Tell the Wind and Fire (19 page)

I remembered the part I had played to save my father. I remembered knowing that if I slipped up, nobody would remember how hard I had tried. All they would remember was how terribly I had failed, and the pure perfect image of me I had worked so hard to put in their minds would be shattered and stained.

Ethan might not want me back.

I rolled over in bed, tangled in sheets and darkness. The one thing Ethan had asked me to do was trust him, and the one thing he had said to me over and over again was that he loved me, loved me, loved me.

If I could not trust that, I could not trust anything.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next morning, I woke early and went softly through the apartment, getting dressed so as not to wake Penelope or Marie—who I knew had cried themselves to sleep last night—or my father. I dressed in the nicest clothes I had, buttoning up a white blouse with pearl buttons, brushing my hair until it shone.

I left the apartment and walked up flights of stairs until I reached the roof of our building, and I walked outside to look down at the sleeping world. Sunrise was brimming at the edge of the sky, a line of brightness that seemed about to spill over the land. The Dark city was a cluster of lightless buildings, lower on the ground than we were. The Light city was a spread of towers that were already gleaming. They were scenes of black and gold placed side by side.

The Dark and the Light, and the bridges between them. They looked so perfectly ordered, connected but separate, designed to be this way. The unalterable order of things, set in stone, and in metal and magic. It was a system that had hurt me, but it was something I could work within: it was the world I knew. There was something about the very stability of it that steadied me.

I walked back down the stairs swinging my heels from my hand, and in the lobby I leaned against the wall and slid them onto my feet, one at a time, hopping as I did so. I left my building, walked the streets of the city, and felt as if I had my balance and knew exactly where I was going.

When I reached Stryker Tower, I went willingly through the metal and glass cage that was their vestibule. The security personnel nodded to me as if of course I belonged. My security pass had obviously not been revoked. I walked into the gilded container of the elevator and passed through the rich corridor where Ethan and I had fought so bitterly the day before, into the meeting room.

It looked as it always did: the white walls, with art so minimal, it left the walls seeming blank, the skylight that cast a tiny square of light on the dark rectangle of the table. The councilors nodded to me. Mark Stryker did not seem surprised to see me.

When I looked to Ethan, he was smiling at me with his hand outstretched, as if nothing had changed between us except that perhaps he was being unusually demonstrative because he was especially glad I had come that day. As if he did not want to fight or to be apart any more than I did, as if it would be as great a loss to him as it was to me.

Ethan was sitting on the left side of the table, facing his uncle. He was even leaning back, legs crossed, as if he was at ease here. He was wearing one of my favorite shirts of his, blue and kept for long enough to be soft to the touch. He must have had a shower just before he came here, because his hair looked slightly damp, a little more disordered than usual, a dark curl at his nape. He looked absolutely familiar and indisputably like home.

I went to the summons of his smile and outstretched hand like a wave rushing eagerly to the shore, with a ripple of joy running through my whole body.

I took his hand, lacing my fingers with his, and sat on the arm of his chair. I intended it to be a brief, affectionate instant before I took my own seat.

“Hello,” I said.

He used his hold on my hand to tip me into his lap, and when I was there he bent his head down to mine and pressed a kiss on my lips, brief and hot as a ray of sunlight striking a glass pane. I put up my other hand to touch his, startled, and he captured it. He had hold of both my hands, pressed against his chest, and his raised leg prevented me from sliding away. Ethan had always wanted me to come to him, had always given me a choice, an easy way out of a touch or a kiss. He had never held me in any way that had made me feel trapped before.

He looked familiar, but he did not feel familiar. He smiled at me, a sweet, vicious smile that I recognized, and the whole bright white room seemed to blur as if we had been plunged underwater, as if I was in an entirely different element than I had been in before.

“Hello, sweetheart,” said the doppelganger.

The meeting went by like a long, involved nightmare, the kind that was all whirling impressions of things so bad, they were beyond imagining, the kind where you stumble through the dream begging indifferent strangers for help.

