Tell the Wind and Fire

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  I smiled when the long black car purred up to the curb and stood waiting, like a cat expecting to be petted. The richest cars were the narrowest, in a classic style built to show off that they had no need for engines now that they had Light magic, with no thought for packing a family or a car seat inside the vehicle. This was an impractical and gleaming black sliver of a car.

  Usually Ethan walked to meet me, but now and then he took a car if it was cold or he’d overslept and was afraid that he would miss me. He was a child of luxury: he never needed to think twice about taking one of the cars, in the same way normal people never needed to think about grabbing a cup out of a kitchen cabinet. There were always plenty, and it was no big deal.

  Talk about someone effortlessly brightening up a morning. I stood with my cold hands in my pockets and beamed at the darkened windows of the car.

  Then the window rolled down, and Mark Stryker was looking at me. I looked past him and saw his face in a weaker mold. Charles Stryker. Both Ethan’s father and his terrifying uncle had come for me. That meant they had something specific in mind—they only came hunting in pairs on matters of utmost importance.

  “Lucie,” Mark said mildly, “jump in the car, would you? We’d like a word about the sans-merci.”

  Chapter Nine

  A DRIVER IN THE STRYKER LIVERY, ELECTRIC BLUE lines on a background of lambent gold like the sun’s rays in reverse, unfolded himself from the front seat and opened the door for me. Neither Mark nor Charles Stryker could be expected to sully their hands with car doors.

  I crushed my impulse to flee like a scared animal. There was nowhere I could run where they would not chase me down.

  Instead I got reluctantly into the car. The leather was so expensive, it did not squeak as the skirt of my school uniform slid over it. I sank backward into the seat and felt enveloped by the whole dark car, carried off like a maiden in a story, never to be seen again.

  I found myself twisting my hands in my lap, barely even able to look at the men I was facing, and realized I was sitting as if I was at a job interview or worse: as if I was suspected of a crime.

  Even if they knew I was guilty, that was no reason to act guilty.

  I looked up. Charles was leaning forward and looking tense, because he was the clumsy one. Mark was sitting back, his face relaxed.

  The windows of this car, I remembered, were black and opaque as jet from the outside. It was very dark in the car, a little stuffy, smelling like the ghost of expensive cologne. The only light was that shimmering around all our rings. The Strykers had glowing, lucent jewels, the best money could buy. Next to them, mine looked like glass.

  Charles coughed. “We wanted to talk to you about the recent trouble. With Ethan.”

  “I won’t breathe a word about—” I stopped before I said Carwyn’s name, but I should not have spoken at all. It betrayed nervousness. “About anything.”

  “No, Lucie, of course not,” said Charles. “You’re a good girl,” he added anxiously, as if to appease me.

  “We all know that,” Mark slid in.

  The statement hung in the air, like a sword over my head. I waited for it to fall.

  “The charge laid against Ethan is a very serious one,” said Charles Stryker, rubbing the loose skin over his knuckles. “The guards who apprehended him have been dealt with, and the guards in this city have been told it was a case of mistaken identity. But the fact remains that he was charged, and now there is the civil unrest of the cages being torn down, and your name is being thrown around by some very unsavory people. Of course we do not believe that you are in any way involved with the thugs who launched the attack on Green-Wood Cemetery. They are using your name and fame for their own purposes and may plan to do worse. Who knows what sinister intentions the sans-merci harbor toward you, but do not worry, Lucie. The Light Council will protect you.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, and waited to hear the conditions of my protection.

  “If people begin to believe Ethan is mixed up with the sans-merci, the consequences could be very serious. For all of us.”

  I remembered the blade that had been laid against Ethan’s throat, and my own fear stopped choking me. It was easier to devote myself to someone else: it was what I knew how to do.

  “It’s ridiculous to think that people might suspect Ethan of doing anything wrong,” I said, and my tone was as assured as Mark’s had been earlier.

  Mark smiled. “Exactly.”

  “But still, we cannot defend Ethan’s innocence as vigorously as we might wish, lest certain unfortunate matters come to light,” Charles said.

  They could not let people know it was Carwyn who had committed treason, not Ethan, because they could not let people know that Carwyn existed. I nodded to show I understood.

