Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

"Is he perfect?" Livvy asked.

"No," Cristina said. When Cristina was upset, she didn't get angry; she just stopped talking. She was doing that now, staring at the target painted on the wall. Emma spun the knives she'd retrieved in her hands.

"We'll protect you from Perfect Diego," Emma said. "If he comes here, I'll impale him." She moved toward the throwing line.

"Emma's a master of the impalement arts," Livvy said.

"You'd be better off impaling my mother," Cristina muttered. "All right, flaquita, impress me. Let's see you throw two at a time."

A knife in each hand, Emma took a step back from the throwing line. She had taught herself to throw two knives at once over the course of a year, throwing again and again, the sound of the blades splitting the wood a balm to shattered nerves. She was left-handed, so normally would have taken a step back and to the right, but she'd forced herself to be nearly ambidextrous. Her step back was direct, not diagonal. Her arms went back and then forward; she opened her hands and the knives flew like falcons whose jesses had been cut. They soared toward the target and thudded, one after the other, into its heart.

Cristina whistled. "I see why Cameron Ashdown keeps coming back. He's afraid not to." She went to retrieve the knives, including her own. "Now I am going to try again. I see that I am far behind where I should be."

Emma laughed. "No, I was cheating. I practiced that move for years."

"Still," Cristina said, "if you ever change your mind and decide you don't like me, I'd better be able to defend myself."

"Good throw," Livvy said in a whisper, coming up behind Emma as Cristina, several feet away, paced back and forth at the throwing line.

"Thanks," Emma whispered back. Leaning against a rack of gloves and protective gear, she glanced down into Livvy's sunny face. "Did you get anywhere with Ty? And the parabatai thing?" she inquired, almost dreading the answer.

Livvy's face clouded. "He still says no. It's the only thing we've ever disagreed about."

"I'm sorry." Emma knew how badly Livvy wanted to be parabatai with her twin. Brothers and sisters who became parabatai were unusual but not unheard of. Ty's stark refusal was surprising, though. He rarely said no to Livvy about anything, but he was obdurate about this.

Cristina's first blade slammed home, just at the rim of the target's inside circle. Emma cheered.

"I like her," Livvy said, still in a whisper.

"Good," Emma said. "I like her too."

"And I think Perfect Diego maybe broke her heart."

"He did something," Emma said guardedly. "That much I've guessed."

"So I think we should set her up with Julian."

Emma almost overturned the rack. "What?"

Livvy shrugged. "She's pretty, and she seems really nice, and she's going to be living with us. And Jules hasn't ever had a girlfriend--you know why." Emma just stared. Her head seemed full of white noise. "I mean, it's our fault--mine and Ty's, and Dru's and Tavvy's. Raising four kids, you don't exactly have a lot of time to date. So since we sort of took having a girlfriend away from him . . ."

"You want to set him up," Emma said blankly. "I mean, it doesn't work like that, Livvy. They'd have to like each other. . . ."

"I think they could," said Livvy. "If we gave them a chance. What do you say?"

Her blue-green eyes, so much like Julian's, were full of affectionate mischief. Emma opened her mouth to say something, she didn't know what, when Cristina let her second knife go. It slammed into the wall so hard that the wood seemed to crack.

Livvy clapped her hands. "Awesome!" She shot Emma a triumphant look, as if to say See, she's perfect. She glanced at her watch. "Okay, I have to go help Ty some more. Yell for me if anything awesomely exciting happens."

Emma nodded, a little stunned, as Livvy danced away to hang up her weapons and head for the library. She was nearly startled out of her skin when a voice spoke from just over her shoulder--Cristina had come up behind her and was looking worried. "What were you two talking about?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Emma opened her mouth to say something, but never found out what, because at that moment, a commotion burst out from downstairs. She could hear the sound of someone pounding on the front door, followed by running feet.

Catching up Cortana, Emma was out the door in a flash.

The pounding on the front door of the Institute echoed through the building. "Just a minute!" Julian yelled, zipping up his hoodie as he jogged toward the door. He was almost glad someone had shown up. Ty and Livvy had ordered him out of the computer room with the announcement that Julian was wrecking their concentration by pacing, and he'd been bored enough to consider going to check on Arthur, which he was fairly sure would put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

Julian swung the door open. A tall, pale-haired man lounged on the other side, wearing tight black pants and a shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. A plaid jacket hung from his shoulders.

