Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(176)

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I need you to come with me.” His voice was tight, as if he were screwing his courage up to do something horrible. “I need you to see something.”

“You make it sound like you’re a serial killer with a freezer full of arms,” Emma muttered as he shouldered open the door.

“The Clave would probably be happier about that.”

Emma wanted to rub her cheek against his, feel the roughness of his stubble. He was entirely a mess, actually, his shirt on inside out and his feet bare. She felt a rush of affection and wanting so intense that her whole body tightened.

“You can put me down,” she said. “I’m fine. I don’t need to be princess-carried.”

He laughed, a short, choked laugh. “I didn’t know that was a verb,” he said, but he set her on her feet. Carefully and slowly, and they leaned into each other, as if neither of them could stand the fact that in a moment, they would no longer be touching.

Emma’s heart began to pound. It pounded as she followed Julian down the empty corridor, and it pounded as they started up the back staircase and went into his studio. It pounded as she leaned against the paint-covered island, and Julian went to take a key from a drawer by the window.

She saw him breathe in, his shoulders rising. He looked the way he had when he was steeling himself to be whipped.

Having gathered his courage, he went to the door of the locked room, the one that no one but him ever entered. He turned the key in the lock with a decisive click and the door sprang open.

He stood aside. “Go in,” he said.

Years of ingrained habit and respect for Julian’s privacy held Emma back. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. He was pale. She drew away from the island and crossed the room with a sense of apprehension. Maybe he did have bodies in there. Whatever it was, it had to be something awful. She’d never seen him look like he did now.

She stepped inside the room. For a moment she thought she’d stepped into a funhouse of mirrors. Reflections of herself stared back from every surface. The walls were covered with tacked-up sketches and paintings, and there was an easel as well, set up in one corner near the single window, with a half-finished drawing on it. Two countertops ran the length of the east and west walls, and those, too, were covered in art.

Every image was of her.

There she was training, holding Cortana, playing with Tavvy, reading to Dru. In one watercolor, she was sleeping on the beach, her head pillowed on her hand. The details of the slope of her shoulder, the individual grains of sand stuck to her skin like sugar, had been rendered so lovingly that she felt almost dizzy. In another, she rose above the city of Los Angeles. She was naked, but her body was transparent—one could see only the outlines of it, and the stars of the night sky shone through her. Her hair tumbled down like brilliant light, illuminating the world.

She remembered what he’d said to her when they were dancing. I was thinking about painting you. Painting your hair. That I’d have to use titanium white to get the color right, the way it catches light and almost glows. But that wouldn’t work, would it? It’s not all one color, your hair, it’s not just gold: It’s amber and tawny and caramel and wheat and honey.

She reached up to touch her hair, which she’d never thought of as anything but ordinary blond, and then stared at the painting clipped to the easel. It was half-finished, an image of Emma striding out of the ocean, Cortana strapped to her hip. Her hair was down, as it was in most of the pictures, and he had made it look like the spray of the ocean at sunset, when the last rays of daylight turned the water to a brutal gold. She looked beautiful, fierce, as terrible as a goddess.

She bit her lip. “You like my hair down,” she said.

Julian gave a short laugh. “Is that all you have to say?”

She turned to look at him directly. They were standing close together. “These are beautiful,” she said. “Why didn’t you ever show them to me? To anyone?”

He exhaled, gave her a slow, sad smile. “Ems, no one could look at these and not know how I feel about you.”

She put her hand on the counter. It suddenly seemed important to have something to keep her steady on her feet. “How long have you been drawing me?”

He sighed. A moment later his hand came to rest in her hair. His fingers twined in the strands. “My whole life.”

“I remember you used to, but then you stopped.”

“I never stopped. I just learned to hide it.” His smile vanished. “My last secret.”

“I very much doubt that,” Emma said.

“I have lied and lied and lied.” Julian spoke slowly. “I’ve made myself an expert at lying. I stopped thinking lies could be destructive. Even evil. Until I stood on that beach and told you I didn’t feel that way about you.”

She was gripping the counter so hard her hand ached. “Feel what way?”

“You know,” he said, drawing away from her.

Suddenly, she thought she’d done too much, pushed him too far, but the desperation to know inside her overrode that. “I need to hear it. Spell it out for me, Julian.”

He went toward the door. Took hold of the knob—for a moment she thought he was going to leave the room—and he swung the door of the small room closed. Locked it, closing them inside. Turned to her. His eyes were luminous in the dim light.