Lady Midnight (17 page)

Dust was rising up around the car in plumes. Julian whirled toward Emma. She was white around the mouth. “Jules.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he said.

She stared. “What?”

“You being my
parabatai
is the best thing in my life,” Julian said. The words were steady and simple, spoken without a trace of anything held back. He’d been holding back so tightly that the relief of it was almost unbearable.

Impulsively she undid her safety belt, rising up in her seat to look down on him solemnly. The sun was high overhead. Up close he could see the gold lines inside the brown of her eyes, the faint spatter of light freckles across her nose, the bits of lighter, sun-bleached hair mixed with the darker hair at her nape. Raw umber and Naples yellow, mixed with white. He could smell rose water on her, and laundry detergent.

She leaned into him, and his body chased the feeling of closeness, of having her back and near. Her knees bumped against his. “But you said—”

“I know what I said.” He turned toward her, slewing his body around in the driver’s seat. “While I was away, I realized some things. Hard things. Maybe I even realized them before I left.”

“You can tell me what they are.” She touched his cheek lightly. He felt his whole body lock into tension
.
“I remember what you said about Mark last night,” she went on. “You were never the oldest brother. He always was. If he hadn’t been taken, if Helen had been able to stay, you would have made different choices because you would have had someone to take care of you.”

He breathed out. “Emma.” Raw pain. “Emma, I said what I said
because—because sometimes I think I asked you to be my
parabatai
because I wanted you to be tied to me. The Consul wanted you to go to the Academy and I couldn’t stand the thought. I’d lost so many people. I didn’t want to lose you, too.”

She was so close to him he could feel the heat from her sun-warmed skin. For a moment she said nothing, and he felt as if he were on the gallows, having the hangman’s noose fastened around his throat. Waiting only for the drop.

Then she put her hand over his on the console between them.

Their hands. Hers were delicate-looking, but more scarred than his own, more calloused, her skin rough against his. His sea-glass bracelet glowed like jewels in the sunlight.

“People do complicated things because people are complicated,” she said. “All that stuff about how you’re supposed to make the
parabatai
decision only for totally pure reasons, that’s a crock.”

“I wanted to tie you to me,” he said. “Because I was tied here. Maybe you should have gone to the Academy. Maybe it would have been the right place for you. Maybe I took something away from you.”

Emma looked at him. Her face was open and completely trusting. He almost thought he could feel his convictions shatter, the convictions he’d built up before he’d left at the beginning of the summer, the convictions he’d carried with him all the way back home until the moment he’d seen her again. He could feel them breaking inside him, like driftwood shattered against rocks.

“Jules,” she said. “You gave me a family. You gave me
everything.
”

A phone shrilled again. Emma’s. Julian sat back, heart pounding, as she thumbed it out of her pocket. He watched as her face set.

“Livvy’s texting,” she said. “She says Mark woke up. And he’s screaming.”

*   *   *

Julian floored the car on the way home, Emma keeping her hands clasped around her knees as the speedometer crept up past eighty.
They careened into the parking lot behind the Institute and slammed on the brakes. Julian threw himself out of the car and Emma raced after him.

They reached the second floor to find the younger Blackthorns seated on the floor outside Mark’s door. Dru was curled up with Tavvy against Livvy’s side; Ty sat alone, his long hands dangling between his knees. They were all staring; the door was cracked partway open and through it Emma could hear Mark’s voice, raised and angry, and then another voice, lower and more soothing—Cristina.

“Sorry I texted,” said Livvy in a small voice. “It’s just that he was screaming and screaming. He finally stopped, but— Cristina’s in there with him. If any of the rest of us go in, he howls and yells.”

“Oh my God.” Emma moved toward the door, but Julian caught her, swinging her around to face him. She looked over and saw that Ty had begun to rock back and forth, his eyes closed. It was something he did when things were too much: too loud, too harsh or hard or fast or painful.

The world was extra intense for Ty, Julian had always said. It was as if his ears could hear more clearly, his eyes see more, and sometimes it was too much for him. He needed to cover noise, to feel something in his hand to distract him. He needed to rock back and forth to soothe himself. Everyone processed stress in a different way, Julian said. This was Ty’s, and it hurt nobody.

