“Not to leave him alone in a strange city,” I said. “Your dad is responsible for Carwyn, and Carwyn saved your life. That means Carwyn should be looked after!”
“We couldn’t keep him here,” said Ethan. “Jim doesn’t even know he exists. Nobody can know he exists. I’m thinking about my dad here—”
“I’m not,” I interrupted. “I’m thinking about Carwyn. You could have at least gone with him, if he couldn’t stay here.”
I understood that he couldn’t have. Somebody would have been bound to get a photograph sooner or later. Charles Stryker would have been ruined; the whole council would have taken a hit. I understood all the practical concerns, but I understood as Ethan did not—as Ethan could not—what it was to be new and adrift in a sea of light. I understood what it was like to save someone, and pay and pay for it.
“Look, Lucie. Carwyn is a doppelganger. He didn’t want company.”
Ethan stood framed in the doorway of his apartment, limned with gold. A bright tapestry hung on the wall behind him, and he looked tired, annoyed that I kept trying to push darkness into his life. Ethan and I had fought before, but I had never felt this distant from him.
“Did you ask?” I said.
Ethan might not have understood me, but I didn’t want to understand him, either. I did not give him a chance to answer before I spun on my heel and walked away. I left him standing in the doorway to brightness and retraced my steps, past the doorman and his list of chosen ones, under the shining ceiling, and outside, where, even in this city of Light, it was getting dark.
I knew where to go. The Strykers always sent business contacts—not friends, not family—to the same place. The James Hotel, which Jim claimed was named after him though it wasn’t, was a tall glass building that reflected light but gave off very little of its own, like a discreetly expensive gemstone. It was easy to see amid the smaller buildings of SoHo as I walked from the subway station. I texted Penelope that I was out with Ethan and did not know when I would be home. My rings gave off the same muted light as the screen of my phone.
I didn’t know what name the Strykers had registered Carwyn under, but when I asked for the associate Mark Stryker had checked in that day, they sent me up to the penthouse suite.
One of Mark Stryker’s men was waiting outside the door. I didn’t recognize the face, but after two years I knew how to recognize the demeanor. He must have been briefed, because he didn’t interfere with me, so I didn’t acknowledge him. I just went to the door and tapped on it.
“One minute,” Carwyn said, voice muffled, and I wondered what he was hiding before he could open the door.
Once the door was open, it was clear that he hadn’t been hiding anything. He’d just been finding pants.
The collar and the fabric of the doppelganger’s hood attached to the collar had to be waterproof, I realized, because doppelgangers wore them even in the shower. Droplets hung from the leather and metal around his neck, turning it briefly into a choker with pendant jewels—until Carwyn, hood down and head half enveloped in a fluffy towel, vigorously resumed drying his hair and all the droplets fell.
“Oh, you again,” he said. “Honestly, I’m disappointed. I hoped it was room service.”
He took to scrunching up his hair with the towel one-handed so he could gesture, in a vague unenthusiastic manner, for me to come in. I walked in slowly. The floor was black wood, polished to shine like jet, and on all the walls were cubist paintings in gray and red. The light fixtures were metallic, shaped like boxes and spaceships. The light in one had run out, so I wandered over to it and tapped the shiny red dome with two fingers, rings clicking against the metal, and the light blinked back on.
When I looked up, Carwyn was watching me, but that lasted only an instant before he was drying his hair again. It was both less and more strange, seeing the replica of Ethan’s body instead of Ethan’s face. A body was more anonymous, not as easily recognizable, but Carwyn’s was marked by the events of a life different from Ethan’s. Carwyn was thinner, with the leanness of someone used to less and worse food, muscles less impressive but possibly more functional. He had a long scar up his abdomen, a nipple piercing, and none of the tan or the dusting of freckles from Ethan’s days basking in the sun. It was reassuring to have dissimilarities to catalog, having it made clear they were different bodies rather than mirror images.
It was strange because I was the only one who knew Ethan’s body, the intimate details of it, well enough to know what was different about this one.
“I’m sorry for what they did,” I said.
Carwyn finished drying his hair and walked over, closer to me, to drop his towel in a damp heap on the bed. He retreated to a chair standing against the opposite wall, its carved wood painted black, and retrieved his shirt.
“What are you sorry for?”
“I’m sorry they took your pass and sent you away.”
Carwyn snorted. “I know, right? I was so looking forward to playing a game of charades with good old Uncle Mark. I’m not their family. I didn’t expect anything better than this.”
“They owed you better than this,” I said. “They already owed you support. You saved Ethan. They owed you thanks, and not shipping you off as if you were someone engaged in a business dispute with the company.”
“So, what?” Carwyn asked. “You’re here to thank me?”
“I already thanked you,” I pointed out.
“You’re here to express your appreciation by proposing a kinky doppelganger ménage à trois? In which case, I’m going to have to turn you down. I’m sad to say it, but Ethan gives me the impression he’d be about as exciting in the sack as an eggplant.”
“You’re wrong, but you’re just going to have to trust me on that, because you’re never finding out firsthand,” I said. “He’s mine and I don’t share. You keep trying to make me angry or, failing that, uncomfortable.”
