Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(136)

“I’d like that,” she said. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

He nodded, his expression serious. It was easy to imagine him as an uncle: He looked so young, but there was a calm certainty underneath that made him seem ageless, like a faerie or a warlock. “Yes?”

“Did you send me your cat?”

“Church?” He started to laugh. “Yes. Has he been taking care of you? Did he bring you the gifts I gave?”

“The shells and sea glass?” She nodded. “The bracelet Julian’s wearing is made out of sea glass Church brought me.”

His laughter softened into a smile that was a little bit sad. “As it should be,” he said. “What belongs to one parabatai, belongs to the other. For you are one heart now. And one soul.”

Jem stayed with Emma through the ceremony, which was witnessed by Simon and Clary, whom she suspected would become parabatai themselves one day.

After the ceremony, Julian and Emma were led through the streets to the Accords Hall, where there was a special dinner in their honor. Tessa—a pretty, brown-haired girl who looked about Clary’s age—had joined them, hugging Emma tightly and exclaiming over Cortana, which she said she had seen before a long time ago. Other parabatai got up and spoke about their bond and their experiences. Waves of radiant happiness seemed to come off the pairs of best friends as they talked. Jace and Alec spoke about nearly dying in the demon realms together, grinning, and Emma felt a sense of joy at the thought that one day she and Jules would be up there, smiling dopily at each other and talking about how their bond had gotten them through times when they’d thought they were going to die.

At some point during the speeches, Jem had slipped quietly from his chair and disappeared through the doors to Angel Square. Tessa had dropped her napkin and hurried after him; as the doors closed, Emma could see them on the dimly lit steps. Jem had his head down on Tessa’s shoulder.

She wanted to go after them, but she was already being swept up to the front of the Hall by Clary and made to give some sort of speech, and Julian was with her, smiling that calm smile that hid a million thoughts. And Emma had been happy. She’d been wearing one of her first great thrift store finds, a real gown, not like the ragged jeans she usually wore until they fell to pieces. Instead she’d put on a brown Paraphernalia dress scattered with pale gold blossoms like sunflowers growing out of a field and let her hair, which reached her waist, out of its usual ponytail. She’d shot up like a weed in the past year, and she nearly reached Jace’s shoulder when he came over to congratulate her and Julian.

She’d had the worst crush of all time on Jace when she was twelve and she still felt a little awkward around him. He was nearly nineteen years old now, and even better-looking than he had been—taller, broader, tanned, and with his hair bleached from sunlight, but more than anything else, happier-looking. She remembered a tense-looking, beautiful boy who burned with revenge and heavenly fire, and now he looked at ease with himself.

Which was nice. She was happy for him, and for Clary, who smiled and waved at her across the room. But she no longer got butterflies in her stomach when he smiled at her, or wanted to crawl under something and die when he hugged her and told her she looked pretty in her new dress. “You’ve got a lot of responsibility now,” he said to Julian. “You’ll have to make sure she winds up with a guy who deserves her.”

Julian was strangely white-faced. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the ceremony, Emma thought. It had been strong magic, and she still felt it sizzling through her blood like champagne bubbles. But Jules looked as if he were getting sick.

“What about me?” Emma said quickly. “Don’t I have to make sure Jules winds up with someone who deserves him?”

“Absolutely. I did it for Alec, Alec did it for me—well, actually, he hated Clary at first, but he came around.”

“I bet you didn’t like Magnus much, either,” said Julian, still with the same odd, stiff look on his face.

“Maybe not,” said Jace, “but I never would have said so.”

“Because it would have hurt Alec’s feelings?” Emma asked.

“No,” said Jace, “because Magnus would have turned me into a hat rack,” and he wandered back toward Clary, who was laughing with Alec, both of them looking happy.

Which was as it should be, Emma thought. One’s parabatai should be friends with the person you loved, your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, because that was how it worked. Though when she tried to imagine the person she’d be with, someone she might marry and stay with forever, there was only a sort of blurry space. She couldn’t picture the person at all.

“I have to go,” Julian said. “I need some air.” He brushed the back of his hand across Emma’s cheek before making for the double doors of the Hall. It was a ragged touch: His nails were bitten down to the edges.

Later that night Emma woke up from a dream of fiery circles, her skin burning hot, the sheets tangled around her legs. They had been put up in the old Blackthorn manor house, and Julian was far away, down corridors she didn’t know like she knew the hallways of the Institute. She went to the window. It was a short drop down to the garden path. She kicked her feet into slippers and climbed outside.

The path curved around the gardens. Emma made her way along it, breathing in the cool, clean air of Idris, untouched by smog. The sky above was brilliant with a million stars, totally free of light pollution, and she wished Julian was with her so she could show it to him, and then she heard voices.