Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

"It's just not working out," emma said. "This relationship, I mean."

Disconsolate noises came from the ot

her end of the phone. Emma was barely able to decipher them--the reception wasn't particularly good on the roof of the Sepulchre Bar. She paced along the edge of the roofline, peering down into the central courtyard. Jacaranda trees were strung with electric lights, and sleek ultramodern tables and chairs were scattered around the garden space. Equally sleek and ultramodern young men and women thronged the place, glasses of wine glimmering in their hands like clear bubbles of red and white and pink. Someone had rented out the place for a private party: A sequined birthday banner hung between two trees, and waiters made their way through the crowd carrying pewter chargers of snacks.

There was something about the glamorous scene that made Emma want to break it up by kicking down some of the roof tiles or doing a front flip into the crowd. The Clave would lock you up for a good long time for that kind of behavior, though. Mundanes weren't supposed to ever glimpse Shadowhunters. Even if Emma did jump down into the courtyard, none of the partygoers would see her. She was covered in glamour runes, applied by Cristina, that rendered her invisible to anyone without the Sight.

Emma sighed and put the phone back to her ear. "All right, our relationship " she said. "Our relationship isn't working out."

"Emma," Cristina hissed loudly behind her. Emma turned, her boots balanced at the edge of the roof. Cristina was sitting on the shingled slope behind her, polishing a throwing knife with a pale blue cloth. The cloth matched the bands that held her dark hair back from her face. Everything about Cristina was neat and put together--she managed to look as professional in her black fighting gear as most people would look in a power suit. Her golden good-luck medallion glimmered at the hollow of her throat and her family ring, twined with a pattern of roses for Rosales, shone on her hand as she placed the knife, wrapped in its cloth, beside her. "Emma, remember. Use your I statements."

Cameron was still wittering away on the other end of the phone, something about getting together to talk, which Emma knew would be pointless. She focused on the scene below her--was that a shadow slipping through the crowd below, or was she imagining it? Maybe it was wishful thinking. Johnny Rook was usually reliable, and he'd seemed very sure about tonight, but Emma hated getting all geared up and full of anticipation only to discover there was going to be no fight to work off her energy.

"This is about me, not you," she said into the phone. Cristina gave her an encouraging thumbs-up. "I am sick of you." She smiled brightly as Cristina dropped her face into her hands. "So maybe we could go back to being friends?"

There was a click as Cameron hung up. Emma tucked the phone into her belt and scanned the crowd again. Nothing. Annoyed, she scrambled up the slope of the roof to flop down beside Cristina. "Well, that could have gone better," she said.

"Do you think so?" Cristina took her hands away from her face. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Emma sighed and reached for her stele, the delicate adamas writing instrument Shadowhunters used to ink protection runes onto their skin. It had a carved handle made of demon bone and had been a gift from Jace Herondale, Emma's first crush. Most Shadowhunters went through steles like mundanes went through pencils, but this one was special to Emma and she kept it as carefully intact as she kept her sword. "It always happens. Everything was fine, and then I woke up one morning and just the sound of his voice made me feel sick to my stomach." She looked at Cristina guiltily. "I tried," she added. "I waited weeks! I kept hoping it would get better. But it didn't."

Cristina patted her arm. "I know, cuata," she said. "You just aren't very good at having . . ."

"Tact?" Emma suggested. Cristina's English was nearly accentless, and Emma often forgot it wasn't her first language. On the other hand Cristina spoke seven languages on top of her native Spanish. Emma spoke English and some scraps of Spanish, Greek, and Latin, could read three demon languages, and swear in five.

"I was going to say relationships," Cristina said. Her dark brown eyes twinkled. "I've only been here for two months and you've forgotten three dates with Cameron, skipped his birthday, and now you've dumped him because it was a slow patrol night."

"He always wanted to play video games," said Emma. "I hate video games."

"No one is perfect, Emma."

"But some people are perfect for each other. Don't you think that has to be true?"

A strange look flashed over Cristina's face, gone so quickly Emma was sure she'd imagined it. Sometimes Emma was reminded that however much she felt close to Cristina, she didn't know her--didn't know her the way she did Jules, the way you knew someone whose every moment you had shared since you were children. What had happened to Cristina in Mexico--whatever had sent her running to Los Angeles and away from her family and friends--was something she'd never spoken of to Emma.

"Well," said Cristina, "at least you were wise enough to bring me along for moral support to help you through this difficult time."

Emma poked Cristina with her stele. "I wasn't planning on dumping Cameron. We were here, and he called, and his face came up on my phone--well, actually a llama came up on my phone because I didn't have a picture of him so I just used a llama--and the llama made me so angry I just couldn't help myself."

