Phineas stood frozen for a moment, and then he rushed across the room, vaulted over the back of the couch, and pinned the intruder down.
“Who are you?” he snarled. “What are you doing in my father’s office? And why do you have my face?”
The boy looked back up at him, dumbfounded.
Phineas shook him, seething. The longer he stared at the boy, the angrier he got. It was like looking into a mirror, seeing all the flaws in his own face—only, this boy was blonde, and had his ears pierced like a commoner.
“Answer me! Why are you here?”
“I-Is your father—Lord Clade? The prime minister?”
“Yes. Wait—” Phineas realized he probably shouldn’t have told an intruder, most likely an impostor masquerading with his identity. “Shit,” he snarled, just as the other boy breathed his own curse.
Phineas opened his mouth to scream for help, but the boy reached up to gag him, whispering, “You’ve got to leave.”
Phineas reddened and tried to shake off the boy’s death-grip on his mouth, but he found he couldn’t. The boy sat up, throwing him off with an ease that Phineas found embarrassing, and leaned over him.
“Listen. We’re both in danger if he finds us here. He’ll kill me, for sure. You’ve got to listen to me. You’ve got to leave. You’re not supposed to know I’m alive.”
At last the boy withdrew his hand, and Phineas stared at him, openmouthed. “You—you’re—?”
The boy looked around at the door. He seemed on the verge of panic. “Please. There’s no time to explain. I don’t know when he’ll return.”
“You!” Phineas grabbed the boy’s shirt. “Who are you, anyway? Why will he kill you? Do you mean my father? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you—you’re not supposed to know—you’ve got to leave, now! Please!” Again, the boy’s strong fingers forced him to let go, pushed him away. “Just leave! Don’t ask questions!”
Phineas shook his head. He was guessing at the truth, now, grasping to put together the pieces of his suddenly broken vision of reality in an entirely new way. He refused to let the boy push him away. He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and peered, willingly now, into the pair of gray eyes so exactly like his.
“Are you—my twin?”
The boy writhed away. “Yes—no—I don’t know! Don’t ask questions! Don’t stay any longer! Go, before he finds out you’re here!”
~
Tariq was panicking. He looked around wildly for an escape route. Clade’s son wouldn’t leave. They would be caught. The door—but Clade could be walking up the hall even now, damn him. The window—it was three stories up, the fall might kill him—but there was no guarantee. No way out. He didn’t think he was afraid of death. But he was horribly afraid of that man, his own father, even though the worst even he could do was kill him.
Relentless, Clade’s son grabbed him again. “No, listen to me. Who are you? What’s your name? You need to answer my questions. I won’t leave until you do.”
“Don’t you understand? I can’t do that,” Tariq panted. He pushed Clade’s son away. “I’m begging you. Here.”
Gripping the boy’s wrist, he dragged him to Clade’s desk, grabbed a pen, and scribbled the address of the military infirmary on the boy’s open palm. “Come see me tomorrow at this address. I’ll tell you then, if you must know. But you have to promise to keep it a dead secret. You can’t tell anyone. Is that enough for you?”
Dumbfounded, the boy nodded. Tariq let him go, and he stood staring, rubbing his wrist.
Tariq pushed him in the chest, wild with fear. “Now go! Go!”
The boy started backing away, and then the door opened. They both whirled.
Hektor stared, his fist tightening around the letter in his hand. His eyes widened a little, then he stepped inside the door and slammed it shut. His nimble fingers dipped into his pocket. Phineas flinched at the click of the lock. Tariq did not move.
“Master Phineas,” Hektor said, returning the key to his pocket. “Welcome home. This is unexpected.”
“Yes,” Phineas said. He glanced at Tariq, who stood transfixed.
Hektor glanced from one to the other, frowning. He put the letter in his pocket.
“Your father won’t like this,” he observed drily. They didn’t need to be told. Phineas glanced at Tariq, who seemed to have noticed something very intriguing about the carpet.
He lifted his head suddenly, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. He walked over to Hektor and looked up at him.
“I suppose you know.”
Hektor hesitated. “Yes.”
“He can’t know.” Tariq jerked a thumb back at Phineas.
“It certainly wouldn’t be good for you if he did,” Hektor said, with a slight, shrewd smile.
