Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

Without Jules. Emma swallowed against the pain the thought caused. It was a pain she’d have to learn to live with.

“I’d like that,” Cristina said. The sun was just a rim of gold now. “I’ll wish for that. And maybe to forget Diego, too.”

“But then you have to forget the good things as well as the bad ones. And I know there were good things.” Emma wound her fingers through Cristina’s. “He’s not the right person for you. He isn’t strong enough. He keeps letting you down and disappointing you. I know he loves you, but that’s not enough.”

“Apparently I’m not the only one he loves.”

“Maybe he started dating her to try to forget you,” Emma said. “And then he got you back, even though he didn’t expect to, and he didn’t know how to break it off with her.”

“What an idiot,” said Cristina. “I mean, if that were true, which it isn’t.”

Emma laughed. “Okay, yeah, I don’t buy it either.” She leaned forward. “Look, just let me beat him up for you. You’ll feel so much better.”

“Emma, no. Don’t lay a hand on him. I mean it.”

“I could beat him up with my feet,” Emma suggested. “They’re registered as lethal weapons.” She wiggled them.

“You have to promise not to touch him.” Cristina glared so severely that Emma raised her free hand in submission.

“All right, all right, I promise,” she said. “I will not touch Perfect Diego.”

“And you can’t yell at Zara, either,” Cristina said. “It’s not her fault. I’m sure she has no idea I exist.”

“Then I feel sorry for her,” Emma said. “Because you’re one of the greatest people I know.”

Cristina started to smile. The sun was almost completely down now. A year with Cristina, Emma thought. A year away from everything, from everyone that reminded her of Jules. A year to forget. If she could bear it.

Cristina gave a little gasp. “Look, there it is!”

The sky flashed green. Emma closed her eyes and wished.

*

When Emma got back to her bedroom, she was surprised to find Mark and Julian already there, each of them standing on opposite sides of her bed, their arms crossed over their chests.

“How is she?” Mark said, as soon as the door closed behind Emma. “Cristina, I mean.”

His gaze was anxious. Julian’s was stonier; he looked blank and autocratic, which Emma knew meant he was angry. “Is she upset?”

“Of course she’s upset,” Emma said. “I think not so much because he’s been her boyfriend for a few weeks again, but because they’ve known each other for so long. Their lives are completely entwined.”

“Where is she now?” Mark said.

“Helping Diana and the others fix up the rooms for the Centurions,” said Emma. “You wouldn’t think carrying sheets and towels around would cheer anyone up, but she promises it will.”

“In Faerie, I would challenge Rosales to a duel for this,” said Mark. “He broke his promise, and a love-promise at that. He would meet me in combat if Cristina consented to let me be her champion.”

“Well, no luck there,” said Emma. “Cristina made me promise not to lay a hand on him, and I bet that goes for you two, too.”

“So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do?” Mark scowled, a scowl that matched Julian’s. There was something about the two of them, Emma thought, light and dark though they were; they seemed more like brothers in this moment than they had in a long time.

“We can go help set up the bedrooms so Cristina can go to sleep,” said Emma. “Diego’s locked in one of the offices with Zara, so it’s not like she’s going to run into him, but she could use the rest.”

“We’re going to get revenge on Diego by folding his towels?” Julian said.

“They’re not technically his towels,” Emma pointed out. “They’re his friends’ towels.”

She headed for the door, the two boys following reluctantly. It was clear they would have preferred mortal combat on the greensward to making hospital corners for Centurions. Emma wasn’t looking forward to it herself. Julian was a lot better at making beds and doing laundry than she was.

“I could watch Tavvy,” she suggested. Mark had gone ahead of her down the corridor; she found herself walking beside Julian.

“He’s asleep,” he said. He didn’t mention how he’d found time to put Tavvy to bed in between everything else that had happened. That was Julian. He found the time. “You know what strikes me as odd?”

“What?” Emma said.

“Diego must have known his cover would be blown,” said Julian. “Even if he wasn’t expecting Zara to come with the other Centurions tonight, they all know about her. One of them would have mentioned his fiancée or his engagement.”

“Good point. Diego might be dishonest, but he’s not an idiot.”

“There are ways you could hurt him without touching him,” Julian said. He said it very low, so that only Emma could hear him; and there was something dark in his voice, something that made her shiver. She turned to reply but saw Diana coming down the hall toward them, her expression very much that of someone who has caught people slacking off.

She dispatched them to different parts of the Institute: Julian to the attic to check on Arthur, Mark to the kitchen, and Emma to the library to help the twins clean up. Kit had disappeared.

“He hasn’t run away,” Ty informed her helpfully. “He just didn’t want to make beds.”

It was late by the time they finished cleaning up, figured out which bedroom to assign to which Centurion, and made arrangements for food to be delivered the next day. They also set up a patrol to circle the Institute in shifts during the night to watch for rogue sea demons.

Heading down the corridor to her room, Emma noticed that a light was shining out from under Julian’s door. In fact, the door was cracked partway open; music drifted into the hallway.

Without conscious volition, she found herself in front of his room, her hand raised to knock on the door. In fact, she had knocked. She dropped her hand, half in shock, but he had already flung the door open.

She blinked at him. He was in old pajama bottoms, with a towel flung over his shoulder, a paintbrush in one hand. There was paint on his bare chest and some in his hair.

Though he wasn’t touching her, she was aware of his body, the warmth of him. The black spiraling Marks winding down his torso, like vines wreathing a pillar. She had put some of them there herself, back in the days when touching him didn’t make her hands shake.

“Did you want something?” he asked. “It’s late, and Mark is probably waiting for you.”

“Mark?” She’d almost forgotten Mark, for a moment.

“I saw him go into your room.” Paint dripped from his brush, splattered on the floor. She could see past him into his room: She hadn’t been inside it in what felt like forever. There was plastic sheeting on some of the floor, and she could see brighter spots on his wall where he’d clearly been retouching the mural that ran halfway around the room.

She remembered when he’d painted it, after they’d gotten back from Idris. After the Dark War. They’d been lying awake in bed, as they often did, as they had since they were small children. Emma had been talking about how she’d found a book of fairy tales in the library, the kind that mundanes had read hundreds of years ago: how they’d been bloody and full of murder and sadness. She’d spoken of the castle in Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by thorns, and how the story had said that hundreds of princes had tried to break through the barrier to rescue the princess, but they’d all been pierced to death by thorns, their bodies left to whiten to bones in the sun.

The next day Julian had painted his room: the castle and the wall of thorns, the glint of bone and the sad prince, his sword broken at his side. Emma had been impressed, even though they’d had to sleep in her room for a week while the paint dried.

She’d never asked him why the image or the story called to him. She’d always known that if he wanted to tell her, he would.