The Hidden Twin (9 page)

There cannot be another garden in all the world so wonderful.

A path littered with brass stones beckons me. The garden is deserted except for the songbirds and spotted fish in shining pools, and the scattering of voices on the lawn outside fades as I move away from the golden doors. I pull my goggles up over my hair and tug my bandanna down around my neck, and the colors and scents are even more alive. When I come to a particularly fine dodder bush, I close my eyes, drunk with the fragrance of it. I might pass out. And I wouldn't mind at all.

A gargantuan toad-hat shrub waggles its long, hairy leaves at me, and I nearly laugh. I've always been proud of my own toad-hat in the Dome, since they are notoriously difficult to grow, but that one would seem positively scrawny next to this monster. Papa says the really big ones have blue roots instead of purple. I duck amongst the leaves and crouch down to take a look. Yes, there's a hint of blue popping out of the soil underneath—

Crunch.

I freeze.

Crunch, crunch.
Footsteps. Careful ones. Not the footsteps of someone who wants to be overheard. I remain still, crouched amongst the giant leaves.

“So what have you found, my dear?” A man's wheezy voice seems to come from below me, and I realize I am situated on the edge of a mossy embankment. On the other side of the toad-hat, a gravel path runs along the bottom of the depression a few feet down.

“Hello to you, too,” an icy female voice answers.

“Oh, I do apologize.” The wheezy voice has an edge now. “Greetings. How are you? I'm fine. One of our agents got his throat slit, and the Beautiful Ones are spreading rumors about redwings.”

The wheezy voice speaks with an oily, upper-class affect, while the other sounds more naturally refined. I try to inch farther into the leaves to get a look at them, but I don't dare make any noise.

“One of our—? Who—?” the woman breathes.

“You don't get to know. Now, what have you found?”

The woman answers with a hint of venom. “What have I found? That's a good one.”

“Don't be flippant with me,” the wheezy voice says. “Remember, you are expendable.”

Rasus, what does
that
mean?

“I'm not flippant, I'm realistic,” the woman says. “Look, the Commandant has no secrets, all right? Everything you see is everything that's here. I'm telling you, it doesn't exist.”

There is a louder crunch of gravel now, and his voice turns severe. “Don't be stupid. It is not your job to question its existence, it is your job to find it.”

“But they say the Black Thorn—”

“If he is real, he is a human being who pops when you squash him, just like everyone else,” he snaps. “We are getting impatient. If we don't find the heart soon, the Beautiful Ones will. Or shall I report back that you are unfit? I'm sure the Empress's son knows where it is, and I know someone who would be more than happy to squeeze it out of him.”

“No!” The young woman sounds nervous now. “There's no need for that, please. No, I'll—I'll keep looking. I'll find it.”

I hear more crunching of gravel as the two people move off in different directions. Is Zahi in danger?

When I'm certain they're gone, I step out of the toad-hat and stretch my spine. I am still puzzling as I step off the path of brass stones and back onto the main gravel walk through the garden. Maybe that's why I collide with a young man with puffy skin and watery eyes who looks like a turnip.

“Hey!” he growls, even though he is easily twice my size and I'm the one who was just bounced off into a patch of giant bluelets.

“Sorry,” I mutter, at least having the presence of mind to pull my goggles down over my eyes.

“Frigging servants,” Turnip Face says, straightening his foppish blue waistcoat and feathered hat.

“I'm not a servant, I'm a gardener,” I snap, even though it would be better to keep my mouth shut.

“Well!” he says, “Isn't that—? Hang on, it's
you.
What the hell are you dressed like that for?”

I turn away as though I have business on the other side of the garden. “This is my uniform, sir. Sorry to bother you.”

I try to step away, but he grabs my shoulder and turns me around. “What are you playing at, Jey?” he says.

Jey!

“I don't appreciate your tone. Or your hand,” I say coldly, shaking him off.
Sweet Rasus, what is going on?

“Sneaking around in here, in disguise?” Turnip Face says. Sweat glistens at his temples. “What are you doing? Are you working with
them
? Have you abandoned the cause? You little sneak!”

