Chapter 11: The Twins

Mercedes settled back on her heels and breathed slowly in and out a couple of times; Baena let go. She turned around to face them, pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, and squeezed her eyes shut. The initial spike of adrenaline was rapidly wearing off and being replaced by the fogginess of an interrupted dream and an abrupt awakening. There was crackling in her ears, like she'd slept through cannonfire but not been exempt from the effects. The idea of being cooped up in here…

There was a soft knock on the frame of the wide doorway to the ward. "Excuse us?"

Mercedes dropped her hand with a violent swing and turned once more to the doorway. She was taken aback when she saw her two twin cousins hovering at the doorframe. They smiled timidly at her but she remained frozen in shock, thinking back to only a few days ago when Jana had physically blocked them from coming to see her – what had changed, and why today of all days? Their tall figures – maybe even a little taller than their mother – were dressed in soft, pleasant shades of billowing peach and rose that complimented the chestnut-red hair that cascaded over their shoulders. One removed a wide-brimmed straw hat and the other pushed back a gossamer-thin pale green scarf. This close they were beautiful; it contrasted almost absurdly with the ugly, furious things Mercedes had thought only moments ago and it made her feel ungainly and embarrassed in comparison.

"Mercedes?" the one with the scarf asked, dipping her head.

Mercedes nodded, not sure what to say.

The twins looked at one another and smiled more broadly. They came fully into the room and Mercedes realized they carried a large covered wicker basket between them, which made them appear as though they were merely stopping by on their way to a picnic. It was set on the floor. She tried not to find it ridiculous in light of what had just happened to her and her squad.

"I'm Adrienne," said the one with the scarf.

"And I'm Marguerite," said the one with the hat. "We're your cousins. I'm sorry – it seems like we came at a bad time. We wanted to surprise you…" Marguerite looked behind her at the hall as if Woerman still stomped through it.

Mercedes wondered how much they'd heard, but tried to put it out of mind. The two in front of her were gentle-looking and likely wouldn't know how to deal with the fall-out from that. "Don't worry about it. I'm glad we finally get to meet," she said and tried to smile. "Again, that is. Properly." She thought about offering her hand but quickly decided they didn't seem the hand-shaking type. "Though I must admit I'm a little surprised. Your mother didn't seem too keen on it."

Marguerite slowly pulled her lips into her mouth to moisten them and demurely looked at the ground. Her voice was measured, "We're sorry about that, too. We wanted to speak to you that day, but…she's very protective. It's a good thing most of the time, you understand, but sometimes not."

"She doesn't know we're here," Adrienne added with a conspiratorial look to one side. She met Mercedes' gaze with a grin, raised her shoulders, and shook her head a little, "We just decided to come find you anyway!"

"You're glowing! How are you both fucking glowing?" came Baena's incredulous voice.

Mercedes looked over her shoulder. Both Baena and Oliver were staring wide-eyed at the twins.

"Are you saints or something? Am I dead?"

She heard the twins giggle, and she smirked. The room somehow felt lighter already. "This is Baena, and Oliver – two of my squadmates."

"Hello," the twins answered.

"Well, gather round, everyone," Baena croaked, holding out her arms to encompass the immediate area of the bed. Her legs flattened the terrain of the blanket as she pulled them to her.

Oliver immediately got up, stumbling a bit, to offer the chair. Marguerite smiled sweetly at him and took it, while Adrienne perched at the end of the bed.

"We're sorry about," Adrienne gestured at the doorway, "well, what happened. I'm afraid we heard. I'm sure it was unjust."

"You're so accomplished! I don't understand why Maman didn't want us to talk to you," Marguerite added.

The compliment made Mercedes a little squeamish. She'd never thought of herself as accomplished, necessarily, and it had been hard to attribute anything positive to what she'd done over the past year or two. Considering her Aunt Jana's apparent scathing regard for her and her family, Mercedes wondered how Adrienne and Marguerite had managed to maintain such an open mind if not admiration for her.

This in mind, she answered, "I'm sure that's because she doesn't want you to be 'cursed' by your biological father's name – I still carry that name, like a disease, and maybe she feels you can catch it. As you heard, my accomplishments don't amount to much in the end and don't seem to do anyone any good."

She saw the twins' brown eyes widen and their eyebrows rise, and averted her own from them.

"Don't say things like that," Adrienne said. Her voice settled in the quiet of the room like snow, soft and enveloping. It was a mother's voice.

After a pause, Marguerite said, "It was Maman's idea for us to adopt our new pére's surname, Blanchet. We were five when Papa – your uncle, Alejandro – died. We don't remember much of him, but we know enough to say with confidence that what has happened to that side of our family is misfortune, not a disease."

