But Diana only shook her head, unforthcoming. It was a familiar wall. Emma had crashed against it more than once. “It’s important,” was all Diana said. “You’ll have to trust me.”
Julian said nothing. Emma suspected Diana’s aloofness bothered him as much, if not more, than it bothered her, but he never showed it.
“But this changes things,” Emma said, and she fought down the emotion in her voice, the spark of relief, even triumph, that she knew she shouldn’t feel. “Because of Mark. Because of Mark, you’re willing to let us try to find out who did this.”
“Yes.” For the first time since she’d come into the hallway, Diana looked directly at Emma. “You must be pleased,” she said. “You got exactly what you wanted. We’ve got no choice now. We’ll have to investigate these killings, and we’ll have to do it without the knowledge of the Clave.”
“I didn’t make this happen,” Emma protested.
“No situation in which you have no choice is a good one, Emma,” Diana said. “Which you will eventually learn. I only hope it isn’t too late. You might think this is a good thing that’s happened, but I can assure you it isn’t.” She turned away from Emma, fixing her attention on Julian. “As you well know, Julian, this is an illegal investigation. The Cold Peace forbids cooperation with the Fair Folk, and certainly forbids what amounts to working for them, no matter the inducement. It’s to our advantage to figure this out as quickly and cleanly as we can, so the Clave has as little opportunity as possible to find out what we’re doing.”
“And when it’s done?” Julian said. “And Mark’s back? How do we explain that?”
Something in Diana’s eyes shifted. “We’ll worry about that when it happens.”
“So we’re racing the Clave and the Courts,” said Julian. “Fantastic. Maybe there’s someone else we can piss off. The Spiral Labyrinth? The Scholomance? Interpol?”
“No one’s pissed off yet,” said Diana. “Let’s just keep it that way.” She handed the papers to Emma. “Just to be clear: We can’t cooperate with the Fair Folk and we can’t harbor Mark without reporting it, except obviously we’re going to, so the upshot is that no one outside the building can know. And I refuse to lie to the Clave directly, so hopefully we can get this done with before they start asking questions.” She looked at them each in turn, her expression serious. “We have to work together. Emma, no more fighting me. Cristina, if you want to be reassigned to another Institute, we’ll understand. We’d just ask you to keep this to yourself.”
Emma gasped. “No!”
Cristina was already shaking her head. “I don’t need a new assignment,” she said. “I will keep your secret. I will make it my secret too.”
“Good,” Diana said. “Speaking of keeping things secret, don’t tell Malcolm how we got our hands on these papers. Don’t mention Mark, don’t mention the faerie delegation. If he says anything, he’ll have me to deal with.”
“Malcolm’s our friend,” said Julian. “We can trust him.”
“I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t get in trouble if anyone finds out,” she said. “He needs to be able to deny it.” She zipped up her jacket. “Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow. Good luck.”
“Threatening the High Warlock,” Julian muttered as Diana disappeared down the hall. “Better and better. Maybe we should head down to vampire clan headquarters and punch Anselm Nightshade in the face?”
“But think of the consequences,” Emma said. “No more pizza.”
Julian gave her a wry sideways-looking smile.
“I could go to Malcolm’s alone,” Emma said. “You could stay here, Jules, wait for Mark to—”
She didn’t finish. She wasn’t sure she knew what exactly they were waiting for Mark to do, that any of them knew.
“No,” Julian said. “Malcolm trusts me. I know him the best. I can convince him to keep this secret.” He straightened up. “We’ll both go.”
As parabatai. As we should.
Emma nodded and caught at Cristina’s hand. “We’ll make it as fast as we can,” she said. “You’ll be all right?”
Cristina nodded. Her hand was at her throat, her fingers resting on her necklace. “I will watch over Mark,” she said. “It will be all right. Everything will be all right.”
And Emma almost believed her.
Being a High Warlock must pay well, Emma thought, as she always did when she saw Malcolm Fade’s house. It looked like a castle.
Malcolm lived up the highway from the Institute, past Kanan Dume Road. It was a spot where the bluffs rose high above, threaded with green sea grass. The house was shrouded by glamour spells, hiding it from mundanes. If you were driving—which Emma was— you had to look hard at a spot between two bluffs, and a silvery bridge that climbed up into the hills would appear.
Emma pulled over to the side of the highway. Lines of cars were parked along the sides of the PCH here, most of them surfers drawn by the wide beach to the west.
Emma exhaled, turning the car off. “Okay,” she said. “We—”