Mystic City (10 page)

He says this so casually. I can’t help but think of all the people at Java River, most of whom were surely mystics. They already looked beaten down by the officially mandated two drainings per year; how much worse will it be if that’s doubled? If the age is lowered? Would it make them sick—or even kill them?

“Maybe they
should
be allowed to keep some of their powers.”
Hunter comes to mind, the way he pressed his fingers to my wrist and instantly healed my wound. “Would that really be so bad?”

“Are you serious?” Thomas rests his fork on his plate. “The mystics set off a bomb that wiped out much of Lower Manhattan. Or did you already forget the Conflagration? Their power is
deadly
. They want to
kill
us, Aria. And you’re proposing that we let them keep their powers?”

I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I meant … maybe not
all
mystics want to kill us.”

Thomas laughs heartily, right from his belly. “Don’t be a fool, Aria. The mystics would love nothing more than to see us all die so they can control the city.” He leans forward. “Especially you.”

Our waiter clears away the empty appetizer plates and sets down a palate cleanser—an apple and calvados sorbet—before our first course.

“Is it hot in here?” I ask. Thomas shakes his head. “Because I feel … hot,” I say, using my napkin to dab at my forehead. My skin feels itchy, too—no, not itchy, but … tingly, as if somebody were poking at my insides with a live wire.

“Did you know,” Thomas says, wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin, “that mystic workers are actually trying to start some kind of union? Mark Goldlit in the Council saw one of their proposals. They want
vacation
—can you believe it? And Violet Brooks is supporting this nonsense. If we let them get a foothold with the voters, soon all the poor will want a voice in the government, and then what? Too bad mystics can’t be stripped of their
voting rights like they are their powers. Then we wouldn’t even have to worry about the election.”

I’m about to say something biting when I stop myself, tasting the sorbet instead and letting it slide down my throat, numbing me. Thomas is just like his brother. Who is just like his father. Who is, for the most part, just like
my
father. To support the mystics would be blasphemy. I trusted Thomas once, enough to fall in love with him. What changed?

Oh, right—I OD’d. An immense wave of guilt washes over me. Thomas’s odd behavior is probably because of
me
. Because I messed up and forgot him. Forgot
us
. He probably has no clue how to act around me.

Thomas takes another bite of his sorbet. “It’s good, right?”

The more he talks, the more tiny snippets of—what? memory?—pop to life: lips brushing my cheek, a strong hand on my waist. Running. Hiding. The salty smell of water from the Depths.

Is this my past resurfacing? What I used to feel for Thomas, what made me want to risk it all—my parents’ affection, my brother’s concern, my friends’ companionship—to be with him?

Whatever happened at the doctor’s office today, whatever was in those shots, is working. When I look at Thomas, every inch of my skin buzzes, from my toes all the way up to my scalp. I want to jump across the table and rip off his tie, lick his neck, kiss his chin, his lips—it’s strange, to feel such repulsion at his words and attraction to his body at the same time.

“Aria?” Thomas pushes his water toward me. “Drink this. You look like you’re burning up. Are you sick?”

I swallow the water quickly. “No, no. I’m fine.” I glance to my
left and see an older couple staring; the woman cups her hand over her mouth and whispers something to the man. “I’m just going to use the restroom.”

A waiter points to the back of the restaurant, and I move as quickly as I possibly can. Sweat is rolling down my back; my pulse is racing. I can barely walk.

Is this what they call love?

I stand at the sink and splash cool water on my face. What’s happening to me? I blot my cheeks with a soft towel the bathroom attendee hands me, then open my clutch.

There, staring back at me, is the locket.

Remember
.

I slip it on and wonder what Thomas’s reaction will be.

We make our way through the rest of the meal with hardly any conversation.

Fine. “Thomas?” I say finally.

“Mmm?”

“What if we ditched Klartino and went to the Depths? Just you and me?”

Thomas nearly chokes on a piece of meat. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Thomas stares at me curiously. “Are you out of your mind? Why would I go to the Depths?”

