Nobody challenged Mark Stryker. Nobody ever did.
We didn’t have to speak. We were moving out under the glass dome, almost through to the escalators of Thirty-Fourth Street, when we caught up with the others. Ethan had tight hold of Carwyn’s elbow; I ran up and caught Carwyn’s free hand, linking my fingers with his. I saw Mark strip off one glove, the supple leather crumpled in his fist, and touch Ethan’s shoulder with a heavy ringed hand.
Then I saw Penelope, my father’s best friend. She was running down the passage lined with small stores, past a bakery with a bright yellow sign. Her coat was flapping open and her rings were blazing, and I knew why she had come. I knew who she was there about.
“We had the television on,” she said breathlessly, “and the news started talking about you and Ethan. There wasn’t any warning, no way to prepare him, and he’s having one of his spells again.”
The one thing that could have torn me away from Ethan right then: my father.
“I have to go to him,” I said. “I have to show him that I’m all right.”
Mark Stryker did not look devastated to be parted from me. “Naturally you do. I’ll send you and Dr. Pross in one of our cars.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t spare him much of a smile. We were almost clear of the cameras.
I waited until we were out on the streets, people pushing impatiently past us. The purring and screeching of cars, the tap of men’s business shoes, and the click of women’s business heels formed an orchestra of city sounds that would screen what I had to say.
“Ethan, a word,” I said, and dropped Carwyn’s hand.
It felt like a betrayal, like letting him down, when he hadn’t let Ethan down. I looked away from him, dark-hooded and silent on that bright busy street. I did not look at Mark. I looked to Ethan.
I dragged him a little away from Mark, Penelope, and the doppelganger.
“Go to your dad,” Ethan said. “I’ll sort everything out with Mark. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried,” I said. “Because I know I can count on you to do the right thing and take care of Carwyn.”
Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “I’m pretty sure Carwyn can take care of himself.”
“I’m pretty sure he can’t,” I said. “Because he’s a doppelganger in the Light city, and that means he is in danger. He helped you when you were in danger. I have to go to my father, but you have to promise me that you will help him.”
Ethan bit his lip. I looked back at Mark Stryker and saw how far he was standing from Carwyn. People on the street, those determinedly indifferent city people, were looking at Carwyn’s hooded head.
I wanted to say, I know what it’s like to be buried, to be scheming in the Dark and scared of the Light. I know that saving someone else comes at a price. But I didn’t want Ethan to think of the similarities between the doppelganger and me.
“Ethan,” I said instead. “Please.”
Ethan looked at me, his eyes amber in the city lights. “Lucie,” he said, “I’ll do my best. I promise. For you.”
Penelope and her husband, Jarvis, lived in a vast brick building in midtown, not too far away from the theater district. Their apartment was a narrow snake of a living place, scarcely more than one large room divided into slivers. So, basically, it was a nice modern New York apartment and would have been nicer if they had not given their second bedroom to two people who had stumbled in from the Dark and stayed.
Dad and I had a curtain separating our bedroom into two rooms. Penelope and Jarvis had a Japanese screen between their bed and little Marie’s.
I knew we should find a way to move out, but I didn’t know how to voluntarily give up the comfort of having other people around, the small, simple happiness of coming home to find dinner waiting or the television on. Penelope and Jarvis had never mentioned wanting their home back, never even hinted; they always acted as if they wanted us to stay forever.
“I’m sorry that I had to drag you away,” Penelope said as the car sped through the glittering streets.
“It’s no problem,” I said, and forced myself to smile. “Well, it’s my problem. I can deal with it.”
“You don’t have to deal with it alone,” Penelope told me. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” I said, and kept my hand against the Light panel in the car door, the square of magic that would brighten when the car stopped, waiting for it to release.
I owed Penelope and Jarvis better than this. When the car pulled up outside the building, I saw the lights blazing in every window in their apartment on the sixth floor. I pressed the panel before it had woken into full light, hurled myself out of the car before it had quite stopped, then ran up the stairs and through the door faster than Penelope could follow me. This was my responsibility and not hers.