The litany of what I had done hung in the air like an accusation.
I had not done any of it because I wanted him to be grateful. I did not think I deserved gratitude: I had done the wrong thing, made so many mistakes, and so much of what I had done was because I loved Ethan, because Carwyn had saved Ethan, and because he looked like Ethan. Even though I had not wanted gratitude, I had not deserved Carwyn hurting me while he pretended to be Ethan. He had hurt me anyway.
“I was doing it because it was the right thing to do,” I said slowly. “None of it was for you. I don’t even like you.”
Carwyn blinked, then winked. Every small moment where he betrayed any uncertainty or seemed a little human, he covered over by acting worse than ever. “You sure about that?”
There was another silence. This one hung in the air like a question, rather than an accusation. I only had one answer.
“Yeah,” I said at last. “I’m really sure.”
Carwyn sat up now. He shoved himself lightly to the end of the bed, where I was sitting, and sat a careful distance away from me. I glanced over at him and wondered if I should tell him that Ethan had been the one working with the sans-merci. I figured that it wasn’t necessary. Carwyn must have always known Ethan had done it, because he knew he himself was innocent of the charges.
He had known Ethan had done it, and still he had spoken up for him and saved him. It had been too easy for me to forget, all this time, that the first thing I had ever seen Carwyn do was commit an act of mercy.
“What was it you said to me, the first day you met me?” Carwyn asked suddenly, as if he could read the beginning of my thoughts on my face but not the end. “‘I’ll collar you . . . And then I’ll hurt you’? Maybe I’ll let you. Maybe, for once, just for a change, it’s safer to be me than it is to be Ethan Stryker.”
When I opened the bedroom door, Marie and Penelope were gone, I presumed on an errand. We still needed to eat, even if the city was in chaos. I walked out of Penelope’s room and into the main room, then through the doorway into mine and Dad’s room. I heard Carwyn softly following me, but I did not look back at him.
I had thought I would have to be very quiet, that Dad would still be asleep, but the beds were all empty. Penelope must have taken him out with her. I hoped she knew what she was doing. I hoped nothing out there was disturbing or frightening him.
I knelt down on the worn wood floor. I found that the knowledge of which precise brick I had hidden the collar under had slipped my mind, something I’d thought would be branded forever in my memory as a guilty secret, lost with the rush of everything else that had happened, like the sea chasing away words written in the sand.
If even I couldn’t remember where it was, it had to be a pretty good hiding place. I put my hands flat against the wall and felt along the bricks, feeling the sharp indents on the ones that I had scraped at with a fork, and finally the real loose brick. I slid it out of the wall and put my hand into the hollow.
The first thing I touched was the chain of my mother’s necklace. I did not draw that out. I did not want Carwyn to see it.
My fingers came away gray with ash, with the bag in my palm. I unwrapped the collar from its material. I had forgotten exactly what it looked like: the shining metal divots where my rings would fit in, to bind him and hurt him if he disobeyed.
Carwyn’s breath drew in sharply at the sight of it.
I held the collar out to him.
“Here it is,” I said. “It’s yours. I’ll put it on for you if you want, if you think people might check whether it’s sealed. Or you can take the chance, and be able to take it off. Put it on right now, put it on later, don’t ever wear it again. Do what you want with it.”
Carwyn stared at the collar but made no move to touch it. “What do you think I should do?”
“Like I said,” I answered, “it’s yours. I don’t think anyone should ever have put it on you against your will. But if you can use it to protect yourself, to make sure people won’t think you’re Ethan, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. This collar’s brought you enough trouble. If it buys you safety, I think that’s fair.”
It only occurred to me then that it might have kept Ethan safe in the Dark city, having Carwyn here in his place. But I could not snatch back the collar and hide it away again.
I didn’t really want to. Ethan would not have wanted his safety bought at the price of a lie. I had already lied and lied, and nobody was safe. I was so tired of lying.
Carwyn did touch the collar at last, running his fingers lightly over the leather and metal. His fingers brushed my hand, and he looked away from the collar and at me.
“What would you do?”