Tell the Wind and Fire(36)

“Two boys that handsome in one city,” I said. “I find it hard to believe myself.”

The joke fell utterly flat. Nobody laughed except me, and my laugh shook.

Of course, the idea that there was someone who looked exactly like Ethan who was wandering Light New York committing crimes sounded like a very weak excuse indeed. To everyone else, it was a ridiculous, obvious lie that nobody would believe. Only I knew that it was the truth. Only I knew that if people found out the truth, we would all be in even worse trouble than we were now.



That afternoon, we were in Stryker Tower, escorted into one of the rooms where the council met. We sat at a long oval table watching our interview play. Even at the very beginning of the interview, before disaster struck, we were both stiff and uncomfortable. I was visibly trying hard to be charming and thus was not charming at all. Ethan turned his chair away slightly from the screen, as someone who was not used to and could not bear to see unpleasantness.

I was used to seeing people hurt. I could watch and try to measure how hurt they might be.

I had known the interview was going wrong even as it happened, but I had not dreamed it could turn out as badly as this.

It was not Ethan’s father, Charles, who had brought us here. It was Mark Stryker, and he was looking at Ethan as if Ethan was not his nephew but an unexpected liability.

“Have you two seen the papers today?” he inquired.

“I’ve seen the Times,” I said.

“So you haven’t seen a paper that counts,” said Mark.

We were sitting but he remained standing, the better to tower over us. He made a gesture at one of the men behind him, one of the usual anonymous drones always wearing gray. Even the man’s shining rings seemed like a uniform as he handed a sheaf of newspapers to Mark and Mark tossed them one by one onto the table. Their lurid colors, the twisted bright repetitions of mine and Ethan’s faces, turned the table into a nightmare carnival.

“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.”