Because that’s where we escaped together to be happy
, I’m about to say,
and maybe we could feel like that again
. But his expression is so cross I can’t get the words out.

“Never mind,” I say, running my finger under the chain around my neck. “You haven’t said a word about my locket.”

Thomas eyes where the silvery heart rests against my collarbone. “You shouldn’t wear junk like that,” he tells me. “It looks like the mystic crap they sell to tourists.”

My fiancé turns his attention back to his meal. Slowly, I remove the locket. Thomas didn’t give it to me. Who did?

• VII •

After dinner, Thomas promises Klartino a thousand dollars if he lets us kiss in private.

We three are standing directly outside the light-rail station near the northeast bridge of my building. Klartino nods. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” he says to me. “Don’t take too long.”

Thomas takes my hand and pulls me out of the light, to the edge of the platform. My back is against the station’s glass wall. Beyond that is emptiness. We seem to hover over the city.

This is what I am thinking about—the dark drop to the Depths just on the other side of the glass, the long fall Hunter saved me from—when Thomas kisses me.

I wait to see if I feel anything, for our marriage’s sake, but the voice telling me I love him is gone. At least for now. It’s just lips touching. No spark.

“Is something wrong?” he asks as I pull away. His hands feel hot—too hot—against my shoulders. I shake free. His brown eyes are open with concern, his mouth smudged with traces of my lipstick. A lock of chocolate-colored hair is curled across his forehead.

“No,” I say, wiping his lips clean with my thumb. Pushing back
his hair. The nighttime shadows play over his face; he looks even more handsome than he did in the restaurant. “It’s just that … I should be getting inside. I’m exhausted.”

Part of me expects Thomas to insist that I stay outside in the blazing heat with him, to tell me that he can’t bear to live a single second without me, even though I suspect that isn’t true.

But he only nods and touches two fingers to my forehead. “Go to sleep, Aria. You’ve had a long day.” He pivots and disappears back inside the station.

I slowly cross the platform and step onto the bridge that leads toward my family’s apartment. In the distance I see a figure slip out the back entrance of my building, the same entrance I used last night. I recognize the person’s cloak immediately—Davida.

What is she doing?

Davida appears to be heading downtown. Even though Klartino is waiting for me in the lobby of my building, I decide to follow her. I’m a few feet behind, on a separate bridge that runs parallel to hers, but I do my best to keep up.

The shadows from the buildings make it difficult to see her as she weaves in and out of the light, from bridge to bridge. My feet are killing me, and the arcs of the bridges make it harder to run than if I were simply on flat pavement. Damn these heels.

I pass four or five apartment buildings, then reach Seventy-Second Street and cross at the intersection, heading east. Davida’s stride is relentless, and she increases the distance between us with each step. The only way I’ll be able to catch her is to flat-out run.

Just as I am deciding to do that, I am jolted by a blast of yellow-green light and an intense noise: a power station on my left.

Four men are working, their grimy hands occupied with tools. The power station is a prismlike building with iridescent sides, one of the various triangular skyscrapers spaced around the city to give energy to the power grid. A hatch is open and a tangle of tubes is exposed—thick, snaking glass piping full of bright green mystic energy. The energy pulses and swirls like it’s alive.

One of the men, with sandy-colored hair and a spotty beard, stops and notices me. I take a step back. He powers off his drill and the others follow suit.

Eight eyes refuse to blink as they stare at me.

They recognize me, and the pale, sunken skin of their faces chills me. Drained mystics. They’re everywhere.

I look across the bridges around me and see no one. There is no one here but these sad-looking men and me. I’ve lost Davida.

I turn around immediately and head home.

“How was dinner?” asks my mother, seated on the black leather sofa of our living area. Her face is freshly scrubbed, hair still wet from the shower. She is wearing a thick pink robe and sipping from a glass tumbler. All the curtains are drawn, and the overhead lights are dimmed.

Was she waiting up for me?

Klartino has left—after chastising me in the lobby for making him wait so long—and I wasn’t expecting a conversation with my mother. “Fine,” I lie.

She arches an eyebrow. “Just fine?”

