Tell the Wind and Fire(55)

Everyone kept trying to talk to me, everyone thought they understood what my situation was, and everyone was wrong. All I wanted to do was talk to Carwyn.

All I wanted was to wrench the truth from his lying mouth, if I had to take his teeth with it.

I clenched my fingers tightly around the stem of my champagne glass, then felt it taken from my hand, pried gently from my stiff fingers as if he wanted it all the more because I did not want to give it. I turned my head and met a kiss Carwyn placed at the corner of my mouth, where it burned as if it had been a blow.

“I hate to tear myself away from you,” said Carwyn to an older woman in a black dress, her ruby rings the same shade as her lipstick. “But as you can see, my girlfriend is pining.”

“I wouldn’t say pining,” I said.

Carwyn nodded approvingly. “I like a strong, independent woman. That’s why you’re my lady, even though I’m rich enough to have a hot tub full of supermodels waiting for me every time I get home. Wait.” He made a show of mulling this over. “I’ve just realized that I’ve been incredibly stupid. Sorry, darling, seventeen is too young for commitment. I’ve got to make some calls.”

“I’m devastated,” I said. “I must go sob quietly to myself in a corner.”

The woman gave us both an uneasy look, clearly trying to decide whether we were fighting or joking. She murmured a polite commonplace I could not even make out, and touched my hand.

“Lovely to meet you,” I said, and looked back to Carwyn. He seemed blithely unaware of my eyes boring into his stolen face. He was gazing around the bright ballroom with a benevolent air. I did not know what he had been doing, but he looked a bit rumpled, his hair ruffled over that primly tight collar. He had my champagne glass in one hand, and in the other was a bottle of champagne, still more than half full. “I’m so sorry to run away,” I added to the woman, “but actually, Ethan promised me this dance.”

“I’d love to, but both my hands are full, petunia,” said Carwyn.

I took back my glass, almost breaking the stem getting it out of his hand, drank the champagne, and set it down on a passing tray.

“Now they’re not. Or do you need me to drink the bottle, too?”

“Well,” said Carwyn, “how can I say no, when you’re so eager?”

I put my hand in his, and the woman with ruby rings retreated quickly.

Carwyn watched her go. “Some people just can’t deal with being in the presence of unbridled sexual tension.”

“Can’t they?” I asked. “It’s been a long time since I encountered any.”

“I bet it has,” Carwyn said, with deep conviction. “I’m the worst boyfriend ever, right? Both physically unappealing and pathetically inept in bed.”

“You’d know best,” I remarked. “And why would I call you a liar?”

He smiled, acknowledging a hit, and I began to dance in the full expectation that he would hit back. He always did, never able to resist a retort, and the fact that he was never able to stop talking was what would win me answers.

There were other people watching us right now, though. Whatever answers I got, he would have to tell me quietly, and neither of us could react visibly. I looked around. People were swaying, laughing, eating, and drinking. The slight reserve they had been showing around the military had gone: after all, everybody here knew that the Light guards existed to protect them. The ballroom was a vision of golden and perfect security.

Then it occurred to me that Carwyn had not responded.

I looked away from the crowd and back at him. That was when I became aware of how stiff his arms were around me, of the way we were not moving in the same rhythm as the other dancers. It was as if one current in a sea had forgotten its place.

Ethan knew how to dance. But there had been no dancing lessons in the Dark. Ethan had taught me to dance, and it had taken months and months of us practicing, of me falling down and laughing as I did it, Ethan catching me or throwing himself down to the floor to join me. I could not have forgotten those dance lessons, the feel of Ethan’s sure hands on me and the effortless way he moved, how he could not be anything but smooth and graceful when he danced, because being graceful had become habit through long practice. Ethan knew how to dance. Carwyn did not.

Carwyn was not stupid: he had not made a fatal error that would betray him. Nobody was going to guess what he was from this. He still had a champagne bottle in one hand—they were just going to think he was drunk.

But he did look aware of how he had messed up, and that people were startled by it. He looked uncomfortable. It was small and petty, but it was the only revenge I’d had for all the misery and uncertainty he had put me through.

He turned his face away from a startled man looking at him, as if a monster could feel self-conscious, and caught me looking at him too. Whatever cruel hunger he saw in my face, it made his mouth curl.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

I smiled, and knew the smile was as vicious as any of his. “Actually, I am.”

Chandelier lights shining on gilt-framed oriel windows made the air seem the same color as the champagne I had drunk. Mirrors were all over this room, inlaid in pillars, mirrors spelled with Light magic so that the reflections would be lent a flattering glow. I caught a glimpse of myself and him in one.

My long silver dress fit close as skin until the skirt widened into a pool of silver fabric, ending in a train like a mermaid’s tail. It stood out in the golden room in a way that I hadn’t intended, like seeing the cool glint of the moon in a sky drenched with stars.