The Hidden Twin Read online

  I am two hundred feet above boiling Lake Azure Wave. The back of the Temple juts out over the water; there is nothing below me but bubbling aquamarine.

  “Breathe easy, Beloved.” The Onyx Staff leans out from the dark opening above me. “May the Long Angel guide you to the Eternal Garden.” And he turns, disappearing once again into the recesses of the temple.

  How long do they intend to leave me out here? My arms are already sore. I need a plan. The scars on my back crackle and burn, but I swing my legs, trying to connect with the hanging flap of what used to be the floor. I kick at it, but my boot just slides.

  Maybe I can climb back up my wrist chains. I grab one and hoist with every drop of strength I can muster. The little room is only about ten feet above me. The chains grow tighter as I make what little progress I can, closing the distance.

  Then another metallic creak sounds from near my head, and the manacles open. It is all I can do to grab a chain with my now free hands and cling.

  I’m not meant to hang here after all. I’m meant to fall.

  No matter. Same plan. I hang on with my left hand and reach with my right. But the chain is surprisingly rust-free and smooth, and there’s nothing I can do to stop my fingers from sliding along its wet surface.

  I remember the words I scratched into my journal as a child, when I first started trying to understand myself: Fact: Redwings don’t actually have wings.

  That’s too bad, I think as the chain slips from my grasp. I manage to make one last grab at it before I plummet two hundred feet into the boiling water of Lake Azure Wave.

  eight

  “Papa, how did you meet Mother?”

  Jey and I were at an age when everything required explanation. We were scientists.

  Our father sat back in his not-quite-big-enough-for-three bed. The candle on his bureau guttered and rain clattered against the dark window that looked out onto Saltball Street. Every few moments, lightning would flash, but the thunder was safely grumbling in another part of the city. It was time for us to return to our own beds.

  “Haven’t I told you?” Papa said, tousling Jey’s hair.

  “No,” I said, wise to his tricks, “you haven’t. How did you meet her?”

  He frowned, then smiled, and we knew we were going to get the truth. “Years ago, before we moved to Val Chorm, I was apprenticing with the head gardener to the Commandant. He sent me to gather fire truffles near Mol’s Mouth.”

  “You went up Mol? To the top?” Jey’s eyes were wide.

  “I certainly did,” Papa said proudly. “It’s an amazing place. Dangerous and terrible, but beautiful at the same time.”

  “Like a raptor,” I said. “If you were a mouse.”

  Papa nodded and patted my hand. “Just like that,” he said. “Now, fire truffles are very difficult to gather—that’s why they’re so valuable. They grow just at the edges of the lava. They love it, the sulfur and ash. They thrive up there. But that’s treacherous ground to walk. You must wear special clothes that keep the heat away. And if you lose your footing, or if the edge gives way, well, that’s the end of it.”

  “I could do it,” Jey said, shaking Papa’s old quilt. “I’m light. I wouldn’t break the edge.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Papa said. “I wasn’t so lucky, however. After hours of searching, I spotted a whole cluster of fire truffles along a little glowing stream. In my excitement, I stepped too heavily on a crust of ground, and my foot broke through onto the lava.”

  I touched a ridge in the quilt. “That’s why you have a metal leg?”

  Papa put his hand over mine. “It’s not very cuddly, is it?”

  “No,” Jey said. “And it makes you move funny, and then people stare.”

  I patted the metal rod through the bedding. “But it’s good,” I said. “It means you can still walk.”

  “Yes, it does, and I’m very grateful for that,” Papa said. “I’m even more grateful for your mother, who answered my cry for help. She pulled me away from the lava and called the fire off me.”

  “What did Mother look like?” I asked.

  Papa’s gaze traveled back in time then, and with a wobbly voice, he said, “She came out of the lava like a person diving into water. Only up. The air was the water, and she burst into it.”

  “You can’t dive in the water,” Jey said. “It’s too hot.”

