The Hidden Twin

by Adi Rule

  I stride toward the prostrate workman as the other priest watches, frozen, no longer a threat. He has dropped the pistol, and his eyes dart every way, scrambling to find an escape. Terrified.

  I attack him anyway. I breathe from the tips of my toes, a wave of burning air that slams him into the iron gate at the back of the alley with such force that he doesn’t come down. He is wedged, unconscious and quickly purpling with injury. He may be dead. They may both die. I don’t know.

  What have I done? Protected myself, protected this brave young man. But it was too easy. Too thrilling. Righteous justification thrums in my chest, but something else pulses, too—something that stings as I gaze at the motionless, battered men. What else might I justify with this newfound fire?

  The workman opens his eyes as I approach. I feel his rapid breathing as I pull him up against the wall. He watches me fearfully as I sweep a lock of light hair out of his eyes, my senses assaulted by the rush of power and the nearness of the dark red gash across his cheek.

  “I’ve never seen someone … do that,” he croaks.

  “You don’t say,” I mutter, and he makes a gurgling sound that might be a laugh. “Are you all right?” It is an idiotic question; the answer is all too evident. What I need to know is who will care for him, whether he can stand, where he needs to go. But I look into his weary gray eyes and ask if he is all right.

  He smiles at me. His voice is a whisper. “I’m fine.”

  “I am a monster. I’m sorry. I—I wasn’t certain of that until just now, to be honest.” I don’t know why I say it.

  But the workman just closes his eyes and leans his warm, bloodied head against my shoulder.

  Voices. Our scuffle has attracted attention. Through the alley fog, I see the distinctive shape of two city guardsmen’s tall helmets.

  “Are you able to rise?” I keep my voice low. “Friend, can you rise?” The workman comes around, and I help him to his feet, the tendons in his neck straining with his effort. “We’ll have to try these doors quickly. Don’t want to be caught murdering priests.”

  He gives another strangled laugh, as though our punitive public boiling would be hilarious.

  “Come on, fella, keep it together,” I mutter, pulling his arm across my shoulders so he doesn’t collapse.

  “My name’s Corvin Blake,” he says. “And those priests aren’t dead. At least, the one stuck in the gate isn’t—he’s still breathing. That other one, well, he’s a little crispy, but he’s moving.”

  It’s true. There is life in the burned priest, though he doesn’t rise from the dirt. He may die yet. The guardsmen are coming. “Yes, well, we still have to get out of here quickly.” I steer Corvin toward the edge of the alley.

  He twists, wincing, and says, “That one. That’s where I was going.” We stagger over to a sturdy, flaking door, and he pulls a key from his pocket.

  When we are through the doorway, I spin the hefty locking mechanism behind us. Corvin is growing heavier. I wrap an arm around his waist and half drag him down a narrow hallway into a small, dark office with a curtained doorway at the back that hints of industry and space and more people on the other side. Paper is stacked and strewn everywhere, as well as all manner of paraphernalia, from letterhead and grainy photographs to pencil nubs and stray metal bits that might be associated with the machinery I can hear in the back. A dingy portrait of a stern gentleman stares down a well-worn map on the opposite wall, and a woman with perfectly tamed red hair sits behind the desk, writing.

  She leaps to her feet when we enter and rushes over to us. “Oh, Rasus, Corvin! What happened to him? Get him to the sofa.”

  We carefully rest him on her worn silk sofa. Through the window, a bright sign hangs over the sidewalk:

  CALDARAS CITY DAILY BULLETIN

  Items of Import and Interest to All Citizens

  The damn newspaper. This is just what I need.

  The woman kneels beside him, her hand on his cheek.

  “I was being accosted by some ruffians in the alley,” I say. “Corvin was brave enough to step in and got the worst of it, I’m afraid.” I open my eyes wide at him. Please, friend, don’t mention my fire trick. I am not out of danger yet. This place means exposure—I have a face here.

