Tell the Wind and Fire

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  The hotel was lit with an extravagant display of magic, so bright that it burned for all of the Dark city to see.

  It was not only the hotel that was changed.

  In front of the Plaza entrance stood the doppelganger. He was all stark lines of black and white against the golden façade. He was insouciant in formalwear, when Ethan had been adorably awkward, his shirts always a little rumpled and the collars tugged open, as if he was willing his way back to being casual. Carwyn was wearing a long white scarf that went around his neck and flew like a jaunty flag over one shoulder. As I approached, I saw that beneath the scarf his shirt collar was buttoned up tight, so that the edge of the collar cut slightly into his skin. I wondered if he missed the familiar pressure of his old collar.

  He was welcome to have it back, anytime he wanted. I would have been delighted to put it on him myself.

  He must have seen the dark thought on my face, because he smiled at the sight of me. He kept one hand in his pocket but offered me his arm. I took it, forced to stand too close, and we walked down the carpet to the blazing hotel.

  I had been here before, at the same hotel—though it had been a little darker, and had been with a different boy who had the same face. Something else was different. There had always been cheering or chattering crowds before.

  There was a crowd now, but nobody was cheering. I looked around nervously for weapons but saw none. Of course, I knew that meant very little.

  The people who had turned out to watch us were silent with fear or resentment or both. They were not applauding or shouting, simply watching to see what would happen next.

  I knew just how they felt.

  The ball to welcome more armed guards into our town was already in full swing. People were milling about and whirling through the large rooms, every doorway draped to give the impression of the hanging curtains on a bed in the kind of bedroom that got called a boudoir. I paused briefly, leaning against one of the massive pillars, and looked across the sea of people.

  There were the members of the Light Council, looking strange in their party clothes when I was so used to seeing them dressed for business. There were people I knew from school, people I knew from other parties, people who seemed to have been created only for the purpose of attending parties and whom I never saw at any other time, except in photographs of parties I had not been to. And among New York’s glitterati were the guards, wearing their severe white uniforms.

  Mark had said this was a time for celebrating and feeling secure, had insisted the guards go ostentatiously unarmed for the cameras. There were swords hanging on the walls, proclaiming this a military occasion, but none in the guards’ belts.

  I remembered one of those blades coming so close to cutting Ethan’s head off his shoulders and found myself shivering despite the heat of the crowd. I could not help but be glad of Mark’s decree. I could not help wishing him success.

  Carwyn had slipped off almost immediately upon our entrance to the ballroom, murmuring something about the little boys’ room.

  “They have hookers and drugs in there, is what I’m telling you,” he said as he went. “It’s good to be rich. See you in a bit.”

  I let him go without making a scene. I had plenty of time: it was going to be a long night, and he would be expected to be at my side during the greater part of it. He might say stupid things, but he had asked me to behave, and I had to believe that meant he was willing to play his part as well. I leaned against one of the large pillars, by the curtains, and looked out at the crowd. People were standing in clusters, chatting. It was just like school, except everyone was older and wearing fancier clothes, and breaking the rules in this world meant death.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said David Brin, the finance minister, coming up to me. “That all this is a shocking waste of money.”

  “I wasn’t,” I told him.

  “You’re a girl from the Dark city, though,” Brin told me, and I looked at him sharply. He held up his hands in a swift, placating gesture. “I mean no offense—quite the contrary. You’re not used to the senseless waste of the Light city, the way we think of power and gold both as light, and expect the sun to shine night and day. I see it, you know, how you fall silent when the others talk about spending more.”

  I looked at his raised hands, at the carved gold of his rings. I’d never really thought any of his suggested cutbacks sounded good, and he’d never suggested spending extra money on the Dark city. He meant well, but it was strange that people thought a man who had always had too much money would be the ideal man to handle limited money, would be able to imagine how it was to be hungry or cold.

  “She falls silent whenever she disagrees with people,” said Gabrielle Mirren, and I stopped leaning on the pillar so I could see her. She was dressed in expensively discreet gray. “And she is silent a great deal.”

  I had not noticed the members of the Light Council paying attention to how I acted before. I had not thought that they would care much about me, but of course Ethan and I were new additions, and this was a time of misery and unrest. There would be a vote soon, with at least one new member chosen to replace Charles, and who knew how the balance of power might shift on the council? They were all searching for allies, and I was convenient and connected to a Stryker.

