Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

She had taken off her dress and boots and stashed them in a corner with her weapons. The weather had worsened: Gusts tore around the Institute, rattling the copper gutters, streaking the panes of glass with feathery patterns of silver. In the distance, lightning flashed over the water, illuminating it like a sheet of glass. In her pajamas, Emma sat cross-legged, facing her open closet.

To a stranger the closet might look like a jumble of photos and string and scribbled notes, but to her it was a love letter. A love letter to her parents, whose photograph was at the center of the compilation. A photo of them smiling at each other, her dad caught in the middle of laughing, his blond hair shining in the sun.

"I feel lost," she said. "I started this because I thought there was some connection between these murders and what happened to you. But if there is, I think I'm losing it. Nothing connects to the attack on the Institute. I feel like I'm wandering through fog and I can't see anything clearly."

It felt like there was something stuck in her throat, something hard and painful. Part of her wanted nothing more than to run out into the rain, feel it spill down over her. Walk or run down to the beach, where the sea and the sky would be melding into one, and let her screams be drowned out by thunder.

"There's more," she whispered. "I think I'm messing up. As--as a Shadowhunter. Ever since the night Jules got hurt, when I healed him, ever since then when I look at him, I feel--things I shouldn't. I think about him the way you aren't supposed to think about your parabatai. I'm sure he doesn't feel the same way, but just for a few minutes tonight, when we were dancing, I was . . . happy." She closed her eyes. "Love's supposed to make you happy, isn't it? It's not supposed to hurt?"

There was a knock on her door.

Jules, she thought. She scrambled up just as the door opened.

It was Mark.

He was still in his formal clothes. They were very dark against his blond hair. Anyone else would have seemed awkward, she thought as he moved into the room and glanced at her closet, then at her. Anyone else would have asked if they were barging in or interrupting, considering she was in pajamas. But Mark behaved as if he'd arrived for an appointment.

"The day I was taken," he said. "It was the same day your parents were killed."

She nodded, glancing at the closet. Having it open made her feel strangely exposed.

"I told you I was sorry about what happened to them," he said. "But that isn't enough. I didn't realize that this investigation would become about me. About my family trying to keep me here. That my presence would be stealing from you the meaning of what you were doing."

Emma sat down on the foot of the bed. "Mark . . . It's not like that."

"It is like that," he said. His eyes were luminous in the strange light--her window was open, and the illumination that streamed in was touched by the glow of lightning-infused clouds. "They should not be working on this only to keep me, when I might not stay."

"You wouldn't go back to Faerie. You wouldn't."

"All that was promised was that I would choose," he said. "I have not--I cannot--" His hands balled into fists at his sides, the frustration clear on his face. "I thought you would understand. You are not a Blackthorn."

"I am Julian's parabatai," she said. "And Julian needs you to stay."

"Julian is strong," he said.

"Julian is strong," she agreed. "But you are his brother. And if you go--I don't know if I can pick up those pieces."

His eyes flicked back to her closet. "We survive losses," he whispered.

"We do," Emma said. "But my parents didn't leave me on purpose. I don't know what would have happened to me if they had."

Thunder cracked, snapping through the room. Mark's hand crept to his throat. "When I hear thunder, see lightning, I think I should be riding through it," he said. "My blood calls out for the sky."

"Who gave you that pendant?" she asked. "It's an elf-bolt, isn't it?"

"In the Hunt, I had skill with them," he said. "I could strike at an enemy while riding, and hit the target nine times out of ten. He called me 'elf-shot' because--" Mark broke off, turning to look at Emma where she perched on the bed. "We are alike, you and I," he said. "The storm calls you as it calls me, doesn't it? I saw in your eyes earlier--you wanted to be out in it. To run on the beach, perhaps, as the lightning comes down."

Emma took a shaking breath. "Mark, I don't--"

"What's going on?" It was Julian. He had changed out of his suit and was standing in the doorway. The look on his face as he glanced from Mark to Emma--Emma couldn't describe it. She'd never seen Jules look like that before.

