It was not Dad. It was Jarvis. He was holding tight to Penelope’s hand, and he looked gray and thin and old. Until he saw Carwyn. Then he simply looked afraid.
“You’re not Ethan,” he whispered.
“Would you believe I’m Ethan’s twin,” Carwyn asked, “and that they kept me in the attic my whole life because they didn’t want Ethan to be shamed by how much handsomer I was?”
I looked at Penelope and Marie, who were staring in confusion and growing horror. I glanced at Carwyn and saw him smirking, showing no trace of tears nor any sign that he had been making an emotional confession. I didn’t spare any of them more than a glance.
“You knew he wasn’t Ethan,” I said slowly to Jarvis. “You knew Ethan couldn’t be here. So you know where Ethan is. He found you, didn’t he? Where is he?”
“Lucie,” said Jarvis.
“Tell me! Tell me where he is.”
“Lucie, I’m so sorry,” said Jarvis. “He found me. He gave himself up in my place. He told them he’d do whatever they wanted as long as they let me go. He is in the hands of the sans-merci.”
He had accomplished his mission, my hero, my knight. I was sick with terror.
I swallowed. “And where’s Dad?”
“He’s with your aunt,” said Penelope, her face very serious. “But I swear to you, he’s safe. The sans-merci are hailing him as a hero and a martyr. And, Lucie, the sans-merci have commanded you to go to them as well. Your aunt wants to see you.”
Nobody swore to me that Ethan was safe. None of them wanted to lie to me.
I took a deep breath. “And I want to see her.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They had Ethan and I had to save him, and I’d promised Aunt Leila I would come if she asked for me. I did not know what she wanted with me. I did not know what the sans-merci wanted from me. I could not stop hearing them calling for the Golden One, their voices echoing through that great hotel that had become a palace of the dead.
I had spent two years doing what I did not want to do and had to do anyway. Now I made my way up the gentle slope of the streets.
Aunt Leila had given Jarvis very specific instructions. She had told him that I should not head toward the hotel. She had told me to go somewhere else.
Nobody had told Carwyn to come with me, least of all me, but he had insisted, and I had not wanted to leave him with Penelope’s family.
He said nothing to me as we made our way, and I said nothing to him. I kept walking until Times Square came into view again, not in the light of morning but in the glow of the early afternoon, just beginning the sun’s fall. The square was a metallic glen, made of buildings and not trees. The tall rectangular towers shone like giant mirrors; the lines of gems affixed to several of them were like vast jeweled belts hung in the sky. Usually Light power showed images on screens and formed advertisements that walked among the denizens of the city—you only knew they were magic and not real people by their peculiar brightness and the occasional flicker.
Not today. The crowd of people today was all real, and there were so many of them, and so many were from the Dark city. Clothes were made differently in the Dark city. I remembered that now, how the very stitching of the seams and the colors of the materials looked different. There were fewer bright colors, and less material, because the Dark city did not have extra cloth to waste on full skirts or frills. I clenched my fists in the material of my long skirt, which swung around my legs like a bell. I must have looked like someone from the Light. It might have been safer to look like a Dark citizen.
Some of the audience were clearly from the Light, though, and their faces were just as rapt, and their eyes contained just as much promise of violence.
I began to shove my way through the crowd, breath stuck in my throat. Some of these people had weapons, but it was not the weapons I was concerned about. It was the hostility of the crowd, bristling like a pack of dogs that were going to attack.
I kept my ringed hands clenched and pushed on, waiting for someone to speak and strike me down.
A voice rang out, and Carwyn instantly vanished from my side and into the crowd. I barely even registered him going.
“Make way for the Golden Thread in the Dark! Make way for your Golden One!” called my Aunt Leila, and the people parted like water at the command of a prophet, clearing a path for me.
I could see Aunt Leila on a platform that looked hastily constructed, the wood still rough. There were others of the sans-merci there, wearing their bands of cloth. I did not see my uncle.
I could see my father. He was wearing the red and scarlet of the rebels. He looked as hurt and confused as a child forced into clothes that were not his own and that he was uncomfortable wearing. I ran toward him, up the creaking wooden steps. I was on the platform and had almost reached him when Aunt Leila set a hand on my arm. Her grip felt as heavy and inescapable as a manacle.