  The woman sweeps a straw-colored lock of Corvin’s hair aside, the one that just won’t seem to stay put. “Then that was a gunshot I heard. The guards will have heard it, too. Corvin, if they’ve hurt you—”

  He puts his hand over hers. “Dear Nara,” he says. His smile stretches the gash on his cheek in a way that makes me wince. “I’m all right. A little banged up, that’s all.”

  The woman turns to me, taking in my appearance but not in the appraising way I would have expected. Facts without judgment. A reporter, then. “Who are you?” she asks.

  I sense no hostility—or warmth—from her. My answer comes before I can think about it. “I’m not sure.”

  The woman raises her neat eyebrows. “I see. Well, thank you for—” A sharp rap from the back hallway silences her.

  “That will be the guard,” Corvin whispers.

  “I’ll take care of them.” She rises, pats her prim suit, and strides away.

  I look at Corvin. “I should—”

  “Shh.” He puts a finger to his lips. “Not the front door. More guards will be watching this street. Best to wait it out.”

  I blink at him. Awfully knowledgeable about these sorts of things for an average good citizen. I hear Nara’s voice raised; if the guardsman wants entry, he’d better have signed permission from the Commandant’s proper authorities. I decide I like Nara.

  But the office is stuffy, and the sun is getting high. I must get home. How long until it’s safe for me again outside?

  I cross the room, squinting at the window I dare not approach, my attention snagging on a copy of what must be today’s Daily Bulletin on the desk. An impossible headline stares up at me.

  COMMANDANT: “ARE REDWINGS REAL?”

  My breath catches. My skin prickles. It must be a joke, right? The one thing that has kept me safe and hidden has always been that, to most people, I am a fairy tale.

  “Something interesting in the Bulletin?” Corvin says. I turn toward him, expressionless. He cranes his neck, peering at the paper on the desk. “Ah. Our bedtime stories come to life.” I say nothing. Corvin watches me with curious eyes. “Do they scare you? Redwings?”

  I smile. “The people of Caldaras may fear redwings, but no one really believes in them, do they?”

  He leans back. “I don’t know.”

  “Surely not.”

  He glances at me again. “We’re very modern. In so many ways. But fear and hope are eternal. Every morning, the people gather in High Ra Square to mouth the meditations along with the priests, dazzled by the sparkling incarnations of long-dead emotions. If someone were to ask the crowd, in all honesty, ‘Do you think redwings are real?’ I think most of the people would shake their heads and say something vague that sounds very much like no, but that isn’t actually no. Most people are just waiting for the first person to say yes.”

  I am silent. I look down at the paper, trying to seem casual, my eyes flickering over the words. But once I start to read, I can’t stop myself. My subconscious takes over like a parched throat, gulping with abandon.

  In the Empress’s name, Commandant Zan has acquired the bonescorch orchis, which was lately discovered deep within the passages of the Red Mine by fire truffle hunters. Those who believe Others still walk among us think the orchis is the key to rooting out any redwings that may be hiding in our midst. The orchis is being kept at the Copper Palace, where Commandant plans to unveil it at Crepuscule two weeks from today. Onyx Staff calls for the orchis to be handed over to the Temple of Rasus, insisting Commandant is unqualified to harness its power, and will undermine the Temple’s efforts to seek out and destroy this insidious threat. Commandant responds, “Are redwings real? If so, it is not exclusively a Temple matter, but a matter of concern
for the whole of Caldaras.”

  The words overpower me like Mol’s fire. A bonescorch orchis.

  I have heard of these delicate plants before, in children’s stories. They are said to burn brightly in the presence of redwings, useful for tracking them down. They are also, like redwings themselves, said to be a myth.

  Perhaps Commandant Zan believes the legend of the orchis to be a fraud, that he can show the people of Caldaras City once and for all that redwings do not exist.

  How unfortunate for me that at least one does.

  It was too much of a coincidence for the priests to have found me on the one day I’m out of hiding. They must have known exactly where to look.

  This bonescorch orchis told them.

  Corvin tries to sit up. His breath has grown shallow. I leave the paper on the desk and go to him, unsure how to be of help. “We need to get you to a doctor,” I say, my hand itching to smooth back that lock of his hair again.

  He shakes his head. “I will be fine. I’ve had worse than this.”

