“Lucie, lamb chop, it really did,” Carwyn assured me. “It was a terrible combination of mama’s little angel crossed with a poodle.” He glanced at Nadiya. “You agree with me, right?”
Nadiya looked puzzled. “Uh,” she said, “you look a bit thinner as well.”
“I haven’t been eating,” Carwyn claimed. “I was . . . depressed by how stupid my hair looked.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Okay, shut up, you big weirdo.”
“Anything for you, pumpkin,” Carwyn drawled.
Nadiya was looking at us very oddly. I cleared my throat. “Time to dance!”
On a dance floor crammed with laughing people, sliding shadows, and beautiful false lightning, Nadiya leaned into me and whispered in my ear, “Are you guys having a fight?”
“No,” I said back, more loudly, watching Carwyn from the corner of my eye. “You know Ethan. Always talking. And then talking some more.”
Nadiya considered this and then shrugged it all off. She leaned up and said something in Carwyn’s ear, too low for me to make out. I glanced at her, worried she was suspicious.
I tried to sound casual. “What did you say?”
Nadiya bit her lip. “I know a guy who’s got dust. You want some?”
“No,” I said.
“Absolutely!” said Carwyn.
“Uh, wow.” Nadiya blinked. “Well, if you want to unlink, Ethan and I could go get the dust and be right back . . . ?”
She sounded hesitant about the entire plan. Carwyn looked very pleased with himself.
“What a great idea,” he said. “Why don’t we do that? Come on, Lucie.” He tugged at the link, our wrists bumping, and looked down at me with glee in his hooded eyes. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
“Nope!” I said.
Carwyn’s smirk faded slightly. “Ah well. Worth a try, gorgeous.”
Carwyn tugged at the link between us again and, rather than get involved in a wrestling match, we followed Nadiya across the dance floor. She went to one of the farthest corners in the next room, where she had a brief but intense conference with a guy in a leather jacket. He squinted over at us.
“Aren’t you . . . ?” he began.
“Lucie,” I said, confirmation and a clear sign I didn’t want to talk about it.
“Ethan,” said Carwyn. “Kind of a dumb name, isn’t it? I’ve never liked it.”
“Is he drunk?” Nadiya whispered.
I laughed and shrugged at the same time. The laugh came out more like a panicked hiccup.
“Oh, well, Lucie,” said the guy, who I had never seen before in my life. “We’re going to have something to celebrate soon, aren’t we? If everything goes right?”
I wasn’t going to betray weakness or ignorance, especially not in front of strangers and doppelgangers. “I don’t feel like celebrating, and I don’t want any dust.”
“We’ve got so much to celebrate,” Carwyn put in blandly. “Such as our love. Our beautiful, beautiful love.”
The guy reached into his jacket and pulled out a little pouch, which was also leather. He was clearly working a theme.
He put the pouch down on the top of the little table he was sitting at, the tabletop a small circle of metal that shone with a few different metallic shades of color in the dim light. He drew open the zipper of the purse, and the chaotic roar of the club seemed to fade and fall away as the dust came creeping out through the zip and into the air.
Like grains of black sand that could float, the dust rose and spiraled over us. It spread out so far that it appeared pale gray, so anyone watching us would hardly have seen it. It would have seemed to them like an optical illusion, the palest of shadows, like that which comes from a cloud passing over a landscape.
Dust was created by Dark magic. I did not know how. But the word was that dust was particles of darkness made tangible. Shards of the dark ground down to dust.
Dust brought peace with it, like the feeling of dreamless sleep. I was almost tempted.
“Come on, guys, let’s not,” I said instead. “This isn’t like you, Ethan,” I added pointedly.
It wasn’t much like Nadiya, either. I wondered what was going on with her, but I couldn’t ask with a doppelganger attached to my wrist. She let herself be pulled away with little protest, and Carwyn had no choice about the matter. I looked around at the people dancing, the swaying and shimmying in the moving lights, and then at Nadiya and Carwyn, and found myself laughing again.