“Nice,” I say, correcting myself. “It was very nice.”

“Good.” She crosses her legs. “You should get to sleep, Aria.
Don’t forget that you’re filming an ad for the campaign in the morning.”

“What?”

“Didn’t Thomas tell you about it?”

“No.” I squeeze my clutch, thinking of the locket inside. “He didn’t.”

“There was an explosion earlier tonight on the Lower East Side. A … 
demonstration
arranged by those damned rebels.”

“There was an explosion?” I ask in shock.

She swirls the liquid in her glass. “Yes. We need to take advantage of the timing. We’re going to run ads of you and Thomas down at the wreckage, and also one of Garland working with some of the firemen. The poor fools in the Depths may think they’re doing themselves a favor by supporting that … 
mystic
 … but they couldn’t be more wrong. And we won’t let her win.”

“How many people died?”

My mother takes a swallow of her drink. “Does it matter? Those idiots think they’re rallying the poor, but they’re only reminding the public how very dangerous mystics are. The rebels will never stop. They need to be exterminated.”

I’m speechless, numb. She could at least
pretend
to be sad that innocent people lost their lives. I start to head up the stairs and into my room.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” my mother asks.

I tilt my head, confused.

She bats her eyelids. “Kiss goodnight?”

I force myself to peck her on the cheek. Her skin is ice cold. “Good night.”

“Oh, Aria, send Davida down, would you? I have a few things I need her to do.”

I can’t do this, of course, because Davida is not here. The last thing I want to do is get her in trouble. “Um, I sent her out.”

My mother looks genuinely shocked. “You did?”

“Yes, I wanted her to … fix the clasp on one of my bracelets.” I press my lips together. “It broke.”

She glances at her watch. “You sent her out this late? It’s past ten.”

It’s implausible, I know, but all I can do is nod and hope she believes me.

Surprisingly, she does. “I’m glad to see you’re finally
using
our servants properly. It’s about time. Soon you’ll be running a household of your own.” She finishes her drink in one large gulp. “Send Magdalena down instead. And be quiet—your father is already asleep.”

Kyle is waiting for me at the top of the stairs with his arms crossed.

“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing?”

“Heading over to Bennie’s,” he says.

I try to move past him, but he’s like a barricade in a navy-blue T-shirt and jeans. His hair is perfectly messy, as though he’s spent a great deal of effort in front of the mirror trying to make it seem like he didn’t try at all. Personally, I think it’s nice that after all this time dating, he still wants to impress Bennie.

“
You
sent
Davida
out on an errand?” he asks. “I don’t believe you. That would be like Kiki buying something on sale.”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not,” I tell him. “Now move.”

He doesn’t. “You never ask Davida to do anything for you. You hardly even bother Magdalena. Why now?”

“I ask her to do tons of stuff.”

“No,” he says. “You don’t. Now where is she really?”

“Like I told Mom, getting my bracelet fixed.”

Kyle takes a step closer. “Which bracelet?”

I take too long before answering, and he laughs. “I’m onto you,” Kyle whispers before stepping aside. I don’t look back as I pass him.

Instead of changing out of my clothes, I wait for Kyle to leave. Then I sneak into Davida’s room.

Davida lives in the servants’ wing of our penthouse, on the opposite end of the second floor from where my bedroom is.

I haven’t been in Davida’s room in months—maybe even years—but her neatness doesn’t surprise me. The furnishings are simple and the décor is practically nonexistent: white walls, gray carpet, a narrow bed, and a tall dresser. A small closet and one window that overlooks the Hudson. The only thing that seems personalized is the stitching on her curtains. I walk over to take a closer look: tiny stars fashioned from silver thread, moons and planets intricately designed in red and blue.

Where would Davida keep something private, like a journal?

I sift through the outfits in her closet. Most are versions of her uniform, plus a few bland tops she’s allowed to wear out on her days off.

It’s not that I don’t trust Davida. It’s just that—well, I’m suspicious. Dirt from the Depths on the fingertips of her gloves, and now this: sneaking off in the night. What is she not telling me?