Tell the Wind and Fire (2 page)

The guard’s face—he was an ordinary guy, stubble and tired eyes, a totally normal man just doing his job and burning my life to the ground—closed like a door.

“The guards of the Light don’t take bribes,” he said, and his voice had the definitive sound of a door closing too. He gave a single brief nod, and I felt hands close around my arms.

“No,” I said, desperate. I tried to twist away, out of their hold, even though I knew it was useless: once people begin using force, words will not stop them. “Wait—you have to listen to me! You can’t do this!”

The only thing standing between Ethan and death was me, and I was not enough. Two guards dragged me back, kicking and fighting and saying useless things, a victim’s chant of despair—
You can’t do this,
when we all knew they could,
Stop,
when we all knew they wouldn’t, and
Please, please, for the Light’s sake, please,
when mercy was not an option.

“Lucie!” Ethan’s voice cut through the sounds of my futile struggle. There were guards in my way, and I could not see him. “Lucie, I’m so sorry. I love you.”

“No!” I screamed at him giving up, at the guards, at the whole uncaring world. “No. Stop!”

There was the long, slow scrape of a train-car door opening. I twisted in the guards’ hold at the sound.

It was the car of the buried ones, the citizens of the Dark city, that had opened. Standing framed in the doorway was a doppelganger, his face shrouded by the doppelganger’s dark hood, fastened with the enchanted collar.

He was a boy, I guessed, though it was hard to tell with the hood. He was tall, whipcord lean, and strong-looking, but something about him suggested that he was not full grown. He would be no help, I thought with a burst of frustration—he was a doppelganger, a creature made by Dark magic, with a face that wasn’t his own and no soul. Nobody would listen to him.

I choked on my own hopelessness. The doppelganger was standing slouched to one side of the door, like a not-very-interested spectator.

“The lady’s right,” he said, and his voice was a drawl, as if he wasn’t entirely sure why he was bothering to speak. “You’d better stop.”

“Back inside, doppelganger,” the guard with the sword, the leader, snapped. There was none of the hesitation there had been with me.

The leader nodded again, and one of the guards dropped my arm and advanced.

I saw the guard’s walk turn purposeful and predatory as he came toward the doppelganger and uncoiled a whip
from his belt.

“Don’t!” The sound burst from me, without my permission.

At the same time, from the guard, came the order “He said inside, beast.”

I heard the crack and saw the leap of the whip as it woke into light and transcribed a bright circle against the black sky. He struck at the shadow cast by the hood, aiming directly for the hidden face.

The doppelganger wheeled at the last moment, stepped out onto the train platform, and caught the lash on his arm, turning his wrist so the whip wrapped around it. He pulled, changing lightning into a leash, and yanked the stunned guard onto his knees.

Before the guard could scramble up or another guard could intervene, the doppelganger spoke again.

“I heard there was a witness who saw the accused consorting with a member of the
sans-merci,
” he said. “I just have one question.”

Silence followed, the guards taken aback by his casual air as they had not been by my screaming.

I stopped straining against the remaining guard’s hold and said, forcing my voice to match his, “What is it?”

“This terrible criminal your witness saw . . .”

The doppelganger threw his hood back.

The humming magic light of swords, my rings, and the train itself had transformed the platform into a brilliantly lit stage. The light was bright enough that I could see every detail of his face; it chased along his high cheekbones and the slightly crooked shape of his mouth, lending an icy sparkle to his dark eyes. His brown hair was cut very short, but I knew if it was longer it would curl. I knew the lopsided turn his mouth would take if he smiled. I knew the very line of his throat as it disappeared into the dark folds of his hood and the black edge of his heavy collar. I knew every detail of his beloved face.

Ethan was still on his knees, surrounded by guards. I could not see Ethan, and yet I could.

This was Ethan’s face. This was Ethan’s doppelganger—his exact physical double.

“How do you know,” continued the doppelganger, “that it wasn’t me?”

Another silence followed. We had a second chance, in this uncertain moment, to use words and change the world.

I had to get it right this time.

