Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Emma was already beside the motorcycle, running her hands over it. The metal felt smooth like glass, cool under her fingers, milk white and glowing. She had wanted to ride a motorcycle all her life. Jace and Clary had ridden a flying motorcycle. There were paintings of it. "Does it fly?"

Mark nodded, and she was lost.

"I want to drive it," she said. "I want to drive it myself."

He swept an elaborate bow. It was a graceful, alien gesture, the kind that might have existed in the court of a king, hundreds of years ago. "Then you are welcome to do so."

"Julian would kill me," Emma said reflexively, still stroking the machine. Beautiful as it was, she felt a thrill of trepidation at the thought of riding it--it didn't have an exhaust pipe, a speedometer, any of the normal gear she associated with a cycle.

"You don't strike me as that easy to kill," Mark said, and now he wasn't smiling, and the way he looked at her was direct and challenging.

Without another word Emma swung her leg over the bike. She reached to grip the handlebars, and they seemed to bend inward to fit her hands. She looked at Mark. "Get on behind me," she said, "if you want to ride."

She felt the cycle rock under her as he climbed on behind her; his hands clasped her sides lightly. Emma exhaled, her shoulders tensing. "It's alive," Mark whispered. "It will respond to you, if you will it."

Her hands tightened on the handlebars. Fly.

The cycle shot up into the air and Emma screamed, half in shock and half in delight. Mark's hands tightened on her waist as they hurtled up, the ground receding below them. The wind poured around them. Untrammeled by gravity, the cycle shot forward as Emma urged it on, leaning forward to communicate with her body what she wanted it to do.

They whipped past the Institute, the road that led down toward the highway opening up under them. They raced along above it, desert wind giving way to salt on Emma's tongue as they reached the Pacific Coast Highway, cars darting past below them in blaring lines of pale gold headlights. She cried out in delight, willing the cycle onward: Faster, go faster.

The beach flew by beneath them, pale gold sand turned white by starlight, and then they were out over the ocean. The moon lit a silvery path for them; Emma could hear Mark yelling something in her ear, but for the moment there was nothing but the ocean and the cycle under her, the wind whipping her hair back and making her eyes water.

And then she looked down.

On either side of the moonlit path was the water, navy blue in the darkness. Land was a distant line of brilliant lights, the etched shadow of mountains against the sky. And below was ocean, miles of ocean, and Emma felt the familiar cold of fear, like a block of ice applied suddenly to the back of her neck and spreading through her veins.

Miles of ocean, and oh, the vastness of it, shadows and salt, fierce dark water filled with alien emptiness and the monsters that lived there. Imagine falling into that water and knowing it was below you, even as you treaded water, desperately trying to remain on the surface; the terror of the realization of what was under you--miles and miles of nothingness and monsters, blackness stretching away everywhere and the sea floor so far below--would tear your mind apart.

The cycle jerked under her hands, rebelling. She bit down hard on her lip, summoning blood to the surface, focusing her mind.

The cycle slewed around under her hands and shot back toward the beach. Faster, Emma urged it, suddenly desperate to have dry land under them. She thought she could see shadows moving under the skin of the sea. She thought of old stories of sailors whose boats were lifted out of the water on the backs of whales and sea monsters. Of small craft torn apart by sea demons, their crews fed to the sharks--

She caught her breath, the cycle jumping under her, momentarily losing her grip on the handlebars. They plunged downward. Mark cried out as they shot past the crashing waves and toward the beach. Emma's fingers scrabbled and seized on the handlebars again, her grip tight as the front wheel grazed the sand, and then the bike was rising again, skimming over the beach, lifting to pass over the highway below them.

She heard Mark laugh. It was a wild sound; she could hear the echo of the Hunt in it, the roar of the horn and the pounding of hooves. She breathed in cool, clear air; her hair whipped behind her; there were no rules. She was free.

"You have proved yourself, Emma," he said. "You could ride with Gwyn, if you chose."

"The Wild Hunt doesn't allow women," she pointed out, the words torn from her mouth by the wind.

"The more fool they," he said. "Women are fiercer by far than men." He pointed at the shore, toward the ridges of the mountains that ran along the coast. "Go that way. I will take you to the convergence."

No wonder Jace Herondale had once jumped at the chance to fly a motorcycle, Emma thought. It was a completely different vantage point on the world. She and Mark followed the line of the highway north, flying over mansions with massive swimming pools that hung out over the ocean, castles tucked up into canyons and bluffs, dipping down low enough once to see a party going on in someone's backyard, complete with glowing multicolored lanterns.

