Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Mark crossed the sand to the shower and flipped the spigot.

"Wait," Julian began. "You'll get--"

Water poured down, soaking Mark instantly. He lifted his face up to it as calmly as if he were bathing in tropical rainfall and not unheated shower water on a chilly night.

"--Wet." Julian raked his fingers through his tangled hair. Chocolate-colored hair, Emma had thought when she was younger. People thought brown hair was boring, but it wasn't: Julian's had bits of gold in it and hints of russet and coffee.

Emma went to the sink and ran water over the cut on her arm, then splashed it up over her face and neck, rinsing off the ichor. Demon blood was toxic: It could burn your skin, and it was a bad idea to get it into your mouth and eyes.

Mark flipped the shower off and stepped away, water streaming off him. She wondered if he was uncomfortable--his jeans stuck to him, as did his shirt. His hair was plastered to his neck.

His eyes met hers. Cold burning blue and colder gold. In them Emma saw the wildness of the Hunt: the emptiness and freedom of the skies. It made her shiver.

She saw Julian look at her sharply. He said something to Mark, who nodded and vanished around the side of the building.

Emma reached to turn the sink water off, wincing: There was a burn on her palm. She reached for her stele.

"Don't," said Jules's voice, and there was a warm presence behind her suddenly. She gripped the edge of the sink and closed her eyes, feeling momentarily dizzy. The heat of Jules's body was palpable up and down her back. "Let me."

Healing runes--any runes--given to you by your parabatai worked better, amplified by the magic of the bonding spell. Emma turned around, her back against the sink. Julian was so close to her that she had to turn carefully so as not to bump into him. He smelled of fire and cloves and paint. Goose bumps exploded across her skin as he took her arm, cupping her wrist, drawing his stele with his free hand.

She could feel the path each of his fingers traced on the sensitive skin of her forearm. His skin was hard with calluses, roughened with turpentine.

"Jules," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Going to the convergence without you," she said. "I wasn't trying to--"

"Why did you?" he asked, and the stele began its journey over her skin, forming the lines of the healing rune. "Why go off with just Mark?"

"The motorcycle," Emma said. "It could only take two. The motorcycle," she said again, at Julian's blank look, and then remembered the Mantid demon crushing it in its jagged, razored arms.

"Right," she said. "Mark's steed? The one the faerie convoy was talking about in the Sanctuary? It was a motorcycle. One of the Mantids crushed it, so I guess it's an ex-motorcycle."

The iratze was finished. Emma drew her hand back, watching as the cut began to heal itself, closing up like a seam.

"You're not even wearing gear," Julian said. He sounded quiet, intent, but his fingers were trembling as he put his stele away. "You're still human, Emma."

"I was fine--"

"You can't do this to me." The words sounded as if they had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean.

She froze. "Do what?"

"I'm your parabatai," he said as if the words were final, and in a way, they were. "You were facing down what, two dozen Mantid demons before we got there? If Cristina hadn't called you--"

"I would have fought them off," Emma said heatedly. "I'm glad you showed up, thank you, but I would have gotten us out of there--"

"Maybe!" His voice rose. "Maybe you would have, maybe you could have done it, but what if you didn't? What if you died? It would kill me, Emma, it would kill me. You know what happens . . ."

He didn't finish the sentence. You know what happens to someone when their parabatai dies.

They stood, staring at each other, breathing hard. "When you were away, I felt it here," Emma said finally, touching her upper arm, where the parabatai rune was etched. "Did you feel it?" She splayed her hand over the front of his T-shirt, warm from his body. Julian's rune was at the outside edge of his collarbone, about five inches above his heart.

"Yeah," he said, eyelashes lowering as his gaze traced the movement of her fingers. "It hurt me being away from you. It feels like there's a hook dug in under my ribs, and there's something pulling at the other end. Like I'm tethered to you, no matter the distance." Emma inhaled sharply. She was remembering Julian, fourteen years old, in the overlapping circles of fire in the Silent City, where the parabatai ritual was performed. The look on his face as they each stepped into the central circle and the fire rose up around them, and he unbuttoned his shirt to let her touch the stele to his skin and carve the rune that would bind them together for their whole lives. She knew if she just moved her hand now, she could touch the rune cut into his chest, the rune she had put there. . . .

She reached out and touched his collarbone. She could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt. He half-closed his eyes, as if her touch hurt. Please don't be angry, Jules, she thought. Please.

"I'm not a Blackthorn," she said, her voice ragged.

"What?"

"I'm not a Blackthorn," she said again. The words hurt to say: They came from a deep place of truth, one she hesitated to look at too closely. "I don't belong in the Institute. I'm there because of you, because I'm your parabatai, so they had to let me stay. The rest of you don't have to prove you're giving back. I do. Everything I do is a--is a test."

Julian's face had changed; he was looking down at her in the moonlight, the cupid's bow of his lips parted. His hands came up and gently looped her upper arms. Sometimes, she thought, it was as if she were a kite, and Julian the flier: She soared above the ground, and he kept her tethered to the earth. Without him she would be lost among the clouds.

She lifted her head. She could feel his breath on her face. There was

something in his eyes, something breaking open, not like a crack in a wall but like a door swinging wide, and she could see the light.

"I'm not testing you, Emma," he said. "You've proved everything to me already."

There was a wild feeling in Emma's blood, the desire to seize Julian, to do something, something, crush his hands in hers, put her arms around him, cause them both pain, make them both taste the same seeking desperation. She couldn't understand it, and it terrified her.

She moved aside, gently breaking Julian's hold on her. "We should get back to Mark and Cristina," she murmured. "It's been a while."

She turned away from him, but not before she saw the expression on his face shut, a slamming door. She felt it like a hollow in her stomach, the intractable certainly that no matter how many demons she had killed that night, her nerve had failed her when she needed it most.

When they got back to the front of the restaurant, they found Mark and Cristina seated on top of a picnic table, surrounded by cardboard boxes of french fries, buttered rolls, fried clams, and fish tacos. Cristina was holding a bottle of lime soda and smiling at something Mark had said.

The wind off the ocean had dried Mark's hair. It blew around his face, highlighting how much he looked like a faerie and how little he seemed like Nephilim.

"Mark was telling me about the fight at the convergence point," said Cristina as Emma clambered onto the table and reached for a fry. Julian climbed up after her and snagged a soda.

Emma launched into her own version of events, from their discovery of the cave and the wallet to the appearance of the Mantid demons. "They crushed Mark's motorcycle so we couldn't get away," she said.

Mark looked glum.

"Thy steed is no more, methinks," Emma said to him. "Will they get you another one?"

"Unlikely," said Mark. "The Fair Folk are not generous."

Julian looked at Emma with his eyebrows raised. "Methinks?" he echoed.

"I can't help it." She shrugged. "It's catching."

Cristina held out a hand. "Let's see what you found," she said. "Since you sacrificed so much to get it."

Emma pulled the square leather object from her pocket and let them all pass it around. Next she retrieved her phone and held it out while she flipped through the photos of the inside of the cave with the odd languages scrawled on the walls.