Tell the Wind and Fire(62)

Even staying long enough for her to pay attention to him, rather than me, was dangerous.

“I promise, Aunt Leila,” I said loudly, to force her gaze back to me. “I will return.”

Aunt Leila made a grand gesture, as if a single night and too many deaths had made her a queen. “Then you may go.”

We walked outside, under the golden ovals that were the stained-glass windows, through the golden doors.

Down the avenues, I could see the lights of burning fires, the outlines of walls and buildings changed into ruin and rubble. The sans-merci had moved in a devastating tide from their city to ours, and now the city was theirs. Now the city was burning.

The very streetlamps were swathed in red and black, some lights extinguished and others turned red. Red light reflected off the sheen of rainwater on the black surface of the road, so it looked as though the streets of the city were running blood.



We walked home. It was a cold, weary walk in the rain, which was falling in a thin, continuous drizzle, settling over us in a chilly mist. Carwyn’s hand felt as icy in mine as the sword hilt in my grasp, but nobody bothered us. The few people walking the nighttime streets let the boy in evening dress with the bloody bottle and the girl in the glittering gown with the sword pass. We were too obviously survivors of something they did not want to know about.

They would all know soon.

When Penelope looked through the eyehole in her door and saw us, with our weapons and the bloodstains, she opened the door with shaking hands as fast as she could, made tea, and made us drink it while she ran between rooms, pushing a blanket and a bed on wheels.

“Tea is essential medicine for a shock,” she assured us. “Trust me—I’m a doctor.”

I clung to the warmth of the mug in my hands, a welcome change from Carwyn’s touch or steel. I assumed that she would want Carwyn to sleep on the couch, though I did not think about it much, did not think about anything now that I was safe and allowed to be exhausted.

Danger meant being resourceful. There was peace in not needing to keep pushing forward, in being able to admit that you were utterly drained.

“You both need comfort,” said Penelope. “I’m going to sleep in Lucie’s bed, and I already moved Marie’s bed to the other room. You two can take mine.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I don’t mind,” she added quietly in my ear. “This isn’t the normal world anymore, and we aren’t working by the normal rules. You two love each other. Love is what counts, no matter what world we’re in.”

I didn’t know how to protest. Even in a new world, I did not know how to tell her what I had done.

Carwyn listened to what was happening and did not offer up a protest either. Of course, he had been very quiet since we had entered Penelope’s apartment and she had welcomed us both with open arms, touched his hair and his face, and said, “Ethan, I’m so glad you’re safe.”

I could not even tell if he was mocking me with his silence, still finding my pain the best joke he knew, or if he might be as tired as I was.

I went into the bedroom with Carwyn and determined that if he said or tried anything, I would hit him. I wanted to hit someone.

I looked at him, coldly, and for a wonder he decided that this was one trespass he would not commit.

I walked over to the bed we were meant to share, stripped off the blanket, and laid the sword down upon the mattress. Carwyn and I lay on either side of the sword. I folded my hands under my chin and faced him.

I had used far too much Light power all through this long night. Now the night was over and I had burned out. I could feel the scorching poison in my blood, scraping like a hot knife along my bones. I did not even think about going for help. I knew I had to bear it. I was not the only hollowed-out and burning thing in New York.

Light filtered through the window in Penelope’s room, the sun rising on our broken city, sunbeams traveling slowly across our bed. A sunbeam struck the sword blade and turned it into a silver beam of light, burning between us as the city burned outside the window. No hope came with the rising sun, and despite what Penelope had intended, I had no comfort that night.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



I woke with the flame-pale light of early morning turned into the dull fire of day. The first thing I saw was the sword hilt as it rested on the pillow. Close by on the pillow, on the other side of the sword, was Carwyn’s sleeping face. His dark brows were drawn together as if he was worrying, his lashes resting on his cheeks. His fingers were curled a fraction away from the blade, as if in his sleep he was stupid enough to reach out.

Right face. Wrong boy.

I looked at Carwyn, and I thought about Ethan.

He had gone into the Dark city, and now the Dark had risen up against the Light. He was in the center of what must have been chaos, buried for less than two weeks but not born to be buried, not raised to deal with the Dark. Anyone in the Dark city might have recognized his face and killed him because he was a Stryker, and even though he must have known the risks, he had walked into the heart of the Dark city for me.

I’d thought that Ethan might be in danger from Carwyn. Now, even worse, he was in danger from a whole city.

I remembered Aunt Leila’s face, and the utter lack of pity in her eyes. I could not stop her. Neither light nor dark, wind nor fire, love nor mercy, would ever stop her.

It felt like everyone I loved either was threatened or was a threat themselves.