  “Some water is fine for diving.” Papa smiled at her. “I know you don’t remember the lakes of Val Chorm, but—well, never mind. Your mother came because I called her—that’s the only way she could come. And as she called the fire off me and out of my skin, I spoke to her. She was very curious, just as you girls are. I spoke with her about the only subject I had any knowledge of: plants. She was fascinated. There are no plants where she came from. She wanted to see them. So … she did. I took her down the mountain and showed her the marvelous trees and flowers of Caldaras.”

  “And you loved her,” I said.

  I had never seen Papa cry before that moment, and I have not seen it since, but as he looked at me, his eyes shone like the morning mist off Lake Azure Wave.

  “I loved her very much,” he said.

  nine

  It would be an interesting scientific exploration to study what it is people think about as they’re falling to their deaths. Some, I imagine, try a last-minute bargain with the gods. Some might spout expletives all the way down. And some might know relief for the first time in their miserable lives.

  As I plummet toward my scalding demise, my father’s words come back to me.

  She came out of the lava like a person diving into water.

  I’ve never seen someone dive into water, and I’ve certainly never done it myself, so I could never really picture it. But now is my first—and last—chance. I stretch my arms over my head, extend my legs, and wonder which end should go in first.

  It’s my feet. The beautiful water of Lake Azure Wave strikes the bottom of them like the priest’s stritch whip. Its heat scrapes my body all the way up as I plunge from the cruel nothingness of air into strange, thick buoyancy. Being the diver doesn’t give one a very good view of what diving looks like, but now I have something of an idea, at least. This is what my mother looked like. It is a type of comfort, I suppose.

  Now I am in a churning underwater realm with no up or down. I open my eyes. Shafts of low sunlight cut through the aquamarine, and my heart twitches at the splendor of it. Shimmering bubbles trace my arms and legs as I am suspended, enthralled by this endless country of peace and depth. Strange, observes my addled brain, being boiled alive isn’t nearly as unpleasant as one would imagine. The places where the whip sliced me sear as though knives are working the cuts open, but the rest of my skin buzzes with an energizing warmth.

  I don’t know how many seconds pass before I fully realize that I don’t seem to be experiencing death by boiling. I’ve seen Jey boil her fair share of fruit beetles for stew—which I vow never again to be a party to—and their end always comes quickly. A sharp hiss and their little yellow legs are stilled forever. How can we do that to them? my soggy brain asks. What this city needs is a … a … Fruit Beetle Advocacy Organization.

  Ver’s ass, brain, remember where you are! With a mighty effort, I drag my thoughts back to the present, and the happy fact that I am not boiling.

  I am, however, drowning.

  Redwings cannot swim. At least, redwings who have been raised without access to a sizable body of water. Papa wouldn’t even let me visit the public baths on our excursions, even though the visitors always wear rubber caps and goggles, because my scars would have been visible in a bathing suit. So now, my momentary delight that my flesh is not going to be scalded from my body is dampened by the water trickling into my lungs with a raw burn.

  Move your arms. Move your legs, I think, but my limbs are unresponsive. My body is shutting down, panicking. Then peace washes over me. I become very still. I close my eyes.

  The thing about boiling water, thoug
h, is that it doesn’t like down. A boil is all about up, up, up. It is supremely difficult to achieve down in a boil, so even as I drift without aim through the bleak, lovely depths of the lake, my trajectory is skyward.

  In a short time, my head breaks the surface. Now my lungs know what to do, and the air scorches me all the way to my center. The inrush sparks my body back to life; my legs start moving, and I raise my hand to wipe the drops from my eyes. The surface of the lake ripples, hot and restless, but I manage to keep my nose and mouth in the air as my instincts take over, pushing my body through the water.

  Ahead I see the lakeside façades of the buildings on either side of High Ra Square, the Temple of Rasus lording over them all like some sort of bulbous, all-powerful fungus reaching its tendrils into the sky. Making my way back to the shore, a thin strip of black sand bordered by a sturdy foundation wall, doesn’t seem like a very good idea. But there is nowhere else to go; Roet Island lies far away at the other end of the long Jade Bridge. So I flip onto my back and pump my legs until I pass into the shadow of the temple’s overhang, then all the way to shore.

