by Adi Rule
But I feel sick. The flame leaves of this stunning plant are almost dark. The sound of the broken halves of the black stalk being ground against each other as the burlap forces them into place sets my nerves on edge. I may not know this bonescorch well, but I know orchises, and they are nothing like tomato plants.
I once vowed to find this orchis and pull it out by its traitorous roots. Now, it is dying, and all I need to do is let it. But everything in me cries out in protest. Every inch of my soul scratches under my skin; my legs and fingers ache to do something. My father wouldn’t let them do this horrific, lethal surgery on an orchis as noble as this. And I can’t stand by and watch, either.
Clutching the scissors, I slip past everyone and hurry to the fountain in the entryway. A good dip in the boiling water, and the blades come out shining and sanitary. No one notices me as I stride back. Master Fibbori and Onna are too busy wrestling with fear and dirty burlap, Monty Horro is too busy watching them with amusement, and Her Majesty and her flock of servants are too busy sitting in judgment.
I slide over to the pot, and in one quick movement, I thrust the shears forward and cut the plant off at its base. The two halves of black stem and a riot of curving, nearly dark leaves fall unceremoniously to the floor, leaving only a tiny nub protruding from the soil.
Silence descends. Horro and Onna gape at me. Fibbori says nothing, but his beady eyes flash.
The Empress turns to me, frowning. “Who did you say you were?”
There is something familiar about her regard—that serene self-assurance that emanates from those who have a great deal of power. I saw it in Zahi Zan, and in the Onyx Staff as well.
I drop my hands to my sides, the shears bumping my leg. “My name is Lin, Your Majesty.” The people around me are hardly breathing. Through the eerie quiet, I can hear faint birdsong and moving water from the entrance hall.
The Empress looks at the tattered remains of the plant at my feet. “I would be interested in hearing, Miss Lin, why you have chosen to cut down, before my very eyes, a rare example of the most valuable botanical species in Caldaras, especially given the fact that the Commandant and I were expecting it to be the centerpiece of tonight’s once-in-a-millennium celebration.”
To his credit, Monty Horro steps forward. “Your Majesty, I take full responsibility for this. Lin is my apprentice. Her destruction of the orchis is on my head.” His voice drips danger.
The Empress regards him briefly, then returns her focus to me but doesn’t speak.
An unconvincing throat clearing disturbs the atmosphere, and we all look at Master Fibbori, who is frowning at me. “Actually, Your Majesty”—he turns to her—“the orchis is not destroyed.”
The Empress raises a dark eyebrow.
“Upon further consideration,” Fibbori continues, “I believe cutting it off at the base may be its best hope of recovery.” There is distaste in his tone. “You see, the bonescorch—all orchises—are susceptible to infection when they are damaged. If the injury is severe enough, a sterile severing as close to the roots as possible is the wisest course of action.”
“I see.” The Empress gives me a thoughtful look. “In that case—well done, Miss Lin. It is a shame not to have the orchis to unveil at Crepuscule, but at least we have not lost it altogether.” She purses her lips. “You might consider employment working with plants instead of hats.” She unbuttons a lavender fan from her waist, flips it open, and says, “Now, Mr. Horro, tell me about the new beading technique you mentioned.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” Horro says, giving her a quick, deferential nod. “Miss Lin, would you mind very much gathering just a few fresh bluelet blossoms? If you can find any, that is. Go on.” He shoos me, and at last I am free to meet Sunny by the Long Angel Pool.
“Miss Lin,” a commanding voice says as I reach the door. I turn around. “I wonder,” the Empress goes on, “if, while you are out, you could let my son Zahi know that Mr. Horro has arrived with a disguise for him? I believe you will find him in the hedge maze. Thank you.”
I nod and hurry from the room as my blood turns icy. Damn. I can’t disobey the Empress. I can only hope the twilight and my mask will hide my identity from Zahi Zan. But what will I say if he recognizes me? What will I do if he doesn’t?
The entrance hall is bustling now as guests make their way into what I suspect is some kind of grand ballroom at the other end. I catch a glimpse of it—bright, cavernous, draped in copper fabric and golden flowers.
A hand touches my shoulder. Master Fibbori has followed me from the room, and now stands in the shadow of a tall flower bed, holding the orchis pot. He gives me an inscrutable look. “Miss … Lin, is it? Funny, you remind me very strongly of one of my less talented undergardeners.”
I stick out my chin. “You’re not going to scold me for saving that plant, are you?”
He considers me for a moment. “No,” he says. “But I must ask you a question. How certain were you that you were doing the right thing?”
I shrug. “I’ve got a bluebird orchis at home. That’s what I would have done for it.”
He nods. “Logical. Tell me, what do you know about the bonescorch?” He gestures to the severed stalk and withered leaves like dead birds lying on the pot’s soil.
“Truly, not very much.”
