Tell the Wind and Fire (15 page)

“Paper after paper discussing your obvious guilt, and what that will mean for the future of the Light Council,” Mark said. “Splendid. Just what we wanted. I thought having the girl with you might help, but I suppose it was too much to hope for. We can’t expect her to have the same popularity as she did a couple of years ago.”

“Why not?” Ethan demanded.

“Because I don’t look the same,” I said. “And because I’m with you, and the citizens of both cities either hate the Strykers and think I need to be rescued, or they support the Strykers and worry I am undermining you. No matter what they believe, I’m an easy scapegoat.”

I remembered my changed shape in the white dress. A child, a daughter, could be innocent in a way a woman—a woman with her man—could not be. Especially not a woman whose name the
sans-merci
were using as a rallying call, a woman who might have seduced a Stryker to the rebels’ cause or who might have been the Strykers’ victim. I could imagine a dozen dark rumors about me floating around the Light city.

I had always known that the way others saw me had nothing to do with the truth. Now new lies were being told about me, and I knew how easy it was to make people believe lies.

Ethan looked at me, his face a picture of angry confusion. I didn’t want to explain to him. I had always been innocent in his eyes, and I wanted to remain innocent.

Mark looked toward me as well. “So only one of you is a fool,” he said. “What a pity that means there is a fool in my family.”

“This whole interview fiasco was your idea,” Ethan said. “So maybe our family can boast of more than one fool.”

He always spoke to Mark like this, as if it was safe.

Mark did not even look at him. He kept looking at me.

“You do have some sympathizers left,” he said. “However, Ethan giving you the cold shoulder throughout the interview did not help his cause with them. There are theories that the Strykers are threatening the Golden Thread in the Dark into a false relationship with their guilty child. They are saying that because of your protests against the cages when your father was imprisoned, you and your father were taken into our custody and that you are little better than a hostage, being used to increase the Strykers’ popularity because the people love you. The rebels are calling for the Dark city to rise up and free you. The crowd loves a good story. People are listening.”

Carwyn had said much the same thing to me as we sat on swings and ate cupcakes.

I supposed I could see why somebody might believe the relationship was fake, I thought, looking down at the papers. I was all-right-looking, but nothing special: not beautiful, not arresting. Ethan could have any thin blonde in the city, if that was the way his tastes ran. He could have a different blonde every night. Only one thing made me special: my fame, and how it could be used.

I had been able to make people see that I loved and grieved for my father, but that was my father. People understood blood, but nobody could quantify romantic love, the alchemy that could transform a stranger into someone as close as family. Kissing and holding hands, all the outward trappings of love, could be faked. People performed the acts of love without meaning love. Love was the mystery nobody could solve, the fairy tale everyone loved to listen to and not quite believe in.

I did not know how to prove what I did not understand myself.

“I don’t care what people believe,” said Ethan. “As long as being associated with me does not hurt Lucie.”

“You should care,” said Mark. “Charles and I share everything. We always planned that our sons should do the same. If, however, you do not have the same loyalty to the family as your father does, if you continue to be softhearted and weak-minded, then all the privileges you have enjoyed—vacations and your fine school and your shining future—could very quickly come to an end.”

“Is that so?” asked Ethan. “Good thing I don’t want any of it, then.”

“You don’t?” Mark inquired, his voice like silk wrapped around a knife, the smoothness snagging just once on a sharp edge.

“The people hate us,” said Ethan. “The Light guards terrify people. The cages terrify people. They shudder as they walk through the shadow Stryker Tower casts.”

I tried not to react. That was all true, but I had not realized Ethan knew any of it.

“Hatred is the compliment the weak pay the strong,” said Mark. “A couple of dogs bite, so you put them down. But most dogs obey their masters.”

“I don’t want people to fear and hate me,” Ethan said. “I don’t want any part of that kind of deference.”

“That deference will keep the people slinking in our shadow as long as Stryker Tower stands. Think of this. If you were anyone but Ethan Stryker, you would be dead now. Your name saved you.”

“I remember what saved me,” said Ethan. “It wasn’t my name.”

