Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(60)

“Coffee.” Cristina looked startled.

“It tastes of the most bitter poison,” Mark said indignantly.

Livvy suddenly giggled. The sound cut through the stillness of the rest of the room, the frozen tableau of the others.

“You used to love coffee,” she said. “I remember that about you!”

“I can’t imagine why I would have. I’ve never tasted something so disgusting.” Mark made a face.

Ty’s eyes flicked between Julian and Livvy; he looked eager and excited, his long fingers tapping at the table in front of him. “He isn’t used to coffee anymore,” he said to Cristina. “They don’t have it in Faerie.”

“Here.” Livvy stood up, scooping an apple from the table. “Have this instead.” She went forward and held out the apple to her brother. Emma thought she looked like a latter-day Snow White, with her long dark hair and the apple in her pale hand. “You don’t mind apples, do you?”

“My thanks, gracious sister.” Mark bowed and took the apple, while Livvy looked at him with her mouth partly open.

“You never call me ‘gracious sister,’” she said, turning to Julian with an accusing look.

He grinned. “I know you too well, runt.”

Mark reached up and drew the chain from around his throat. Dangling from the end of it was what looked like the head of an arrow. It was clear, as if made of glass, and Emma recalled having seen something like it in pictures Diana had showed them.

Mark began to use the edge of it to peel his apple, matter-of-factly. Tavvy, who had crawled under the table again and was looking out, made an interested noise. Mark glanced at him and winked. Tavvy ducked back under the table, but Emma could see that he was smiling.

She couldn’t stop looking at Jules. She thought of the way he’d cleaned out Mark’s room, hurling his brother’s things savagely into a pile as if he could shatter the memories of him. It had lasted only a day, but there had been shadows in his eyes since. She wondered, if Mark stayed, would the shadows disappear?

“Did you like the presents?” Dru demanded, swiveling around on the table, her round face anxious. “I put bread and butter in for you in case you were hungry.”

“I did not know what all of them were,” Mark said candidly. “The clothes were very useful. The black metal object—”

“That was my microscope,” Ty said, looking at Julian for approval. “I thought you might like it.”

Julian leaned against the table. He didn’t ask Ty why Mark would want a microscope, just smiled his sideways, gentle smile. “That was nice of you, Ty.”

“Tiberius wants to be a detective,” Livvy explained to Mark. “Like Sherlock Holmes.”

Mark looked puzzled. “Is that someone we know? Like a warlock?”

“He’s a book character,” Dru said, laughing.

“I’ve got all the Sherlock Holmes books,” said Ty. “I know all the stories. There are fifty-six short stories and four novels. I can tell them to you. And I’ll show you how to use the microscope.”

“I think I buttered it,” Mark admitted, looking shamefaced. “I did not remember it was a scientific tool.”

Emma looked worriedly at Ty—he was meticulous about his things and could be deeply upset by anyone touching them or moving them. But he didn’t look angry. Something about Mark’s candidness seemed to delight him, the way he sometimes was delighted by an unusual kind of demonic ichor or the life cycle of bees.

Mark had cut his apple into careful pieces and was eating them slowly, in the manner of someone who was used to making what food they had last. He was quite thin, thinner than a Shadowhunter his age would usually be—Shadowhunters were encouraged to eat and train, eat and train, build their muscle and stamina. Most Shadowhunters, due to the constant brutal physical training, ranged from wiry to muscular, though Drusilla was round-bodied, something that bothered her more the older she got. Emma always felt pained to see the blush that colored Dru’s cheeks when the gear designated for girls in her age group didn’t fit.

“I heard you speak of convergences,” Mark said, moving toward the others—carefully, as if unsure of his welcome. His eyes lifted, and to Emma’s surprise, he looked at Cristina. “The convergence of ley lines is a place where dark magic can be done undetected. The Fair Folk know much of ley lines, and use them often.” He had slung his arrowhead back around his neck; it glimmered as he bent his head to look at the map on the table.

“This is a map of ley lines in Los Angeles,” said Cristina. “All of the bodies have been found along them.”

“Wrong,” Mark said, leaning forward.

“No, she’s right,” Ty said with a frown. “It is a map of ley lines, and the bodies have been dumped along them.”

“But the map is incorrect,” Mark said. “The lines are not accurate, nor are the points of convergence.” His long-fingered right hand brushed over the pencil circle Ty had made. “This is not right at all. Who made this map?”

Julian moved closer and for a moment he and his brother were shoulder to shoulder, their pale hair and dark hair a startling contrast. “It’s the Institute’s map, I assume.”

“We took it from the trunk,” Emma said, leaning over it from the opposite side of the table. “With all the other maps.”