Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(113)

“She is the daughter of an old family,” he said. “A sort of princess. I don’t think she would look at me twice.”

“She looked at you several times while you were dancing with the blond girl.”

Mark blinked. Partly in surprise that he had so quickly forgotten how literal faeries were. And partly in surprise that he himself had remembered such a human expression and used it so unconsciously.

It was pointless to try to explain to Kieran all the ways that Cristina would never want him. She was too kind to show her revulsion at his faerie blood, but revolted he was sure she must be, under the surface. Instead he tucked his hands into the waistband of Kieran’s breeches and pulled the other boy toward him to take another kiss, and with it memories of the Hunt like sweet wine.

Their kisses were hot, tangled. Two boys under a blanket, trying not to make noise, not to wake the others. Kissing to blot out the memories, kissing away the blood and dirt, kissing away the tears. Mark’s hands made their way under Kieran’s shirt, tracing the lines of scars on his back. There, they were matched in pain, though at least those who had whipped Mark were not his own family.

Kieran’s hands slipped ineffectually on Mark’s pearl buttons. “These mundane clothes,” he said between his teeth. “I hate them.”

“Then take them off me,” Mark murmured, forgetful and dazed and lost in the Hunt. His hands were on Kieran but in his mind he was spinning through the northern lights, the sky painted blue and green like the heart of the ocean. Like Blackthorn eyes.

“No.” Kieran smiled and stepped back. He was rumpled, his shirt gaping open at the front. Wanting beat through Mark’s blood, to lose himself in Kieran and forget. “You told me once humans want what they cannot have. And you are half-human.”

“We want what we cannot have,” Mark said. “But we love what shows us kindness.”

“I will take wanting, for now,” said Kieran, and placed his hand over the necklace at Mark’s throat. “And the memory of my gift to you.”

Elf-bolts took a great deal of magic to make and were very valuable. Kieran had given it to him not long after he joined the Wild Hunt, and had strung the point on a chain so Mark could wear it near his heart.

“Shoot straight and true,” said Kieran. “Find the killer, and then come back to me.”

“But my family,” Mark said, his hand closing reflexively over Kieran’s. “Kier, you must—”

“Come back to me,” Kieran repeated. He kissed Mark’s closed hand, once, and ducked out through the dangling coats. Though Mark scrambled after him immediately, he was already gone.

The interior of the theater was gorgeous, a romantic ode to the glory days of cinema’s golden age. A curved ceiling split into eights by gold-painted beams, each segment painted with a scene from a classic film, done in baroque jewel tones: Emma recognized Gone with the Wind and Casablanca, but not others—a man carrying another man across burning golden sands, a girl kneeling at the feet of a boy holding a gun across his shoulders, a woman whose white dress blew up around her like the petals of an orchid.

A heavy sweet scent hung in the air as people hurried to take their seats in the semicircular space. The seats were upholstered in purple velvet, each with a gold M embroidered across the back. As the ticket girl had promised, their ticket now had their row and seat numbers printed on it. They found them and filed in, Cristina first, then Emma, then Julian. He sat down beside Emma.

“M for Midnight?” she said, pointing at the seat backs.

“Probably,” he said, and went back to looking at the stage. The curtains were drawn back and a massive painting of an ocean view covered the back wall. The stage itself was bare, the floor gleaming polished boards.

Emma felt flushed. Julian’s voice had been calm, neutral. But the expression on his face only a few minutes ago flashed across her vision anyway: the way he’d looked when he held her on the dance floor, that naked look in his eyes, all pretense stripped away.

That glimpse had shown her an intent and agonized Julian she’d never known. A hidden face she’d never seen, that she didn’t think anyone had ever seen.

She felt Cristina shift beside her and turned with quick guilt: She’d been so caught up in her own bewilderment that she’d forgotten to ask Cristina why she’d looked so flustered.

Cristina was glaring across the theater. Her eyes were glued to the man in the herringbone suit. He was seating himself next to an elegant blond woman in a silver dress and high heels.

“Ugh,” Cristina said. “I practically had to peel him off me. What a pervert. My mother would just have stabbed him.”

“Do you want us to kill him?” Emma suggested, only half-joking. “We could kill him, after the show.”

“That would be a waste of our energy,” Cristina said dismissively. “I’ll tell you what I found out: He is a half werewolf. And he’s been a member of the Followers, that’s what he called them, for six months now. That’s what he meant by being a Blue.”

“The fact that he’s been a Follower for a long time, or the fact that he’s part lycanthrope?” Julian asked.

“Both, I think,” Cristina said. “He went to great pains to tell me all about what it meant to be part werewolf. How he’s stronger and faster than a human. He says he could kick through a brick wall.” She rolled her eyes.