Mystic City (26 page)

“Then I will protect you both,” Davida says. “For as long as I can.” She has stopped crying, but her eyes are filled with something even sadder—an indelible grief or some other dark emotion. She seems on the verge of saying something else, but then she blinks and brushes some of her black curls behind her ears, looking away.

“Are you okay?” I take her shoulder.

Davida swallows. “I am. I will be. As long as you’re safe, and happy.”

She takes my hand from her shoulder and pulls it into her lap, holding it tight. Her gloves are soft and smooth, and they remind me of what happened tonight, and how I followed her in the Depths the other day.

“I have to ask you something,” I say, clenching her hands, “and I need you to tell me the truth: What were you doing by the Seaport? Were you visiting your parents?”

Davida averts her eyes, studies the carpet on my floor. Eventually, she nods.

“But why aren’t your parents living in the Block?” Davida’s lower lip begins to tremble. “You can tell me anything,” I say to her. “You know that, right?”

Davida takes a shuddery breath, and suddenly she seems so young—like the girl I’ve known forever. I see again the full-of-life eleven-year-old I used to chase around the apartment, who braided my hair with roses and baby’s breath and read me stories at night when my mother was too busy.

“You have my back,” I say, “and I have yours. Always and forever.”

And with that, Davida takes her hands from mine and removes her gloves.

Slowly, she peels back the black satin fabric, rolling the glove on her right arm down until it’s off completely and she turns her attention to her left arm.

I gasp.

There are no scars anywhere. The skin up to her elbows is peachy and smooth, just like the rest of her.

She looks up with a tight-lipped grin and shrugs. “No one in the Aeries has ever seen me without my gloves,” she says. I can tell by the way her voice falters that she’s nervous. “Like I told you, the material blocks the transmission of my powers, so I can go undetected. But I am not the only one who is unregistered. My parents are, too. They don’t live in the Block, Aria. They live underground.”

It was one thing to think of Davida as an orphan, or a mystic with sick parents. But to know that her family is actively against mine is incredibly disturbing. I walk over to my window, pull back the curtains, and stare out blindly at the night. I think back to Hunter at the carnival, about him describing the various powers mystics have.

“What are your powers like?” I ask. “What is it that you can do?”

Davida stands. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“You owe me at least that much,” I say, pleading.

Davida lowers her head. “Hold out your hands,” she says, “and close your eyes.”

I step toward her and extend my arms, palms up. Then I shut my eyes. Davida’s fingertips brush mine and my skin begins to buzz. I feel a pull, as if something inside me—my blood, my organs, my soul—is being yanked out through my pores.

The pull subsides and settles into a warm throbbing that isn’t entirely unpleasant. Just strange. Every strand of hair on my body feels alive, and there is a crackle of energy in the air around me.

“Open your eyes,” Davida says.

When I do, I am staring at myself: at my wavy brown hair, still wet from the shower, at my hazel eyes, irises alert with green flecks, at the turn of my nose and the sharp cut of my cheekbones, at my jaw and my lips and my white, white teeth.

Davida looks just like me.

“I can borrow someone’s appearance,” Davida says. The only thing about her that isn’t me is her voice. “Cast a disguising glamour on myself and others. That’s my talent.”

Tentatively, I reach out and touch her, running a finger from her temples to her chin, softly, slowly, and down her neck to her collarbone. This is my body. How strange!

There is a rustling outside, from the balcony. In a blur of color, Davida is herself again; the change happens so quickly it’s remarkable. She rushes over to my bed and puts her gloves back on.

I go over to the windows and open them, stepping out onto the balcony in my bare feet. No one is here.

“False alarm,” I say. “Too many mystics coming to visit lately. Puts me on edge, I guess.”

Davida climbs out behind me and scans the balcony. She points to a tiny green pill lodged between two paving stones. “A mystic wouldn’t be taking Stic.” Davida holds the pill up to the light, then shoves it in her pocket. “Only someone who needed a power boost to get to this balcony in the first place. Somebody is spying on you. Or trying to, at least.”

