Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

"The Wild Hunt was freedom," Mark said. "And freedom is necessary."

In Mark's eyes Emma could see a wilderness of stars and treetops, the fierce shine of glaciers, all the glittering detritus of the roof of the world.

It made her think of riding that motorcycle over the ocean. Of the freedom to be wild and untrammeled. Of the ache she felt in her soul sometimes to be connected to nothing, answerable to nothing, bound by nothing.

"Mark--" she began.

Mark's expression changed; he was looking past her suddenly, his hand tightening on hers. Emma glanced where he was looking but saw only the cloakroom. A bored-looking coat-check girl perched on the counter, smoking a cigarette out of a silver holder.

"Mark?" Emma turned back to him, but he was already moving away from her, vaulting over the counter of the coat-check station--much to the bored girl's amusement--and vanishing. Emma was about to follow him when Cristina and Julian swung into her line of sight, blocking her.

"Mark ran off," Emma announced.

"Yeah, he's not exactly a team player yet," said Julian. He was ruffled from dancing, his cheeks flushed. Cristina didn't have a hair out of place. "Look, I'll go after him, and you two dance--"

"If I might cut in?" A tall young man appeared in front of them. He looked like he was probably about twenty-five, nattily dressed in a herringbone suit and matching fedora. His hair was bleached blond and he wore expensive-looking shoes with red soles that flashed fire as he walked. A gaudy pink cocktail ring glittered on his middle finger. His gaze was fixed on Cristina. "Would you like to dance?"

"If you don't mind," Julian said, his voice easy, polite, reaching to put a hand on Cristina's arm. "My girlfriend and I, we're . . ."

The man's friendly expression changed--infinitesimally, but Emma could see it, a tautness behind his eyes that made Julian's words trail off. "And if you don't mind," he said, "I think you may have failed to notice I'm a Blue." He tapped his pocket, where an invitation that matched the one they'd found in Ava's purse was folded--matched it, except for being a pale shade of blue. He rolled his eyes at their puzzled expressions. "Newbies," he muttered, and there was an undercurrent of something unpleasant--almost scornful--in his dark eyes.

"Of course." Cristina shot a quick look at Julian and Emma, and then turned back to the stranger with a smile. "We're so sorry to have misunderstood."

Julian's face was grim as Cristina headed onto the dance floor with the man who'd called himself a Blue. Emma sympathized. She comforted herself with the knowledge that if he tried anything on the dance floor, Cristina would fillet him with her butterfly knife.

"We'd better dance too," said Julian. "Looks like it's the only way not to be noticed."

We've already been noticed, Emma thought. It was true: Though no fuss had been made over their arrival, plenty of people in the crowd were casting them sideways glances. There were quite a few of the Followers who looked entirely human--and indeed, Emma wasn't totally clear on their policy regarding mundanes--but as newcomers, she imagined they were still objects of attention. Certainly the behavior of the clarinetist had indicated as much.

She took Julian's hand and they moved into the outside of the crowd, toward the end of the room, where the shadows were deeper. "Half faeries, ifrits, weres," Emma murmured, taking Julian's other hand so that they faced each other. He looked more ruffled than he had before, his cheeks flushed. She couldn't blame him for being unsettled. In most crowds, their runes, if discovered, would mean nothing. She had the feeling this crowd was different. "Why are they all here?"

"It isn't easy, having the Sight, if you don't know others who do," Julian said in a low voice. "You see things nobody else sees. You can't talk about it because no one will understand. You have to keep secrets, and secrets--they break you apart. Cut you open. Make you vulnerable."

The low timbre of his voice shuddered down through Emma's bones. There was something in it that frightened her. Something that reminded her of the glaciers in Mark's eyes, distant and lonely.

"Jules," she said.

Muttering something like "never mind," he spun her away, then pulled her back toward him. Years of practicing fighting together made them an almost perfect dancing team, she realized with surprise. They could predict each other's movements, glide with each other's bodies. She could tell which way Julian would step by the cadence of his breath and the faint tightening of his fingers around hers.

Julian's dark curls were wildly tousled, and when he drew her near him, she could smell the clove spice of his cologne, the faint scent of paint underneath.

The song ended. Emma looked up and over at the band; the clarinetist was watching her and Julian. Unexpectedly, he winked. The band struck up again, this time a slower, softer number. Couples moved together as if magnetized, arms wrapping around necks, hands resting on hips, heads leaning together.