  I frown. “But—”

  “Listen,” he says, leaning toward me, his voice conspiratorial. “You should tell her.”

  I straighten up. “What? Tell who? What are you talking—?”

  “Nara,” he says, and reaches for my hand. His fingers are cold and my palm stings as he lightly brushes his thumb across it. “You should tell her.”

  “Tell her what?” My mind sparks and sputters—how to explain the fire? I had a weapon—a fire gun—grenades—Corvin was hallucinating—anything other than the truth.

  He doesn’t say anything, but gently turns my wrist. I look down at my upturned palm and gasp. I felt the old iron gate digging into my hands as I tried to climb it, but I didn’t realize it had actually cut me. It isn’t bad—little more than a scrape—but it has been seeping; my hand is stained with my blood.

  My black blood. A redwing’s blood. There’s no explaining that away.

  I jerk my hand back and look at Corvin, the color draining from my face. “You’re mistaken. I—”

  “She can protect you.”

  I stare at him in silence for a moment. Finally, I whisper, “I highly doubt that.”

  The groan of the back lock spinning into place heralds Nara’s return, her footsteps crisp and purposeful along the hallway. “Upstairs,” she barks, and at first I think she means me, but she extends a hand to Corvin. “Can you walk? To bed with you. I’ll have Orm come up and look you over.” She seems to have regained control of her authoritative self. I’m beginning to think the worried, tender Nara I encountered earlier is a rare beast.

  “All right, don’t worry. I’m going.” Corvin rises, shuffling unsteadily toward the curtained doorway at the back. He turns and smiles a strange mixture of sweetness and pain that catches me off guard. She can protect you. I don’t believe it.

  Nara watches him go, then turns to me, businesslike. “You should be in no danger leaving through the front door now.” She gives me a shrewd look. “Unless there is something else I can do for you?”

  I have questions, and she senses it. She waits, arms crossed, and here I stand, electric with curiosity. I must be careful; it is dangerous here. I mustn’t give too much of myself away.

  But I need answers, and Nara looks like she has a lot of them.

  I gesture to today’s Bulletin. “You’ve seen this article?”

  She doesn’t look at the paper. “You hear the presses back there? I wrote that article.”

  “Could it be real?” I ask. “The bonescorch, I mean.”

  She shrugs. “The Commandant and the Onyx Staff certainly think it’s real. I haven’t seen it myself. Why the interest?”

  My nerves give a jolt, but I remind myself she is a reporter. Gathering information is what she does. It’s her nature. “Just curiosity.” I give her what I’m sure is an unconvincing smile.

  Nara’s face is impassive. “I’m surprised this is news to you. It’s been the talk of the city. Are you from the Temple?”

  I almost laugh. “No. No, I most certainly am not.”

  “That was emphatic,” she says, fingers twitching. Is she thinking about grabbing a pen?

  Ver’s ass. I shouldn’t have given so much away. I smile, babbling, “Oh, you know. History never really interested me. And the whole celibacy thing.” My face flushes. Right. I’m clearly a woman of the world, as evidenced by the fact that a word that means the opposite of sex is making me blush.

  But all Nara says is, “I see. I just thought you must have been somewhere secluded not to have heard about the bonescorch.”

  “We, uh—we don’t read the Bulletin much.” Not lately. It seems my father has been protecting me again.

  “No matter,” Nara says evenly.

  Too much. I’ve given her too much. “Thank you for your time,” I say with as much composure as I can manage. “Now I really must go. I’m sorry about your—husband.”

  She snorts. “Brother. He can take care of himself. Usually.” Her voice softens. “I do appreciate your helping him.”

  I turn to go, but when I place my hand on the door handle, Nara is behind me.

  “Take this,” she says, handing me a small card: NARA BLAKE, EDITOR. Startled, I look up and am transfixed by her fierce, clear eyes. “In case you need anything else.”

  I step into the street, stumbling a little, and slide into an alley. As I hurry home, I flick the corner of Nara Blake’s business card with my forefinger.