"Bad time to be a llama."

"Is it ever a good time, really?" Emma flipped the stele around and started to ink a Sure-Footedness rune onto her arm. She prided herself on having excellent balance without runes, but up on a roof it was probably a good idea to be safe.

She thought of Julian, far away in England, with a sting at her heart. He would have been pleased she was being careful. He would have said something funny and loving and self-deprecating about it. She missed him horribly, but she supposed that was how it was when you were parabatai, bound together by magic as well as friendship.

She missed all the Blackthorns. She had grown up playing among Julian and his sisters and brothers, lived with them since she was twelve--when she had lost her parents, and Julian, whose mother had already died, had lost his father. From being an only child she had been thrust into a big, loud, noisy, loving family. Not every part of it had been easy, but she adored them, from shy Drusilla to Tiberius, who loved detective stories. They had left at the beginning of the summer to visit their great-aunt in Sussex--the Blackthorn family was originally British. Marjorie, Julian had explained, was nearly a hundred years old and might die at any moment; they had to visit her. It was a moral requirement.

Off they'd gone for two months, all of them except their uncle, the head of the Institute. The shock to Emma's system had been severe. The Institute had gone from noisy to quiet. Worst of all, when Julian was gone, she felt it, like a constant unease, a low-level pain in her chest.

Dating Cameron had not helped, but Cristina's arrival had helped immeasurably. It was common for Shadowhunters who reached the age of eighteen to visit foreign Institutes and learn their different customs. Cristina had come to Los Angeles from Mexico City--there was nothing unusual about it, but she'd always had the air of someone running from something. Emma, meanwhile, had been running from loneliness. She and Emma had run directly into each other, and become best friends faster than Emma could have believed possible.

"Diana will be pleased about you dumping Cameron, at least," said Cristina. "I don't think she liked him."

Diana Wrayburn was the Blackthorn family's tutor. She was extremely smart, extremely stern, and extremely tired of Emma falling asleep in the middle of class because she'd been out the night before.

"Diana just thinks all relationships are a distraction from studying," Emma said. "Why date when you can learn an extra demonic language? I mean, who wouldn't want to know how to say 'Come here often?' in Purgatic?"

Cristina laughed. "You sound like Jaime. He hated studying." Emma perked her ears: Cristina rarely spoke of the friends or family in Mexico City she'd left behind. She knew Cristina's uncle had run the Mexico City Institute until he'd been killed in the Dark War and her mother had taken it over. She knew Cristina's father had died when she was a child. But not m

uch else. "But not Diego. He loved it. He did extra work for fun."

"Diego? The perfect guy? The one your mom loves?" Emma began to trace the stele over her skin, the Farsighted rune taking shape on her forearm. The sleeves of her gear were elbow length, the skin below it marked all over with the pale white scars of runes long ago used up.

Cristina reached over and took the stele from Emma. "Here. Let me do that." She continued the Farsighted rune. Cristina had a gorgeous hand with runes, careful and precise. "I don't want to talk about Perfect Diego," Cristina said. "My mother talks about him enough. Can I ask you about something else?"

Emma nodded. The pressure of the stele against her skin was familiar, almost pleasant.

"I know you wanted to come here because Johnny Rook told you that there have been bodies found with writing on them, and he thinks one will turn up here tonight."

"Correct."

"And you are hoping the writing will be the same as it was on your parents' bodies."

Emma tensed. She couldn't help it. Any mention of her parents' murders hurt as if it had happened yesterday. Even when the person asking her about it was as gentle as Cristina. "Yes."

"The Clave says Sebastian Morgenstern murdered your parents," said Cristina. "That is what Diana told me. That's what they believe. But you don't believe it."

The Clave. Emma looked out into the Los Angeles night, at the brilliant explosion of electricity that was the skyline, at the rows and rows of billboards that lined Sunset Boulevard. It had been a harmless word, "Clave," when she had first learned it. The Clave was simply the government of the Nephilim, made up of all active Shadowhunters over the age of eighteen.

In theory every Shadowhunter had a vote and an equal voice. In point of fact, some Shadowhunters were more influential than others: Like any political party, the Clave had its corruption and prejudices. For Nephilim this meant a strict code of honor and rules that every Shadowhunter had to adhere to or face dire consequences.

The Clave had a motto: The Law is hard, but it is the Law. Every Shadowhunter knew what it meant. The rules of the Law of the Clave had to be obeyed, no matter how hard or painful. The Law overrode everything else--personal need, grief, loss, unfairness, treachery. When the Clave had told Emma that she was to accept the fact that her parents had been murdered as part of the Dark War, she had been required to do so.