I was not screaming or begging. I remained quiet in Carwyn’s lap. My every limb felt weighed down by chains. I did not know what would happen if we were discovered. I did not know what had already happened. I did not dare move.

I did not struggle free from Carwyn, did not wrench my hands out of his and spit in his face. I held every inch of my body in tight control, and only my wayward heart betrayed me, galloping fast and fierce. I felt as if my whole body had to be shaking with the force of it, as if the roaring in my ears and the thumping beneath my ribs were turning into a storm that everyone would see and cower from, something that would devastate the room and bring down the very walls of the tower.

The room remained bright and tranquil. The meeting continued serenely. Under my pinned hands, I could feel that Carwyn’s heart was beating hard as well. I could feel his breath, rapid and shallow, against the sensitive skin by my ear. I had no doubt that it was from exhilaration, the thrill of getting away with this. A doppelganger could not know how much I loved Ethan, or how terrified I was for him.

They said doppelgangers liked pain. Probably if he knew, he would be delighted.

I was concentrating so much on looking normal that it only dawned on me slowly—more like night falling than a dawn—what Mark was actually discussing. He wanted still more troops in the Light city. He wanted stern, murderous men like the ones who had almost killed Ethan to hunt down the members of the
sans-merci
who were lurking here, who had killed his brother. He wanted a curfew imposed, houses raided, a guard on every street corner. I could not imagine how the Light city would react to this.

“Don’t you agree, Lucie?” asked Mark Stryker.

He was watching me, and even though all my senses told me he was behaving perfectly normally, I could not manage to crush the rising conviction that he knew everything and was simply biding his time.

I dragged air enough into my dry mouth so that I could speak. I could not draw attention to myself—I never could, and least of all now with a doppelganger among us. “I do agree,” I said, and smiled. It felt as if my smile must be a rictus, so false that it was hideous, but nobody gave it a second glance.

Mark smiled back, genial and fatherly. “And I’m sure you must agree too, Ethan.”

The “my boy” was implied.

“Thanks for checking in, Uncle Mark,” said Carwyn.

His voice was unmistakably the voice of someone enjoying a private joke. I felt him shift beneath me, figured that he was trying to get me to look at him so we could share our secret knowledge, so I could be even more stricken and he even more amused.

I stared straight ahead. Carwyn did not seem disturbed: he appeared to have decided to take his fun where he could get it.

“Actually, I don’t agree at all. Not with you, and not with my little lady, cute though she is.”

I did not let my expression even flicker.

“You don’t think that with your father’s murder we need increased security and protection?” asked Mark smoothly.

“Sure we do,” said Carwyn. “Dear old Dad. What a horrible tragedy, am I right?”

He paused as if listening for a response. When none came, he patted me on the knee and continued blithely onward. I refused to let my skin crawl at his touch or at his callous indifference to murder. I refused to let any part of me react. I was even concentrating on slowing down my heart. I wanted to be made up of parts that would obey me, so I could do what I had to do: I had to pretend this was Ethan. I had to act like I would if this were Ethan.

“The thing is, Uncle Mark,” said Carwyn, sounding even more hugely delighted to be addressing Mark like that than he had the first time, “bringing in even more troops, with their swords and their whips and their uniforms, it’s not going to be a popular move. People have this strange tendency to be scared of armed, dangerous men, and a scared crowd can turn into a mob. It only takes a few guards to overstep, a few people to overreact. Suddenly a riot breaks out and the whole city looks like the front of an ice cream shop where free samples are being given out.”

It would have helped if Carwyn had made the slightest effort to behave anything like Ethan. Mark’s eyebrows drew together.

“If a riot breaks out, we will certainly need more soldiers to control it. I think the people will be glad to see order restored,” said Mark. “Those who will not are not loyal to the Light . . . and they need to be cowed by a show of strength. In fact, I intend to welcome the troops’ relocation to the center of the city with a ball. A display will make sure people are convinced of our power, our willingness to use it, and our absolute lack of concern that this rabble could ever be a true threat.”

His tone brooked no dissent. Even David Brin, who had been arguing for fiscal responsibility during the last meeting, murmured an agreement.