  I told myself that they might be useful and tried to pin a smile on my face. I found I could not.

  I was so tired.

  “Consider this,” I said. “When a girl sits and smiles and is silent, you can decide you know her, but that does not mean you do. Don’t read into my silences or my smiles. Don’t assume that you know a thing about me.”

  I walked away from them and did not look back at my new enemies. Walking through these people was like wading deep in the sea, feeling as if the waters were closing over my head every moment. None of the faces were distinct—the light all around was too dazzling for that. It was like being blind.

  Until I saw one face, the pale, ordinary countenance of a waiter. He was someone that nobody at this party would have looked at twice, more an appliance than a person to them.

  I knew him. I was almost sure I knew him. His face was familiar, even though I did not know where I knew him from, and suddenly he was the one person I wanted to talk to. I surged forward but felt a hand catch at my elbow and grip hold, keeping me anchored to a spot where I had no wish to be.

  I turned around, ready to spit in Carwyn’s face, and saw another face instead, like Ethan’s but not an exact copy, hazel eyes narrowed in what looked like worry rather than his usual confusion. Jim Stryker.

  “Can I talk to you a minute?” Jim asked.

  “I can’t right now, Jim,” I said curtly.

  “Please,” said Jim. “It’s about Ethan.”

  The waiter, the whole party, all seemed to rush away with a dull roar. I had been afraid of Mark. Jim was not quick enough to notice anything. I had never thought he might suspect.

  “You’ve gone white,” said Jim. “So you’ve noticed it too. The strange way he’s behaving.”

  I laced my cold fingers together and swallowed down a cold retort. “How do you mean?” I asked in a distant voice.

  Jim looked around the Grand Ballroom, and I followed the line of his sight, the light of the chandelier above and the glitter the chandelier cast on the gleaming circles of the people below. There was so much brightness that the room blurred before my eyes, turning into a sea of stars.

  “It’s like he’s a different person,” Jim answered slowly. “He talks to me and Dad like he hates us. He was always smarter than me, but he never . . . he never used it, like he does now. I get it, of course. Uncle Charlie’s death wasn’t easy on any of us, but can’t you . . . I was wondering if you could talk to him. He obviously still likes you. You’re the only one he still likes.”

  The relief almost made me laugh.

  “Oh yeah, all the disgusting comments he makes indicate deep affection.”

  “He’s teasing you,” said Jim def
ensively. Even though he had just been complaining about how Carwyn behaved, the way he behaved to me had to be all right. As if any attention paid to a girl was a compliment, and a compliment I should accept.

  “I don’t care why he behaves the way he does,” I said. “Why should I care what he feels when he doesn’t care about what I feel? I don’t like it, and he doesn’t stop. That’s all I need to know.”

  “Wow,” said Jim. He looked a little lost, and a little hurt. “Are you guys going to break up? I always thought of you two as the couple that was going to make it and stay together while everybody else got super freaky in college.” He stopped talking when he saw the twist of my mouth, smiled to placate me, and with a sweeping gesture to his own white shirtfront said, “I mean, why else would you go for Ethan and turn down all this? Am I right?”

  I smiled reluctantly back.

  I had started thinking about things like that once I met Ethan: wearing a white dress, inscribing promises of Light with my rings onto Ethan’s skin. Once I had believed that ordinary girlish dreams like fairy-tale weddings had died with my mother, but Ethan let me dream again.

  I had never wanted Ethan to save me. But I had always been so grateful to him for saving my dreams, for bringing the hope in me back to life.

  Jim missed Ethan too, even though he did not know why. I did not feel quite so alone.

  “I’d never break up with Ethan,” I said quietly. “This is just a bad time. We’re going to get through it. It’s true I don’t like this Ethan, but he isn’t going to be this way forever.” I looked at Jim fixedly and made a vow to him as well as myself. “We’re going to get the old Ethan back. I promise you.”

  Jim grabbed my hand and pressed it, gratefully, his skin a little sweaty. I hesitated, and by the time I decided to squeeze it back, Jim had let go and someone else had taken his place, this time a man from the council whose name I could not even remember but who thought he had urgent business with me.

  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.

  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.