"You look like a strip-o-gram," Julian said to Malcolm Fade, High Warlock of Los Angeles.

There had been a time when Julian had been so impressed by the fact that Malcolm was High Warlock--the warlock to whom all other warlocks answered, at least in Southern California--that he'd been nervous around him. That had passed after the Dark War, when visits from Malcolm had become commonplace. Malcolm was in reality what most people thought Arthur was: an absent-minded professor type. He had been forgetting important things for almost two hundred years.

All warlocks, being the offspring of human beings and demons, were immortal. They stopped aging at different points in their lives, depending on their demon parents. Malcolm looked as if he had stopped aging at about twenty-seven, but he had been (he claimed) born in 1850.

Since most of the demons Julian had ever seen had been disgusting, he didn't like to think too much about how Malcolm's parents had met. Malcolm didn't seem inclined to share, either. Julian knew he'd been born in England, and he still had traces of the accent.

"You can mail someone a stripper?" Malcolm looked bemused, then glanced down at himself. "Sorry, I forgot to button my shirt before I left the house."

He took a step inside the Institute and instantly fell over, sprawling lengthwise on the tiles. Julian moved aside and Malcolm rolled onto his back, looking disgruntled. He peered down his long body. "I seem to have also tied my shoelaces together."

Sometimes it was hard not to feel bitter, Julian reflected, that all the allies and friends in his life were either people he had to lie to, ridiculous, or both.

Emma came rushing down the staircase, Cortana in her hand. She was wearing jeans and a tank top; her damp hair was pulled back in an elastic band. The tank top was sticking to her skin, which Julian wished he hadn't noticed. She slowed down as she approached, relaxing. "Hey, Malcolm. Why are you on the floor?"

"I tied my shoelaces together," he said.

Emma had reached his side. She brought Cortana down, neatly severing Malcolm's shoelaces in half and freeing up his feet.

"There you go," she said.

Malcolm looked warily at her. "She may be dangerous," he said to Julian. "Then again, all women are dangerous."

"All people are dangerous," said Julian. "Why are you here, Malcolm? Not that I'm not pleased to see you."

Malcolm staggered to his feet, buttoning his shirt. "I brought Arthur's medicine."

Julian's heart thumped so loudly he was sure he could hear it. Emma frowned.

"Has Arthur not been feeling well?" she asked.

Malcolm, who had been reaching into his pocket, froze. Julian saw the realization dawn on his face that he'd said something he shouldn't, and he silently cursed Malcolm and his forgetfulness a thousand times.

"Arthur told me last night he's been under the weather," Julian said. "Just the usual stuff bothering him. It's chronic. Anyway, he was feeling low on energy."

"I would have looked for something at the Shadow Market if I'd known," Emma said, sitting down on

the bottom step of the staircase and stretching out her long legs.

"Cayenne pepper and dragon's blood," said Malcolm, retrieving a vial from his pocket and proffering it to Julian. "Should wake him right up."

"That would wake the dead up," said Emma.

"Necromancy is illegal, Emma Carstairs," scolded Malcolm.

"She was just joking." Julian pocketed the vial, keeping his gaze fixed on Malcolm, silently begging him not to say anything.

"When did you have a chance to tell Malcolm that your uncle wasn't feeling well, Jules? I saw you last night and you didn't say anything," Emma said.

Julian was glad he was facing away from Emma; he was sure he'd gone white.

"Vampire pizza," Malcolm said.

"What?" Emma said.

"Nightshade's opened up an Italian place on Cross Creek Road," Malcolm said. "Best pizza for miles, and they deliver."

"Don't you worry about what's in the sauce?" Emma asked, clearly diverted. "Oh!" Her hand flew to her mouth. "That reminds me, Malcolm. I was wondering if there was something you'd look at."

"Is it a wart?" said Malcolm. "I can cure that, but it'll cost you."

"Why does everyone always think it's a wart?" Emma pulled her phone out and in a few seconds was showing him the photos of the body she'd found at the Sepulchre Bar. "There were these white markings, here and here," she said, pointing. "They look like graffiti, not paint but chalk or something like that. . . ."