“Wait for us outside,” said Mark, nodding to the gray-suited shadows behind him. “Stand up,” he told Ethan.

At the same moment the door swung closed behind the men, Mark hit Ethan: a swift, controlled blow in the stomach, where there would be no visible bruise.

Ethan doubled over from the impact of Mark’s beringed fist, gasping and grasping at the table. I jumped up out of my chair and slipped into the space between them. Mark was a good deal bigger than I was.

He looked at me, eyes icy and intent, but I had looked into the doppelganger’s face. Neither Mark’s likeness to Ethan nor his coldness could even make me pause.

“You don’t touch him again.”

“Lucie,” Ethan said, his voice hoarse, “don’t.”

“Are you where he’s getting all this new philosophy?” Mark asked. “You do not want justice, Ethan. Justice would mean your death. Who do you think disposed of the guards who accused you and who saw your double? There are different laws for us, but the system will only benefit you so long as you uphold it. Your doppelganger did not save you. I saved you. And I will not have you refer to him ever again.”

Ethan put one hand on either side of my waist and drew me back toward him. “I wasn’t talking about the doppelganger.”

“Oh, you were talking about Lucie? Yes, she’s a sweet girl, isn’t she? I know how fond you are of her. Consider how terrible it would be if something were to happen to her. I want you to be smarter than you are being. I want you to think, Ethan,” Mark murmured. “Think of all you have to lose.”

He stepped away from me and Ethan. He did not even cast a glance over his shoulder at our united front. He opened the door and joined all his bright-ringed shadows outside.

I could feel Ethan’s heart beating too hard and too fast, like a fist hammering on a door, a prisoner desperate for freedom.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan breathed into my hair. “I never meant to mess up this badly, I never, never meant to draw you into all this. That’s why I treated you like I did on the show. I don’t want you associated with any of the trouble I’ve caused. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t seem to realize the implications of all he had said on television: that people truly would think he was guilty of conspiring with rebels. He’d led a charmed life, easy and luxurious. He’d never had to face horror and death. He could not help being naïve, expecting there to be no consequences forever. I could not help wanting to shield him from those consequences.

“It’s okay,” I breathed back. “It’s going to be okay.”

But I had lost the power to convince other people of a lie, and I had never been able to convincingly lie to myself.

I covered the back of his hand with mine, and he laced our fingers together. We stood like that for a little time, skin to skin, our hearts finding the same rhythm.

“It’s too late to go back to school,” Ethan said. “Let’s go home, you and me. We can talk about all this. I have some stuff to tell you that I don’t want Uncle Mark to hear, and my dad will come home soon. He will help me.”

“How often has Mark hit you?” I asked.

“Never,” said Ethan. “He never has before. My dad would never stand for it. My father loves me, Lucie. He’s not a good man, but he loves me. He’ll stop my uncle. You’ll be safe.”

“I’m not worried about myself.”

“I’ll be safe too,” said Ethan. “Come on. We’re going home, and it’s going to be okay.”

I made a mistake then. Yet another mistake.

I believed him.

CHAPTER TEN

e went the way we had gone a hundred times before, past the doorman and through the double doors, into the gleaming elevator and up until we could cross the shining marble floor. I was shaken, holding Ethan’s hand tightly, but it was a comfort to be somewhere familiar.

Ethan’s key turned in the lock. A flare of light followed as it clicked open and the mahogany door followed, and I stepped over the threshold into the apartment. I was already thinking of the luxurious softness of the cloud-colored couch, of resting and being consoled by wealth that felt like security, and Ethan’s arms.

Behind me, Ethan fumbled and dropped his keys. The tiny jangling sound of metal on marble made me spin around as if it had been the sound of a sword scraping from a sheath. It was only Ethan, though, stooping to pick up the keys with an apologetic smile on his face.

I turned away again. The walls were windows, clear glass, and it seemed as if the city was spread out at my feet. It looked bright but small, a child’s toy town, not full of human unrest and danger. The other city, the Dark city, my old home, was nothing but a black ribbon on the edge of the Light.