She pulls me back inside, shutting the windows behind us. “Don’t open these again,” she instructs, fixing the latch. “I mean it.”

The next morning, Thomas shows up uninvited to escort me to work.

“You really don’t have to come with me,” I say as we leave my apartment building. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since Bennie’s party. My father’s man Stiggson trails a few feet behind us. Klartino and my father left a few minutes before us.

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been waiting for a moment alone with you.” Thomas takes a bouquet of white roses from behind his back. “Pretty, huh?”

I study them. “Did you know that in the War of the Roses, giving someone a white rose was a sign of betrayal, like a warning that soon after, that person would be killed? Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Geez, of course not, Aria,” Thomas says. His grin falters as he tosses the flowers to the ground. “What’s with you?”

“What’s with
me
?”

He reaches for my hand, but I pull away, walking a few steps ahead of him over one of the silvery bridges glinting in the light of the morning sun. The air is sticky-hot. We’re silent for a few moments, and then he stops me outside the rail station.

He pulls a tiny velvet box out of his pocket. “Here. Maybe this’ll cheer you up.”

I take the box from him and open it. Inside is the most gorgeous engagement ring I’ve ever seen. The central gem, an oval-cut pink diamond, is surrounded by a cluster of tiny rubies and white diamonds.

It stares out at me from the plush box, mocking me.

“It took longer than I expected, but the jeweler finally finished the engraving.” He takes out the ring, and shows me the inside:
Aria & Thomas
is etched lightly into the band. Then he slips it onto my finger. I want to protest, but Stiggson is watching. “I’m so sorry about the party,” he says. “It’s not what you think. I hope you didn’t tell anyone.”

I laugh. “What is it, then?” I ask, keeping my voice down. “And no, I didn’t. But not because of you—I don’t care
what
you do, Thomas.”

“
She
came on to
me
,” Thomas says. “You have to believe me, Aria. I would never cheat on you. I love you—”

“Don’t,” I say, holding up one of my hands. “Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

“But I do,” he says urgently. “I love you, Aria.”

“You wouldn’t have cheated on me if you loved me. That’s not how love works.”

Thomas rolls back his shoulders in defeat. “What do I have to do to convince you that I’m telling the truth?”

I think for a moment. “My letters.”

“Huh?” Thomas says, confused.

“Bring me the love letters I wrote you. I want to see them.”

Thomas rubs his forehead. “Aria, what are you talking about?”

“Love letters—I found them in my bedroom.”

I wait for his response. Does he know about the letters? If he’s able to produce them, well … that changes things. But if he’s not, it only confirms my suspicion that our relationship was completely fabricated by our parents. That we probably never even met before the night of our engagement party.

Thomas looks up at me, frowning. “I—I don’t have them. I didn’t save them.”

“Oh.” I decide to give him one more chance. “What did you call me in the letters? What was your name for me?”

Thomas raises a hand to my forehead. “Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

“No,” I say, shaking his arm away. Even if he didn’t save the letters, if he’d written them, he’d know to call me Juliet. “Are you a drug dealer?” I’m surprised I even asked—but there you have it.

“What?” he asks, his eyes widening in shock. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you a drug dealer?” I repeat. “Do you deal Stic or anything else?”

He shakes his head violently. “Of course not.”

“Then why did someone at Bennie’s party tell me you do?”

Thomas opens his mouth, but no words come out. “I don’t know,” he says eventually. “But whoever it was … they were lying.”

I clench my hand into a fist. “Why would someone lie about that to me?”

We stand together in silence. Thomas hooks his thumbs in his belt and stands incredibly still, looking like a lost boy. I shake my head, pushing past him and into the station, Stiggson on our heels. “Don’t call me until you have an answer,” I tell him.

When Stiggson isn’t looking, I slip off the ring and hide it in my clutch.

Later that night, after work, dinner, and a session with a dress designer who draped me in fabric swatches and took all my measurements, when I
still
haven’t heard from Hunter and I am beginning to go crazy with worry, I sneak into the Depths.

