Lady Midnight

“Julian,” Emma said, “are you all ri—”

But Julian had thrown himself across the room. Without seeming to see anything but Emma, he dropped to his knees and flung his arms around her, burying his face against her stomach.

She reached down with a shaking hand and stroked his curls, raising her eyes in alarm to meet Cristina’s. But Cristina was already rising to her feet, murmuring that she would tell the others that Julian was looking after Emma. Emma heard the lock click as she closed the bedroom door behind her.

“Julian,” Emma murmured, her hand tangling in his hair. He wasn’t moving; he was entirely still. He breathed in shakily before lifting his head.

“By the Angel, Emma,” he said in a cracked whisper. “Why did you do it?”

She winced, and he was suddenly on his feet. “You need more healing runes,” he said. “Of course, I’m so stupid, of course you need them.” It was true: She did hurt. Some places ached dully, others with a sharper pain. Emma breathed in as Diana had taught her—slowly, steadily—as he retrieved his stele.

He dropped down on the bed beside her. “Hold still,” he said, and put the instrument to her skin. She felt the pain ebb until it was a dull ache.

“How long—when did you wake up?” Emma asked.

He was in the act of putting his stele back on the table. “If you mean did I see them whip you, no,” he said grimly. “What do you remember?”

“I remember Gwyn and the others came . . . Iarlath . . . Kieran.” She thought of blazing-hot sun, a tree with bark the color of blood. Black and silver eyes. “Kieran and Mark love each other.”

“They did,” Julian said. “I’m not sure how Mark feels about him now.”

She drew in a ragged breath. “I dropped Cortana—”

“Mark brought it inside,” he said in a voice that indicated that Cortana was the last thing on his mind. “God, Emma, when I came back to consciousness the convoy was gone and you were on the ground, bleeding, and Mark was trying to lift you up and I thought you were dead,” he said, and there was not a trace of remoteness in his voice, just a fierce wildness she had never really associated with Julian before. “They whipped you, Emma, you took the whipping meant for Mark and for me. I hate that you did that, you understand, I hate it—” Emotion crackled and burned in his voice, like a fire raging out of control. “How could you?”

“Mark couldn’t have stood the whipping,” she said. “It would have broken him. And I couldn’t have borne watching them whip you. It would have broken me.”

“You think I don’t feel the same way?” he demanded. “You think I haven’t been sitting here all day totally shattered and ripped apart? I’d rather cut my arm off than have you lose a fingernail, Emma.”

“It wasn’t just about you,” she said. “The kids— Look, they expect me to fight, to get hurt. They think: There’s Emma, scratched up again, cut up and bandaged. But you, they look to you in a way they don’t look to me. If you were seriously hurt, it would scare them so badly. And I couldn’t stand thinking of them so scared.”

Julian’s fingers tightened into a hard spiral. She could see the pulse running under his skin. She thought, randomly, of some graffiti she had seen on the side of the Malibu Pier: Your heart is a weapon the size of your fist.

“God, Emma,” he said. “What I’ve done to you.”

“They’re my family too,” she said. Emotion was threatening to choke her. She bit it back.

“Sometimes I wish—I’ve wished—that we were married and they were our kids,” he said rapidly. His head was bowed.

“Married?” Emma echoed, shocked.

His head came up. His eyes were burning. “Why do you think that I—”

“Love me less than I love you?” she said. He flinched visibly at the words. “Because you said so. I as much as told you on the beach how I felt, and you said ‘not that way, Emma.’”

“I didn’t—”

“I’m tired of lying to each other,” said Emma. “Do you understand? I’m sick of it, Julian.”

He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I can’t see any way for this to be all right,” he said. “I can’t see anything but a nightmare where everything falls apart, and where I don’t have you.”

“You don’t have me now,” she said. “Not in the way that matters. The truthful way.” She tried to kneel up on the bed. Her back ached, and her arms and legs felt tired, as if she had run and climbed for miles.

Julian’s eyes darkened. “Does it still hurt?” He fumbled among the items on the nightstand, came up with a vial. “Malcolm made me this a while ago. Drink it.”

The vial was full of a chartreuse-gold liquid. It tasted a little like flat champagne. The moment Emma swallowed it, she felt a numbness sweep over her. The ache in her limbs receded, and a cool, flowing energy replaced it.

Julian took the vial from her and dropped it onto the bed. He slid one arm under her knees, the other under her shoulders, and lifted her bodily off the bed. For a moment she clung to him in surprise. She could feel his heart beating, smell his soap and paint and cloves scent. His hair was soft against her cheek.