Lord of Shadows
Page 122

“It’s abandoned. Unhallowed.” Julian pushed his jacket sleeves up. He was marking himself with a Strength rune, neatly and precisely, on the inside of his forearm. Behind him Emma could see the curve of the bay, the water dashing itself in blue curls against the shore.
“Still—we respect all religions. Every religion tithes to Shadowhunters. That’s how we live. This seems—”
“Disrespectful?” Julian smiled with little humor. “Emma, you didn’t see what I saw. What Malcolm did. He ripped apart the fabric of what made this church a hallowed place. He spilled blood, and then his blood was spilled. And when a church becomes a slaughterhouse like that, it’s worse than if it was some other kind of building.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Remember what Valentine did with the Mortal Sword? When he took it from the Silent City?”
Emma nodded. Everyone knew the story. It was part of Shadowhunter history. “He changed its alliance from seraphic to infernal. Changed it from good to evil.”
“And this church has been changed too.” He craned his head back to look up at the tower. “As sacrosanct a place as it once was, it’s that unholy now. And demons will keep being attracted to it, and keep coming through, and they won’t stay put here—they’ll come to the village. They’ll be a danger to the mundanes who live there. And to us.”
“Tell me this isn’t just you wanting to burn down a church because you want to make a statement.”
Julian smiled at her blandly—the sort of smile that made everyone love him and trust him, that made him seem harmless. Forgettable even. But Emma saw through it to the razor blades beneath. “I don’t think anyone wants to hear any statements I have to make.”
Emma sighed. “It’s a stone building. You can’t just draw a Fire rune on it and expect it to go up like matches.”
He looked at her levelly. “I remember what happened in the car,” he said. “When you healed me. I know what a rune that’s made when we draw on each other’s energy can do.”
“You want my help for this?”
Julian turned so he was facing the wall of the church, a gray sheet of granite, punctuated by boarded-up windows. Grass grew out of control around their feet, starred with dandelions. In the far distance Emma could hear the cries of children on the beach.
He reached out with his stele and drew on the stone of the wall. The rune flickered, tiny flames lapping at its edge. Fire. But the flames died down quickly, absorbed into the stone.
“Put your hands on me,” Julian said.
“What?” Emma wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
“It would help if we were touching,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner. “Put your hands on my back, maybe, or my shoulders.”
Emma moved up behind him. He was taller than her; lifting her hands to his shoulders would mean stretching her body into an awkward position. This close to him, she could feel the expansion of his rib cage when he breathed, see the tiny freckles on the back of his neck where the wind had blown his hair sideways. The arc of broad shoulders into narrower waist and hips, the length of his legs.
She placed her hands on his waist, as if she were riding behind him on a motorcycle, under his jacket but on top of his T-shirt. His skin was warm through the cotton.
“All right,” she said. Her breath moved his hair; a shiver went over his skin. She could feel it. She swallowed. “Go ahead.”
She half-closed her eyes as the stele scratched against the wall. He smelled like cut grass, which wasn’t surprising, considering he’d been rolling in it with the struggling piskie.
“Why wouldn’t anyone want to hear them?” she asked.
“Hear what?” Julian reached up. His T-shirt rose, and Emma found her hands on bare skin, taut over oblique muscles. Her breath caught.
“Any statements you had to make about, you know, anything,” Emma said, as his feet settled back onto the ground. Her hands were tangled in the fabric of his shirt now. She looked up to see a second Fire rune: This one was deeper, darker, and the flames at its edges shone brightly. The stone around it began to crack—
And the fire went out.
“It might not work,” Emma said. Her heart was pounding. She wanted this to work, and at the same time she didn’t. Their runes ought to be more powerful when created together; that was the case for all parabatai. But there was a limit to that power. Unless two parabatai were in love with each other. Jem had made it sound as if their power, then, could be almost infinite—that it might grow until it destroyed them.
Julian no longer loved her; she’d seen it in the way he’d kissed that faerie girl. Still, it would be hard to have to watch the proof.
But maybe it would be the best thing for her. She’d have to face reality sooner rather than later.
She slid her arms around Julian, clasping them together across his stomach. The act pressed her body up against his, her chest flush against his back. She felt him tense in surprise.
“Try one more time,” she said. “Go slowly.”
She heard his breathing quicken. His arm went up, and the stele began to scratch out another rune against the stone.
Instinctively, her hands moved up his chest. She heard the stele hitch and skip. Her palm settled over his heart. It was hammering, slamming against the inside of his rib cage.
Julian’s heartbeat. The hundred thousand other times she had heard or felt it crashed into her like an express train. Six years old, she had fallen off a wall she was balanced on and Julian had caught her; they had fallen together, and she had heard his heartbeat. She remembered the pulse in his throat as he held the Mortal Sword in the Council Hall. Racing each other up the beach, putting her fingers to his wrist and counting the beats per minute of his heart afterward. The syncopated rhythm as their heartbeats matched during the parabatai ceremony. The sound of the roar of his blood when he carried her out of the ocean. The steady beat of his heart as she’d laid her head on his chest that night.
Her body shuddered with the force of memory, and she felt its strength pulse through her, and into Julian, driving the force of the rune like a whip up through his arm, his hand, the stele. Fire.
Julian drew in his breath sharply, dropping his stele; the tip was glowing red. He reeled back and Emma’s hands fell away from him; she nearly stumbled, but he caught her, pulling her away from the building, into the churchyard. Both panting, they stared: The rune Julian had drawn on the wall of the church had seared its way straight through the stone. The boards over the windows cracked, and orange tongues of flame leaped out.
Julian looked at Emma. The fire sparkled and crackled in his eyes, more than a reflection. “We did that,” he said, his voice rising. “We did that.”
Emma stared back at him. She was clutching his arms, just above the elbows, muscle hard under her fingers. Jules seemed lit from within, burning with excitement. His skin was hot to the touch.
Their eyes met. And it was Julian, her Julian, no shutters down over his expression, nothing hidden, only the clear brilliance of his eyes and the heat in his gaze. Emma felt as if her heart was tearing apart her chest. She could hear the hard crackle of the flames all around them. Julian moved toward her, closer, splintering her awareness of the need to keep him distant, of anything else but him.