He grips my shoulders and pushes them together as though the information he wants will come shooting out of my chest if he squeezes hard enough. It hurts my bones, and the scars on my back sizzle. My lungs yearn for that one decadent pull of air I won't allow them, the one I know will release the power I feel writhing at my core. But I remember the bloody men in the alley and try to keep my breath shallow.

“Mol's flaming socks, I'm not in disguise!” I say. “I'm a gardener, you featherless oaf!”

“No more of your lies, Jey!” he spits, smacking me across the face with an open hand.

It stings. Even worse, it knocks my dark goggles to the ground. I scramble to retrieve them, but it is too late. The young man has frozen, his gaze transfixed on my face. “What the hell—?”

“What's going on? Is something the matter?” A voice speaks up from behind him. My back cools; my shoulders ache.

“Everything's fine,” Turnip Face says, though he looks a little shaken. He turns, and we both set eyes on Zahi Zan. “Your Excellency!”

Zahi bows, Turnip Face bows, and I'm not sure what to do, so I end up nodding rather violently.

Turnip Face is all smiles. “You've met my lady friend, Miss Jey Fairweather?”

My lady friend.
This must be Bonner, then. Mr. Root Vegetables. Oh, Jey, you could have your pick of young gentlemen! Why this goon?

“Certainly, we've met,” Zahi says, his face blank. “It's good to see you, Miss Fairweather. I'm glad you could attend my little gathering.” He extends a hand and I curl my fingers around his briefly. Then his features lighten in the faintest hint of a smile. “It seems I must apologize, and admit my utter embarrassment that you took my invitation as a request to work in the gardens today.”

“Oh, no,” I say, forgetting Bonner for a moment. “I just … I really like the uniform.”

Zahi laughs.

“I apologize, Your Excellency.” Bonner takes my arm a little roughly. “I'm taking her home to change right now.”

“As she wishes,” Zahi says, “though, really, my friends, it is unnecessary.” He glances at me. “I thought I heard shouting.”

I try to look baffled. “Shouting?” My best chance is to steer him away. I cannot hope for help, and I certainly can't risk exposing my identity to the Empress's own son. I can deal with Bonner on my own.

“No shouting here,” Bonner says. Flaming lout.

“Well, I'll let you two enjoy the garden, then.” Zahi gives us a polite nod and takes his leave, joining a group of enthusiastic young ladies on the shady lawn outside.

I look daggers at Bonner, whose little eyes are wide.

“You're … you're not her,” he says.

Damn. No, no, no.
I try to keep my voice steady. “What are you talking about?”

“You're not Jey Fairweather,” he says.

“Of course I am.” I swallow. “Look at me. Who else would I be?”

“You have
blue eyes
.”

“Don't be silly,” I say calmly. “I've always had blue eyes, don't you remember?” Tamping down my revulsion, I put a hand to his face in a gesture of affection, but he pulls away sharply.

“When she said she had a sister, I—”

My chest gives a jolt. “She said she had a sister?”

“You are a bloody twin,” he cries, gaping at me like a fish.

My brain boils. “What did she tell you about me?”

“Where is your mark, twin?”
Bonner snaps. “Where is the priest's scar on your forehead? Don't lie to me.”

My heart is racing. I look into his eyes. “Please,” I whisper. “For Jey's sake, please forget you ever saw me. Okay? I'll leave town. I'll never come back. I promise. Please, I would never hurt anyone.”

He blinks at last, and frowns.
Please, Rasus, let me have won him over. I'll never ask for anything else again, I promise.

When Bonner speaks, his words are low and careful. “I'll keep your secret from these good people here today. What you need to do now, girl, is put your goggles back on and pull up that bandanna.”

I do so, relief flooding my veins. “Thank—”

“Now, you come with me,” he says, grabbing my arm. “And if you disappear, I'll go to your house tonight and break your sister's neck while she sleeps.”

 

seven

When Bonner and I leave the grounds of the Copper Palace, we pass Zahi Zan and one of the pretty girls—the one dressed in buttery yellow—sitting on a stone bench next to a fountain. She laughs and throws her head back; he is making stupid faces. Neither of them notices us.