Tariq shuddered, dropping his gaze for a moment, then met Hektor’s eyes again as if he hadn’t been affected at all.
“This isn’t my fault. None of this is my fault. I haven’t done anything.”
This time, it was Hektor who looked away.
Phineas spoke up, distraught. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on at all, what I’m not supposed to know, but for now—Father doesn’t need to know I’m here. Unlock the door, Hektor, and I’ll just leave.” He made a slight bow toward Tariq. “I’m sorry. Whatever you’re dealing with, I’m sorry.”
Hektor was a little pinker than normal. “Phineas, I’m sorry…”
The two boys looked at each other. It sank in, that Hektor’s loyalty was to Lord Clade, and Lord Clade alone.
Tariq looked away darkly and muttered a stream of expletives. Phineas went a bit paler. He really didn’t know what was going on, but he had thousands of guesses, and he was beginning to be truly afraid, for the strange boy’s sake and his own.
“Please, Hektor,” he growled, stepping toward him. “Don’t be a jerk. Let me out.”
Hektor didn’t answer, but he took out the key hesitantly. His face turned even more red. He looked from one boy to the other and chewed his lip.
“Hektor,” Phineas pleaded one last time. He thought he was perhaps making some headway.
The aide clenched his jaw and unlocked the door. In a flash, he was out in the hall. Tariq, realizing at once what was going on, moved fast, but Hektor was faster, and the young soldier’s headlong rush was stopped by the slam of the door. Even as he scrabbled at the doorknob, the key turned in the lock and Hektor’s footsteps receded down the hall. Tariq swore, loudly this time, and kept throwing himself against the door until Phineas dragged him away, his eyes wide and scared.
“It’s no use. We’re stuck here. He’s probably going to get Father.”
Tariq screamed in frustration and kicked the door with his left foot, as hard as he could. Phineas winced, expecting him to hop about in pain, then stared when he realized the kick had left a sizable dent in the door.
He took Tariq’s arm. “Sit down. You might as well tell me who you are. If Father presses, I’ll insist I don’t know anything, if that helps you. I’m sorry about Hektor. He’s…even closer with my father than I am.”
Tariq obeyed and sat down, silent. Phineas sat beside him and waited.
“My name’s Tariq,” the boy said. He sounded like he was being strangled. “I’m a soldier.”
Phineas glanced at the uniform shirt. He hadn’t noticed, in the shock of seeing his own face on another person.
“I was abandoned at birth and grew up in an orphanage,” Tariq went on, “but Lord Clade pulled me out of training about a week ago and told me he’s my biological father. He abandoned me because I—because I was born with—because I wasn’t wanted. I would guess—” he ventured a glance at Phineas— “you’re my…twin brother.”
They stared at each other for a minute.
“Oh,” Phineas said weakly.
“You’re Phineas, right?”
“Yes.”
Tariq kicked irritably at a tuft of carpet. “I’m done for.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, hating the blue pattern. “If anything, it’s mine,” he added. “I shouldn’t have been born.”
“No,” Phineas said, alarmed at his tone. “It’s not your fault, Tariq. And—I didn’t know you were alive, but—I always wished you were. And I’m glad you are. It’s—a little unexpected.” He paused, still stunned by the whole affair. “But I’m glad.”
“I won’t be, not for much longer, once he gets here,” Tariq said grimly.
He shivered once, convulsively, then got up and paced restlessly to the window to look out. He leaned his forehead against the pane, clouding up the glass with a frustrated breath.
“Even if there were a way out, he’d find me,” he muttered.
Phineas cast about for words to comfort him, or reassure him, but he couldn’t find any.
He slumped back on the couch, and Tariq leaned against the window with his hands in his pockets, and they waited.
Still wary and shaken, Phineas watched Tariq. The longer he looked at his twin, the more he reminded him of a caged animal. He looked wild and strong and fierce, from his untidy hair to the scuffed toes of his combat boots. He looked like he belonged to the wilderness, like he was somehow more at home in the forests crawling with monsters and on the inhospitable, windswept moors up north than here in the city. And he looked most out of place here. Here in this rich, opulent mansion, all his strength and wildness did him no good, and he was simply trapped.
Phineas felt sorry for Tariq, and then he was jealous.