“Sorry about that,” said Ethan, swinging the door shut. “I just—I saw my father’s coat hanging there, but I thought my father was wearing it when he left today.” I turned back toward him and saw him pause, hope and fading sunlight warm on his face. “Maybe he’s already back. Dad? Dad!”

Ethan’s call echoed off the high ceilings. The large chandeliers, each crystal in them lit with magic to create a huge, coruscating proof of wealth, tinkled overhead.

That sound was the only answer he received.

Ethan glanced back at the coat on its hook. I saw his face change.

“Dad,” he said, his voice sharp with alarm. He set off for the kitchen, calling for his father. I stood there and let him search.

Ethan was wrong about which coat his father had taken to work, I told myself. We had the apartment to ourselves, that was all. We were alone together and could make a plan. His father would be home soon, ready to shield Ethan from any threat.

That was what I told myself. Except Ethan came back from the kitchen shaking his head.

“Dad!”

“Wait,” I said, but Ethan didn’t wait.

He was already running down the corridor toward the bedrooms and I was running after him, fast enough that I seemed to outrun all the assurances I was giving myself. All possibilities of comfort seemed left behind, trailing me uselessly like ghosts.

We burst in through the door of Charles Stryker’s bedroom. It had a vaulted white ceiling, skylights set like a cupola in the center. The wall on one side was all mirrors, and the wall on the other was all windows, and in the wall facing us was an entrance I had never seen before: a hole that led to a shadowy passage.

Aside from that no-longer-hidden doorway, the whole room was bright. The sheets around Charles Stryker were brilliant white, and the blood on the sheets and on his white shirt was a vivid spreading stain.

Ethan shrank from the sight of his murdered father, back against the mirrored wall. I glanced at him over my shoulder as I advanced toward the bed, and it was as if there were two of him watching me with haunted eyes.

Charles Stryker’s face had always seemed to exist in relation to the stronger personalities about him, and that had not changed even now. He looked like a stone likeness, a death mask that could be lying under dust in a family tomb. I could see Mark Stryker’s death in this face, I could see Carwyn’s, and I could see my Ethan’s.

A knife had been driven into his heart. It had pinioned him as if he were a butterfly transfixed against a corkboard. The hilt was decorated with writhing shadows, Dark magic making the markings twist and turn. Around that shadowy hilt was a crumpled strip of pale paper, fluttering like the frill of a petticoat.

Ethan made a thin, terrible sound as I reached for the paper. “Lucie,” he whispered. “Don’t—” But I straightened it in my shaking hands and read the words written there in ink made of shadows that curled darkly and obscenely across the page:

Put him down into the dark. —The sans-merci.

Bury him, the buried said.

As soon as I had read the note, the shadows swallowed the paper at a gulp. Dark magic turned the paper into black ashes slipping between my fingers.

“We should . . .” Ethan said, and swallowed. “We should call the guards, but we can’t, can we?”

I was not surprised Ethan wanted to call the guards. I was surprised that he realized we could not: I’d thought I would have to fight to make him understand that he was suspected of treason already and he could not be found at a murder scene.

Charles Stryker’s death meant the Strykers’ power was more than halved: one less member on the Light Council, a blow to the perception that the Strykers were invulnerable. I did not know if Ethan realized that we were all in danger.

I looked at his lost, hurt face—the face of an orphan child, which is what he suddenly was. I remembered that moment, when the whole world felt like it had turned on me like a wild animal and gone for my throat, when I understood that the world had always been a cruel, hungry thing.

“Call your uncle,” I said as gently as I could.

Ethan took out his phone and called his uncle. His hands were shaking as he did so, as mine had shook unwrapping the message around the knife.

“Uncle Mark,” Ethan said, and his voice trembled as he burst into tears. “They murdered Father.”

I leaned in, my forehead touching his, so we could both hear the voice of our salvation. The voice of the man who had hit Ethan less than an hour ago, the voice of the man we were nevertheless going to obey.

“Where are you?”

Ethan swallowed. “I’m at home. Somebody used the plans of our home to get to him. They came through the secret entrance to his bedroom, the one we were meant to use if we ever needed to get away. They invaded our home and killed him, Uncle Mark, and I—”