It's not as though I'm being kidnapped or anything.

The trek back across the Jade Bridge is a mixture of trepidation and annoyance. Bonner doesn't say where we are going, but all I have to do is ask myself,
Where would I take a redwing if I captured one?
So of course we are heading straight toward the crowds of High Ra Square and the Temple of Rasus.

Bonner squeezes my arm with his sweaty fingers as though he is physically controlling me. Even without my redwing blood, I could shake this bloated slug off me. But I cannot run—he knows where we live, where Jey goes to school. I can't watch her every minute when it's impossible for us to be together in public.

We veer off wide Ver's Way, navigating damp alleys and side streets peppered with dark-windowed shops I would hesitate to explore. We pass a few little brown street gardens whose meager harvests look even more unappetizing than Jey's tomatoes. Bonner pulls me along, breathing heavily. For all his bravado, I can tell he is afraid.

He chooses to take me along the back ways of Caldaras City rather than the crowded routes—the actions of a guilty man trying to hide his crime. But the result is that we are now alone in the spiderweb of run-down, forgotten lanes, and he doesn't know what I am capable of. I don't entirely know myself.

A raptor gleams in a little patch of sunlight, watching me with lazy interest. Scientists tell us raptors and great stritches and little parakeets are all strange, new versions of the terrible creatures that used to roam the land before human beings and Others, maybe even before Mol exploded out of the fiery depths. They are as ancient as the gods themselves, but they have not endured because of temples and worshippers and supernatural powers. The raptors, with their hollow bones and streamlined bodies, have survived because they adapt. They see reality for what it is, not what they wish it to be.

We're getting closer to High Ra Square and the Temple of Rasus, and I don't expect to be welcomed with open arms by the priests there. Or the guards. Mol's blood, I hadn't even thought about all the Temple guards. And there will be throngs of people in the square, and innocent worshippers in the Temple.…

I'm going to have to kill Bonner. Here.
The realization jolts me.

He gives my arm a particularly zealous tug and I dig my heels in. We come to a stop. Four or five dirty stritches peer suspiciously from the shadows of a roughly soldered pen.

My feet burn with the power below them, roiling in the ground. The ball of energy at my core snaps and arcs.

Do I really want to do this?

“Come on.” Bonner wrenches my arm. He gives me a hard look, but I see the fear beneath. He is afraid of me, and he is right to be.

“Don't do this, friend,” I say, looking deep into those arrogant, watery eyes, trying to see into the soul of a person who could profess to love my sister and then threaten to break her neck. A person who could kidnap someone who has never done him any wrong and hand her over to those who would kill her.

My fingers start to tremble, tingling with fire. The stritches shuffle quickly to the back of their pen, clustered in the shadow of a grimy metal half roof. Bonner is frozen, staring, finally aware of the perilous position he has put himself in. I could dull those watery eyes for good right now, and my sister would never have to know what happened. I could boil the blood inside his veins.

Do it now,
I tell myself. My fingers are so hot, I could peel his skin with a touch.

“Let's go, creature,” he hisses, puffing himself out like a rock thrush looking for a fight. “Get moving.”

Do it.
I extend a hand. Bonner looks at it, wide eyed.

But suddenly, the dirty alley mist is disturbed by a small sound. A cough. I turn, ears prickling. There—so close, it's amazing we didn't see him—is a ragged man with shallow breath and hair like fine, junk wire. He sits in filth against a back wall, legs splayed as though they are no longer really a part of his body. A huge, ancient raptor with tattered feathers and its one eye closed is perched on the man's bony shoulder, two old friends forgotten by the rest of the world.

The man looks up at me with blank, pink eyes, all memories of fear or anger or happiness long since evaporated. But through the emotionless haze, I can tell he is waiting to see what I will do next. He coughs again, and the big raptor opens its faded, golden eye and finds me. Does he know of redwings, this man? I will be the first one he has ever seen, and the last.

Bonner doesn't even glance at them. “That's enough, you. Move along. What's the problem?”