He was almost ashamed that he looked like he belonged right where he was, in this awful mansion. He realized that Tariq was what he, Phineas, had always wanted to be, and never would.
And then the key sounded in the lock, and Tariq looked even more like a caged and threatened animal than before as he turned around and pressed his back to the window, his teeth bared in defiance of whatever faced him, his eyes flicking around the room as if searching for a means of defense.
The door opened and Clade stomped in, followed by a meek Hektor. Phineas caught one glimpse of his father’s face, and suddenly he wanted to bolt from the room and run all the way back to Twdich. Then he looked at Tariq, and he felt sorry for wanting to run away.
He was about to open his mouth and say something, anything, in defense of Tariq, but Tariq beat him to it, and Clade had hardly looked at Phineas anyway, had stormed straight to where Tariq stood with his back to the wall.
“He didn’t mean it to happen,” Tariq said. His eyes burned. “He couldn’t have known. He thought you were in here.”
“You’re trying to defend him?” Clade spat. “I won’t touch him. He’s my own son. You should worry about yourself. I warned you, boy. I warned you I wouldn’t care if it was your fault or not. Nothing’s changed.”
Tariq flinched. Clade was closer than he found comfortable, towering over him like enemy artillery. That slightly sick battle feeling was starting to come over him. All his instincts told him to fight. His fraying will barely held him back.
After a dizzy second he clenched his jaw tight and tipped his head back without a word, offering his neck.
Clade backed off a little bit from Tariq, his temper cooling. Tariq didn’t move, standing rigid with his chin lifted.
Phineas crept over to where Hektor stood, impassive. He shook him a little by the arm. “Hektor,” he said. “Stop him. He listens to you. Make him let Tariq go.”
Behind them, Hektor shrugged. “Why should I? If it wasn’t you that found out, it’d have been someone else. The kid’s days were numbered anyway.”
Phineas had whispered, but Hektor spoke aloud. Clade heard him and turned.
Hektor smiled politely. “My lord, I think Phineas wants to say something.”
Phineas swallowed. Clade stepped away from Tariq, irritated.
“Well? Speak up, boy.”
Phineas dithered.
“Father, he—I—”
He stopped, and Clade, losing his patience, snapped, “Speak!”
Phineas gave up trying to find the right words. “So I know. So what? Hektor knows, and you didn’t care. What’s so different now that I know? We’re all family, aren’t we?”
This time, Hektor flinched along with Tariq. Their eyes met for a split second, and they quickly looked away.
“But you’re not so good at keeping my secrets, are you, Phineas,” Clade said.
“What do you—”
He guessed then, and he scowled.
“Father—”
Clade looked out the window, past Tariq, and blew out his breath in a long sigh, trying to calm his temper.
“Sit down, all of you. Yes, you too, Hektor. Sit.”
They sat, except for Tariq, who stayed where he was, eyeing Clade with a sort of dangerous desperation, like a cornered animal.
“Tariq, sit.”
“No.”
“Fine. Stand, then.” He sat down at his desk. He was about to say something, but Phineas beat him to it. He was angry, like he’d never been angry before, and his fear only fueled it.
“You lied to me, Father. About him.” Phineas stuck an accusing finger in Tariq’s direction. “What’s the deal with him? You left him to die and told everyone it was a stillbirth? And now here’s something about me not being trustworthy?”
In the thick silence, they could hear Tariq grinding his teeth. The hairs on the back of Phineas’ neck prickled. He tried not to look at his brother, but Tariq was looking at him.
“I’ll fight my battles,” Tariq said through his teeth. His voice was very quiet.
Clade opened his mouth and then shut it. Phineas looked stricken.
For a moment, the only sound was idle chatter audible from faraway across the house.
“You’ll fight your battles?” Hektor mocked.
Clade looked at him and said, “Be silent, Hektor.”
Hektor had the grace to look chagrined. “I’ll leave,” he said, blushing.
“No,” Clade said. “You’re a part of this.” A cloud passed over the sun and the room dimmed. They all glanced at the window automatically; long years of mistrust had turned them all paranoid. The air hung off, like a bad smell. They sat in oppressive quiet with their dirty family secrets spread out before them.
Did not disappoint!!! So proud of you!
Sue Armsbury