He put bow to strings and began to play again. Music rose up, swirling around the kitchen like smoke.
Emma stood up from the kitchen chair. The sky was darkening outside, the setting sun reflected in the canal water. “I have to go.”
“Oh, Em.” Her mother came around the kitchen island toward her. She was carrying Cortana. “I know.”
Shadows moved across the inside of her mind. Someone was holding her hand so tightly it hurt. “Emma, please,” said the voice she loved the most in the world. “Emma, come back.”
Emma’s mother placed the sword in her hands. “Steel and temper, daughter,” she said. “And remember that a blade made by Wayland the Smith can cut anything.”
“Go back.” Her father kissed her on the forehead. “Go back, Emma, to where you are needed.”
“Mama,” she whispered. “Papa.”
She tightened her grip on the sword. The kitchen whirled away from her, folding up like an envelope. Her mother and father disappeared into it, like words written long ago.
“Cortana,” Emma gasped.
She thrashed upward and cried out in pain. Sheets were tangled around her waist. She was in bed, in her room. The lamps were on but dimly lit, the window cracked open slightly. The table next to the bed was piled with bandages and folded towels. The room smelled of blood and burning.
“Emma?” An incredulous voice. Cristina was sitting at the foot of the bed, a roll of bandages and some scissors in her hand. She dropped them to the floor as she saw that Emma’s eyes were open, and flung herself onto the bed. “Oh, Emma!”
She threw her arms around Emma’s shoulders, and for a moment, Emma clung to her. She wondered if this was what it was like to have an older sister, someone who could be your friend and also take care of you.
“Ouch,” Emma said meekly. “It hurts.”
Cristina pulled back. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “Emma, are you all right? Do you remember everything that happened?”
Emma put a hand to her head. Her throat hurt. She wondered if it was from screaming. She hoped not. She hadn’t wanted to give Iarlath the satisfaction. “I . . . how long have I been passed out?”
“Out? Oh, asleep. Since this morning. All day, really. Julian has been in here with you the whole time. I finally convinced him to eat something. He’ll be horrified that you woke up and he wasn’t here.” Cristina pushed Emma’s tangled hair back.
“I should get up. . . . I should see . . . Is everyone all right? Did anything happen?” Her mind suddenly full of awful images of the faeries, done with her, going after Mark or Julian or somehow, even, the children, Emma tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed.
“Nothing has happened.” Cristina pushed her back gently. “You are tired and weak; you need food and runes. A whipping like that . . . You can whip someone to death, you know that, Emma?”
“Yes,” Emma whispered. “Will my back be scarred forever?”
“Probably,” Cristina said. “But it won’t be bad—the iratzes closed the wounds quickly. They couldn’t quite heal them all. There will be marks, but they will be light.” Her eyes were red. “Emma, why did you do it? Why? You really think your body is so much stronger than Mark’s or Julian’s?”
“No,” Emma said. “I think everyone is strong and weak in different ways. There are things I’m terrified of that Mark isn’t. Like the ocean. But he’s been tortured enough—what it would have done to him, I don’t even know. And Julian . . . I felt it when they whipped him. In my body, in my heart. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt, Cristina. I would have done anything to stop it. It was selfish.”
“It was not selfish.” Cristina caught Emma’s hand and squeezed it. “I have thought now for a while that I would never want a parabatai,” she said. “But I would feel differently, I think, if that parabatai could have been you.”
I wish you were my parabatai, too, Emma thought, but she couldn’t say it—it felt disloyal to Julian, despite everything.
Instead she said, “I love you, Cristina,” and squeezed the other girl’s hand back. “But the investigation—I should go with you—”
“To where? The library? Everyone has been reading and searching all day for more information about Lady Midnight. We will find something, but we have plenty of people to look at pages.”
“There are other things to do besides look at pages—”
The door opened, and Julian was on the threshold. His eyes widened and for a moment they were all Emma could see, like blue-green doors to another world.
“Emma.” His voice sounded rough and cracked. He was wearing jeans and a loose white shirt and beneath it the outline of a bandage, wrapping around his chest, was visible. His eyes were red, his hair tousled, and there was a faint sprinkling of stubble along his chin and cheeks. Julian never went without shaving, ever since the first time he’d shown up with stubble and Ty had told him, without preamble, “I don’t like it.”