Lady Midnight
Page 64

She led the way to his room; he had left the lights off, so she illuminated her witchlight and set it down by the bed. “That chair,” she said, pointing. “Bring it into the middle of the room and sit down. I’ll be right back.”
He looked after her quizzically as she left the room. When she returned, carrying a damp comb, a towel, and a pair of scissors, he was seated in the chair, still with the same quizzical look. He didn’t sit the way other teenage boys did, all sprawl and legs and arms. He sat the way kings did in drawings, upright but deliberate, as if the crown rested uneasily on his head.
“Are you going to cut my throat?” he asked as she came toward him with the towel and the sharp scissors gleaming.
“I’m going to cut your hair.” She looped the towel around his neck and moved to stand behind him. His head tipped back to follow her movements as she took hold of his hair, running her fingers through it. It was the kind of hair that should have been curly but was weighed down by its own length and tangles.
“Hold still,” she said.
“As my lady requests.”
She ran the comb through his hair and began to cut, careful to keep the length even. As she snipped away the weight of his silvery-blond mane, it sprang free in adorable curls like Julian’s. They twined up against the back of his neck as if they wanted to be close to him.
She remembered touching Diego’s hair; it had been thick under her fingers, dark and textured. Mark’s was fine, like corn silk. It fell like gleaming chaff, catching the witchlight.
“Tell me about the faerie Court,” she said. “I’ve always heard stories. My mother told me some, and my uncle.”
“We didn’t see it much,” he said, sounding very ordinary for a moment. “Gwyn and the Hunters aren’t part of any Court. He keeps himself to himself. We joined the Courts and the gentry only on nights when there were revels. But those were—”
He was silent for so long she wondered if he had fallen asleep or was perhaps simply deathly bored.
“If you had been to one you would not forget it,” he said. “Great sparkling caves or deserted copses in woodlands full of will-o’-the-wisp lights. There are still some parts of this world that are undiscovered by all but the Folk. There was dancing to wear your feet down, and there were beautiful boys and girls, and kisses were cheaper than wine but the wine was sweet and the fruit sweeter. And you would wake up in the morning and it would all be gone, but you could still hear the music in your head.”
“I think I would find it very frightening.” She moved around to stand in front of him. He looked up at her with his curious two-colored eyes and she felt a tremor run through her hand, one she’d never felt when she cut Diego’s hair or his brother Jaime’s or any of her little cousins’. Of course, they’d been twelve when she’d clipped their hair, showing off what her mother had taught her, so maybe it was different when you were older. “Everything so glamorous and beautiful. How can a human compare?”
He looked surprised. “But you would be lovely in the Court,” he said. “They would turn leaves and flowers into jeweled crowns and sandals for you. You would sparkle and be admired. The Folk love nothing more than mortal beauty.”
“Because it fades,” she said.
“Yes,” he admitted. “It is true that eventually you will become gray and bent and withered, and it is possible that hair will sprout from your chin. And there is also the issue of warts.” He caught her glare. “But that time is a long time away,” he added hastily.
Cristina snorted. “I thought faeries were meant to be charming.” She slid a hand under his chin to steady his head as she snipped away the last unruly strands. That was different too; his skin was as smooth as hers, no hint of stubble or roughness. His eyes narrowed, their color thinning to a gleam as she set the scissors aside and cleared her throat. “There,” she said. “Would you like to see?”
He straightened up in the chair. Cristina was bending down; their heads were on a level. “Lean closer,” he said. “For years I have had no mirror; I have learned to make do. The eyes of another can be a mirror more effective than water. If you will look at me, I can see my reflection in yours.”
I have had to make do. Whose eyes had he been looking into, all those years? Cristina wondered as she leaned forward. She didn’t know why she did it, exactly; maybe it was the way his eyes stayed fixed on hers, as if he couldn’t imagine anything more fascinating than looking at her. His gaze didn’t stray, either, not to the V of her shirt or her bare legs or even her hands, as she opened her eyes wide and looked directly back at him.
“Beautiful,” he said finally.
“Do you mean your haircut?” she asked, trying for a teasing voice, but it wobbled in the middle. Maybe she shouldn’t have offered to so intimately touch a complete stranger, even if he did seem harmless, even if she hadn’t meant anything by it—had she?
“No,” he said on a soft exhale. She felt his breath warm on her neck, and his hand slid over hers. His was rough and calloused, scarred along the palm. Her heart gave an uneven leap in her chest just as Mark’s bedroom door opened.
She nearly jumped away from him as Ty and Livvy appeared in the doorway. Livvy was holding her phone, and her eyes were wide and worried. “It’s Emma,” she said, lifting the phone. “She texted nine-one-one. We need to go meet them right away.”
Emma made a screeching right turn off Fairfax into a parking lot down the street from Canter’s Delicatessen. It belonged to a paint store that was closed now. She wheeled around to the back, where the lot was totally empty, and pulled the car to a jerking stop, making Jules swear.
She looked back at him, unbuckling her belt. He was pale, clutching his side. She couldn’t see much, given the darkness inside the car and the black clothes he was wearing, but blood was leaking through his fingers in slow pulses. Her stomach went cold.
When he’d fallen at Wells’s house, the first thing she’d done was sketch a healing rune on his skin. The second was get him to his feet and half-drag him, the weapons, and Ava’s purse into the backseat of the car.
It was only after they’d driven a few blocks that he’d moaned and she’d looked back to realize he was still bleeding. She’d pulled over and put on another healing rune, and then another. That would work. It had to.
There were very few kinds of wounds that healing runes couldn’t help. Those made by demon poisons, and those bad enough to kill you. She’d felt her brain hitch and freeze up at the thought of either of those possibilities and had gone immediately for her phone. She’d texted Livvy the first location she could think of that was familiar—they all knew and loved Canter’s—and then driven straight for it as fast as she could.
She turned the car off with a jerk of her wrist and climbed into the backseat beside Jules. He was wedged into the corner, pale and sweating with obvious pain. “Okay,” she said in a shaking voice. “You have to let me look at you.”
He was biting his lip. The streetlights from Fairfax illuminated the backseat, but not enough for Emma to see him well. He reached down for the hem of his shirt—and hesitated.
She took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it, filling the car with bright light. Jules’s shirt was soaked with blood, and worse, the healing runes she’d drawn had vanished from his skin.