"If you two are busy," he said, and his voice was like the edge of a knife, "with each other, I can come back some other time."

Mark looked puzzled. Emma stared. "Mark and I were talking," Emma said. "That's it."

"We are done now." Mark rose to his feet, one of his hands resting on the elf-bolt.

Julian looked at them both levelly. "Tomorrow afternoon, Diana's taking Cristina to Malcolm's," he said. "Something about Cristina needing to interview the High Warlock about how we do things here as opposed to Mexico City. Probably Diana just wants to check up on how Malcolm's translation is coming and she needs an excuse."

"Okay, then we can head to Rook's," said Emma. "Or I could go on my own if you want--he's used to me. Not that our last interaction was so friendly." She frowned.

"No, I'll come with you," Julian said. "Rook needs to understand it's serious."

"And I?" said Mark. "Am I to be a part of this expedition?"

"No," Julian said. "Johnny Rook can't know you're back. The Clave doesn't know, and Rook is someone who doesn't keep secrets, he sells them."

Mark looked up at his brother through his hair, his strange, odd-colored eyes gleaming. "Then I suppose I will sleep in," he said. He gave one last glance at Emma's closet--there was something in his expression, something disquieted--and left, closing the door behind him.

"Jules," Emma said, "what's wrong with you? What was that about, 'if you two are busy with each other'? Do you think Mark and I were making out on the floor before you came in?"

"It wouldn't have been my business if you had been," Julian said. "I was giving you privacy."

"You were being a jerk." Emma slid off the bed and went over to her dresser to take off her earrings, looking at Julian in the mirror as she did so. "And I know why."

She saw his expression change and tighten, surprise giving way to unreadability. "Why?"

"Because you're worried," she said. "You don't like breaking the rules and you don't think going to Rook's is a good idea."

/> He moved restlessly into the room and sat down on her bed. "Is that how you think of me?" he said. "Emma, if we need to go to Rook's, then I'm part of the plan. I'm in it, a hundred percent."

She looked at herself in the mirror. Long hair didn't hide the Marks on her shoulders; her arms had muscles; her wrists were strong and sturdy. She was a map of scars: the old white scars from used-up runes, wending trails of cuts, and the splotches of burns from acidic demon blood.

She felt suddenly old, not just seventeen instead of twelve, but old. Old in her heart, and too late. Surely if she were going to find her parents' murderer she would have done so by now.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He leaned back against her headboard. He was wearing an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms. "What for?"

For the way I feel. She shoved the words back. If she was having strange feelings about Jules, it wasn't fair to tell him about them. She was the one in the wrong.

And he was hurting. She could see it in the set of his mouth, the darkness behind his light eyes.

"Doubting you," she said.

"Back at you." He flopped back onto her pillows. His shirt, untucked, rode up, giving Emma a clear view of his stomach, the corrugation of muscles, the smatter of golden freckles over his hip. . . .

"I don't think I'm ever going to find out what happened to my parents," she said.

At that he sat up, which was a relief. "Emma," he said, and then paused. He didn't say Why would you say that? Or What do you mean? Or any of the other things people said to fill up space. Instead, he said, "You will. You're the most determined person that I've ever known."

"I feel farther away now than I've ever felt. Even though we actually have a connection, even though we're following up on it. I don't see how their deaths could be connected to the Midnight Theater or the Lottery. I don't see--"

"You're afraid," Jules said.

Emma leaned against the dresser. "Afraid of what?"

"Afraid we'll find out something about them you don't want to know," he said. "In your mind, your parents are perfect. Now that we're actually closing in on answers, you're worried you'll find out they were--"

"Not perfect?" Emma fought to keep the edge of tension out of her voice. "Bad people?"

"Human," he said. "We all find out the people who are supposed to take care of us are human eventually. That they make mistakes." He pushed his hair back out of his eyes. "I live in dread of the day the kids all figure that out about me."