The Hidden Twin by Adi Rule

beans are peasants compared to its marvels. I peer across the lawn, wondering who those precious, leafy beings are who require so much more of Papa’s attention than I do.
    The bonescorch has to be there.
    I keep to the edge of the lawns, moving past the peonies, which drape their fragrance over me like spiderwebs. I head toward the glass dome along the wall, moving with purpose but never too quickly. Even in shade, I am captivated by the sun and the sky. If I had to be forever invisible somewhere, I think Roet Island would be my prison of choice.
    The dome is guarded by tall, arched metal doors made of heavy golden vines. Not the sort of door that would yield to discreet jostling. Discouraged, I halfheartedly try a scrollwork handle, and to my astonishment, it turns with a smooth click. I slip inside, and at last set eyes on the garden I have dreamed about since I was a child.
    Trees stretch into the glass sky, leaves of green and yellow and blue casting a kaleidoscope of beautiful light over the gravel paths and mossy embankments of the garden. Songbirds I can’t see chatter and whistle from their branches—I recognize snatches of individual melodies, but I have never heard so many at once. Water cascades down the sides of the dome, its glittering rush making me dizzy, as though the whole place were shooting up into the sky. Massive flowers laze about, sprawling their tendrils, flaunting their spirals and colors and scandalously passionate scents. Black everlasting, pyxie, ring anemone—I can name only about half the species I see, and many of those are only guesses based on half-remembered drawings in my father’s books.
    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.
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œHello to you, too,” an icy female voice answers.
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œOne of our—? Who—?” the woman breathes.
    â€œYou 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.”
    â€œDon’t be flippant with me,” the wheezy voice says. “Remember, you are expendable.”
    Rasus, what does that mean?
    â€œI’m not flippant,