“Hush, hush,” he said. I think he tried to stroke my hair, but he couldn’t properly because of the chains. “Don’t be scared. I promise, I won’t let you go.”
“Mom says I shouldn’t ever be scared,” I whispered. “She says help will always come to me if I believe it will. Were you sent to me?”
The next thing he said was a funny thing for him to say. He was so much bigger than me, and he didn’t seem scared, even though he had cried.
He said, “Maybe you were sent to me.”
I ran faster than I had ever run in my life. The wind rushed after me, the clouds rushed after me, the sun seemed to fling its rays out like a net, the whole fierce morning seemed to be pursuing me so it could swallow me whole, but nobody else chased me. Nobody stopped my wild dash to Times Square.
Once there, I had to fight my way through a thick crowd. Nobody was expecting me; nobody stood aside for the Golden Thread in the Dark. I elbowed and shouted and struggled like a swimmer caught in a current, until I finally burst free and into the empty space where the car was only now drawing to a halt.
The cages were suspended so high above the crowd that they seemed like blots on the sun. The platform was empty save for one man in black and scarlet. He looked hesitant. He looked as if he might be waiting for my aunt’s arrival, but the crowd’s anticipation was pulsing, the very air expanding and contracting around their desire to see savage justice. He would not wait long.
“Stop!” I shouted, and held the paper up high. “I have a pardon. Stop.”
People looked at me then: people recognized me, saw my sleep-rumpled dress and my hair snarled around my shoulders. I did not care. I did not even look at the member of the sans-merci who strode toward me and examined the paper in my hand.
I was looking for Carwyn.
They had put the prisoners in one of those open limousines that politicians were driven in so they could wave to the crowd, but its soft leather seats were torn out, the whole car gutted, and those being sent to the cages were chained to the metal bars that remained, bars and chains both glistening with inky streams of Dark magic so nobody could escape.
I did not see him at first, because he was bowed over in his chains. Then I did.
Then I knew why Penelope had come for me, why she had gone after Aunt Leila and sent me running down here. I understood Aunt Leila’s plan. She had set everything up so that even if I arrived in time, I could not save him.
She had known I would have to save someone else instead.
Marie was the girl I had been, whom nobody had come to rescue. Marie was so young and had so many people who loved her.
There was no choice. There would not have been a choice, even if it was Ethan.
Carwyn was leaning over Marie, his dark head bent over her black hair. He was talking to her, not looking at the crowd, and he did not even seem to hear their sharp utterances of “Stryker” as if it was a curse. Of course, it was not his name.
I pulled the pardon out of the guard’s hand and walked toward the car. My shadow was stretching eagerly out in front of me when he looked up.
The most vivid memory I have of that day, the moment that broke my heart, is how his face changed when he saw me.
“You’re here,” he said, and smiled. My stomach sank, and I was suddenly sick with horror at the thought of what I was going to do. He said eagerly, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I was about to speak, but then realized I could not. My lips shaped his real name, silently.
“Quick,” Carwyn continued. “Take her.”
That was what truly broke my heart. He saw that there was no choice, and no chance for him, and he still smiled.
If I had not known better, I thought even I might have been convinced that this was Ethan. He looked more like Ethan than he ever had before. He was taking it seriously now. The masquerade meant something to him.
“You heard him,” I snapped at the guard. “Set her free now.”
Marie was secured by only one cuff, not chained like Carwyn. It was easy to release her, and in one movement Carwyn picked her up and leaned out of the car, placing her in my arms.
Marie clung to him. “You said you wouldn’t let go.”
“Not until the end,” he said. “But it’s the end now. It’s all over. You’re safe now.”
He had to pull away from her, and then she was in my arms, a heavy but welcome weight. She was crying.
“I’ve got you,” I told Marie. And I told Carwyn, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I have never done a really good thing before,” he said, and the wry quirk to his mouth was all him for a moment, any trace of Ethan disappearing. “I’m told we should try new experiences.”