Carwyn’s eyes widened for a moment; startled, he looked more like Ethan. He walked across the room toward me again, stopping to sit on the bed, and shrugged and lowered his head as if conceding a point. Or, I realized a moment later, as if he was putting on his shoes.
“Doppelganger,” he said. “Created pitiless and soulless to wander the earth tormenting mortals. Sort of my thing.”
“You torment mortals with dumb sexual innuendo?”
“I’m also a teenage boy. You work with what you have.”
I went to another painted-black chair on my side of the room. I removed the small cushion, which was covered in beads for maximum discomfort, and sat on the chair cross-legged.
“You can’t torment me,” I said. “Not unless you try a lot harder than you currently are. You did something good for me instead.”
“Weren’t you listening to Ethan back on the train? I did something self-serving and cynical that only coincidentally benefited you.”
“Weren’t you listening to me back on the train? You did something good for me: I don’t really care what your reasons were. I haven’t had so many good things happen to me that I’m going to quibble, and I don’t care how much you try to insult me. Because I’m not going to listen.”
I leaned my weight against my drawn-up legs, fingers laced in the ties of my shoes, and met Carwyn’s gaze straight on. I couldn’t tell if it was challenging or suspicious, hateful or simply curious, but it didn’t matter what he thought of me, not really. It didn’t matter what he felt about me, if he could feel anything at all: my mother would have said he could, and the whole Light city would have told me it was impossible. None of that mattered. What mattered was that I had come to this hotel to do whatever I could for him.
Carwyn was silent for a while. I stretched my legs out, and curled my fingers around the arms of the chair.
I started a little when Carwyn kicked the side of my shoe with his own. When I looked up, he was smiling a bit: a small and not entirely reassuring grin, nothing like Ethan’s, but it looked genuine nonetheless.
“So,” said
Carwyn. “Charades?”
“Ethan said they gave you money,” I told him. “And that you’re set to stay here for a week and you have a pass. Is there anything else that you want? Is there anything else I can do for you?”
The doppelganger hesitated.
“Come on, Carwyn,” I added. “I dare you not to be predictable.”
“Well,” said Carwyn, “I’m a growing avatar of darkness, and I’ve been waiting for room service a suspiciously long time. Like, two hours. I’m wondering what to do about it.”
He didn’t need to say any more. I’d seen doppelgangers in the Dark city not being served in shops and cafés, until they slunk away. The best way to encourage doppelgangers not to linger was not to make a fuss but simply not provide what they needed.
I could have called Ethan—even if I didn’t want to make up with Ethan at that moment, I could have called Ethan’s dad or his uncle—and demanded that they sort out the situation with the hotel. It was in their best interests to keep Carwyn quiet and content.
I intended to do just that, but I remembered something, suddenly, about my mom, and it made me smile. Whenever anything like that happened in front of her, my mom would always order whatever it was the doppelganger had asked for herself, then hand it over.
I thought that it would cost me nothing to be kind and mean it, just this once. To be like my mother, just for one night.
“You said you wanted to see the Light city,” I said slowly. “Let’s go out and see some of it. I can show you around, and we can grab something to eat as we go. My treat.”
Carwyn put his head to one side. I wasn’t sure if he was assessing the sincerity of my offer or simply weighing the amount of fun he could have getting pot stickers in the Village with me versus checking out what the hotel cable television had to offer.
“All right, golden girl,” he said slowly, “lead me to the light.”
Chapter Five
IT WAS CLEAR EVEN BEFORE WE REACHED THE STREET that I had made another terrible mistake.
Carwyn had put up his hood before we left the hotel room, and we got a judgmental stare from the receptionist as we walked out. Matters only got worse from there.
We took the subway to the restaurant I’d decided on. It was only a few stops, but that was long enough. One woman who had seemed sleepy a moment before we stepped onto the train, her kid resting his sticky face against her shimmering Light-reinforced raincoat, went rigid as soon as she saw Carwyn. She stood vibrating with distress by the doors and exited, making for the next car, at the next stop. Other people were less obtrusive, melting away off the seats and through the doors or into the corner.
One guy in pink suspenders, who I thought might be trying to impress a beringed woman whose shoes were twined with Light magic so the spike heels became small bright towers that would not hurt her feet, stayed where he was. He sat only one seat away from Carwyn. The bright-shod woman watched Carwyn with obvious apprehension. The man in suspenders, I saw, was pretending to be nonchalant, and playing a hand-held game. He was a lousy actor. We could all see his shaking hands.
Carwyn shifted, and the guy dropped the game with a clatter and a flash of light that blinked out like a tiny supernova. He stared, and from under Carwyn’s hood came a soft, sinister sound, something like a hiss, and Carwyn’s pale fingers went creeping over the empty seat.
The guy made a low sound in the back of his throat and slid hastily along the row of slick orange plastic seats until he was at the other end of the car. I leaned over and rapped Carwyn’s hand with my knuckles, making sure my rings were involved so it would smart.
“You’re not helping yourself.”
“No,” Carwyn murmured, “I’m amusing myself.”