  When I crawl out onto the black sand, my body is suddenly cold—absurdly, blazingly cold, with my muscles sluggish and shivering. I inch my way to the ancient stones of the Temple of Rasus and curl up against them, the overhang hiding me from the eyes of those above. My mind turns briefly to Papa and Jey, but soon my thoughts dim as my eyelids close of their own accord.

  ten

  Sometimes it can be difficult to tell which side of the line between reality and myth you’re standing on. Especially when things like posh parties and boiling death-water plunges start happening all in the same day.

  However, when I awake, I definitely have both feet planted in reality. My ear throbs, I am covered with rotten vegetables and worms, and two grubby pumpmen are snickering at my naked butt, which is hanging out of my shredded green jumpsuit. Good afternoon to you, too.

  I shake the vegetable remains off and twist around, glaring at the pumpmen.

  “Ho, girl, good for you!” one of them says, wiping the top layer of coal dust off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Must say, I’m a bit envious o’ the night you must’ve had!”

  At that, the other one snorts, and they both amble away smiling. Well, at least I’ve made someone’s day a little brighter.

  I tuck my legs under me and scoot back into the shadow of the Temple of Rasus, away from what I assume is its lower kitchen window, judging from the pile of food scraps beneath it. As tired as I was after emerging from the lake, I would like to think I’d have had enough presence of mind to avoid sleeping in a fetid pile of wormy kitchen slop. Apparently not.

  As I gaze blearily at the world around me—black sand, the shabby rear faces of Caldaras City’s nicer buildings, Lake Azure Wave stretching away toward Mol’s Mouth—the events of yesterday slowly drip into my consciousness. My thoughts are still fuzzy and my body tired, but I try to sort through them.

  My search for the bonescorch orchis did not go well.

  I am filthy.

  I need some clothes.

  I was … Wait, was I executed yesterday?

  I was definitely executed yesterday. Also, it appears I cannot be boiled.

  Why didn’t those pumpmen notice my scars?

  I am hungry.

  The good news, I realize, is that in all likelihood, the Beautiful Ones believe I am dead. They saw me fall into Lake Azure Wave, and it isn’t as though people do that and survive. I am dead, and Jey is safe.

  At last, with everything in order, I rise unsteadily and creep back toward the low window. With the pumpmen gone, the shore is deserted, but I have no way of knowing when more people will wander by. Whatever dangers the Temple holds, I can’t stay out here, and any back kitchen will most likely be unlocked during the day.

  It’s a logical plan—my only plan—but it reminds me of a Mother May story I read when I was little, about a servant girl who escapes her cruel master with the help of a kind Other princess. Once the girl is out of the house, she goes right back in the kitchen window like a half-wit, and then the master … kills her? Marries her? I don’t remember, but I think of that stupid servant girl as I clamber over the garbage pile and hoist myself up.

  Luckily, I find myself in a dark pantry, not the main kitchen. Praise the gods and their lovely feet, as Jey would say. I slip in. As someone who has spent most of her life being invisible, I’m good at slipping in and around. I can hear voices nearby, where the light spills through the pantry’s doorway. That will be the kitchen, where the evening meal is likely being prepared for the temple’s residents.

  Clothes. I must cover my scars, first and foremost. Getting something around my behind would also be nice. Then there’s the matter of the foul layer of itchy grime that covers me from head to toe. I peer into the shadows of the little pantry, keeping an ear on the voices in the kitchen. It will take only a second to duck back out the window, but I won’t have a second if I am taken by surprise.

  I am not astonished to discover that people here don’t store their clothing in the pantry. However, I do find a couple large sacks of flour that might do in a pinch. It will be a shame to waste all that flour, especially with the blight in the east, but I suppose that’s what happens when one must scramble to survive.

  “Are you just getting in, Sister?” A comfortable, middle-aged woman’s voice disturbs the pantry, and I stiffen. “I’m afraid lunch is long gone, and I’m only doing the vegetables down here this afternoon. You’ll have to try the upper kitchen for something more substantial. Oh, but I could scare you up some bread and pickles if you’d like.”

  Another voice answers, “Thanks very much, but I’ll just wait it out until evening. I lost track of time studying.”