Council elections were coming up. They all wanted to be popular.

“There are far more people in the Dark city than there are guards,” I said, and I could scarcely believe that I was saying it. “You cannot crush them through sheer force of numbers.”

I thought of the ripped-apart cages and the blood in the streets. I knew the fury of the terrorized from the inside out: I had torn apart and rebuilt myself because of it. If enough people felt that anger, they might tear apart the world.

Carwyn said, “Aren’t I a lucky guy? My blonde has brains.”

“There are always more people than there are guards,” Mark said dismissively. “And yet nobody rises. The point is to make these people realize I am the leader.” He paused. “That we are their leaders.”

“They might just think that you’re a coward, a tyrant, and a total jackass,” Carwyn suggested in dulcet tones. “Not us, Uncle Mark. Of course we know you far too well to think such things, Uncle Mark. I am just talking about what other, less well-informed citizens might think about you bringing a ton of guards in and having a feast when people are starving in the gutters of the Dark city.”

Mark looked angrily incredulous that anyone would speak like this to him.

Ethan would not have lit the fuse of his uncle’s fury by insulting him. Ethan had argued sincerely for the good of others. But Carwyn was not really trying to convince anybody. He did not care what resulted from his behavior: he was a doppelganger.

He did not want to do good. He was talking like this to create chaos, and not for any other reason. He was succeeding.

“Ethan, you’re very young, and you have recently been through some very traumatic experiences,” Mark said, collecting himself with a visible effort. He glanced around the room, sharing looks that radiated tolerance for a kid speaking out of turn. “While I am glad to listen to yours and Lucie’s concerns, these are dangerous times and they require decisive action. You must trust me to know best.”

Mark had always had so much power, he had never been forced to play the game the way I had. He could wear a mask and people would pretend to be convinced. He had never had to make himself a new face.

I breathed in and breathed out, and my heart beat as if it was a clock, undisturbed by anything, certain as the passage of time. I had to get Carwyn to stop talking. So I talked instead, as I would not have dared do otherwise.

“I understand, Mr. Stryker,” I said. “Perhaps you might consider, though, that the city knows your family is in mourning, and nobody will expect a big celebration for the troops.”

Gabrielle Mirren stirred, as if she was about to agree with me. I could almost see the words rising to her lips.

“Oh, don’t worry about my tender feefees, Uncle Mark,” Carwyn said casually. “You go right ahead. I never imagined you would listen to me at all.”

Mark took that as surrender. He smiled, brief and devastating. “That’s settled, then.”

“Sweet of you to worry though, sugarplum,” Carwyn said, not quite low enough. “I’m a delicate blossom, and you know that because you get me.”

I could pretend as well with the doppelganger as I could with Mark.
Act as if he was Ethan,
I thought, and simply smiled, resting back against him with perfect trust.

Him lounging around holding on to me like this was not how meetings were conducted, but I sat as if I was perfectly happy to be there while everyone talked a little more and wrapped the meeting up. When I was spoken to, I smiled and responded as appropriately as I could.

I waited, my head bowed, as if being close to him was something I wanted, until the last member of the council filed out. I waited, snuggled up, quiet and comfortable, until I was sure they were all long gone.

Then I wrenched myself out of his lap, out of his arms, with all the force I had. I didn’t care if I had to break his limbs to get free. I did not care if I had to break my own.

He let me go. I stumbled, clumsy in my violent haste to get away from him, almost dashing my brains out against the edge of the conference table. I grabbed hold of the table instead, hung on to it for an instant, braced and breathing hard.

I heard the muted sound of Carwyn’s chair moving back against the rich, soft carpet. I turned around, still keeping hold of the table, and cast a look at him.

He stood up and stretched, hands linked and arms arched over his head, and I hated him so much, I could see him only in fragments. Every fragment was a treacherous detail: his hair still shorter than Ethan’s, damp on purpose to distract from that, his leaner body in Ethan’s clothes, shirt collar buttoned up to conceal his neck, the blue shirt sitting differently on his shoulders, and Ethan’s jeans slipping down his hips a fraction too far.