“Was that really necessary?” Mark demanded. “I was merely making conversation. I thought I would practice my gentry speech on them.”
“You were being ridiculous on purpose,” said Emma. “I’m beginning to get the feeling you think faeries sound silly.”
“I did at first,” said Mark candidly. “Then you get used to it. Now . . . Now I don’t know what to think.” He sounded a little lost.
“We’re not supposed to talk to mundanes,” Julian said, his smile vanishing. “It’s—it’s basic, Mark. One of the first things we learn. Especially not about things like Faerieland.”
“I spoke to those mundanes, and no one exploded or caught on fire,” said Mark. “No doom came down upon us. They thought I was wearing a costume.” He ducked his head, then looked up at Julian. “You are right that I will stand out, but people see what they want to see.”
“Maybe the rules about not going out in battle without runes are stupid rules,” said Ty, and Emma thought of the way Mark had spoken to Ty in the training room. Now we both have hurt hands.
“Maybe a lot of the rules are stupid rules,” said Julian, and there was an edge of bitterness to his voice that surprised Emma. “Maybe we just have to follow them anyway. Maybe that’s what makes us Shadowhunters.”
Livvy looked puzzled. “Having to follow stupid rules makes us Shadowhunters?”
“Not the rules,” said Julian. “The penalty for breaking them.”
“The penalty for breaking the rules of Faerie are just as severe, if not more so,” said Mark. “You must trust me on this, Julian. If they think I am not part of the investigation, they will punish not just me, but also all of you. They do not require me to tell them. They will know.” His eyes burned. “You understand me?”
“I understand, Mark. And I trust you.” Julian smiled at his brother, then, unexpectedly, that smile that was all the more bright for its unpredictability. “Anyway. Everyone into the car, okay? We’re heading back.”
“I must return with the steed,” said Mark. “I cannot leave him—it—here. If it were lost, the Wild Hunt would take it amiss.”
“Fine,” said Julian. “Take it back alone. Ty and Livvy aren’t getting onto it again, understood? Too dangerous.”
Livvy looked disappointed, Ty relieved. Mark nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I’ll go with Mark,” Cristina said suddenly. Emma saw Mark’s face light up in a way that surprised her.
“I shall fetch the steed,” Mark said. “I find I desire to fly.”
“And go the speed limit!” Julian yelled as Mark disappeared around the side of the building.
“It’s the sky, Julian,” said Emma. “There isn’t really a speed limit.”
“I know,” he said, and smiled. It was the smile Emma loved, the one she felt like was just for her, the one that said that although life often forced him to be serious, Julian wasn’t actually serious by nature. She wanted to hug him suddenly or touch his shoulder, so badly that she forced her hands down and clasped them together. She looked down at her fingers; for some reason she had intertwined them, as if they made a cage that would hold her feelings in.
The moon was high and full in the sky when Mark brought the motorcycle to a gentle stop in the sand behind the Institute.
The trip into the city had been all panic, Livvy gripping on to Cristina’s belt with small, worried hands, Ty telling Mark not to go too fast, the freeway disappearing under their feet. They’d nearly crashed into the Dumpster in the parking lot.
The way back was quiet, Cristina holding Mark lightly around the waist, thinking about how close they seemed to be flying to the clouds. The city below them was an interlocking pattern of colored lights. Cristina had always hated amusement park rides and airplane flights, but this was like neither of those: She felt a part of the air, buoyed up by it like a small craft on the water.
Mark slid off the cycle and held out his hand to help her down after him. She took it, her eyes still full of the sight of the Santa Monica Pier below them, the bright lights of the turning Ferris wheel. She’d never felt so far away from her mother, from the Institute in Mexico City, from the Rosaleses.
She liked it.
“My lady,” he said as her feet touched the sand.
She felt her lips curl up. “That seems so formal.”
“The Courts are nothing if not formal,” he agreed. “Thank you for coming back with me. You didn’t have to.”
“You seemed like maybe you didn’t want to be alone,” Cristina said. The soft wind was blowing off the desert, moving the sand, lifting his newly cut hair away from his face. Short now, it looked like a halo, so pale blond as to be almost silver.
“You see a great deal.” His eyes studied her face. She wondered what he had looked like when both of his eyes had been Blackthorn eyes, blue-green as the sea. She wondered if the strangeness of his eyes, now, added to his beauty.