“ I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too— ”
And I am certain I have no brother.”
Miramar sighed. “Well, it is very strange then. The favorite of our House left here two months back: Raphael, whom you so closely resemble that I thought you must be that other child I sold to the Ascendants many years ago …”
My fingers tightened upon my tumbler. It was as if some great and terrible vista was opening before me; as though a mountain that for my entire life had reared above my home had suddenly one day begun to tremble and fall into ruin.
A brother, I thought. From beneath the layers of scarred brain tissue that buried my past something stirred, thrashed as in wakefulness and then fell back into the abyss.
A brother; a twin brother. Emma and Aidan Harrow, and now myself: another twin. Another girl torn from her brother …
No wonder I had been Emma’s pet. No wonder it had not been difficult to pattern me with the intricate spires and helices of her tortured consciousness; no wonder I had driven her to madness and suicide, when through me she could not reclaim the boy she had loved and lost but never escaped from.
It can’t be true, I thought; but inside me a Small Voice (Dr. Harrow’s perhaps; but I could not be sure) said: It is so.
Abruptly I remembered where I was and drew myself up to gaze at Justice across the table from me. He blinked, once, twice, and gazed at me with wonder.
Say nothing! I tried to command him with my eyes. But already he spoke, phrasing a question with stunned slowness.
“You sold her to the Ascendants?”
“Yes,” said Miramar. Next to him Toby Rhymer tapped a generous stream of brown powder from a small vial into his tea. Miss Scarlet sat very straight beside him on two pillows, her black eyes fixed upon mine. “There were two children—”
Miramar hesitated. Toby quaffed his drink and belched loudly, then with eyes closed leaned back against the tapestried wall. The Botanists slept on, their snores stirring the fragrant air with a faint tepid odor of earth and fish emulsion. Only Justice and Miss Scarlet and myself waited for the suzein to continue. He glanced at each of us in turn, seeming to measure one against the other.
“Well,” he said at last. His gaze settled upon me. “It was some time ago— years ago, oh—!” He turned his palms upward in a helpless gesture. “We are no good at these things, keeping track! Doctor Foster would know; but he is at nocturne castigations. But there were two children, a boy and a girl. Twins. I took them in, because they were very beautiful. The mother I left to the lazars. She was scarred from childbirth. And she was mad, she talked of visions, of seeing the Magdalene and—Oh, it was such a long time ago, I can’t remember it all.
“The little girl was mad as well. At least Doctor Foster thought so. She couldn’t talk, not to be understood. Just nonsense with her brother. Raphael Miramar, my dearest child.” He sighed and stared at me.
“Even your eyes are much like his,” he said after a moment. He beckoned me closer. “And not just the color: those same wild gray eyes. Even as a child Raphael had wild eyes, always looking into corners and finding the oddest things …
With a dismissive gesture he flicked his fingers. He turned to Miss Scarlet and added graciously, “But your eyes as well are profound, and a lovely shade of brown.”
Smiling, she accepted the compliment, her black lashes fluttering as she replied.
“Ah yes; but Aidan does have a powerful vision, a rare and marvelous gift for charming his audiences. It is evident from the claques who are turning out to see him. We have not enjoyed such a success since I first joined the troupe.” She regarded me with that stare holding within it the long shadows of barred cages and moon-tossed trees. “And they are lovely—
“ ‘Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In Death’s dream kingdom these do not appear …’”
She quoted softly, to herself. Miramar nodded, his fingers playing with a braided tassel hanging from the wall behind him.
“I do not understand why he left,” he said at last. He stretched his hand across the table toward me, as if I might answer the question half-asked. “He was the loveliest of us all …
“You must have some understanding of that, Aidan: to command by a look alone, by looks alone—?”
“I have never sought to command,” I said. But I felt the flare of that raging Small Voice I knew betrayed my words.
Because I did seek power; and had found it upon the stage. There I might command by my eyes alone, where rapt faces turned upon me, me, ME!—not Emma Harrow or Toby Rhymer or even Miss Scarlet Pan, the Prodigy of a Prodigal Age—but myself, Wendy Wanders, the idiot savant, the reclaimed autist, the wild girl of the Human Engineering Laboratory.
“—not meant as an insult, my dear young sieur, please forgive my clumsy words—”
I snapped my head back up from where it had bowed, perilously close to striking the edge of the table I clutched with white fingers. “Forgive me,” I whispered. Miss Scarlet eyed me with alarm, but Gower Miramar continued heedlessly.
“No, it was rude of me—there is no question but that you are a different sort entirely from that poor sick child and even from my beloved Raphael. He lacks all discipline, save in the amatory arts; and he is too easily distracted, too easily seduced by dreams of power.”
He paused to pour a stream of green tea from the samovar into Miss Scarlet’s glass.
“Thank you,” she said. “But what became of the girl?”
Miramar refilled his tumbler, held it before a candle so that emerald rays sprang from the faceted glass. “One day Doctor Foster met an Ascendant woman at a masque, a Physician. He was more involved in trade with the out-lands then, Doctor Foster. She had accompanied a group of Physicians from the Citadel; they were being entertained by the Botanists. They were looking for research subjects, they had brought things to trade for them: a generator, cilia ampules, prosthetics.
“She told him of her work. I would imagine she even asked his advice. He is a very brilliant man, our Doctor Foster …
“She believed it might be possible to cure this child. At the very least she would be well cared for. She was so very beautiful, I didn’t have the heart to let her die.
“We sold her to the Ascendants.”
He stared at me for a long moment, shaking his head. “She was a lovely girl; but she banged her head and her tears bled all the time. There was nothing we could do.” And he shrugged and drank the rest of his tea.
From across the room I could feel Justice’s excitement. Miss Scarlet raised an eyebrow: she feared he would betray me. I was afraid myself that this news would prove too much for me to absorb at once. I leaned across the table to take Justice’s hand. I hoped that the suzein would not see how my own shook.
“My dear friend, this pretty story has tired you!” The words sounded so false that I expected Justice to rebuke me. Instead he only trembled as I stepped around the sleeping Botanists to sit beside him.
I glanced up at Miramar. “Can you arrange for a palanquin to return Justice and myself to the theater on Library Hill?”
Disappointment creased his face. “I had planned for all of you to spend the night, as my guests. After matins I’ve arranged for a Sapphic burletta—not the same sort of entertainment as you offer, young sieur, but we consider ourselves artists too.”
I began to protest, when I glimpsed Toby Rhymer regarding me with one eye slitted open even as he feigned sleep. Beneath the table Miss Scarlet’s foot curled about my ankle.
Beware! She mouthed the word.