I was certain Carwyn must be in league with the sans-merci, who had killed Ethan’s father, if he had not killed Ethan’s father himself. His taking Ethan’s place proved that. And his taking Ethan’s place meant the sans-merci had taken Ethan. If Carwyn had been telling the truth, they must have kidnapped Ethan and kept him alive for a reason.
If Ethan was alive, what were they planning to do with him? What did they want from him?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I went to school the next day. The teacher said Ethan Stryker claimed that he could not attend due to being suddenly overwhelmed by excessive grief for his father.
I tried to get through the day. I did not sit at the table with Jim Stryker, though he waved me over and seemed to expect it. I sat with my biology partner and a few other girls she knew. A couple of people who knew my home situation looked at me sympathetically, but nobody spoke to me about Jarvis.
There were still people talking about Ethan’s father. I heard his name whispered in the corridors, by the teachers, heard his name in the silences that fell over groups when I walked by. But mainly everyone was talking about what the sans-merci might do next—whispering about atrocities they had already committed—and gossiping about the ball Mark Stryker was throwing to welcome the new guards. One girl at my lunch table, whom I did not know very well, asked shyly if I thought I could get her tickets for the party.
Nobody was very interested in Charles Stryker himself anymore. One of the most powerful men in the city, one of the Strykers whose name was inscribed in gold across our skies. And he was gone, gone as surely as my mother was gone. The dead drift away from us, like reflections in moving water, hardly seen before they are lost.
I sat and ate my sandwich, and I told myself I would not allow Ethan to drift away.
I noticed, as the days wore on, that Carwyn was avoiding being alone with me.
Nobody else had any answers for me. Nobody knew what had happened, and I could not tell them. Telling them meant my head would be cut off and Ethan would be in even more danger than before.
I had to get answers from Carwyn. He had to know something: where the sans-merci were keeping Ethan, why they had taken him. He was the only possible source of information that I had. But he was being very careful not to give me the opportunity to ask any questions.
I went to dinner at his house more than once, and we ate with Mark and Jim at the table, and Carwyn would invite Jim to play video games with him afterward. He would always encourage me to stay, always include me in a conversation, always make a point of subtly taunting me, but he would not talk to me in private.
The taunting was sometimes hard to bear.
“How is school going?” Mark asked at dinner one day when he had finished talking about the glories of the upcoming ball. He spoke as if Carwyn had been going to school.
“Wow, actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Carwyn said. “I’m failing.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “Which class?”
Carwyn waved his fork around in a big circle. “Oh, like, all of them.”
“Ethan!” Mark snapped.
“I know,” said Carwyn. “I am just not very bright. Well, you’ve seen the kind of clothes I choose to wear, with the entirety of New York men’s fashions at my disposal, right? This can’t come as that much of a surprise.”
“You always did more than adequately in your studies before,” Mark said.
“True,” said Carwyn. “But I was mostly coasting on my family name and my debatable good looks, you know? I mean, that’s me. Spoiled little rich boy. Vaguely good intentions, you know, but not much follow-through. Very little strength of character. Have you guys ever noticed that when you look at me from a certain angle, I have kind of a weak chin?”
“Looking at you right now,” I said, “I do see it. I’ve never noticed it before, though. Never.”
Carwyn reached for my hand, which was lying on the table, in plain view and beside my knife. I had to let him take it, because Mark and Jim were there watching. His dark eyes followed the line of my sight to the gleam of the knife. He gave me a smile that gleamed in about the same way, and his fingers curled warm around mine. He had calluses that Ethan didn’t have: touching him felt completely different.
I would so much rather have been touching the knife.
“Sorry to let you down there, my adorable little meerkat,” Carwyn told me. “I do think I’ve been getting more good-looking, though. The pain of my recent tragedy has given a deep, haunted look to my eyes.”
I put my hand up to touch my forehead, able to block the sight of his terribly familiar face for a moment, and looked out at the ocean of lights that was the city at night.
“Let’s not talk about your father,” Mark Stryker said.