Tell the Wind and Fire(16)

This was such a bright place, a center for glittering luxury. Death and doppelgangers and darkness were all things that I had thought I’d left behind long ago.

Ethan had put me on the list and would never have taken my name off. I had run through this echoing marble hall as if I belonged here a hundred times, hand in hand with Ethan, in from the park wearing a bikini top and shorts, bundled up in a winter coat and laden with presents.

Everybody here thought of me as belonging to the Light, as if growing up in the Dark had not affected me, as if the shine of my rings had made me immune to my surroundings. But I knew who I had been in the Dark, and remembered those I loved in the darkness. I remembered it all even more vividly that day, when I had been so close to someone from the Dark like me. I felt out of place passing the doorman, as if he might stop me, read the darkness on my face, and have me thrown out into the street. I glanced up and saw my own golden head in the mirror-like surface of the ceiling as I went through to the elevator.

When I knocked on the door, Charles Stryker answered it: Ethan’s father. Normally, it was the housekeeper or Ethan himself. Ethan’s dad must have been in a state of some distress to actually open his own door.

Charles Stryker and his brother were alike, but Charles was older than Mark and he looked like the sketch before the oil painting: Charles’s features a little more uncertain, blurred, the line of nose and jaw less decided and his eyes smaller, hairline humbly receding, while Mark’s would never retreat.

I liked Ethan’s dad more than his uncle, but I had never liked either of them much.

“Lucie,” said Charles, who did like me, and he took hold of my wrists, his rings cool against my pulse points. He pressed a kiss as cold as the rings onto my cheek. “Very nice to see you, as always, especially after . . .”

Charles often abandoned sentences.

“Ethan will be so pleased.”

“You know it,” said Ethan, behind his father.

He clasped Charles’s shoulder—he was always the one showing his dad affection rather than the other way around, and Charles always seemed puzzled but pleased by it—and his dad smiled at him, a smile weak as lousy tea, before he slipped away.

I stepped up to Ethan, arm around his neck, top lip pressed against his bottom lip, in my place, the perfect place. His body was solid against me, the curve of his neck pressed into the inside of my elbow, his breath warm against my cheek. The planes and curves and heat of his body all adding up to sanctuary.

Even when I felt like I didn’t belong in the Light, I knew I belonged here.

“Hey,” I murmured into the corner of his mouth, “where is he?”

Ethan flinched, making a tiny space between us where all the cold could rush in. I drew back, into the dark, silent hall.

“Ethan, where is Carwyn?”

“I did the best I could,” said Ethan. “Uncle Mark was not pleased to meet him. Dad’s in a lot of trouble right now, and I don’t have any say because of the whole being-accused-of-treason thing.”

I could not suppress a shudder. Treason. The weight of the accusation, the knowledge of all it could mean, forced the breath from my lungs. We needed to make a plan to deal with the accusation, to figure out who would make up such a wild and terrible lie, but first we needed to repay the one who had saved him from the accusation.

“Where is he?”

Ethan paused, then took a deep breath and answered. “He’s in a hotel.”

I took another step backwards. “Did you guys have him in the house a whole five minutes before you sent him away, for the second time in his life? Or did you not let him cross the sacred Stryker threshold at all?”

“Look, Lucie, he’s got what he wanted. I made sure that Uncle Mark arranged somewhere nice for him to stay and gave him a lot of money. He can go out on the town now. There’s even a pass sorted out for him—he can stay for a week.”

“Oh, a whole week? That’s so generous of you both. What about the pass he had that meant he could stay for real?”

Ethan looked frustrated. I knew the feeling.

“Uncle Mark would never let him live here. It would only be a matter of time before his face was seen. Besides, he doesn’t want to stay. You heard what he said about crime. All he wanted was an adventure. Well, he’s got one. With Uncle Mark’s money, he can get all the booze and dust and girls he likes. What else did you expect me to do for him? What else do you want from me?”

“Not to leave him alone in a strange city,” I said. “Your dad is responsible for Carwyn, and Carwyn saved your life. That means Carwyn should be looked after!”

“We couldn’t keep him here,” said Ethan. “Jim doesn’t even know he exists. Nobody can know he exists. I’m thinking about my dad here—”

“I’m not,” I interrupted. “I’m thinking about Carwyn. You could have at least gone with him, if he couldn’t stay here.”

I understood that he couldn’t have. Somebody would have been bound to get a photograph sooner or later. Charles Stryker would have been ruined; the whole council would have taken a hit. I understood all the practical concerns, but I understood as Ethan did not—as Ethan could not—what it was to be new and adrift in a sea of light. I understood what it was like to save someone, and pay and pay for it.

“Look, Lucie. Carwyn is a doppelganger. He didn’t want company.”