“An eyewitness sighting doesn’t count if the person reported has a doppelganger,” I said quickly. “Everybody knows that.”

“Because it could have been me,” the doppelganger agreed. “I mean, maybe it
was
him. Maybe he was out prowling the streets with his low political companions, and I was somewhere warm, having a lot more fun—possibly with this gorgeous thing.”

He cast me a brief glance. The brown eyes I was used to seeing soften as they looked at me were flat and expressionless. His look made me feel colder and more exposed than the night wind did. I was deeply and horribly conscious that I was standing on this platform in nothing but a thin shift that hung open so my goose flesh was on display.

Very alluring. But this hideous charade had to be continued.

I tossed my long hair over my shoulder and sent the doppelganger a wink. “Maybe.”

He spread his hands, as if to say “What can you do?” He was still slouching, which was fairly impressive when there was nothing in sight to slouch against. “Maybe he is guilty and I’m totally innocent.” His mouth curved, as if he was amused by the very idea. “It only seemed fair to point out that you don’t have all the information.”

“Now you do,” I stuck in. “It could have been either one of them, and if you kill the wrong one, it will be murder.”

“Killing a beast isn’t really murder,” muttered the guard who had wielded the whip, spitting at the doppelganger’s feet.

“You might not think so,” I said, “but you’ll be punished just the same.”

I tested the grip of the guard still holding me. His fingers twitched, relaxed, and, under the steady pressure I was exerting, released. I walked forward, past the cluster of guards, to the doppelganger. He started when I approached him, oddly, as he had not flinched when the whip came down. I reached out, grabbed his hand, and towed him over to Ethan.

When the guards let me pass, I could almost believe we might get away with this.

“The only thing you can do is take us to the Light city,” I said, sounding as certain and casual as I knew how. “All of us.”

The guards parted and I could finally, finally see Ethan, my Ethan. They had knocked him onto his hands and knees, his broad shoulders were bare and his wavy, sleep-mussed head was still hanging, but he looked up as I stooped toward him. I gave him my free hand, and when his fingers closed around my shaking, sweat-slicked fingers, I felt steadier, my lost anchor regained, warmth and security a possibility once again.

Ethan got to his feet. A moment later, I had them both safe, keeping myself a step ahead, between them and the guards.

“Remember what I suggested earlier?” I asked. “Put us back in our compartment. Put a guard at the door if you like—I don’t care. And call Charles Stryker. Let the Light Council sort out this misunderstanding.”

They were off balance enough to do what I wanted, and uncertain enough now to listen to the name Stryker. When the guards ushered me, Ethan, and the doppelganger into the compartment that had been just mine and Ethan’s, the leader was already looking worried.

Another guard said, as he shut the door in our faces, “I didn’t know any of the Strykers had a doppelganger.”

The door closed, and I sagged against it. I watched Ethan and the doppelganger retreat to opposite sides of the compartment.

“Funny thing,” I remarked. “Neither did I.”

I was furious, but there was something I had to do before questioning either one of them.

“Come here,” I said, and advanced on the doppelganger. He took a step back and wound up sitting on the bunk, looking surprised and mildly irritated.

I held up my hands as if in surrender, though it was anything but. I held them so the doppelganger could see the Light magic rings glittering on all my fingers.

“I’m a trained Light medic,” I told him. “Now let me see your wrist.”

He gave me an unfriendly look, but he let me kneel down and snatch his hand again. I pushed back the worn fabric of his sleeve. The material tried to adhere to the burn, but I pulled it off despite the hiss of pain that slipped through the doppelganger’s teeth. I had to loop my fingers around his wrist, over the burn, thumb and middle finger touching. I concentrated, coaxing to life the light hidden in every sparkling stone, letting it form a bright bracelet over his skin and mine. When I let go, I knew the light would wash the burn marks away. I was able to help, because he was not too badly hurt. My mother had been able to save people on the brink of death, but I was not a tenth as brilliant a magician as my mother. I could only do this.

I blinked away the remnants of Light in my vision, like dissolving stars, until all that was left was his intent
gaze.

“There,” I told him.

