Lady Midnight
Page 103

She wanted to tell him so, but the words stuck in her throat. “Was that—” she began. “Was that your first kiss?”
“No, I’ve been practicing on random strangers.” He grinned, wild and beautiful in the moonlight. “Yes. That was my first kiss.”
A shiver went through Emma. She thought, I love you, Julian Blackthorn. I love you more than starlight.
“It really wasn’t that bad,” she said, and smiled at him.
He laughed and pulled her closer against him. She relaxed into the curve of his body. The air was cold, but she was warm here, in this small circle with Julian, hidden by the outcroppings of rock, wrapped in the flannel jacket that smelled like him. His hand was gentle in her hair. “Shh, Emma. Go to sleep.”
She closed her eyes.
Emma slept, by the side of the ocean. And she had no nightmares.
“Emma.” There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. “Emma, wake up.”
She rolled over and blinked, then froze in surprise. There was no ceiling over her, only bright blue sky. She felt stiff and sore, her skin abraded by sand.
Julian was hovering over her. He was fully dressed, his face gray-white like scattered ash. His hands fluttered around her, not quite touching her, like Ty’s butterflies. “Someone was here.”
At that she did sit up. She was sitting on the beach—a small, bare half circle of a beach, hemmed in on either side by fingers of stone reaching into the ocean. The sand around her was thoroughly churned up, and she blushed, memory crashing into her like a wave. It looked like it was at least midday, though thankfully the beach was deserted. It was familiar, too. They were close to the Institute, closer than she’d thought. Not that she’d thought much.
She dragged air into her lungs. “Oh,” she said. “Oh my God.”
Julian didn’t say anything. His clothes were wet, crusted with sand where they folded. Her own clothes were on, Emma realized belatedly. Julian must have dressed her. Only her feet were bare.
The tide was low, seaweed lying exposed at the waterline. Their footsteps from the night before had long been washed away, but there were other footsteps embedded in the sand. It looked as if someone had climbed over one of the rock walls, walked up to them, and then doubled back and walked away. Two lines of footsteps. Emma stared at them in horror.
“Someone saw us?” she said.
“While we were sleeping,” said Julian. “I didn’t wake up either.” His hands knotted at his sides. “Some mundane, I hope, just figuring we were a dumb teenage couple.” He let out a breath. “I hope,” he said again.
Flashes of memory of the night before shot through Emma’s mind—the cold water, the demons, Julian carrying her, Julian kissing her. Julian and her, lying entwined on the sand.
Julian. She didn’t think she could think of him as Jules again. Jules was her childhood name for him. And they had left their childhood behind.
He turned to look at her, and she saw the anguish in his sea-colored eyes. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. “Emma, I am so, so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” she asked.
“I didn’t think.” He was pacing, his feet kicking up sand. “About—being safe. Protection. I didn’t think about it.”
“I’m protected,” she said.
He whirled to face her. “What?”
“I have the rune,” she said. “And I don’t have any diseases, and neither do you, do you?”
“I—no.” The relief on his face was palpable and for some reason made her stomach ache. “That was my first time, Emma.”
“I know,” she said in a whisper. “Anyway, you don’t need to apologize.”
“I do,” he said. “I mean, this is good. We’re lucky. But I should have thought of it. I don’t have an excuse. I was out of my mind.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“I must have been, to do that,” he said.
“To do what?” She was impressed by how clearly and calmly each word came out. Anxiety beat through her like a drum.
“What we did.” He exhaled. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re saying what we did was wrong.”
“I meant—” He looked as if he were trying to contain something that wanted to tear its way out of him. “There’s nothing wrong with it morally,” he said. “It’s a stupid Law. But it is a Law. And we can’t break it. It’s one of the oldest Laws there is.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.”
He looked at her without seeing her, blindly. “The Law is hard, but it is the Law.”
Emma got to her feet. “No,” she said. “No Law can control our feelings.”
“I didn’t say anything about feelings,” said Julian.
Her throat felt dry. “What do you mean?”
“We shouldn’t have slept together,” he said. “I know it meant something to me, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, but the Law doesn’t forbid sex, it forbids love. Being in love.”
“I’m pretty sure sleeping together is against the rules too.”
“Yeah, but it’s not what they exile you for! It’s not what they strip your Marks for!” He raked a hand through his snarled hair. “It’s against the rules because—being intimate like that, physically intimate, it opens you up to be emotionally intimate and that’s what they care about.”
“We are emotionally intimate.”
“You know what I mean. Don’t pretend you don’t.” There are different kinds of closeness, intimacy. They want us to be close. But they don’t want this.” He gestured around at the beach as if to encompass all of the night before.
Emma was shaking. “Eros,” she said. “Instead of philia or agape.”
He looked relieved, as if her explanation meant she understood, she agreed. As if they had made some decision together. Emma wanted to scream. “Philia,” he said. “That’s what we have—friendship love—and I’m sorry if I did anything to screw that up—”
“I was there too,” Emma said, and her voice was as cold as the water.
He looked at her levelly.
“We love each other,” he said. “We’re parabatai, love is part of the bond. And I’m attracted to you. How could I not be? You’re beautiful. And it’s not like—”
He broke off, but Emma filled the rest in for him, the words so painful they almost seemed to cut at the inside of her head. It’s not like I can meet other girls, not like I can date, you’re what there is, you’re what’s around, Cristina’s probably still in love with someone in Mexico, there isn’t anyone for me. There’s just you.
“It’s not like I’m blind,” he said. “I can see you, and I want you, but—we can’t. If we do, we’ll end up falling in love, and that would be a disaster.”
“Falling in love,” Emma echoed. How could he not see she was already fallen, in every way you could be? “Didn’t I tell you I loved you? Last night?”
He shook his head. “We never said we loved each other,” he said. “Not once.”