Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(67)

Have you always been this careless?

More since the Dark War . . .

She was halfway down now, she guessed from looking up, the roof receding. She had started to speed up, her fingertips and toes swiftly discovering new handholds and footholds. The plaster in between the stones helped, kept her sweaty hands from slipping as she gripped and released, gripped and released, pressing her body hard against the wall until suddenly she was reaching down with her foot and struck solid ground.

She let go and fell, landing with a soft puff of sand. They were on the east side of the house, facing the garden, the small parking area, and the desert beyond.

Mark was already there, of course, bleached by moonlight and looking like part of the desert, a curious carving of pale new stone. Emma was breathing hard as she stepped away from the wall, but it was with exhilaration. Her heart was hammering, her blood drumming; she could taste salt on the wind, in her mouth.

Mark rocked backward, hands in his pockets. “Come with me,” he whispered, and turned away from the building, toward the sand and scrub of the desert.

“Wait,” Emma said. Mark stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. “Weapons,” she said. “And shoes.” She went to the car. A quick Open rune unlocked the trunk, revealing piles of weapons and gear. She hunted until she found a belt and a spare pair of boots. She buckled the belt on quickly, slammed some blades and daggers into it, grabbed up some spares, and kicked her feet into the boots.

Luckily, in the rush back from Malcolm’s she’d left Cortana strapped to the inside of the trunk. She freed the blade and slung it over her back before hurrying over to Mark, who silently accepted her offer of a seraph blade and a set of knives before gesturing for her to follow him.

Behind the low wall bordering the parking lot was the rock garden, usually peaceful, planted with cacti and dotted here and there with plaster statues of classical heroes, placed there by Arthur. He’d had them shipped from England when he’d first moved to the Institute and they stuck out among the cacti, anomalous.

There was something else there now, a dark, hulking shadow, covered by a cloth. Mark moved toward it, again with that odd smile; Emma stepped aside to let him go ahead of her, and he plucked the long black cloth away.

Beneath it was a motorcycle.

Emma gave a little gasp. It wasn’t any make of motorcycle that she knew: It was silvery-white, as if it had been carved out of bone. It glimmered under the moonlight, and Emma almost thought for a moment she could see through it, the way she sometimes saw through glamours, to a shape beneath, with a tossing mane and wide eyes. . . .

“When you take a steed from Faerie, whose substance is magic, its nature can change to suit the mundane world,” said Mark, smiling at her stunned expression.

“You mean this was once a horse? This is a pony-cycle?” Emma demanded, forgetting to whisper.

His smile broadened. “There are many sorts of steeds who ride with the Wild Hunt.”

Emma was already beside the motorcycle, running her hands over it. The metal felt smooth like glass, cool under her fingers, milk white and glowing. She had wanted to ride a motorcycle all her life. Jace and Clary had ridden a flying motorcycle. There were paintings of it. “Does it fly?”

Mark nodded, and she was lost.

“I want to drive it,” she said. “I want to drive it myself.”

He swept an elaborate bow. It was a graceful, alien gesture, the kind that might have existed in the court of a king, hundreds of years ago. “Then you are welcome to do so.”

“Julian would kill me,” Emma said reflexively, still stroking the machine. Beautiful as it was, she felt a thrill of trepidation at the thought of riding it—it didn’t have an exhaust pipe, a speedometer, any of the normal gear she associated with a cycle.

“You don’t strike me as that easy to kill,” Mark said, and now he wasn’t smiling, and the way he looked at her was direct and challenging.

Without another word Emma swung her leg over the bike. She reached to grip the handlebars, and they seemed to bend inward to fit her hands. She looked at Mark. “Get on behind me,” she said, “if you want to ride.”

She felt the cycle rock under her as he climbed on behind her; his hands clasped her sides lightly. Emma exhaled, her shoulders tensing. “It’s alive,” Mark whispered. “It will respond to you, if you will it.”

Her hands tightened on the handlebars. Fly.

The cycle shot up into the air and Emma screamed, half in shock and half in delight. Mark’s hands tightened on her waist as they hurtled up, the ground receding below them. The wind poured around them. Untrammeled by gravity, the cycle shot forward as Emma urged it on, leaning forward to communicate with her body what she wanted it to do.

They whipped past the Institute, the road that led down toward the highway opening up under them. They raced along above it, desert wind giving way to salt on Emma’s tongue as they reached the Pacific Coast Highway, cars darting past below them in blaring lines of pale gold headlights. She cried out in delight, willing the cycle onward: Faster, go faster.

The beach flew by beneath them, pale gold sand turned white by starlight, and then they were out over the ocean. The moon lit a silvery path for them; Emma could hear Mark yelling something in her ear, but for the moment there was nothing but the ocean and the cycle under her, the wind whipping her hair back and making her eyes water.