Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(128)

“I won’t,” Dru said, scowling.

“I’ll clean it,” Mark said.

“You don’t know how!” Julian was white-faced and furious. Emma had rarely seen him so angry. “You,” he said, still looking at Mark, “you used to look after them, but I guess you’ve forgotten that. I guess you’ve forgotten how to do anything normal.”

Mark flinched. Tiberius stood up; his gray eyes burned in his pale face. His hands were moving at his sides, fluttering. Moth’s wings—wings that could hold a knife, could cut a throat. “Stop,” he said.

Emma didn’t know whether he was talking to Julian, to Mark, or to the room in general, but she saw Julian freeze. She felt her heart contract as he looked around the room at his brothers and sisters. Dru sat unmoving; Tavvy had climbed out of the sugar and was gazing at Julian with wide blue-green eyes.

Mark was unmoving: his face pale, color striping the high cheekbones that marked out his faerie heritage.

There was love in his family’s eyes as they looked at Julian, and worry and fear, but Emma wondered if Jules could see any of it. If all he saw was the children he had given up so much of his life for, happy with someone else. If, like her, he looked at the kitchen and remembered how he had taught himself to clean it when he was twelve years old. Taught himself to cook: simple things at first, spaghetti and butter, toast and cheese. A million cheese sandwiches, a million burns on Julian’s hands and wrists from the stove and the spatter. The way he’d walked down the path to the highway every few days to accept the grocery delivery, before he could drive. The way he’d dragged and carried all their food back up the hill.

Julian on his knees, skinny in jeans and sweatshirt, scrubbing the floor. The kitchen had been designed by his mother, it was a piece of her, but it was also a piece of everything he’d given over the years to his family.

And he would do it again, Emma thought. Of course he would: He loved them that fiercely. The only thing that made Julian angry was fear, fear for his sisters and brothers.

He was afraid now, though Emma wasn’t sure why. She saw only the look on his face as he registered their resentment of him, their disappointment. The fire seemed to go out of him. He slid down the front of the stove until he was sitting on the floor.

“Jules?” It was Tavvy, white granules coating his hair. He shuffled close and put his arms around Julian’s neck.

Jules made an odd sound, and then he pulled his brother in and hugged him fiercely. Sugar sifted down onto his black gear, dusting it with white powder.

The kitchen door opened and Emma heard a gasp of surprise. She turned and saw Cristina gaping at the mess. “?Qué desastre!”

It didn’t exactly require a translation. Mark cleared his throat and began stacking dirty dishes in the sink. Not so much stacking them as flinging them, really. Livvy went over to help him while Cristina stared.

“Where’s Diana?” Emma asked.

“She’s home. Malcolm Portaled us there and back,” said Cristina, not taking her eyes off the charred pots on the stove. “She said she needed to catch up on sleep.”

Still holding Tavvy, Julian stood up. There was powdered sugar on his shirt, in his hair, but his face was calm, expressionless. “Sorry about the mess, Cristina.”

“It’s fine,” she said, looking around the room. “It is not my kitchen. Though,” she added hastily, “I can help you clean up.”

“Mark will clean up,” Julian said, without looking at his brother. “Did you and Diana find anything out from Malcolm?”

“He had gone to see some warlocks he thought might be able to help,” said Cristina. “We talked about Catarina Loss. I’ve heard of her—she teaches at the Academy sometimes, Downworlder studies. Apparently both Malcolm and Diana are good friends with her, so they exchanged a lot of stories I didn’t really understand.”

“Well, here’s what we learned from Rook,” said Emma, and launched into the story, leaving out the part where Ty had almost sliced off Kit Rook’s head.

“So someone needs to tail Sterling,” said Livvy eagerly when Emma was done. “Ty and I could do it.”

“You can’t drive,” Emma pointed out. “And we need you here for research.”

Livvy made a face. “So we get stuck here reading ‘it was many and many a year ago’ nine thousand times?”

“There’s no reason we can’t learn how to drive,” said Ty, looking mulish. “Mark was saying, it’s not like it matters that we’re not sixteen, it’s not as if we have to obey mundane laws anyway—”

“Did Mark say that?” Julian said quietly. “Fine. Mark can teach you how to drive.”

Mark dropped a plate into the sink with a crash. “Julian—”

“What is it, Mark?” said Jules. “Oh, right, you don’t actually know how to drive, either. And of course teaching someone to drive takes time, but you might not actually be here. Because there’s no guarantee you’re staying.”

“That’s not true,” Livvy said. “We’ve practically solved the case—”

“But Mark has a choice.” Julian was looking at his older brother over his baby brother’s head. His blue-green gaze was a steady fire.“Tell them, Mark. Tell them you’re sure you’ll choose us.”