Tell the Wind and Fire(56)

Carwyn was a tall, dark figure holding me in his arms, his hair ruffled and his scarf still hanging over his shoulder. The only thing about him that was not elaborately louche, a perfect performance of casual unconcern, was the tight line of his shirt collar.

“I’m enjoying myself too,” he claimed, and at my skeptical glance he laughed, and people around him smiled, as if his laughter was sparks setting everyone else alight. “Of course I am. What’s not to like? You know, someone told me that we were a perfect couple. Isn’t that lovely? I knew you’d agree.”

“Of course I do,” I told him.

I smiled at him, and his smile went sharp. He did not quite like my serene agreement, I thought.

“You do?”

“With one small alteration. It’s a pretty easy mistake for them to make,” I said. “Right face. Wrong boy.”

He didn’t like that, either, so he pretended to ignore it.

“Of course, so many people think that about us,” he continued. “The golden boy and the Golden Thread in the Dark. Could any couple ever be more perfect? Could any couple ever be more boring and clichéd?”

“I agree with that, too,” I told him. “You are really boring. I just think of the most evil thing anyone could possibly do, and I expect you to do it.”

Carwyn nodded, his face suddenly grave, as if he was paying serious attention to me. I did not have the feeling of being listened to: I saw the way he was bending toward me in the mirror, his shadow falling across my face, and he seemed like a vampire intent on his prey.

“All right,” he murmured. “Guess what I’m going to do next.”

“You’re going to tell me what you did with Ethan,” I said. “You’re going to tell me tonight.”

Carwyn laughed, warm and amused. Anyone watching would have seen how close he was and thought that I wanted him there, that I was as delighted as he was.

All he told me was “You’re wrong.”

Then he leaned down and kissed me.

It was as if his shadow had not only fallen on me but swallowed me, his arm tight around me, my mouth open on his, with no way for me to fight him or do anything but give in to the drowning dark.

When he was done kissing me, my hands were against his chest. I would have put some force behind the gesture, I would have pushed him away, if I could have.

“Forget you. What do you think I’m going to do next?” I whispered.

He was smiling again, a small, private smile. I wondered if he thought he had won this round, if this was gloating. He murmured, “You’re going to kiss me back.”

I spoke low, but as clearly as I was able, my voice all I could use to fight against the glitter of the ballroom and a boy who thought he knew better than me, cold and harsh to contrast with the soft, thrillingly romantic music.

I said, “You’re wrong.”

Then a cry broke through the bright air and silenced all the laughter and the whispers.

As if I had caused it to happen by sheer force of will, the music stopped.

We all turned to the sound of the scream and saw the waiter whose face I had thought I knew. At his feet was one of the Light guards, lying in a pool of his own blood. It spread as we watched, a dark blot on the shining floor in the bright room, and I thought for a moment that shadows had come to swallow us all.

All the waiters drew weapons. Some of the members of the media put down their cameras and produced arms. New people poured in from the side doors. And the guests and guards who had not worn their swords, to show the city they had nothing to fear, found that this showcase of their power had become a trap. They drew together in a shining knot at the center of the room. Their exclusive, expensive group seemed suddenly so small.

A call rose up, with the sound of knives behind it. “Free the Golden One!”

“It’s the sans-merci!” a woman shouted. Another woman, the woman in the black dress with the red rings we had been talking to—a woman wearing the colors of the rebels, and how had I been so blind that I had not noticed?—turned and cut her down.

The second scream of the night pierced the air. After that, the screaming did not stop.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN



The party had transformed in an instant into two packs: the hunters and the hunted.

I could not think about escape, not immediately. Too many people, a seething mass of people, were already fighting to make their way out. They were so desperate, they were throwing themselves on swords in an attempt to live.

I tried to move from Carwyn’s side and found I could not—he was holding me so tightly, I might as well have been chained. It did not matter what I did now. Nobody would notice.

I kicked him viciously hard. I punched him in the chest and I set my nails into his face, raking the skin open. He let go of my waist and grabbed at one of my hands.

I tried to twist away from that, too, but his grip was ferociously strong, as if he would rather break my hand or his own or both than allow the grip to be broken.

“Let go!” I ordered. “Right now!”

“No,” Carwyn said grimly.

“Why not? What do you want with me?”

“I want us to live, you idiot,” Carwyn snapped. “Together we can. I remember what you showed me at the club, even if you don’t.” He leaned in, his whisper as fierce as his grip on my hand. “You think anyone else has a Dark magician here in the heart of the Light? I’m your ticket out. Hold on to me.”