“Em,” Julian said. His face was taut. “I need to go in alone.”

She nodded. He let go of her almost reluctantly. “Guys,” he said, looking at his siblings—at Dru’s round, worried face, Tavvy’s uncomprehending one, Livvy’s unhappy eyes, and Ty’s hunched shoulders. “It’s going to be hard for Mark. We can’t expect him to be okay all at once. He’s been away a long time. He has to get used to being here.”

“But we’re his family,” said Livvy. “Why would you have to get used to your own family?”

“You might,” Julian said, in that patient soft voice that amazed Emma sometimes, “if you’d been away from them a long time and you’d been somewhere where your mind plays tricks on you.”

“Like Faerie,” said Ty. He had stopped rocking and was leaning back against the wall, dark hair damp and in his face.

“Right,” Julian said. “So we’re going to have to give him time. Maybe leave him alone a little.” He looked over at Emma.

She pasted a smile onto her face—God, she was so much worse at this than Jules—and said, “Malcolm’s working on the investigation. The murders. I thought we could head to the library and look into ley lines.”

“Me too?” Drusilla piped up.

Emma said, “You can help us plot a map. Okay?”

Dru nodded. “Okay.” She rose to her feet and the others followed. As Emma led them away down the hall, a quietly subdued group, she looked back only once. Julian was standing by the door to Mark’s room, watching them go. His eyes met hers for a split second before he looked away, as if he hadn’t seen her glance at all.

*   *   *

If only Emma was with him, Julian thought as he pushed open the door, this would be easier. It would have to be easier. When Emma was with him it was like he was breathing twice as much oxygen, had twice as much blood, had two hearts to drive the motion of his body. He put it down to the doubling magic of
parabatai
: She made him twice what he would be otherwise.

But he’d had to send her away with the kids; he didn’t trust anyone else with them, and definitely not Arthur. Arthur, he thought bitterly, who was hiding in his attic while one of his nephews desperately tried to hold his family together and another one—

“Mark?” Julian said.

The bedroom was dim, the curtains closed. He could just see that Cristina was sitting on the floor, her back to the wall. She had one hand pressed to the pendant at her throat, and the other at her hip, where something gleamed between her fingers.

Mark was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, his hair hanging in his face. You could see how painfully thin he was; there was sinewy muscle on him, but it was the kind you got from starving sometimes and driving yourself anyway. His head jerked up when Julian said his name.

Their eyes met and for a brief moment Julian saw a flicker of recognition in his brother’s eyes.

“Mark,” he said again, and moved forward, his hand out. “It’s me. It’s Jules.”

“Don’t—” Cristina started up, but it was too late. Mark had bared his teeth in an angry hiss.

“Lies,” he snarled. “Hallucinations—I know you—Gwyn sent you to trick me—”

“I’m your brother,” Julian said again. The look on Mark’s face was wild.

“You know the wishes of my heart,” said Mark. “And you turn them against me, like knives.”

Julian looked across the room at Cristina. She was rising to her feet slowly, as if preparing to throw herself between the two brothers if needed.

Mark whirled on Jules. His eyes were blind, unseeing. “You bring the twins in front of me and you kill them over and over. My Ty, he doesn’t understand why I can’t save him. You bring me Dru and when she laughs and asks to see the fairy-tale castle, all ringed round with hedges, you throw her against the thorns until they pierce her small body. And you bid me wash in Octavian’s blood, for the blood of an innocent child is magic under the hill.”

Julian came no closer. He was remembering what Jace Heron
dale and Clary Fairchild had told him and his sister, their meeting with Mark years ago under the faerie hills, his broken eyes and the whip marks on his body.

Mark was strong, he had told himself in the dead darkness of the thousand nights afterward. He could endure it. Julian had thought about only torture of the body. He had not thought about torture of the mind.

“And Julian,” Mark said. “He is too strong to break. You try to break him on the wheel, and tear him with thorns and blades, but even then he won’t give up. So you bring to him Emma, for the wishes of our hearts are knives to you.”

That was too much for Julian. He lurched forward, grabbing hold of one of the posts of the bed to steady himself.