Mark guided her from behind with taps on her wrists; the wind had risen too high for her to hear his voice. They passed over a late-night seafood shack, music and light pouring out of the windows. Emma had been there before and remembered sitting on the big wooden picnic tables with Jules, dunking fried oysters in tartar sauce. Dozens of Harley-Davidsons were parked outside the restaurant, though Emma doubted any of them could fly.

She grinned to herself, unable to help it, feeling drunk on the height and the cold air.

Mark tapped her right wrist. A smooth stretch of sand spilled from the beach, reaching halfway up high bluffs. Emma tilted the cycle so that they were nearly vertical, hurtling up the side of a cliff. They cleared the lip of the bluff with a foot of space and shot forward, the wheels scraping the tips of the California thistle that grew among the long grass.

A granite rise loomed in front of them, a dome-like hill atop the bluffs. Emma leaned back, preparing to gun the cycle, but Mark reached around her, his voice in her ear: "Stop! Stop!"

The cycle skidded to a halt just as they passed the tangle of weeds that bordered the bluffs. Inside the border of coastal shrubs was a stretch of grass that reached to the low granite hill. The grass looked trampled in places, as if it had been walked on, and in the distance, to the right of the grassy stretch, Emma could see a faint dirt road winding down the bluffs toward the highway.

Emma swung herself off the cycle. Mark followed, and they stood for a moment, the sea a gleam in the distance, the hill rising dark in front of them.

"You drive too fast," said Mark.

Emma snorted and checked the strap of Cortana where it fastened across her chest. "You sound like Julian."

"It brought me joy," Mark said, moving to stand beside her. "It was as if I flew with the Hunt again, and tasted the blood of the sky."

"Okay, you sound like Julian on drugs," Emma muttered. She glanced around. "Where are we? Is this the ley line convergence?"

"There." Mark pointed at a dark opening in the rock of the hill. As they moved toward it, Emma reached back to touch the hilt of Cortana. Something about the place was giving her shivers--maybe it was simply the power of the convergence, but as they neared the cave, and the hair rose on the back of her neck, she doubted it.

"The grass is flat," she said, indicating the area around the cave with a sweep of her hand. "Trampled. Someone's been walking here. A lot of someones. But there are no fresh tire tracks on the road."

Mark glanced around, head tilted back, like a wolf scenting the air. His feet were still bare, but he seemed to have no problem walking on the rough ground, despite the thistles and sharp rocks visible between the grasses.

There was a sharp, bright trill--Emma's phone ringing. Jules, she thought, and snatched it out of her pocket.

"Emma?" It was Cristina, her low, sweet voice oddly startling--a sharp reminder of reality after the unr

eal flight through the sky. "Where are you? Did you find Mark?"

"I found him," Emma said, glancing over toward Mark. He appeared to be examining the plants growing around the mouth of the cave. "We're at the convergence."

"What? Where is it? Is it dangerous?"

"Not yet," Emma said as Mark ducked into the cave. "Mark!" she called. "Mark, don't--Mark!"

The phone connection dropped. Swearing, Emma stuck the phone back into her pocket and took out her witchlight. It came on, soft and bright, raying out through her fingers. It illuminated the mouth of the cave. She headed toward it, cursing Mark under her breath.

He was just inside the cave, looking down at more of the same plants, clustering around the dry, soft stone. "Atropa belladonna," he said. "It means 'beautiful lady.' It's poisonous."

Emma made a face. "Does it grow around here normally?"

"Not in this quantity." He reached down to touch it. Emma caught his wrist.

"Don't," she said. "You said it was poisonous."

"Only if swallowed," he said. "Hasn't Uncle Arthur taught you anything about the death of Augustus?"

"Nothing I haven't worked hard to forget."

Mark straightened up, and she let go of him. She flexed her fingers. There was wiry strength in his arms.

As he moved forward into the cave, which began to narrow into a tunnel, she couldn't help but remember Mark the last time she had seen him, before he had been taken by Sebastian Morgenstern. Smiling, blue-eyed, short pale hair curling over the tips of his pointed ears. Broad-shouldered--or at least she, at twelve, had thought so. Certainly he had been bigger than Julian, taller and broader than all of them. Grown up.