Lady Midnight
Page 101

Which was nice. She was happy for him, and for Clary, who smiled and waved at her across the room. But she no longer got butterflies in her stomach when he smiled at her, or wanted to crawl under something and die when he hugged her and told her she looked pretty in her new dress. “You’ve got a lot of responsibility now,” he said to Julian. “You’ll have to make sure she winds up with a guy who deserves her.”
Julian was strangely white-faced. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the ceremony, Emma thought. It had been strong magic, and she still felt it sizzling through her blood like champagne bubbles. But Jules looked as if he were getting sick.
“What about me?” Emma said quickly. “Don’t I have to make sure Jules winds up with someone who deserves him?”
“Absolutely. I did it for Alec, Alec did it for me—well, actually, he hated Clary at first, but he came around.”
“I bet you didn’t like Magnus much, either,” said Julian, still with the same odd, stiff look on his face.
“Maybe not,” said Jace, “but I never would have said so.”
“Because it would have hurt Alec’s feelings?” Emma asked.
“No,” said Jace, “because Magnus would have turned me into a hat rack,” and he wandered back toward Clary, who was laughing with Alec, both of them looking happy.
Which was as it should be, Emma thought. One’s parabatai should be friends with the person you loved, your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, because that was how it worked. Though when she tried to imagine the person she’d be with, someone she might marry and stay with forever, there was only a sort of blurry space. She couldn’t picture the person at all.
“I have to go,” Julian said. “I need some air.” He brushed the back of his hand across Emma’s cheek before making for the double doors of the Hall. It was a ragged touch: His nails were bitten down to the edges.
Later that night Emma woke up from a dream of fiery circles, her skin burning hot, the sheets tangled around her legs. They had been put up in the old Blackthorn manor house, and Julian was far away, down corridors she didn’t know like she knew the hallways of the Institute. She went to the window. It was a short drop down to the garden path. She kicked her feet into slippers and climbed outside.
The path curved around the gardens. Emma made her way along it, breathing in the cool, clean air of Idris, untouched by smog. The sky above was brilliant with a million stars, totally free of light pollution, and she wished Julian was with her so she could show it to him, and then she heard voices.
The Blackthorn manor had burned down quite a long time ago and been rebuilt near to the Herondale manor. Emma wandered down a number of pretty paths until she found a wall.
There was a gate set into the wall. As Emma approached it, she could hear the murmured voices more clearly. She crept to the side of the gate and peered through the bars.
On the other side, a green lawn sloped down to the Herondale manor, a pile of white and tawny stone. The grass was sparkling with dew under the starlight and starred with the white flowers that grew only in Idris.
“And that constellation right there, that’s the Rabbit. See how it has ears?” It was Jace’s voice. He and Clary were sitting in the grass, shoulder to shoulder. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and Clary was in her nightgown, Jace’s jacket around her shoulders. Jace was pointing at the sky.
“I’m pretty sure there’s no Rabbit constellation,” Clary said. She hadn’t changed as much as Jace had in the past years—she was still slight, her red hair bright as Christmas, her small face freckled and thoughtful. She had her head against Jace’s shoulder.
“Sure there is,” he said, and as the starlight touched his pale curls, Emma felt a faint flutter of her old crush. “And that one there, that’s the Hubcap. And there’s the Great Pancake.”
“I’m going back inside,” Clary said. “I was promised an astronomy lesson.”
“What? Sailors used to navigate by the Great Pancake,” said Jace, and Clary shook her head and started to stand up. Jace grabbed her ankle and she laughed and tumbled over on top of him, and then they were kissing and Emma froze, because what had been a casual moment, one she could have interrupted with a friendly hello, had suddenly become something else.
Jace rolled over on top of Clary in the grass. She had her arms wrapped around him, her hands in his hair. His jacket had fallen off her shoulders and the straps of her nightgown were sliding down her pale arms.
Clary was laughing and saying his name, saying maybe they should go back inside, and Jace kissed her neck. Clary gasped and Emma heard him say, “Remember the Wayland manor? Remember that time outside?”
“I remember.” Her voice was low and throaty.
“I didn’t think I could have you,” Jace said. He was propped over Clary on his elbows, tracing the line of her cheek with his finger. “It was like being in Hell. I would have done anything for you. I still would.”
Clary flattened her hand against his chest, over his heart, and said, “I love you.”
He made a noise, a very un-Jace-like noise, and Emma jerked herself away from the gate and ran back toward the Blackthorn house.
She reached her window and climbed up inside, gasping. The moon shone down like a floodlight, illuminating her room. She kicked off her slippers and sat down on the bed. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.
The way Jace had looked down at Clary, the way she’d touched his face. She wondered if anyone would ever look at her like that. It didn’t seem possible. She couldn’t imagine loving anyone that much.
Anyone but Jules.
But that was different. Wasn’t it? She couldn’t imagine Julian lying on top of her, kissing her like that. They were different, they were something else, weren’t they?
She lay back down on the bed, looking across the room at the door. Some part of her expected Jules to come through it, to come to her because she was unhappy the way he often did, seeming to know without being told. But why would he think she was unhappy? Today had been her parabatai ceremony; it should have been one of the happiest days of her life except for maybe her wedding day. Instead she felt flushed and strange and full of the strangest urge to cry.
Jules, she thought, but the door didn’t open, and he didn’t come. Instead she curled up around her pillow and lay awake until dawn.
After the darkness, there was light. Bright white and silver—starlight on water and sand. And Emma was flying. Over the surface of the water, now shallow—she could see the sand of the beach underneath, and a pool of fire where the moon reflected.
There was a pain in her chest. She twisted to get away from it and realized she wasn’t flying; she was being carried. She was being held against a hard chest and arms were around her. She saw the glimmer of blue-green eyes.
Julian. Julian was carrying her. Wet, dark curls crowned his head. She tried to draw in a breath to speak, and choked. Her chest spasmed; water filled her mouth, bitter and salty like blood. She saw Julian’s face twist with panic, and then he was half-running up the beach, finally crashing to his knees, depositing her in the sand. She was still coughing, choking, looking up at him with frightened eyes. She saw the same fear mirrored on his face; she wanted to tell him it would be all right, everything was going to be fine, but she couldn’t speak past the water in her throat.