“Mark,” he said. “Mark Antony Blackthorn. Please. It’s not a dream. You’re really here. You’re home.”

He reached for Mark’s hand. Mark whipped it back, away from him. “You are lying smoke.”

“I’m your brother.”

“I have no brothers and sisters, no family. I am alone. I ride with the Wild Hunt. I am loyal to Gwyn the Hunter.” Mark recited the words as if by rote.

“I’m not Gwyn,” said Julian. “I’m a Blackthorn. I have Blackthorn blood in me, just like you.”

“You are a phantom and a shadow. You are the cruelty of hope.” Mark turned his face away. “Why do you punish me? I have done nothing to displease the Hunt.”

“There’s no punishment here.” Julian took a step closer to Mark. Mark didn’t move, but his body trembled. “This is home. I can prove it to you.”

He glanced back over his shoulder. Cristina was standing very still against the wall, and he could see that the gleam in her hand was a knife. Clearly she was waiting to see if Mark would attack
him. Julian wondered why she had been willing to stay in the room with Mark alone; hadn’t she been afraid?

“There is no proof,” Mark whispered. “Not when you can weave any illusion before my eyes.”

“I’m your brother,” Julian repeated. “And to prove it to you, I’ll tell you something only your brother would know.”

At that Mark raised his eyes. Something flickered in them, like a light shining on distant water.

“I remember the day you were taken,” Julian said.

Mark recoiled. “Any of the Folk would know about that—”

“We were up in the training room. We heard noises, and you went downstairs. But before you went you said something to me. Do you remember?”

Mark stood very still.

“You said, ‘Stay with Emma,’ ” Julian said. “You said to stay with her, and I have. We’re
parabatai
now. I’ve looked after her for years and I always will, because you asked me to, because it was the last thing you ever said to me, because—”

He remembered, then, that Cristina was there, and cut himself off abruptly. Mark was staring at him, silent. Julian felt despair well up inside him. Maybe this was a trick of the faeries; maybe they had given Mark back, but so broken and hollowed out that he wasn’t Mark anymore. Maybe—

Mark nearly fell forward, and threw his arms around Julian.

Julian barely managed to catch himself before almost falling over. Mark was whipcord thin, but strong, his hands fisting in Julian’s shirt. Julian could feel Mark’s heart hammering, feel the sharp bones under his skin. He smelled like earth and mildew and grass and nighttime air.

“Julian,” Mark said, muffled, his body shaking. “Julian, my brother, my brother.”

Somewhere in the distance, Julian heard the click of the
bedroom door as it shut; Cristina had left them alone together.

Julian sighed. He wanted to relax into his older brother, let Mark hold him up the way he once had. But Mark was slighter than he was, fragile under his hands. He would be holding Mark up from now on. It was not what he had imagined, dreamed of, but it was the reality. It was his brother. He tightened his hands on Mark and adjusted his heart to bear the new burden.

*   *   *

The library in the Los Angeles Institute was small—nothing like the famous libraries of New York and London, but well-known regardless for its surprisingly large collection of books in Greek and Latin. They had more books on the magic and occultism of the classical period than the Institute in Vatican City.

Once the library had been terra-cotta tile and Mission windows; now it was a starkly modern room. The old library had been destroyed in Sebastian Morgenstern’s attack on the Institute, the books scattered among bricks and desert. Rebuilt, it was glass and steel. The floor was polished mountain ash, smooth and shining with applications of protective spells.

A spiral ramp began at the north side of the first floor and climbed the walls; the outer side of the ramp was lined with books and windows, while the inner, facing the library’s interior, was a shoulder-high railing. At the very top was an oculus—a skylight held closed with a large copper lock, made of foot-thick glass decorated all over with protective runes.

Maps were kept in a massive chest decorated with the crest of the Blackthorn family—a ring of thorns—with their family motto beneath it:
Lex malla, lex nulla.

A bad law is no law.

Emma suspected that the Blackthorns hadn’t exactly always gotten along with the Council.

Drusilla was rummaging around in the map chest. Livvy and Ty
were at the table with more maps, and Tavvy was playing under it with a set of plastic soldiers.