Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(68)

And then she looked down.

On either side of the moonlit path was the water, navy blue in the darkness. Land was a distant line of brilliant lights, the etched shadow of mountains against the sky. And below was ocean, miles of ocean, and Emma felt the familiar cold of fear, like a block of ice applied suddenly to the back of her neck and spreading through her veins.

Miles of ocean, and oh, the vastness of it, shadows and salt, fierce dark water filled with alien emptiness and the monsters that lived there. Imagine falling into that water and knowing it was below you, even as you treaded water, desperately trying to remain on the surface; the terror of the realization of what was under you—miles and miles of nothingness and monsters, blackness stretching away everywhere and the sea floor so far below—would tear your mind apart.

The cycle jerked under her hands, rebelling. She bit down hard on her lip, summoning blood to the surface, focusing her mind.

The cycle slewed around under her hands and shot back toward the beach. Faster, Emma urged it, suddenly desperate to have dry land under them. She thought she could see shadows moving under the skin of the sea. She thought of old stories of sailors whose boats were lifted out of the water on the backs of whales and sea monsters. Of small craft torn apart by sea demons, their crews fed to the sharks—

She caught her breath, the cycle jumping under her, momentarily losing her grip on the handlebars. They plunged downward. Mark cried out as they shot past the crashing waves and toward the beach. Emma’s fingers scrabbled and seized on the handlebars again, her grip tight as the front wheel grazed the sand, and then the bike was rising again, skimming over the beach, lifting to pass over the highway below them.

She heard Mark laugh. It was a wild sound; she could hear the echo of the Hunt in it, the roar of the horn and the pounding of hooves. She breathed in cool, clear air; her hair whipped behind her; there were no rules. She was free.

“You have proved yourself, Emma,” he said. “You could ride with Gwyn, if you chose.”

“The Wild Hunt doesn’t allow women,” she pointed out, the words torn from her mouth by the wind.

“The more fool they,” he said. “Women are fiercer by far than men.” He pointed at the shore, toward the ridges of the mountains that ran along the coast. “Go that way. I will take you to the convergence.”

No wonder Jace Herondale had once jumped at the chance to fly a motorcycle, Emma thought. It was a completely different vantage point on the world. She and Mark followed the line of the highway north, flying over mansions with massive swimming pools that hung out over the ocean, castles tucked up into canyons and bluffs, dipping down low enough once to see a party going on in someone’s backyard, complete with glowing multicolored lanterns.

Mark guided her from behind with taps on her wrists; the wind had risen too high for her to hear his voice. They passed over a late-night seafood shack, music and light pouring out of the windows. Emma had been there before and remembered sitting on the big wooden picnic tables with Jules, dunking fried oysters in tartar sauce. Dozens of Harley-Davidsons were parked outside the restaurant, though Emma doubted any of them could fly.

She grinned to herself, unable to help it, feeling drunk on the height and the cold air.

Mark tapped her right wrist. A smooth stretch of sand spilled from the beach, reaching halfway up high bluffs. Emma tilted the cycle so that they were nearly vertical, hurtling up the side of a cliff. They cleared the lip of the bluff with a foot of space and shot forward, the wheels scraping the tips of the California thistle that grew among the long grass.

A granite rise loomed in front of them, a dome-like hill atop the bluffs. Emma leaned back, preparing to gun the cycle, but Mark reached around her, his voice in her ear: “Stop! Stop!”

The cycle skidded to a halt just as they passed the tangle of weeds that bordered the bluffs. Inside the border of coastal shrubs was a stretch of grass that reached to the low granite hill. The grass looked trampled in places, as if it had been walked on, and in the distance, to the right of the grassy stretch, Emma could see a faint dirt road winding down the bluffs toward the highway.

Emma swung herself off the cycle. Mark followed, and they stood for a moment, the sea a gleam in the distance, the hill rising dark in front of them.

“You drive too fast,” said Mark.

Emma snorted and checked the strap of Cortana where it fastened across her chest. “You sound like Julian.”

“It brought me joy,” Mark said, moving to stand beside her. “It was as if I flew with the Hunt again, and tasted the blood of the sky.”

“Okay, you sound like Julian on drugs,” Emma muttered. She glanced around. “Where are we? Is this the ley line convergence?”

“There.” Mark pointed at a dark opening in the rock of the hill. As they moved toward it, Emma reached back to touch the hilt of Cortana. Something about the place was giving her shivers—maybe it was simply the power of the convergence, but as they neared the cave, and the hair rose on the back of her neck, she doubted it.

“The grass is flat,” she said, indicating the area around the cave with a sweep of her hand. “Trampled. Someone’s been walking here. A lot of someones. But there are no fresh tire tracks on the road.”

Mark glanced around, head tilted back, like a wolf scenting the air. His feet were still bare, but he seemed to have no problem walking on the rough ground, despite the thistles and sharp rocks visible between the grasses.