Lady Midnight
Page 42

He breathed out. “Emma.” Raw pain. “Emma, I said what I said because—because sometimes I think I asked you to be my parabatai because I wanted you to be tied to me. The Consul wanted you to go to the Academy and I couldn’t stand the thought. I’d lost so many people. I didn’t want to lose you, too.”
She was so close to him he could feel the heat from her sun-warmed skin. For a moment she said nothing, and he felt as if he were on the gallows, having the hangman’s noose fastened around his throat. Waiting only for the drop.
Then she put her hand over his on the console between them.
Their hands. Hers were delicate-looking, but more scarred than his own, more calloused, her skin rough against his. His sea-glass bracelet glowed like jewels in the sunlight.
“People do complicated things because people are complicated,” she said. “All that stuff about how you’re supposed to make the parabatai decision only for totally pure reasons, that’s a crock.”
“I wanted to tie you to me,” he said. “Because I was tied here. Maybe you should have gone to the Academy. Maybe it would have been the right place for you. Maybe I took something away from you.”
Emma looked at him. Her face was open and completely trusting. He almost thought he could feel his convictions shatter, the convictions he’d built up before he’d left at the beginning of the summer, the convictions he’d carried with him all the way back home until the moment he’d seen her again. He could feel them breaking inside him, like driftwood shattered against rocks.
“Jules,” she said. “You gave me a family. You gave me everything.”
A phone shrilled again. Emma’s. Julian sat back, heart pounding, as she thumbed it out of her pocket. He watched as her face set.
“Livvy’s texting,” she said. “She says Mark woke up. And he’s screaming.”
Julian floored the car on the way home, Emma keeping her hands clasped around her knees as the speedometer crept up past eighty. They careened into the parking lot behind the Institute and slammed on the brakes. Julian threw himself out of the car and Emma raced after him.
They reached the second floor to find the younger Blackthorns seated on the floor outside Mark’s door. Dru was curled up with Tavvy against Livvy’s side; Ty sat alone, his long hands dangling between his knees. They were all staring; the door was cracked partway open and through it Emma could hear Mark’s voice, raised and angry, and then another voice, lower and more soothing—Cristina.
“Sorry I texted,” said Livvy in a small voice. “It’s just that he was screaming and screaming. He finally stopped, but—Cristina’s in there with him. If any of the rest of us go in, he howls and yells.”
“Oh my God.” Emma moved toward the door, but Julian caught her, swinging her around to face him. She looked over and saw that Ty had begun to rock back and forth, his eyes closed. It was something he did when things were too much: too loud, too harsh or hard or fast or painful.
The world was extra intense for Ty, Julian had always said. It was as if his ears could hear more clearly, his eyes see more, and sometimes it was too much for him. He needed to cover noise, to feel something in his hand to distract him. He needed to rock back and forth to soothe himself. Everyone processed stress in a different way, Julian said. This was Ty’s, and it hurt nobody.
“Em,” Julian said. His face was taut. “I need to go in alone.”
She nodded. He let go of her almost reluctantly. “Guys,” he said, looking at his siblings—at Dru’s round, worried face, Tavvy’s uncomprehending one, Livvy’s unhappy eyes, and Ty’s hunched shoulders. “It’s going to be hard for Mark. We can’t expect him to be okay all at once. He’s been away a long time. He has to get used to being here.”
“But we’re his family,” said Livvy. “Why would you have to get used to your own family?”
“You might,” Julian said, in that patient soft voice that amazed Emma sometimes, “if you’d been away from them a long time and you’d been somewhere where your mind plays tricks on you.”
“Like Faerie,” said Ty. He had stopped rocking and was leaning back against the wall, dark hair damp and in his face.
“Right,” Julian said. “So we’re going to have to give him time. Maybe leave him alone a little.” He looked over at Emma.
She pasted a smile onto her face—God, she was so much worse at this than Jules—and said, “Malcolm’s working on the investigation. The murders. I thought we could head to the library and look into ley lines.”
“Me too?” Drusilla piped up.
Emma said, “You can help us plot a map. Okay?”
Dru nodded. “Okay.” She rose to her feet and the others followed. As Emma led them away down the hall, a quietly subdued group, she looked back only once. Julian was standing by the door to Mark’s room, watching them go. His eyes met hers for a split second before he looked away, as if he hadn’t seen her glance at all.
If only Emma was with him, Julian thought as he pushed open the door, this would be easier. It would have to be easier. When Emma was with him it was like he was breathing twice as much oxygen, had twice as much blood, had two hearts to drive the motion of his body. He put it down to the doubling magic of parabatai: She made him twice what he would be otherwise.
But he’d had to send her away with the kids; he didn’t trust anyone else with them, and definitely not Arthur. Arthur, he thought bitterly, who was hiding in his attic while one of his nephews desperately tried to hold his family together and another one—
“Mark?” Julian said.
The bedroom was dim, the curtains closed. He could just see that Cristina was sitting on the floor, her back to the wall. She had one hand pressed to the pendant at her throat, and the other at her hip, where something gleamed between her fingers.
Mark was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, his hair hanging in his face. You could see how painfully thin he was; there was sinewy muscle on him, but it was the kind you got from starving sometimes and driving yourself anyway. His head jerked up when Julian said his name.
Their eyes met and for a brief moment Julian saw a flicker of recognition in his brother’s eyes.
“Mark,” he said again, and moved forward, his hand out. “It’s me. It’s Jules.”
“Don’t—” Cristina started up, but it was too late. Mark had bared his teeth in an angry hiss.
“Lies,” he snarled. “Hallucinations—I know you—Gwyn sent you to trick me—”
“I’m your brother,” Julian said again. The look on Mark’s face was wild.
“You know the wishes of my heart,” said Mark. “And you turn them against me, like knives.”
Julian looked across the room at Cristina. She was rising to her feet slowly, as if preparing to throw herself between the two brothers if needed.
Mark whirled on Jules. His eyes were blind, unseeing. “You bring the twins in front of me and you kill them over and over. My Ty, he doesn’t understand why I can’t save him. You bring me Dru and when she laughs and asks to see the fairy-tale castle, all ringed round with hedges, you throw her against the thorns until they pierce her small body. And you bid me wash in Octavian’s blood, for the blood of an innocent child is magic under the hill.”