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?”