He bit his lip after he had said that, as if he had not meant to say it or at least had not meant it to sound the way it did: like a confession.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” I said after a startled moment. “I don’t care about your feelings because you don’t care about mine. And when you touch what you’re not meant to touch, it looks about as powerful and rebellious as someone walking on the grass when they’re not supposed to. It looks as stupid as a kid putting his sticky fingers on art. You look even stupider than that, because you’re treating a person like a piece of grass or a painting. But how stupid you are is not my main concern right now, because people are dying. Don’t waste my time by touching me or taunting me, or I’ll leave you to die as well.”
The sans-merci were in the Light city. I had known that much. But I had never thought they could possibly lay waste to the Light magicians and the rich and the powerful. I had always thought their violent discontent would remain on the edges of my life.
I remembered standing under the cages in Green-Wood Cemetery years ago, and felt as I had felt then: there would never be an escape from this, not really.
I pulled my hand out of Carwyn’s, and he finally let me do it.
Blood stained the back of my hand. I did not know whose it was—the first guard’s or Jim’s or some helpless stranger’s—but I covered my face with my newly freed hand and felt the cold press of rings against my closed eyelids, and for a moment I could not breathe.
“So, since you seem to know everything,” Carwyn said, “what’s the plan?”
I laughed. The laugh exploded from my lips, sick and sharp, the same way a sound of pain would have if I had been punched. I stepped in toward Carwyn and grabbed the too-tight collar of his shirt, twisting the material even tighter.
“Going to do whatever I say, doppelganger?”
The edges of his broken bottle rested against my bare arm, pricking against the flesh, uneven and promising pain. His smile looked just like the broken glass felt.
“Sure.”
I let go of his collar, pushing him with unnecessary force as I did so. He went backwards easily, leaning with one arm up against the marble balcony rail.
I looked at my open hand, at my palms and my fingers, each circled and weighted with magic. I closed my fingers so tightly around the hilt of my sword that my rings cut into my hand. Metal on metal, and my flesh felt almost incidental, pressed between them and bound to be hurt.
I lifted my sword, and Carwyn’s eyes widened briefly. It caused an abrupt and stunning sense of satisfaction within me. I was so scared, scaring someone else seemed like the only possible power in the world.
I said slowly, “Do you think that anyone will notice another body on the floor tonight, Carwyn? Remember what I said when we were dancing? You’re going to tell me what you know. And you’re going to do it now.”
I stepped forward, the point of my blade touching Carwyn’s shirt. The moonlight shimmered, turning the sword into a shining path that led to his heart.
I continued softly, “The only value your life has to me is that you might lead me to him.”
Carwyn gave a short laugh. “Ethan, Ethan. Always Ethan. I am so sick of hearing about Ethan.”
“Just a thought,” I said. “If that’s the case, you shouldn’t have placed yourself in a position where everyone calls you Ethan! But you did that for a reason, didn’t you?”
Carwyn made a mocking bow, shallow, because to make it any deeper would have been to spit himself on my sword. “But of course it was to spend more time in your charming company, being threatened with large weapons. You did point out recently that people were dying in this building. Could we pay some attention to that trifling matter?”
“Like you care,” I said, and my own words seemed to add another layer of frost to this new, chilling world. “Like you turning up and then this attack happening is a coincidence. Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that?”
Carwyn moved sharply away from the balcony rail and the point of the sword. I lunged after him and his eyes went wild, traveling in all directions, as he realized how very trapped he was on that balcony. He hadn’t thought I was going to be any sort of threat.
“Please keep wildly accusing me,” he spat. “I’ll decide on my opinion of your intelligence when you’re done.”
“What have you done?” I demanded. “Did you arrange for all these people to die? Did you direct the sans-merci here?”