  “As Charles said, the guards who made the rash accusation, and the commander who gave the orders to apprehend Ethan, have been dealt with,” Mark contributed. “But . . .”

  That meant that they had been killed. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to understand that, so I just looked at them.

  “Ethan is going to have to make a public statement about the unfortunate misunderstanding,” Charles continued. “On a live morning show today. Just to clear everything up. So that he will be found innocent in the court of public opinion.”

  So that he would not mess up the Strykers’ chances in the next council elections.

  “You have a certain well-deserved cachet with the media,” Mark commented.

  “And of course, a lovely young couple, side by side . . .” said Charles helpfully.

  For a moment, I wondered how much of his weakness was real and how much was for show. With Charles there, everything Mark meant got said, and Mark did not have to be the one who said it. The way they worked meant Mark’s standing was untouched and Charles was underestimated.

  I looked from Mark’s face to Charles’s, then back at their hands, with their nails buffed and their rings shining. Of course they would not ever have killed anyone themselves. Of course their hands were clean.

  “Whatever I can do to help Ethan,” I said. “I’m happy to do it.”

  At Home with Seth and Gina was the most-watched morning talk show in Light New York. Every time a politician committed an indiscretion or a celebrity had a scandal, they tried to smooth it over on At Home. People trusted it more than the prerecorded shows, because they knew it was live, but they never considered how carefully every appearance had been prepared for.

  Except for this time.

  Mark and Charles must have bargained that the more I was caught off guard, the more likely I would be to agree to do it. Even if it meant going on television totally unprepared the day after rebels rose up in my name.

  A bevy of makeup people ushered me into the building and instantly away from Mark and Charles, carrying me in an inexorable tide from hall to elevator to dressing room. A woman blew my hair out very carefully, the shine in her rings lending my hair an extra luster even after her hands had left it. Two more women painted my face like it was a canvas, with tiny brush strokes and tints of magic. They had laid out a white bandage dress for me. When I stepped into it, I felt the cool heavy weight of silk on my skin and saw that it fit me well enough.

  The women had turned off the bright lights that surrounded the mirror. I stood and looked at my reflection, my hair shadowing my face, my body a woman’s body.

  That was television: if you had a woman’s body, you were expected to show it off. But they were making a mistake. The wardrobe people clearly knew I had always worn white for the media, but they did not seem to realize why: draped white on a child made her seem pure, as though her soul were snowy white and free of stain, as though every word out of her mouth must be truth. Audiences believed children’s words. They did not believe the words of women. Just having this body made me suspect. Putting it on display was even worse.

  I remembered the guards on the train platform, who had not believed me when I said who I was.

 
I didn’t look like the innocent child, like the Golden Thread in the Dark anymore. I didn’t know if this was going to work.

  Ethan was standing outside the studio, waiting for his turn. I laid my hand on one of his shoulders, resting it gently against his perfectly pressed shirt.

  When he turned around, he looked stunned. “Lucie. What are you doing here?”

  I hesitated. It was strange for him to be anything but happy to see me. “Your father and your uncle asked me to come.”

  “And you came?” Ethan demanded.

  I straightened my back and gazed up at him. “They said I could help you. Of course I came.”

  I expected him to be grateful. I certainly did not expect the look of agony on his face, as if I had hit him.

  “I don’t want you anywhere near me right now,” Ethan whispered.

  I was left speechless, my hands hanging empty, and it was at that moment the door opened and a woman with gelled silver hair that made her head look like a tiny moon said, “We’re ready for you.”

  The two presenters were a man in a shirt his stomach was trying to break free of, and a woman in a shiny pink dress so stiffly constructed, she had to perch at the edge of her chair. Ethan and I were shown to a sofa.

  “So you’re just here to set the record straight, young Ethan,” said Seth in an avuncular tone.

  Maybe it was my presence throwing him off. Maybe it was the tone that was the mistake, since Ethan’s actual uncle was as cuddly as an anaconda. Ethan stared for a second too long before he said, “That’s right.”

  I saw both of the hosts’ faces change, the first hint of hostility creeping in.

  “And what are you doing here, Lucie?” asked the woman, Gina. She laughed at the end of the question, but it seemed a little too pointed.

  “I’m here for moral support,” I said, and tried to laugh too.