“Well,” he says, “the specimen you saved today is the only one that has ever been found. It is more valuable than the whole of the Copper Palace. More valuable than all the treasures of Rasus.”
I inhale. “I … that makes sense, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Fibbori says. “And if you had dared harm it in front of Her Imperial Majesty, your punishment would have been instant death.”
“Boiling?” I ask hopefully.
“Hanging,” he says.
“Rasus’s rotten teeth,” I mutter before I can stop myself. “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t kill it.”
“Rasus’s rotten teeth indeed.” Master Fibbori’s voice is stern, but there is a hint of a smile underneath.
I leave the entrance hall’s smells of copper, water, and tidy blooms for the outdoor scents of grass and night flowers. The sun set quickly, though Crepuscule won’t officially begin until the rise of Bel. The brightest object in the night sky, Bel is known as the Queen of the Stars because she will rule for the next year.
As I move away from the Copper Palace, there are few people left on the lawns. The moon is out, and by its light I see a charming hedge maze in a corner of the grounds. The Empress said Zahi would be there.
I’ve never really seen moonlight before—just the weak, diluted stuff that drizzles its way through the clouds Mol spits at us in the lower city. But this moonlight is unfiltered, potent. As I walk among the flowers, it changes the color of my skin and the palace walls and the petals. A little breeze sweeps over the grass and flower beds in playful waves. It strokes my hair, lifting and winding the strands, prickling my scalp.
I know why Mol left his heart here; already this place tugs at my own. I follow the sound of water to the maze. The dark, bluish leaves of the hedges are a deeper blue at night, the walls of a secret magical land straight out of a Mother May story. As I enter the corridors of the maze, the silty ground under my feet as soft as feathers, I half expect to find an Other prince waiting there.
I smile. Maybe I am turning into Jey. My smile fades quickly, however. Jey is done with fairy tales now. Done with me.
My fingers trace the contours of the living walls as I venture farther in. Nearby I hear voices intermingled with the sound of a fountain burbling. My first thought is to turn away. But I pause. I was sent to fetch Zahi Zan. If I do not, it will cause suspicion. And my search for the Heart is more important than anything else; I can’t jeopardize it.
I hold my breath and take a few careful steps closer until I turn a corner to find a large open space—the center of the maze.
Before me, tiny streams of water shoot upward and fall back into a pool ringed by wide stone ledges. The
air is misty here, but with water vapor, not ash. Two people sit next to the pool with their backs to me, their shoulders touching, heads close together. Laughter. A young woman turns briefly to toss a flower—a delicate pearl avens, I think—into the pool behind her. Her smile is lovely, her features perfect.
She was wearing butter yellow the day I saw her with Zahi Zan on the lawn.
It is him again, next to her. I know him even from here. His hair is loose. He leans back, draped over the stone with the placid air of ownership, and says something I can’t make out. The Butter Yellow Girl laughs again and rests her head on his shoulder.
I lean against the hedge. “Zahi Zan!”
Two faces turn to me. Zahi squints into the shadows. “Hello?”
“Your mother wants you in the salon! Your mask is here.”
As I turn away, I hear the Butter Yellow Girl say, “Was that a servant?”
My stomach suddenly aching, I make my way back through the hedge maze. I run across the lawn, past a row of stone servants’ huts that look like an enormous, sleeping caterpillar, and past the glass dome of the Empress’s garden. Hope I didn’t know I had gushes away in a torrent. I have lied to myself, haven’t I? Despite the cult of Bet-Nef and the Fog Walkers and knowing that I must destroy Mol’s Heart to save Caldaras City, as I crossed the Jade Bridge this evening in that awful carriage, there was a part of me that only wanted to see Zahi Zan again.
My guts knotted, I reach the curving wall that guards the grounds of the Copper Palace. Carriages arrive one after another down the sandstone road, aristocrats in flamboyant attire alighting, laughing, venturing inside. I look out over the lawns, where the light from the palace can’t reach, and the once-bright memory of Zahi’s face so close to mine, his arms around me, is merely another shadow in this ghostly landscape. Now, when I shut my eyes, I am met with a brighter memory, of rippling water and a wide stone ledge and two heads very close together. I’ve seen him now, haven’t I?
What did I imagine would happen? I should have known as soon as I noticed him for the first time, cutting the grass in his rust-colored waistcoat, a prince disguised as a peasant. As beautiful and expensive as a bonescorch orchis.
I have been whipped, boiled, shot, isolated, and threatened. But it is only now, as I press my face into the carved jade arch that marks the edge of the grounds, that my eyebrows crinkle, the corners of my mouth tense, and tears slither down my cheeks in a ridiculous display of self-pity.
What disdain I used to have for Jey when she would come home with broken heart after broken heart, yet look at me now. I have to save the city from fiery annihilation, and I’m weeping for Zahi Zan.
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 de
stroyed, 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.