Lady Midnight

Mark cursed himself silently. He had no idea what the human words were with which he could comfort his brother.

“If she died,” Julian went on in the same flat voice, “I would want to die. I know that’s not healthy. But it’s the truth.”

“She won’t die,” Mark said. “She’s going to be fine. She just needs to recover. I have seen what men—what people—look like when they’re going to die. There is a look that comes over them. This is not it.”

“I can’t help wondering,” said Julian. “This whole business. Someone’s trying to bring back the person they loved, a person who died. It feels almost wrong. As if maybe we should let them.”

“Jules,” Mark said. He could feel the jagged edges of his little brother’s emotions, like the touch of a razor on skin long covered by bandages. This was what it meant to be family, he thought. To hurt when someone else hurt. To want to protect them. “They’re taking lives. You can’t pay for tragedy with more tragedy, or draw life from death.”

“I just know that if it were her, if it were Emma, I would do the same thing.” Julian’s eyes were haunted. “I would do whatever I had to.”

“You wouldn’t.” Mark put his hand on Julian’s shoulder, pulling him around. Julian moved reluctantly to face his brother. “You would do the right thing. All your life, you’ve done the right thing.”

“I’m sorry,” Julian said.

“You’re sorry? All of this, Jules, the convoy— If I hadn’t told Cristina about Gwyn’s cloak—”

“They would have found something else to punish you with,” said Julian. “Kieran wanted to hurt you. You hurt him, so he wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry—sorry about Kieran, because I can see you cared about him. I’m sorry I didn’t know you’d left anyone you cared about behind. I’m sorry that for years I thought you were the one who had freedom, that you were enjoying yourself in Faerie while I killed myself here trying to raise four kids and run the Institute and keep Arthur’s secrets. I wanted to believe you were okay—I wanted to believe one of us was okay. So much.”

“You wanted to believe I was happy, just as I wanted to believe the same about you,” Mark said. “I had thought about whether you were happy, thriving, living. I had never stopped to wonder what kind of man you might have grown up to be.” He paused. “I am proud of you. I have had little hand in the shaping of you, but I am proud nonetheless to call you my brother—to call all of you my brothers and sisters. And I will not leave you again.”

Julian’s eyes widened, their color Blackthorn bright in the gloom. “You won’t go back to Faerie?”

“No matter what happens,” Mark said, “I will stay here. I will always, always stay here.”

He put his arms around Julian and held him tightly. Julian exhaled, as if he were letting go of something heavy that he had carried for a long time, and leaning on Mark’s shoulder, he let his older brother bear just a little of his weight.

Emma dreamed about her parents.

They were in the small white-painted Venice house they had lived in when she was a child. She could see the faint glimmer of the canals from the window. Her mother sat at the kitchen island, a cloth spread out in front of her. On the cloth lay an array of knives, sorted from smallest to largest. The largest was Cortana, and Emma gazed at it hungrily, drinking in the smooth goldness, the sharp glow of the blade.

Compared to the brilliance of the weapon, her mother seemed a shadow. Her hair glowed, and her hands, as she worked, but the edges of her were indistinct, and Emma was terrified that if she reached for her mother she would disappear.

Music rose around them. Emma’s father, John, came into the kitchen, his violin tucked against his shoulder. Usually he played with a shoulder rest but not now. The violin poured forth music like water and—

The sharp crack of a whip, pain like fire.

Emma gasped. Her mother lifted her head.

“Is something wrong, Emma?”

“I—no, nothing.” She turned toward her father. “Keep playing, Dad.”

Her father gave his gentle smile. “You sure you don’t want to try?”

Emma shook her head. Whenever she touched bow to strings, it made the sound of a strangled cat.

“Music is in the blood of the Carstairs,” he said. “This violin once belonged to Jem Carstairs.”

Jem, Emma thought. Jem, who had helped her through her parabatai ceremony with gentle hands and a thoughtful smile. Jem, who had given her his cat to watch over her.

Pain that went through skin like a blade. Cristina’s voice saying, “Emma, oh, Emma, why did they hurt you so much?”

Her mother lifted Cortana. “Emma, I’m sure you’re a thousand miles away.”

“Maybe not quite that far.” Her father lowered his bow.

“Emma.” It was Mark’s voice. “Emma, come back. For Julian, please. Come back.”

“Trust him,” said John Carstairs. “He will come to you, and he will need your help. Trust James Carstairs.”

“But he said he had to go, Papa.” Emma had not called her father Papa since she was very small. “He said there was something he was looking for.”

“He is about to find it,” said John Carstairs. “And then there will be yet more for you to do.”