“Let’s just dance,” I said, and grabbed Nadiya’s hand with my free one so I could tow them both back into the midst of the dancers.
The music hummed and thrummed as we danced. Light sparkled all around us, in my eyes, glancing off my rings and sending beams out on all sides. Shadows wrapped me, sliding around my body and through my hair like black ribbons. Time seemed a little broken up, like the light, coming in flashes between the shadows. Nadiya shimmied down and then up again, purple sparks lighting her dark eyes. An older man with rings like mine on his fingers was tracing bright paths down a woman’s back that flared briefly and then were absorbed into her skin. A boy in a neon brocade vest with nothing underneath was dancing in a shimmering line of Light.
The strong line of Carwyn’s arm was pressed up against the inside of mine, and I could feel his pulse, beating like another kind of music. I had him where I wanted him: I didn’t have to watch him.
But I did look at him, curious to see if the doppelganger was enjoying himself, to see if I’d guessed right and this was something he would like. Doppelgangers do not work the same way real human beings do, everybody says. They do not have souls of their own, because there is nothing of light about them. Could doppelgangers even like things the way we did?
I could not tell. Carwyn’s mouth was in a shape that was not quite a flat line or a smirk. When I glanced toward him, he responded by using the bracelet of light to turn me toward him as well, into the pull of his gravity, so we turned around each other in a slow circle.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “How well does this girl know Ethan?”
“Not well,” I whispered back.
He murmured, “Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I said more loudly.
He didn’t argue with me. He leaned away, shrugged, and kept dancing. The light did not illuminate him as it did Nadiya; his eyes remained dark and watchful, but the arm against mine was less tense than it had been all night. I could not exactly read his expression, but I did think he was having a good time. I smiled up at him as the shadows bled away into light and the light ebbed back again.
He put his free hand, fingers curled, on my waist. Still circling, I looked up at him for a cue to the next dance move. Light painted a shining pattern, bright and brief as a firework, silently against the line of his cheek and jaw. The music went throbbing on, and the light died another little death.
In that moment of darkness, Carwyn leaned forward and captured my mouth with his. It was a sudden, warm attempt at possession: his fingers light but sure, tilting up my chin. I had nowhere else to go but into the deep, intent kiss. I shut my eyes, and there were brush strokes of light, even on the inside of my eyelids. The world grew brighter and brighter, until I opened my eyes to find light shining crystal clear all around us, and his warm mouth still on mine.
It lasted only an instant longer, then Carwyn leaned away and said, his voice low, “When I first—”
“Hey,” I said to Nadiya, dropping her a slightly embarrassed smile, “could you excuse us? Just . . . just for a minute.”
She gave me an understanding thumbs-up and let the crowd sway her away. I used the link to drag Carwyn where I wanted him, into the next room, and then I got a better hold on him, grabbed his shirt, and used the purchase I had to throw him up against the wall.
“Very funny,” I said. “You knew I couldn’t protest in front of my friend, because she thinks you’re Ethan, she thinks that’s something I’d want instead of”—a betrayal—“nothing I’d e
ver want. Not with you. Why did you do it?”
My heart was pounding louder than the music, violently in my ears.
“Oh well,” Carwyn answered, breathless with spite. “Because it was funny. And because I could.”
“You can’t,” I hissed. “Not ever again. I’ll collar you. I’ll do it right now. And then I’ll hurt you.”
My rings spat sparks of burning light as my fists clenched in the material of his shirt. Carwyn was smirking again, that terrible darkness-spreading smile, and he did not seem cowed in the least by the threat. His whole body was vibrating with eagerness to lash back.
That was when the real lights came on, fluorescent and scalding white, making me blink hard. I heard the sounds of footsteps—serious steps, not the tottering of party heels or rush of sneakers—on those concrete stairs.
I did not let go or even relax my grip on Carwyn, but my hold on him changed all the same. Suddenly I was clinging. We both knew that out of everybody in the club, we were the ones in the most danger in a raid. Someone found with dust would only be put in jail.