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“No,” I said. “I’m supposed to thank you. You saved his life and I love him, so I owe you more than I know how to repay. Thank you . . . what’s your name?”

He hesitated. “Carwyn.”

“Carwyn,” I said, still kneeling, staring up into a familiar face with a strange name on my tongue. “Thank you. Buried how long, Carwyn?”

That was what citizens of the Dark city always asked each other when we met. That was what we called living in the Dark city: being buried.

He hesitated again, but when he spoke there was weight to his response, as if he had come to some decision. “Thirteen
years, but I’m out now,” said Carwyn. “Buried how long, Lucie?”

So that answered that: he had recognized me.

“Fifteen years,” I said. “But that was two years ago. I’m out now.”

“They’re still talking about you in the Dark city,” Carwyn said.

I picked up the dress that was on the floor and pulled it over my head as quickly but with as little fuss as I could manage, lacing up the front. Ethan grabbed a fresh shirt out of his bag.

He came and sat with me on one end of the bed, taking my hand again, and I curled into him, chin tucked against his shoulder and my hand pressed in a fist against his chest. As if I could protect him, as if I could keep his heart beating.

“I didn’t know how to tell you, Lucie,” said Ethan. “About him.”

The train was in motion again. I leaned against Ethan, but I did not look at him or at the stranger who wore his face. I looked out the window. The train was speeding along the slender bridge that the Light Council had built fifty years ago, toward the Light city of New York. I saw the tall, bright columns standing in clusters, the Chrysler Building with its prismatic triangle of lights at the top, blazing like a beacon, and Stryker Tower, a steel line studded with huge stones shimmering with Light power and crowned with a spike.

We were almost home, my new home full of Light, the home where I had learned how to be happy. I did not jump in front of blades there. I did not see blood or horror: I was not that person, not anymore. All I needed to do was keep my head down and my life could continue the way it was now, the way I had made it. I could be safe.

I remembered how I had felt on the train platform, knowing for the first time that someone could hurt Ethan.

I said, “So tell me now.”

CHAPTER TWO

Both boys were silent. Carwyn just sat on the other end of the bed. I knew his eyes were the exact same as Ethan’s, but they looked different to me, darker, almost black, with no depth in the color. I thought of the old saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul: no lights shone in Carwyn’s windows. He was looking at me, but his gaze was almost challenging, and I did not know why.

Ethan was much easier to read. He looked horrified and guilty.

“You knew he existed,” I said to Ethan. “When was he made? Why didn’t you ever tell me? I told you . . .”

Everything,
I wanted to say, but I hadn’t told him everything. He still thought I was brave and good. I had told him more than I had told anyone else in the world though, and he had kept this huge secret from me.

I could have accepted it from anyone else, but I had been so sure that Ethan was open and honest, the one person in the world with no secrets and no shadows. I’d built my new life on that certainty.

“Lucie,” said Ethan, “I didn’t know how to tell you. I was ashamed. It’s a crime to create them—I couldn’t turn in my own father. And I was afraid you’d look at me differently, knowing I had one of . . . of them.”

When someone young was dying, a Dark magic ritual could save them, but the ritual created an exact double. I had heard the horror stories, heard people say that the ritual gave Death itself a young, sweet face and let it
walk among us.

Someone with a doppelganger was not just complicit in a crime. They carried a reminder of mortality on their shoulders, carried the shadows of doppelgangers on their souls. It was said that looking into a doppelganger’s face would doom the original soul, that the doppelganger would hunt the original down so it could take their life and their happiness as well as their face. It was kinder to let someone die, people said, than create a doppelganger to save them.

I looked over at Carwyn, who was fiddling with his collar and looking supremely uninterested.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Carwyn. “Continue with your relationship drama. It is fascinating.”

I rolled my eyes at him and turned to the boy I loved. “Ethan. Look at me.”

He looked at me. I had always thought his eyes were different from anyone else’s. I still believed it. Nobody else looked at me like that, light and warmth in their eyes because I was there. There was gold in his brown eyes. There was light here, in Ethan, for me.