Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

There was a sharp knock on the door. It swung open to reveal Cristina. She wore jeans and a sweater and her cheeks were pink, as if she was embarrassed to be interrupting. "The Blackthorns," she said. "They've come home."

Emma completely forgot whatever she'd been about to say to Diana and spun toward the door. "What? They're not supposed to get here until tomorrow!"

Cristina shrugged helplessly. "It could be a different huge family that just Portaled into the entryway."

Emma put her hand to her chest. Cristina was right. She could feel it: That faint pain that had existed behind her ribs ever since Julian had gone had become suddenly both better and worse--less painful, more like a butterfly wildly flapping its wings under her heart.

She darted out of the office, her bare feet slapping against the polished hardwood of the corridor. She hit the stairs and took them two at a time, swinging around the landings. She could hear voices now too. She thought she heard Dru's high, soft voice raised in a question, and Livvy answering.

And then she was there, on the second-floor gallery overlooking the foyer. The space was lit up as if it were daytime by a myriad of swirling colors, remnants of a vanishing Portal. In the center of the room stood the Blackthorns: Julian towering over the fifteen-year-old twins, Livvy and Ty. Beside them was Drusilla, holding the hand of the youngest, Tavvy. He looked asleep on his feet, his curly head against Dru's arm, his eyes closed.

"You're back!" Emma cried.

They all looked up at her. The Blackthorns had always been a family with a strong resemblance to each other: They shared the same wavy dark-brown hair, the color of bitter chocolate, and the same blue-green eyes. Though Ty, with his gray eyes, skinny frame, and tousled black hair, looked as if he'd wandered in from another branch of the family.

Dru and Livvy were smiling, and there was welcome in Ty's grave nod, but it was Julian who Emma saw. She felt the parabatai rune on her upper arm throb as he looked up at her.

She darted down the stairs. Julian was bending to say something to Dru. Then he turned and took several quick strides toward Emma. He filled up her vision; he was all she could see. Not just Julian as he appeared now, walking toward her across the Angel-patterned floor, but Julian handing her seraph blades he'd named, Julian always giving her the blanket when it was cold in the car, Julian standing opposite her in the Silent City, white and gold fire rising up between them as they said their parabatai vows.

They collided in the middle of the foyer, and she threw her arms around him. "Jules," she said, but the sound was muffled against his shoulder as he hugged her back. She could hear the parabatai vows in the back of her mind as she breathed in the familiar scent of him: cloves, soap, salt.

Whither thou goest, I will go.

For a moment his arms were so tight around her that she could barely breathe. Then he let her go and stepped back.

Emma nearly unbalanced. She hadn't expected either quite such a tight hug or such a quick shove away.

He looked different too. Her mind couldn't quite take it in.

"I thought you were coming tomorrow morning," Emma said. She tried to catch Julian's eye, to get him to return her welcoming smile. Instead, he was looking at his brothers and sisters as if counting to make sure they were all there.

"Malcolm showed up early," he said to her, over his shoulder. "Suddenly appeared in Great-Aunt Marjorie's kitchen, wearing pajamas. Said he'd forgotten the time difference. She screamed the house down."

Emma felt the tension in her chest easing. Malcolm Fade, the head of the warlocks of Los Angeles, was a family friend, and his eccentricity was an old joke between her and Jules.

"Then he accidentally Portaled us to London instead of here," Livvy announced, bounding forward to hug Emma. "And we had to hunt someone down to open another Portal--Diana!"

Livvy detached herself from Emma and went to greet her tutor. For a few moments, everything was welcoming hubbub: questions and hellos and hugs. Tavvy had woken up and was wandering around sleepily, tugging on people's sleeves. Emma ruffled his hair.

Thy people shall be my people. Julian's family had become Emma's when they had made themselves parabatai. It was almost like marriage in that way.

Emma looked over at Julian. He was watching his family, his expression intent. As if he'd forgotten she was there. And in that moment her mind suddenly seemed to wake up and present her with a catalog of the ways in which he seemed different.

He'd always kept his hair short and practical, but he must have forgotten to cut it in England: It had grown out, in thick, luscious, curly Blackthorn waves. The tips hung down past his ears. He was tanned, and it wasn't as if she didn't know the color of his eyes, but now they seemed suddenly both brighter and darker at once, the intense blue-green of the ocean a mile down from the surface. The shape of his face had changed as well, resettling into more adult lines, losing the softness of childhood, revealing the clean sweep of jawbone that peaked at his slightly sharp chin, an echo of the wing shape of his collarbone, visible just beneath the collar of his T-shirt.

She looked away. To her surprise, her heart was beating fast, as if she was nervous. Flustered, she knelt down to hug Tavvy. "You're missing teeth," she told him when he grinned at her. "Careless of you."

"Dru told me that faeries steal your teeth while you're sleeping," Tavvy said.

"That's because that's what I told her," Emma said, rising to her feet. She felt a light touch on her arm.

It was Julian. With his finger he began to trace words against her skin--it was something they had been doing their whole lives, ever since they realized they needed a way to silently communicate during boring study sessions or time with adults. A-R-E Y-O-U A-L-L R-I-G-H-T?

She nodded at him. He was looking at her with faint concern, which was a relief. It felt familiar. Did he really look so different? He was less thin, more muscular, though it was a slender sort of muscle. He looked like the swimmers she had always admired for their spare beauty. He still wore the same arrangement of leather and shell and sea-glass bracelets around his wrists, though. His hands were still spotted with paint. He was still Julian.

"You're all so tanned," Diana was saying. "How are you all so tanned? I thought it rained all the time in England!"

"I don't have a tan," said Tiberius matter-of-factly. It was true, he didn't. Ty detested the sun. When they all went to the beach he was usually to be found under a terrifyingly huge umbrella, reading a detective story.

"Great-Aunt Marjorie made us train outside all day," Livvy said. "Well, not Tavvy. She kept him inside and fed him bramble jelly."

"Tiberius hid," said Drusilla. "In the barn."

"It wasn't hiding," said Ty. "It was a strategic retreat."

"It was hiding," said Dru, a scowl spreading across her round face. Her braids stuck out on either side of her head like Pippi Longstocking's. Emma tugged on one of them affectionately.

"Don't argue with your brother," said Julian, and turned to Ty. "Don't argue with your sister. You're both tired."

"What does being tired have to do with not arguing?" asked Ty.

"Julian means you should all be asleep," Diana said.

"It's only eight o'clock," Emma protested. "They just got here!"

Diana pointed. Tavvy had curled up on the floor and was asleep in the angled beam of light from a lamp, exactly like a cat. "It's considerably later in England."

Livvy stepped forward and picked up Tavvy gently. His head lolled against her neck. "I'll put him to bed."

Julian's eyes met Diana's briefly. "Thanks, Livvy," he said. "I'll go tell Uncle Arthur we got in all right." He looked around and sighed. "We can deal with luggage in the morning. Everybody, bedtime."

Livvy grumbled something; Emma didn't hear it. She felt puzzled; more than puzzled. Even though Julian had answered her texts and calls with short, neutral missives, she hadn't been prepared for a Julian who looked different, who seemed different. She wanted him to look at her the way he always had, with th

e smile that seemed reserved for their interactions.

Diana was saying good night, picking up her keys and handbag. Taking advantage of the distraction, Emma reached out to trace lightly against Julian's skin with her finger.