If Carwyn was found, the Strykers’ secret was out. If he was found uncollared, with the evidence that I had done it a suddenly heavy weight in my back pocket, we were both dead. I could see from one look at Carwyn that he knew all that as well as I did.
“Come on,” I said to his sharp, intent face, like that of a hunted fox ready to bite. “This way!”
We went running through the crowd, elbowing the panicked mob aside. I thought we knocked a few people over as we went, but it didn’t matter. I could hear loud voices in the first room and bodies hitting the floor, and I barreled toward my target destination.
“The men’s bathroom?” Carwyn demanded. “You’re a very surprising person, Lucie.”
“You’re a very irritating person, Carwyn. Nadiya’s brother’s friend, he used to have dust on him sometimes when the place was raided. I heard him say there was a window you could get out of.”
It was a slim chance. But it was our only chance, and I was grabbing it.
We hurtled through the grubby bathroom door, paint splitting as if the wood beneath was trying to get out. A boy was at a urinal, doing up his fly. He looked at us, eyes wide and startled. His mouth hung wide too; he closed it and then opened it again, as if making the decision about whether to call out.
I knew that a guard could come through the door at any moment.
I threw a flash of Light magic at him, knocking him back for a precious instant.
“Tell him that he can’t see us,” I told Carwyn.
“I thought you grew up in the Dark city,” Carwyn snapped. “How do you not have the faintest idea how Dark magic works? I could maybe persuade him he didn’t see us if we were running past him in the dark, but he’s looking right at us!”
“I know how Dark magic works,” I said, and took a deep breath. I turned my hand in the link I had made for us, to hold Carwyn’s hand. “I know secrets in the dark nobody ever told you, doppelganger. Tell him that he can’t see us.”
Carwyn looked ready to argue, but first he glanced at the boy.
“You,” the boy began, “aren’t you . . .?”
Carwyn sighed, closed his eyes, and rolled his neck, as if working out a kink. When his eyes opened, they were covered with darkness, as if under a film of oil.
“You can’t see us,” he murmured, and there was a thicker sound to his voice. It made me think of blood.
“Keep saying it,” I whispered.
“You can’t see us,” Carwyn murmured. I lifted my free hand and my rings blazed, bright enough to blind.
Something about the air changed. The boy’s expression changed too, blanking out.
“You can’t see us. You can’t see us,” Carwyn chanted. “Lucie, he really can’t see us!”
Dark magic affected thoughts and emotions, and Light magic affected the physical world, created energy, and made everything work. I could blind someone only for an instant; Carwyn could make someone believe him, against the evidence of their own eyes, only for a moment.
But working together, it was different. If you could trick the eyes and the mind both, everything was different.
My aunt and I had done it for years in secret. I did not like to think about what Aunt Leila would have done if she knew I had shared this knowledge with a doppelganger. I did not want to think about what he might do with it. We had to escape.
We shoved the boy, blind and stumbling, out through the bathroom door. He thought he was moving of his own volition. He would slow down the guards, and he would not remember us.
The bathroom window turned out to be real, but small and so high up that we’d have to stand on the top of a toilet to get out. And only one of us could possibly get out at a time.
We stood there for a minute, on the cracked white floor tiles. When I looked at Carwyn, he was looking away, neck bent and eyes fixed on the wall. He didn’t plead.
“Screw it,” I said, and tore the band of light off his wrist.
He grinned at me, danced one step back, and then made a running jump at the toilet, launching himself up off it with one foot and out the window with the force of a rocket. I hesitated for a second, cursing my own stupidity, as the strip of light in my hand grew thinner and thinner and then died out, leaving a trail of sparks across my palm.
From outside the window came Carwyn’s voice, sounding both reluctant and annoyed. “Lucie,” he grated, as if he had a particular grievance against my name, “come on.”