  ARE REDWINGS REAL? The Bulletin sings its sensational print in my mind over and over. Am I an insidious threat, as the Onyx Staff says? The fact that I do not exist has always kept me a little safer. Or maybe it has kept others a little safer from me. But just now, those priests in the alleyway, the fire I called forth—

  Today is the day I became real.

  two

  The sky through the glass walls of my high room is the bright white-gray of the fog that drifts down from Mol, the great volcano. It’s the clean, pale color of the steam that hisses from the copper release valves of the pipes curling through the streets of Caldaras City. It’s washed-out clouds, about as close to blue as this sky ever gets. Raptor birds roost in this rooftop garden with me, coming and going as they please on dark feathered wings that cut the city mist like razors through silk. In here, hidden from the world, I am a connoisseur of books, green life, and ash-sky.

  I lean back in my chair at my pockmarked metal desk as my father rustles leaves and taps little irrigation pipes behind me.

  “Toad-hat shrub’s looking a bit dry,” he says. I hear the tinny creak of metal tweaking metal. “That might do it. Keep an eye.”

  “Thanks,” I say. In this city of brick and stone and copper, things that grow green are my joy. The haphazard collection of flowers and vegetables in the Dome has fallen mainly to my care, and even through the settled ash and gray days, my garden flourishes.

  My father shuffles over to my desk, his stiff metal leg scraping the wood floor. “They’re all doing well. But keep an eye.” He means the plants. Sometimes I think he means something else, too, when he talks about plants, but I’m never quite sure.

  I want to talk to him about the bonescorch orchis and the priests who almost got me. But I know he’d immediately scoop us up and take us away to keep me safe, leaving his prestigious position as a master gardener on Roet Island. He’d lop off this city like a dead branch, and I can’t do that to him. Not again.

  But he’s clumping his round-shouldered way toward the trapdoor that leads to the rest of the house, and there’s something that wants to burst out of me as strongly as that jet of flame this morning. “Papa,” I start, without knowing what comes next.

  He turns, woolly eyebrows raised. “What is it?”

  “I…” I stop. Breathe. “Did you know I have fire inside me?”

  His eyes are half moons as he smiles. “I have always known that.” And then the trapdoor is open and he is clambering down, shoe to metal, metal to metal, thud-clink-thud-
clink, until the top of his bushy head is gone, and I’m unsure if he really knows what I asked or if I really know what he replied.

  * * *

  The next day I rise in the dim predawn to take a brief, life-giving amble to the mailbox at the end of our little walkway. Anyone awake this early would see only the vague figure of the person they believe to be their neighbor’s only daughter through the fog. This is my favorite part of the day.

  This morning our street is as quiet as can be, the merchants just rising, the shift workers at the boilers not yet trading places, the well-to-do still enjoying a long sleep. I flip open the mailbox at the end of our tiny front lawn and find a single letter addressed to Occupant, 162 Saltball Street. Probably a general call to make more offerings to a certain god or patronize a new shop. I always open “occupant” letters. For the first time in my life, however, I am astonished to find the letter is intended for me.

  To the one who doubtless reads letters that most would discard unopened. Meet me in Angel’s Glade Park this noon. I know what you are.

  “Do you?” I wonder aloud. “Because that is something I would dearly like to know, too.”

  * * *

  I sit on a metal bench in Angel’s Glade Park, nervous, wincing at the noise of the artificial waterfall that doesn’t quite make up for the park’s lack of vegetation. I shouldn’t have come. But what else could I do? Whoever wrote that letter has already found me.

  Angel’s Glade is on the edge of town and quite exposed to the elements, so most of the people enjoying the morning here wear bandannas to keep out the ash particles. I have tied a square of linen around the lower half of my face and watch the world suspiciously. The clouds are at their brightest for the day. The letter writer should be here soon.

  A cold shiver slices through the fire inside me. What if this is a trap, and I am going to be murdered? While I’m not eager to have my throat slit, there is something attractive about the simplicity of the idea. Getting ambushed doesn’t require much thought or effort on my part. Or maybe I am to be blackmailed. That’s a bit trickier. I haven’t much to offer other than old books and healthy plants.