“It’s a good thing you showed up when you did,” Emma said, turning to look at Cristina and then Julian. “I don’t know how you figured out what was going on, but—”
“We didn’t,” Julian said shortly. “After you hung up on Cristina, we checked your phone’s GPS and realized you were out here. It seemed weird enough to follow up.”
“But you didn’t know we were in trouble,” Emma realized. “Just that we were at the convergence.”
Cristina gave her an expressive look. Julian didn’t say anything.
Emma unzipped her cardigan and shrugged out of it, transferring Wells’s wallet to the pocket of her jeans. Battle brought on a sort of numbness, a lack of awareness of injury that let her go forward. The aches and pains were coming now, and she winced as she peeled her sleeve away from her forearm. A long burn reached from her elbow to her wrist, red-black at the edges.
She glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw Jules registering the injury. He leaned forward. “Can you pull over here, Cristina?”
Unfailingly polite Jules. Emma tried to smile at him in the mirror, but he wasn’t looking at her. Cristina pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the seafood shack Emma and Mark had flown over earlier. A massive neon sign reading POSEIDON’S TRIDENT hung over the ramshackle building.
The four of them piled out of the car. The shack was nearly deserted except for a few tables of long-distance truckers and campers from the sites down the road, huddling over coffee and plates of fried oysters.
Cristina insisted on going inside to order them some food and drinks; after a moment’s argument, they let her. Julian threw his jacket on a table, claiming it. “There’s an outdoor shower around the back,” he said. “And some privacy. Come on.”
“How do you know that?” Emma asked, joining him as he stalked around the building. He didn’t answer. She could feel his anger, not just in the way he looked at her, but in a tight knot under her rib cage.
The dirt path that circled the shack opened out into an area ringed by Dumpsters. There was a massive steel double sink, and—as Jules had promised—a large open shower with surfing equipment stacked next to it.
Mark crossed the sand to the shower and flipped the spigot.
“Wait,” Julian began. “You’ll get—”
Water poured down, soaking Mark instantly. He lifted his face up to it as calmly as if he were bathing in tropical rainfall and not unheated shower water on a chilly night.
“—Wet.” Julian raked his fingers through his tangled hair. Chocolate-colored hair, Emma had thought when she was younger. People thought brown hair was boring, but it wasn’t: Julian’s had bits of gold in it and hints of russet and coffee.
Emma went to the sink and ran water over the cut on her arm, then splashed it up over her face and neck, rinsing off the ichor. Demon blood was toxic: It could burn your skin, and it was a bad idea to get it into your mouth and eyes.
Mark flipped the shower off and stepped away, water streaming off him. She wondered if he was uncomfortable—his jeans stuck to him, as did his shirt. His hair was plastered to his neck.
His eyes met hers. Cold burning blue and colder gold. In them Emma saw the wildness of the Hunt: the emptiness and freedom of the skies. It made her shiver.
She saw Julian look at her sharply. He said something to Mark, who nodded and vanished around the side of the building.
Emma reached to turn the sink water off, wincing: There was a burn on her palm. She reached for her stele.
“Don’t,” said Jules’s voice, and there was a warm presence behind her suddenly. She gripped the edge of the sink and closed her eyes, feeling momentarily dizzy. The heat of Jules’s body was palpable up and down her back. “Let me.”
Healing runes—any runes—given to you by your parabatai worked better, amplified by the magic of the bonding spell. Emma turned around, her back against the sink. Julian was so close to her that she had to turn carefully so as not to bump into him. He smelled of fire and cloves and paint. Goose bumps exploded across her skin as he took her arm, cupping her wrist, drawing his stele with his free hand.
She could feel the path each of his fingers traced on the sensitive skin of her forearm. His skin was hard with calluses, roughened with turpentine.
“Jules,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Going to the convergence without you,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to—”
“Why did you?” he asked, and the stele began its journey over her skin, forming the lines of the healing rune. “Why go off with just Mark?”
“The motorcycle,” Emma said. “It could only take two. The motorcycle,” she said again, at Julian’s blank look, and then remembered the Mantid demon crushing it in its jagged, razored arms.
“Right,” she said. “Mark’s steed? The one the faerie convoy was talking about in the Sanctuary? It was a motorcycle. One of the Mantids crushed it, so I guess it’s an ex-motorcycle.”