I clambered onto the toilet and out the window, banging my elbow on the window frame, clumsy with sheer surprise. It was a much bigger drop from the window than I had hoped, but there were no other choices, so I leaped feet first. Landing hard and off balance, I would have fallen onto elbows and knees if not for Carwyn grabbing my arm and holding me steady. Almost as soon as he grabbed me he was pulling at me, his voice fraying with impatience as he repeated, “Come on—come on!” and we both ran.
We ran past the guards’ cars in the street, so fast that my eyes were stinging and the car lights looked like blurred streaks of red and blue painted on the black night. We ran down dark alleyways and fiercely bright city streets and through a park where there were cool shadows and fireflies and where I had to stop, head hanging between my legs, and suck air in desperately. We ran so fast that my legs were aching to the bones and my rings were actual weights on my hands, dragging them down to the earth.
And then we were standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, wind dealing my face a series of night-cold slaps, the granite and limestone towers starkly white. For a moment I felt as if we could run back into the Dark: for a moment the bridge looked like a way home.
Beyond the towers and the glittering cable lines that hung from them, web-like, as though the whole bridge were a giant spider’s castle, were the walls of the Dark city. Every Dark city had a wall built around it, even ours, which was separated from the Light city by a river. The walls were built with Light magic, and they would boil the blood of whoever tried to get over them. I remembered hearing the faint crackle of the bright walls near my home in the Dark, like the leaves of deadly trees in the wind.
I scarcely ever ventured this close to the edge of the Light.
It was a night of firsts.
“We made it,” I said, forcing the words out in a series of gasps.
“Yeah,” said Carwyn, still standing. He wasn’t winded: his voice sounded normal. It sounded pleasant and distant, like he was thinking of something else.
I straightened up, wobbly but unbelievably relieved to be safe, to have both of us safe. The water whispered soothing promises, and even though it looked deep and black, the ripples caught edges of silver. Carwyn’s face was serious until he saw me looking, when he showed me that ugly smile again.
“Thanks,” I said unsteadily, ignoring the smile.
“Oh, Lucie, you shouldn’t thank me yet,” said Carwyn. “You had no idea what you were getting into, did you?”
It
was dark and cold, and I was tired, and I didn’t want to have to fight him to get the collar back on. But I would have to—that much was clear. I turned my face to look at the water one more time, to take a breath and grit my teeth. I felt the warmth of Carwyn’s body as he stepped in, but he didn’t grab me. He whispered to me instead, each word a puff of heat against my jaw.
“Someone should have warned you about me. Oh, wait,” said Carwyn. “I did.”
He didn’t grab me at all. He didn’t use Dark magic, which could cause pain even though it was not as strong as the Light. He just shoved me clear off Brooklyn Bridge.
I used the silver moonlight on the water, absorbing it into my rings, even during the long, shocked, shrieking tumble. I had barely hit the icy, disgusting water, which felt like chilled oil, when the river itself began forming steps up the wall for me to follow. I felt only an instant of black panic as the waters closed over me.
I wouldn’t let myself panic. I climbed doggedly up the steps, concentrating on them, refusing to let the river become liquid and flow away until I was back on the bridge. Once I was there, my clothes hung impossibly wet and heavy on me, trying to drag me down as if I could drown on dry land.
The night streets were, depending on where I looked, blazing with lights, or shadowy and still. I saw strangers’ faces passing me, a brief sympathetic glance, a wolf whistle from a car at the soaking-wet girl. No help was to be found anywhere: the city at night moved pitilessly on.
Carwyn, of course, was long gone.
Chapter Seven
I SPENT THE NEXT DAY VICIOUSLY ANGRY WITH MYSELF for being so stupid.
I stayed home from school because Dad woke up a little at sea, not frantic anymore, but with the look of a child lost in a confusing world, and I knew it made him feel better to have me there. The pressing need for me to always be there—always with the right thing to say to Dad, ready to touch his hand reassuringly or stay a safe distance away so he did not feel crowded—let me not think about the disaster I had single-handedly created. I was tired from a long night, body worn from spent adrenaline and using too much magic, but his needs came first.