“You’re the only doppelganger that they have ever seen in person,” I said as we left the train, to the visible relief of its remaining passengers. “Spreading fear and distrust is only going to contribute to the false idea of doppelgangers that they’ve built up in their heads.”
“Please inform me on the subject of doppelgangers,” Carwyn said humbly. “They sound like such interesting yet widely misunderstood creatures. Is it true that they only drink human blood?”
“I hope not,” I said. “This place doesn’t serve it.”
The Star Bright was already in view, with its white façade and gleaming, tilted windows, the star on the black sign a burst of Light magic that looked almost like a real star. I’d had brunch there with Ethan a couple of weeks ago, and it was a warm, comfortable place to eat and talk. I smiled at the woman with the short black tie and moved toward an empty table.
“I’m terribly sorry,” said the woman, stepping in front of me. “But these tables are reserved.”
“What, all of them?”
The woman nodded, a jerky motion that made her earrings dance, jeweled little fish leaping into shimmering blue circles.
“All right,” I said slowly. “Can we wait? How long will it take?”
“Could be hours,” she said, twisting her hands together.
I glanced over my shoulder at Carwyn, a silent shadow at my back. He made no sound or movement, as if he really was a shadow.
“It’s not my decision,” the woman said, her voice very fast and very low. “It’s just the policy of the management. They have to think of the other customers.”
“Being thoughtful is so important,” I snapped. “Come on, we’ll go someplace else.”
I stormed out into the dark street, banging the door shut behind me, and walked on with Carwyn following in my wake. We walked eight blocks, until we reached a Thai place I knew, where the bathrooms had shimmering curtains of magic light instead of walls. Tourists flocked there to use those bathrooms. I thought the whole thing was a little creepy, but the food was good, and outside the bathrooms the lights were low.
They must have seen us coming, because the man waiting at the door had the air of a manager and shining rings on every finger. Rings took money as well as magical talent.
“Miss, please, you can’t come in here,” he said. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”
“The kind of establishment where people eat food and then pay for it?” I asked. “Because I’ve done that here before, and that’s all we want to do now.”
A woman eating nearby said, “Light’s sake, I don’t mind if the doppelganger wants to stay and give us a show!”
Her voice had a Midwest twang and she was looking at Carwyn with undisguised fascination, as if he were a combination of a dirty picture and something she might see at the zoo.
“You’re welcome here, honey,” she said, peering up at his shrouded face.
“Thanks, honey,” said Carwyn, mimicking her accent. She jumped.
“Miss.” The man touched his forehead with one hand and gestured to the door with the other, sparks cast by the stones trailing the motion.
I clenched my own hands, rings pressing hard against my palms, and fought back the urge to do what I had done at the train station for Ethan: shout who I was and demand better treatment. But I couldn’t, of course. I couldn’t link my name with a doppelganger’s any more than it already was. Word would spread. That would be bad for Ethan.
Even going out onto the streets with Carwyn was a risk I should not have taken. I could have been recognized, and that would have reflected on the whole Stryker family. Ethan had already been accused of a crime. I was afraid for Ethan, fear cold as the knowledge that I was letting down the boy who had saved Ethan in the first place.
“Fine,” I said, and whirled out the door.
I had taken a few steps down the street when Carwyn’s voice sounded behind me.
“You were right,” he said. “Once I stop upsetting people with my bad behavior, the world is all strawberries and sunshine. Or do I mean puppies and cream?”
“I’m sorry, all right,” I told him angrily, as if the world’s and my own cowardice were his fault.
“Sorry about what?” Carwyn asked. He drew level with me ra
ther than being the shadow at my back. “Lucie, come on. It’s not like anything’s different in the Dark. The revolution you ignited hasn’t changed things that much, not yet.”
“The revolution I ignited?”
“The child who spoke out against the cages?” Carwyn asked. “They chant your name down in the Dark. The sans-merci paint it in blood on the streets. There are whispers that say the Light city kidnapped you and the Light Council is holding you prisoner, that it is the sans-merci’s mission to free you. You’re their princess in a tower. You’re their excuse for the tower to be torn down.”
I knew a little about the unrest in the Dark city. I knew about the riots, the fires, and the rumored assassinations, but there was always unrest in the Dark city. I knew all I wanted to. The chaos on the dark streets was not my fault just because they were calling my name these days.
The Light saw me as someone the laws existed to protect. The Dark saw me as someone who proved that the laws could be broken. But I didn’t want to be either.
Except that wasn’t true. I had stirred people up deliberately. I was responsible for some of the blood spilled on those dark streets. But I hadn’t caused a revolution, for Light’s sake. That was ridiculous. The buried were always restless, but they always settled in the end.
I shook my head to silence the voice of Ethan’s uncle, which didn’t belong in there. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
Carwyn just laughed. “Oh, right. You’re the Golden Thread in the Dark, but it’s nothing to do with you. The buried ones use you as a rallying cry, but that doesn’t matter to you.”
It wasn’t that it didn’t matter, I wanted to say. It was just that he was attributing power to me that I didn’t have. All I’d done was follow the plan Aunt Leila had come up with: all I’d done was play a role to get what I wanted. Nothing they thought about me was true.