  Studying. I wonder if this sister was one of the faces in the sanctuary yesterday, the sanctimonious cult who sent me to my death. What could she have been studying? How to Torture and Execute People?

  But I calm those thoughts. The Temple of Rasus is home to many priests and postulants, and whoever the Beautiful Ones are, there were only about twenty of them.

  “Anyway,” the sister goes on, “I was wondering if I could leave this here for Mr. Gore.”

  The rustle of fabric. Fabric? I take a tentative step toward the slightly open door to the kitchen. I don’t dare get close enough to see, but I listen, frozen with concentration. Well, frozen until a stray mulch worm wriggles free of my hair and I flick it to the floor.

  “Oh, you didn’t tear your new robes!” The woman clicks her tongue.

  “These are my old ones,” the sister says. “A stritch stepped on the hem when I was sweeping the square a few days ago. Just if Mr. Gore has a moment.”

  “Of course he has a moment.” Shoes clatter across the floor. “I’ll set them down here next to the Bulletin. He always reads it first thing when he comes in, so he’ll be sure to see them. He’s only got the one tapestry to mend this evening, far as I know—just the edging, not the scene, thank Rasus, or none of us would get any sleep. So he’ll— Oh, I’ve let the snaproots boil over!”

  More clattering of shoes followed by the clanking of pots. I hear the sister say, “Thank you! Breathe easy!” and then a door opens and closes.

  Snaproots. I like snaproots, my stomach reminds me with a grumble. I feel inordinately ravenous this morning. I suppose I did have a long day yesterday, but still.

  I consider my situation from the shadows of the little pantry. If I were anyone else—Jey, for instance, though Jey would never allow herself to be covered in mulch with her ass hanging out; she would have opted to drown—I strongly suspect I could step boldly into the kitchen, where the vegetable woman would clutch her bosom and say, Ooh, didn’t you give my ticker a shock, my girl! and right away, her heart would melt at my pathetic appearance and she would give me all the snaproots and robes and bath soaps I desired.

  If I weren’t me. But I am me. So my only options are to wait until the kitchen is deserted, or
take this woman out of the equation, perhaps with a stealthy blow to the head. And I don’t care how many times her employers execute me, I’m not attacking someone who is cooking. So I settle behind the flour sacks, hoping she has to take a necessaries break before this Mr. Gore comes in.

  Waiting in the dark, there is nothing to do but sit in my own skin. I smell terrible. Like rotten fruit and festering wounds. The ear the priest slashed with the stritch whip aches and thumps, and I feel tiny creatures—mites? maggots?—crawling all over my skin. Everything itches. I’d almost jump back into Lake Azure Wave just to relieve this misery.

  After maybe fifteen minutes, I start to panic. The vegetable woman is running taps and humming and clanking pots and talking to herself like a domestic automaton, and it’s looking more and more like I’ll have to go with the flour sack plan after all.

  I’m just about to rip a sack open and fashion the world’s ugliest evening gown when I hear her mutter, “Oh, sweet Ver, I’ve left the cabbages in the upper kitchen! What a ninny.”

  As soon as the door opens and then closes behind her, I sneak out from the pantry. The kitchen is as large as the entire downstairs of our house, with a great hearth on one side and a large sink on the other. A modern coal stove—unused—sits next to the hearth, and the long central table is littered with vegetable scraps. I move swiftly to a wooden bench across the room, where a heap of vibrant blue fabric rests. The shade makes my stomach lurch as I remember the priests who jumped me in the alley, but I swallow my repulsion and grab the sister’s robes.

  True to her word, the cook placed them next to today’s Bulletin. I know I must not linger, but I wonder how the city—how Nara Blake—views my capture and execution. Have I been officially charged with the murder on the Jade Bridge? Has anyone come to my defense? Has anyone spoken out against the Onyx Staff? Does anyone even believe it? I pick up the paper and anxiously flip through its pages.

  Not one word. Not a mention of the discovery of a mythological redwing, here in the heart of Caldaras. Not even a passing reference. The Beautiful Ones work in secret, then. Interesting.