Kyle is out with Bennie, my parents are at a political strategy session with the Fosters, and I’m home alone. I haven’t heard a peep from Thomas. Tonight, Violet Brooks is speaking at a massive rally in the Magnificent Block. I saw news coverage at work with the details; everyone was buzzing about it. Attending will be dangerous, but surely Hunter will be there. And going is my best shot at finding him.

I dress in dark, loose-fitting clothes and wear my hooded cloak despite the heat. I brush my hair forward so that it covers most of my face, and hope I won’t be recognized. I’m about to sneak down the back elevator when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I spin around. It’s Davida. She’s wearing her uniform, plus a
thin cloak—much like the one she made me, the one I lost the first time I went into the Depths.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I’m coming with you.”

“What? No. It’s too dangerous.”

“I know where you’re going, Aria. And it will be safer if I’m there with you.” She pauses. “No secrets, remember?”

I nod. Davida knows the truth about Hunter and me, and I know the truth about her. “Fine,” I say. “Besides”—I give her a tiny grin—“I could use help with directions.”

We each use a pair of gloves to fool a POD scanner, then hire a gondola to the Magnificent Block. We disembark near where Lyrica lives and head over a series of bridges, over the alleyways of water, and into the Block itself.

“This way,” Davida says. It’s so much easier to navigate these streets with her by my side. She makes sure to keep us out of the light, hidden in shadows—safe. If anyone recognizes me, tonight of all nights, well … who knows what could happen.

We enter the Block and I’m startled by its beauty: dozens and dozens of men and women are ahead of us on the walkways, carrying bits of mystic light ensconced in tubular holders.

“Here,” Davida says, passing me a tube from a man standing behind us, who’s carrying extras. She holds it in front of her face; the tube emits a soft white glow that plays across her features. I glance ahead, at all the lights and the people moving toward the Great Lawn. The glow from the tubes trickles into the night sky,
reflects off the creaking metal walkways, and glints off the surface of the oily water beneath.

We move at a slow pace as the crowd grows. At last, we reach the open space where the carnival was held—only now a stage has been set up, and there are thousands of people crowded around it.

“It’s not just mystics here tonight.” Davida leads me to a spot on the lawn where we’ll have a good view of Violet. “The poor, too, who live elsewhere in the Depths—actually, the crowd is mostly made of nonmystics, which is a pretty good thing. We need all the support we can get.”

I glance around for Hunter or Turk, but don’t see them. I wonder if Davida’s family is here. I pull my cloak tighter, making sure to hide my face, and tip my hood back slightly so that I have a better view of the stage.

Violet Brooks’s amplified voice rings out through the night. “It is time that we are free people,” she is saying, “that we are treated like equals.”

There is a roar from the crowd.

“We should not be drained of our life force. We should be revered for it! We mystics were the ones who helped build Manhattan and its sister cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin, and made it possible for society to thrive despite the rising water levels and the dire effects of global warming. We built the Aeries. We healed the sick. We made the Damascus iron and steel, the metals that support the weight of the elite.

“And what is our reward? Required drainings—which will be increased if Garland Foster is elected. Those in the Aeries look
at us like batteries: things to charge their city. They look at us and see a cheap energy source. But we are not batteries! We are people!”

Davida raises the light in her hands; a few others raise their lights, too. “She’s trying to motivate registered mystics to actually vote,” Davida says. “Technically, if you’re registered with the government, you have the right to. If she can win over the poor
and
get the mystics to actually place their votes, we’ll outnumber the people in the Aeries. But usually no one votes, because the only options are, well …”

I shrug. “Don’t worry. I get it.”

Violet continues, “But now you have a real choice: elect another of those evil leeches who have sucked this city dry? Or a mystic, who understands your suffering and sacrifice?”

Violet Brooks raises her hands over her head and the crowd erupts in applause. In her simple black blazer and pants and her white shirt, she looks like a tiny speck of a person from where we sit. What can she possibly hope to do to stop the Roses and the Fosters? But the deafening roar of approval makes clear her power: she may be tiny, but behind her stand thousands.

“When I am elected, I will stop the drainings! There’s already enough energy on reserve to last a century—they drain us now to keep us weak. Because they fear us.