Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(98)

“Do you think Mark had friends in the Wild Hunt?” Cristina asked abruptly.

“No.” Emma was taken aback. “At least he’s never mentioned any. And you’d think he would have, if there was someone he missed.” She frowned. “Why?”

Cristina hesitated. “Well, he borrowed that motorcycle tonight from someone. I just hope he hasn’t gotten himself in any trouble.”

“Mark’s clever,” said Emma. “I doubt he bartered his soul for the temporary use of a motorbike or anything.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Cristina murmured, and glanced toward Emma’s wardrobe. “Can I borrow a dress?”

“Right now?” Emma said. “Have you got a midnight date?”

“No, for tomorrow night.” Cristina got to her feet to peer into the wardrobe. Several badly folded rayon dresses fell out. “It is meant to be formal. I didn’t bring any formal dresses with me from home.”

“You won’t fit into anything of mine,” Emma said as Cristina held up a black dress with a design of rockets and frowned at it. “We’re different shapes. You’re way more—boom-chicka-boom.”

“Is that even English?” Cristina frowned, tossing the rocket dress onto a shelf and shutting the wardrobe door. “I don’t think that’s English.”

Emma smiled at her. “I’ll take you shopping tomorrow,” she said. “Deal?”

“That seems so normal.” Cristina smoothed her braids back. “After tonight . . .”

“Cameron called me,” Emma said.

“I know,” Cristina said. “I was in the kitchen. Why are you telling me now? Are you back together?”

Emma rocked backward on the bed. “No! He was warning me. He told me that there were people who didn’t want me investigating these murders.”

“Emma.” Cristina sighed. “And you didn’t say anything to us?”

“He said it about me,” Emma said. “I figured any danger would be my danger.”

“But Julian got hurt,” said Cristina, knowing what Emma was going to say before she said it. “So you are worrying it was your fault.”

Emma picked at the fringe on the edge of her blanket. “Isn’t it? I mean, Cameron warned me, he said he heard it at the Shadow Market, so I don’t know if it was mundanes talking or faeries or warlocks or what, but the fact is, he warned me and I ignored it.”

“It was not your fault. We already know there’s someone, a necromancer most likely, killing and sacrificing mundanes and Downworlders. We already know he has an army of Mantid demons at his beck and call. It isn’t as if Julian wasn’t expecting and prepared for danger.”

“He almost died on me,” Emma said. “There was so much blood.”

“And you fixed him. He’s fine. You saved his life.” Cristina waved a hand—her nails were perfect, shining ovals, where Emma’s were ragged from sparring and training. “Why are you second-guessing yourself, Emma? Is it because Julian was hurt and that frightened you? Because you have taken risks since the first time I ever met you. It is part of who you are. And Julian knows that. He doesn’t just know it, he likes it.”

“Does he? He’s always telling me not to risk myself—”

“He has to,” said Cristina. “You are the two halves of a whole. You must be different, like light and shadow—he brings you caution to temper your recklessness, and you bring him recklessness to temper his caution. Without each other you would not function as well as you do. That is what parabatai means.” She tugged lightly on the ends of Emma’s wet hair. “I do not think it is Cameron that is bothering you. That is just an excuse to berate yourself. I think it is that Julian was hurt.”

“Maybe,” Emma said in a tight voice.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Cristina’s dark brown eyes were worried.

“I’m fine.” Emma sat back against the pillows. She collected kitschy California pillows: some looked like postcards, some were shaped like the state or said I LOVE CALI.

“You don’t look fine,” Cristina said. “You look like—my mother used to say there was a look people got when they realized something. You look like someone who has realized something.”

Emma wanted to close her eyes, to hide her thoughts from Cristina. Thoughts that were treacherous, dangerous, wrong to have.

“Just shock,” she said. “I came close to losing Julian and—it threw me off. I’ll be fine tomorrow.” She forced a smile.

“If you say so, manita.” Cristina sighed. “If you say so.”

After Julian cleaned himself up, washed the blood off, and arranged to send the shreds of his poison-burned gear jacket to Malcolm, he walked down the hall to Emma’s room.

And stopped halfway. He’d wanted to lie down on the bed beside her, and for them to talk over the night’s events, and to close their eyes together, with the sound of her breathing like the sound of the ocean, measuring out the steps toward sleep.

But. When he thought of that night in the back of the car, of Emma hovering over him, panic on her face and blood on her hands, he didn’t feel what he knew he should feel: fear, the memory of pain, relief that he’d healed.