Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(216)

“They’d lose their power?” Emma guessed. “As Shadowhunters?”

“Their power would grow,” Jem corrected. “The runes they created would be unlike any others. They would begin to wield magic as warlocks do. But Nephilim are not meant to be magicians. Eventually the power would make them mad, until they became as monsters. They would destroy their families, the others they loved. Death would surround them until eventually they died themselves.”

Emma felt as if she were choking. “Why don’t they tell us that? Why not warn Nephilim, so they know?”

“It’s power, Emma,” said Jem. “Some would have wisely avoided the bond, but many others would have rushed to take advantage of it for the wrong reasons. Power will always attract the greedy and the weak.”

“I wouldn’t want it,” Emma said softly. “Not that kind of power.”

“There is also human nature to take into account,” Jem said, and smiled down at Tessa, who was off the phone and coming up the path toward them. “Being told that love is forbidden does not kill love. It strengthens it.”

“What are you two talking about?” Tessa smiled up at them from the foot of the steps.

“Love,” Jem said. “How to end it, I suppose.”

“Oh, if we could end love just by willing it, life would be very different!” Tessa laughed. “It’s easier to end someone else’s love for you than kill your love for them. Convince them that you don’t love them, or that you are someone they cannot respect—ideally both.” Her eyes were wide and gray and youthful; it was hard to believe she was older than nineteen. “To change your own heart, that’s nearly impossible.”

There was a shimmer in the air. A Portal suddenly appeared, glowing like a ghost door, just above the ground. It opened, and Emma could see as if she were looking through a keyhole: Magnus Bane stood on the other side of the Portal, and beside him was Alec Lightwood, tall and dark-haired and holding a little boy in a white shirt, with navy-blue skin. Alec looked messy and happy, and the way he held Max reminded Emma of the way Julian used to hold Tavvy.

In the middle of raising a hand to greet Emma, Alec paused and turned his head, and said something that sounded like “Raphael.” Odd, Emma thought. Alec handed Max over to Magnus and disappeared back into the shadows.

“Tessa Gray!” Magnus shouted, leaning out of the Portal as if he were leaning over a balcony. Max cooed and waved. “Jem Carstairs! Time to go!”

Someone was walking up the road from the beach. Emma could see only a silhouette. But she knew it was Julian. Julian, coming back from the beach where he had waited for her. She would always know it was Julian.

With the courtliness of a generation many years past, Jem bent over her hand in a gentle bow.

“If you need me, tell Church,” he said, straightening up. “As you’ve seen, he can always find me. He’ll make sure I come to you.”

Then he turned and strode away toward the Portal. Tessa took his hand and smiled up at him, and a moment later they had stepped through the glowing door. It disappeared with a flash of pale gold light, and Emma, blinking, looked down to where Julian stood staring up at her from the foot of the steps.

“Emma?” Julian bounded up the stairs, reaching for her. “Emma, what happened? I waited on the beach—”

She drew away from his touch. A flicker of hurt crossed his face, then he glanced around, as if realizing where they were, and nodded.

“Come with me,” he said in a low voice. Emma followed him, half in a daze, as they circled the Institute to the parking lot. He ducked out past the statues and the small garden, Emma behind him, until they were screened from the building by rows of scrub trees and cactus.

He turned so that they stood face-to-face. She could see the worry in his eyes. He reached to cup her cheek in his hand, and she felt her heart thrash against her rib cage.

“You can tell me,” he said. “Why didn’t you come?”

In a leaden voice, Emma told him about the panicked message from Kit, how she’d bolted immediately for the car. How after everything that the Institute had been through the day before, she hadn’t been able to bear dragging anyone else along with her to Rook’s. How Rook felt like her responsibility. How she’d tried to call Julian to tell him where she’d gone, but he hadn’t picked up. About the Mantids at Rook’s house, Jem and Tessa’s arrival, the truth about Kit. Everything but what Jem had said to her about parabatai.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” he said, when she was done. His thumb brushed her cheekbone. “Though I guess if you’d been hurt—I would have known.”

Emma didn’t raise her hands to touch him. They were clenched into fists at her sides. She had done hard things in her life, she thought. Her years of training. Surviving her parents’ deaths. Killing Malcolm.

But the look on Julian’s face—open and trusting—told her that this would be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She reached up and covered his hand with hers. Slowly she intertwined their fingers. Even more slowly, she drew his hand away from her face, trying to quiet the voice inside her head that said, This is the last time he’ll ever touch you like this, the last.

They were still holding hands, but hers lay stiffly in his, a dead thing. Julian looked puzzled. “Emma—?”