Julian had frozen. Emma, her hands still in his, stood stock-still, not moving, not breathing.

The moment stretched out, interminable. Julian's eyes searched hers; whatever he saw there seemed to decide him. His arms came up around her and he pulled her close. Her chin hit his shoulder, awkwardly. It was the first awkward thing they'd done together.

She felt him inhale, a hitching breath against her. His hands splayed, warm, under her shoulder blades. She turned her head. She could hear his heartbeat, swift and furious, under her ear, feel the hardness of his chest.

She reached up to loop her arms around his neck. There was enough of a height difference between them that when she locked her fingers, they tangled in the hair at his nape.

A shiver went through her. She'd touched Julian's hair before, of course, but it was so soft there, there at the vulnerable space just under the fall of loose curls. And the skin was soft too. She stroked downward with her fingers, reflexively, and felt at the same time the top bump of his spine and his swiftly inhaled breath.

She looked up at him. His face was white, eyes cast down, dark lashes feathered against his cheekbones. He was biting his bottom lip, the way he always did when he was nervous. She could see the dents his teeth made in the soft skin.

If she kissed him, would he taste like blood or cloves or a mixture of the two? Sweet and spicy? Bitter and hot?

She made herself shove the thought down. He was her parabatai. He wasn't for kissing. He was--

His left hand moved down over her back to her waist, sliding around to lightly cup her hip. Her body jolted. She'd heard of people having butterflies in their stomachs, and she knew what they meant: that flapping, uneasy feeling deep in your gut. But she had it now everywhere. Butterflies under all of her skin, fluttering, sending shivers that moved in waves up and down her body. She began to trace her finger over his wrist, meaning to write on him: J-U-L-I-A-N, W-H-A-T A-R-E Y-O-U D-O-I-N-G?

But he didn't seem to notice. For the first time, he wasn't hearing their secret language. She stopped, stared up at him; his eyes when they met hers were unfocused, dreamy. His right hand was in her hair, winding it through his fingers. She felt the sensations as if each individual hair were a live wire connected to one of her nerve endings.

"When you came down the stairs tonight," he said, his voice thick and low, "I was thinking about painting you. Painting your hair. That I'd have to use titanium white to get the color right, the way it catches light and almost glows. But that wouldn't work, would it? It's not all one color, your hair, it's not just gold: It's amber and tawny and caramel and wheat and honey."

Normal Emma would have made a joke. You make it sound like a breakfast cereal. Normal Emma and Normal Julian would have laughed. But this wasn't Normal Julian; this was a Julian she'd never seen, a Julian with his expression stripped down to the elegant bones of his face. She felt a wave of desperate wanting, lost in the way his eyes looked, in the curves of his cheekbones and jaw, the unexpected softness of his mouth.

"But you never paint me," she whispered.

He didn't answer. He looked agonized. His pulse was

pounding triple time. She could see it in his throat. His arms were locked in place; she sensed he needed to hold her where she was, not let her come an inch closer. The space between them was heated, electric. His fingers curled around her hip. His other hand slid down her back, slowly, gliding along her hair until he reached bare skin where the back of the dress dipped down.

He closed his eyes.

They had stopped dancing. They were standing still, Emma barely breathing, Julian's hands moving over her. Julian had touched her a thousand times: while they trained, while they fought or tended each other's wounds.

He had never touched her like this.

He seemed like someone under a spell. Someone who knew he was under a spell, and was fighting against the pull of it with every nerve and fiber, the percussion of a terrible internal struggle pounding through his veins. She could feel his pulse through his hands, against the bare skin of her back.

She moved toward him, just a little, barely an inch. He gasped. His chest expanded against hers, brushing the swell of her breasts through the thin material of her dress. The sensation whipped through her like electricity. She couldn't think.

"Emma," he said in a choked voice. His hands contracted, sharply, as if he'd been stabbed. He was pulling her. Toward him. Her body slammed up against his. The crowd was a blur of light and color around them. His head lowered toward hers. They breathed the same breath.

There was a clash of cymbals: shattering, deafening. They broke apart as the doors of the theater were thrown open, the room flooding with bright light. The music stopped.

A loudspeaker crackled to life. "Will the audience please enter the theater," said a sultry female voice. "The performance of the Lottery is about to begin."