  “Love’s young dream still going strong, then?”

  “Very much so,” I said, and reached for Ethan’s hand. He pulled his hand away, as if by instinct, and then hastily corrected the gesture. I knew the camera would record it, and tried to pin on a smile. I feared that the smile was not terribly convincing.

  “Let’s get right down to it,” said Seth. He was the one whose job it was to ask the important questions, I knew, because audiences would listen to a man’s words and take them more seriously. “Mr. Stryker.” There was a weight to the way he addressed him, as if Ethan was not to be thought of as a child anymore but was to be considered and condemned as an adult. “I hear that you were recently involved in an unfortunate incident outside the borders of our city.”

  “I was charged with treason and almost beheaded,” said Ethan. “I guess you could call that unfortunate.”

  I pressed his hand warningly. The worst thing he could do was treat this as a joke.

  Ethan shifted slightly away from me. I could not understand why he was acting this way.

  “The charge was passing secrets to the rebels, was it not?” the interviewer asked. “Details about the lives of people on the Light Council, how to get into their homes and workplaces. It is obvious that the person who passed them meant to attack the very foundations of our city.”

  “Yes,” said Ethan. “So it’d be a bit of a weird thing for me to do.”

  That was better, but his polite smile looked stretched at the edges, like rationed butter scraped over bread, as if he had only so much diplomacy in him.

  “The passed documents also contained details of the magic used to set up the cages—information that was deployed in the horrible attack on Green-Wood Cemetery that destroyed the instruments of the Light’s justice,” Seth went on relentlessly. “The man who passed along those secrets must be a member of the sans-merci. And he is a man who looks very much like you. But you and your family declare that this is just a strange coincidence.”

  “That’s right,” said Ethan.

  “A sad misunderstanding brought about by an unlikely look-alike.”

  “That’s right!” snapped Ethan.

  The lady interviewer in pink leaned forward, her body language mirroring her colleague’s, their shoulders hunched and their gazes intent. They resembled vultures dressed up in fancy clothes, their true natures obvious despite their costumes as soon as they spied a wounded creature.

  “What is your opinion about the cages?” she asked. “Of the criminals who are put in them?”

  Ethan hesitated. I did not dare look at him, add the weight of my gaze to the watchful eyes of the vultures and the glinting, unrelenting eye of the camera that meant the eyes of the world. I felt the tension of his body through his fingers, cold and unmoving in mine, and in the hush after the woman’s question, I heard my dearest love’s indrawn breath, heard the small wet sound of his tongue swallowing back both lies and truths. I was sitting beside him, my hand in his, and my father had been caged. The cages had been wrecked by rebels. Nothing was safe for Ethan to say.

  “Did you think that the criminals deserved the cages?”

  “I do not think anybody deserves that,” said Ethan at last.

  “You’re glad they were torn down?” Gina asked, her voice like a predator slinking after the last wounded animal in a herd. Ethan said nothing. “You disagree with the punishment of the cages. Do you disagree with food rationing for the Dark city? What other complaints of the sans-merci do you agree with?”

  “I think everyone should have enough to eat,” Ethan snapped. “I think we need to talk about these issues, I think we need to listen to the sans-merci.”

  “Listen to killers?” Gina asked, the question very precise. Ethan flinched. “Does Lucie agree with you?”

  I opened my mouth.

  “Lucie and I don’t talk about that kind of thing,” Ethan said shortly. I wanted to scream at him. He knew the sans-merci were talking about me as if I was a princess in need of rescuing. He should not make them think they were right.

  He was going to infuriate the Light Council and give the rebels further reason to fight.

  “So this mystery man, the one who looks so much like you,” Seth continued, picking up smoothly where Gina had left off. “You have more in common than your faces. You agree with the message he was spreading? You two have the same face and the same beliefs, but you claim you are not the same person?”

  “I understand why people find it hard to believe,” I said. The attention of everyone was suddenly and sharply focused on me.

  It was strange how difficult it was to speak while wearing a false smile. I wished I could control my body in precisely the way I wanted: what use was it if I could not use it? A puppet would obey me better than my own flesh. I wished I could be a puppet, could be some smiling, dancing thing that would make all the right moves and save him.

  “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 h
ad 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.