"We see enough of true disease in the soup kitchen," Adrienne added.

"And you and your friends…you're doing what you can to live in that shadow and remove it," Marguerite continued. She played with the white ribbon around the crown of her hat in her lap. "Of course there's going to be things done that others don't like. But do them anyway."

"Someone has to, otherwise no one knows to do any different," Adrienne said. "That's what we decided to do today: get dressed in our favorite clothes, and be bold. Because we have a right to, no matter what Maman says." While Mercedes mulled over their words, Adrienne reached down and with Oliver's help, pulled up the basket and placed it on the bed. As she removed the blue handtowel that covered it, she said, "We wanted to bring you some things that we thought you might enjoy. It's not much, but."

"We could use some entertainment now that we'll be here for a while," Baena said.

Mercedes hovered beside her. Dominating the inside of the basket was a round, woven-lidded pie carrier the same buttery color as the twins' skin that emitted the smell of peaches, but her eye was drawn to what surrounded it: a couple of leatherbound notebooks, a wad of what looked like letters secured with twine, a little red drawstring bag, and – most interestingly of all – a flintlock pistol decorated with tarnished silver.

"What in the world am I looking at?" Mercedes asked with a frown. It seemed preposterous that her two doll-like cousins had toted a gun and a pie all the way from Karanese in a picnic basket.

"Pieces of our father," Adrienne said.

"That was his pistol?" Oliver asked, nodding at it. Mercedes was pleased that his mind seemed to be going the same place hers did.

Marguerite smiled sweetly at him again, her face lighting up even more at his interest. "It was, yes. It had a twin, but our brother took it a few months ago." Her expression grew briefly troubled, "We haven't seen him in a while – he never comes home anymore."

Mercedes took in a shaking breath. She hadn't got that good of a look at the pistol the ringleader of the Couriers had pointed at Fhalz, but she couldn't leave the possibility alone. "Do you remember the last time you saw him?" Her hand reached out and withdrew the pistol so that she could look it over, heft it in her hands. It was an unfamiliar weight compared to a rifle or a maneuvering gear blade. As with the rifle in the Special Collections room, the name 'Carello' had been carved into its dark wood handle.

"Like Marga said," Adrienne began, "It was maybe a few months ago. We saw him come home to collect another pair of boots and take the pistol – I remember it was a cold spring night because I made him take a blanket when he wouldn't listen to me and stay home." She paused and frowned, too. "What's wrong?"

What do I tell them? Mercedes wondered. They were looking at her imploringly, and the innocence of their expression set into what was very much their mother's face was jarring.

"Please, he's our brother," said Adrienne. "If he's in trouble we need to know."

Mercedes glanced at Oliver and Baena to gauge their opinion. Oliver's look of sympathy didn't lift, and Baena shrugged. A deferral to her, then. She missed Fhalz's unfettered caution – Oliver and Baena were the more mild-mannered and deferential of the four of them when it came to strategic choices.

"He might be; I'm not sure," Mercedes admitted quietly. "Please don't repeat this. My squad and I were…asked to work on something and things got a little out of hand, which is why our supervisor suspended us just now. But while we were doing that, we saw a pistol very much like this one." She waggled the gun in question. "They're rare to see, as I'm sure you know. But I've no way of knowing yet if it was a twin to this one."

"If you say Val might be in trouble…" Marguerite said. Her fingertips clenched her hat – a movement simultaneously delicate in its poise and aggressive in the way the pressure made her nail beds blanch. "Then what were you working on? What did you see?"

At Mercedes' reluctance to extrapolate, Adrienne said, "Please. We may be able to help. Let us help."

As though it committed her, Mercedes replaced the pistol in the basket. "I can't let you. You have no idea. I don't want to potentially put you in any danger."

Adrienne's face gradually settled into something of the sternness she remembered on Jana. "We already are – potentially – just by being here. Don't you think?" She shrugged, and her scarf fell off one shoulder. "May as well make it worth it."

Mercedes folded her arms and walked away from the group, wandering toward the bright morning light of the window at the other end of the short ward. She tried to compromise her old plan with these new potentials. There was a possibility that Adrienne was right, but it was also equally possible that she wasn't – and surely there was at least some small way to take advantage of that? She needn't tell them everything, and what with them working at The Blue Glass it was possible they may have inadvertently seen or heard something, particularly if their brother was working for them. While her squad's restricted movements reminded her that she didn't have too many options at her disposal, her cousins' earlier words about being bold regardless was supporting last night's plan to get out and hide the shifter serum vials if not continue to investigate.

"I do think I have something you can do," she said at length. "There's something I need you to hide." She turned to face them. "But I also have questions."

"We'll do our best," said Marguerite with a smile.