. There wasn't much to explain, thank Rasus. Mol's ash doesn't collect here much. Not like at home, where the edges of our little house garden are continually clothed in gray-blackness. The depth of the ash in the bucket increases almost imperceptibly as I brush, but the difference my small strokes make on each flower is as profound as if I were painting its petals over a dull gray canvas. I am like the lesser priests pushing their brooms through High Ra Square, brushing clarity into this world of dust. I bury my face in a cluster of clean blooms and inhale deeply. Glorious.

“They're my favorites, too,” a voice says from behind me.

I jerk my head up. The ash bucket falls to the grass, its contents escaping in a puff. “Damn it to wet hell!” I say before I can stop myself. Onna gasps.

“I'm sorry,” the voice says, hiding a laugh.

I don't speak. Jey would speak. I should speak. What would Jey say?

“Go away,” I say.

“Did I startle you?” the voice says.

I turn around. “No, sometimes I just decide to throw things and then swear about it.”

It's the lawn-cutter, standing at a respectable distance, not actually as close as his words seemed in the quiet air. He smiles and raises his eyebrows. His eyes are blue like mine. Well, not just like mine, but blue all the same, the blue of the impossible sky overhead. “I'm sorry,” he says.

“Ack. No. It's quite all right.” I try to wave him away. I smile, or snarl—something involving lips and teeth, at any rate. Why is this so difficult? Jey knows how to talk to people. And this person is talking to Jey, not me.

Funny how it
feels
like he's talking to me.

He looks over at Onna and holds out two brass cups, smiling. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

I realize that Onna hasn't said a word yet. Her mouth is open and her brown irises are ringed by white as she extends a hand to take one of the cups. “Thank you, sir,” she says in a shaking voice.

The lawn-cutter smiles and holds the other cup out to me. “Tell me, have you ever had ice water?”

I mustn't make a friend,
I tell myself. But all the same, I can't stem my curiosity. “Is that a type of cold water?” I crane my neck just a little at the sparkling liquid in the cup. “My father says the Copper Palace has some taps that run cold.”

“Yes,” he says, taking a step toward me. “And it has bits of real ice in it to make it even colder. You can't imagine the sensation. It's incredible. You can feel it going all the way down your throat into your stomach.”

The cup chills my fingertips. Polished stones of white ice bump gently against the sides.

The first sip makes me shudder. He's right. I can feel the slice of the ice going all the way down. He laughs as I look at him with astonishment. “It's exciting,” I say. And it is—the fragrance of the peonies, the magically cold water under this bright, hot sun, and a handsome young man looking at me as though I am the most delightful puzzle he's ever seen.

He gestures. “The peonies are something special, aren't they?”

A sip goes down wrong and I cough. “I like peonies,” I say. “Since you asked. I—” I am about to say,
I've never seen so many,
but I remember just in time that Jey sees them every weekend. I snap my mouth closed.

Onna squeaks, “I—I can't, sir, I mustn't—it's—you're too kind—” She's holding the brass cup out, eyes lowered.

He turns to her. “Onna, is it?” He takes the cup and she blushes. “If you're not thirsty, would you mind … dumping out these ash buckets on the other side of the wall?”

“Yes, sir.” She grabs the buckets, scooping up as much of my spilled ash as she can, and hurries away across the sunlit lawn.

Sir.
That would explain why he's out of uniform. Could he be a master gardener?

Rasus's bloody nubs, could he be Master Fibbori himself?

My blood is sloshing around so much, it's making my fingers numb. Whoever he is, he doesn't seem to be treating me—Jey—like an acquaintance, so he is probably not Master Fibbori. I take a risk and ask, “Do I know you?”

He smiles and tilts his head, a reaction I can't interpret. “No, I don't think we've met. I apologize.” He extends a hand, and I curl my fingers around his in greeting the way my sister taught me. “Zahi,” he says.

“Jey. Fairweather.” It feels strange giving myself a name. I hope he doesn't say it back to me. “Anyway, excuse me, but I've got to get back to dusting.” I pause and, taking another risk, add, “The grounds have to be perfect for Crepuscule, with the unveiling of the bonescorch. You understand.”

“I do,” he says.

A swell of boldness—or stupidity—rushes through me, and I add, “Speaking of the bonescorch, you wouldn't happen to know—?”

I'm interrupted by a tinny chime emanating from the pocket of Zahi's waistcoat. He pulls out a pocket watch—expensive if it has a bell in it—flips it open, and frowns. “How the day flies.” He looks at me and winks. “Well, at least—here.” Now he pulls something long and silver from one of two identical leather sheaths at his hip. To my questioning stare, he says, “Mower blades. Never know when I might need them, right? It's a big lawn.” Then, with a leisurely motion, he swoops a slice at the flowers, severing one fat bloom from its stem. He holds it out to me.

My muscles go rigid. “You just cut one of the Empress's flowers!”

He tilts his head again, which is getting annoying. “So I did.”

Papa still tells the story of the bloom he brought me, the one now yellowing in a glass bowl in the Dome. A careless mechanic had dropped an oilcan from his perch on one of the Copper Palace's walls, and it snapped the head of one of the peonies below. My father desperately tried to save the flower, but it was a lost cause. However, the Commandant's head attendant happened by and was impressed by his efforts, so Papa was allowed to take the bloom home.

The mechanic was never heard from again.

My eyes search the grounds frantically. No one. I snap at the lawn-cutter, “You—featherbrain! What if you had been seen?”

His eyes widen for a split second, mischievous. “I would be in trouble, surely. The Empress doesn't look kindly on those who disturb her gardens. So I suppose you could say I've just risked my freedom—perhaps my
life
—to give you a present. Now, are you going to take it? It's really the least you could do.”

He is still holding the bloom out, with an arrogant smile. My heart thumps.
No one saw,
I tell myself, trying to believe it. But I'm frozen.

Zahi lowers his hand. “Well, that wasn't very successful. I didn't think you— Never mind. First girl I've ever seen who dusts without gloves, and shoves her face into the flowers like a glutton, and grins at the landscape as though it's her best friend in the world, and what do I do? Make an ass of myself.” He sighs, and tosses the peony bloom into the row of plants, where it disappears among the leaves.

I draw myself up. “Yes.”

He gives me a weak smile. “I'm sure you're giving me the most scathing look behind those goggles.”

“Perhaps.”

“You should take them off so I may better appreciate your scorn.”

Now I feel the danger. This lawn-cutter is too curious. That's the problem with hiding—it makes one more interesting. “No,” I say. “Out of the question.”

Zahi rests a hand on his hip. “So will you tell me what color your eyes are, then, or shall I just imagine them?” I think of the gaunt mechanics and hunched miners who occasionally pass my window in Saltball Street. He does not move like them. He is straighter, more comfortable in the air and the light.

“They're brown,” I say.

He inhales, peering. “Are they, really?”

I take a step back and awkwardly bring a hand to my face. “They're brown.” He wouldn't slice his mower blade through my goggles strap, would he? The panic that has been flirting with my heart lands heavily in my chest. I don't know what unsettles me more, his sharp edges or his soft ones. Jey would know what to do with him. And I'm pretty sure he would know what to do with Jey. But a redwing?

The tinny chime sounds again from his pocket and he sighs. “I have somewhere else to be. And it's the end of your day as well, isn't it?”

The end of my day already? My father will be emerging from the private garden dome any moment, and I'm no closer to finding the bonescorch than I was this morning.

Zahi gives an apologetic smirk. “I'm sure you're very disappointed.”