Lady Midnight

He ducked the bottle cap. “I was not.”

“You so were,” she said. “Do we need to talk about what we’re looking for at Wells’s place?”

“I think we should play it by ear.”

“‘The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon, which enables it to strike and destroy its victim,’” said Emma.

Julian looked at her incredulously. “Was that a quote from The Art of War?”

“Maybe.” Emma felt a happiness so intense it was almost sorrow: She was with Jules, they were joking, everything was the way it should be between parabatai. They had turned onto a series of residential streets: wide mansions twined with flowers rose above high hedges, cocooned behind sweeping driveways.

“Are you being pithy? You know how I feel about pithiness in my car,” Julian said.

“It’s not your car.”

“Either way, we’re here,” Jules said, pulling the car up to the curb and killing the engine. It was twilight now, not quite full dark, and Emma could see Wells’s house, looking like it had in the satellite photos on the computer: the peaks of the roof just rising over the massive wall that surrounded it, covered with draped trellises of bougainvillea.

Julian hit the button that raised the car windows. Emma looked over at him. “Just about dark. We worried about demonic activity?”

He checked the glove compartment. “Nothing on the Sensor, but just to be sure, let’s rune up.”

“Okay.” Emma pushed up her sleeves, holding out her bare arms as Julian drew the pale-white, glimmering stele from his pocket. In the dark of the car, he leaned over, put the tip of the stele to her skin, and began to draw. Emma could feel his hair brush against her cheek and neck, and smell the faint scent of cloves that hung around him.

She looked down, and as the black lines of runes spread across her skin, Emma remembered what Cristina had said about Jules: He has nice hands. She wondered if she’d ever really looked at them before. Were they nice? They were Julian’s hands. They were hands that painted and fought; they had never failed him. In that way they were beautiful.

“All right.” Jules sat back, admiring his handiwork. Neat runes of precision and stealth, soundlessness and balance decorated her forearms. Emma drew down her sleeves and reached for her own stele.

He shivered when the stele touched his skin. It must be cold. “Sorry,” Emma whispered, bracing her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the edge of his collarbone under her thumb, the ribbed cotton of his T-shirt soft beneath her touch; she tightened her grip, her fingertips sliding against the bare skin at the edge of his collar. He drew in a sharp breath.

She stopped. “Did I hurt you?”

He shook his head. She couldn’t see his face. “I’m fine.” He reached behind himself and unlocked the driver’s side door; a second later he was out of the car and shrugging on his jacket.

Emma followed him. “But I didn’t finish the Sure-Strike rune—”

He had moved around to the trunk and opened it. He took out his runed crossbow and handed her Cortana and its sheath.

“It’s fine.” He closed the trunk. He didn’t seem bothered: same Julian, same calm smile. “Besides, I don’t need it.”

He raised the crossbow casually and shot. The bolt flew through the air and plunged directly into the security camera over the gate. It blew apart with a whine of shattered metal and a wisp of smoke.

“Show-off,” Emma said, sheathing her sword.

“I’m your parabatai. I have to show off occasionally. Otherwise no one would understand why you keep me around.” An elderly couple appeared from a driveway near them, walking an Alsatian. Emma had to fight the urge to conceal Cortana, though she knew the weapon was glamoured. To the mundanes walking by, she and Julian would look like ordinary teenagers, long sleeves concealing their runes. They passed around the corner of the road and out of sight.

“I keep you around because I need an audience for my witty remarks,” she said as they reached the gates and Jules took out his stele to draw an Open rune.

The gate popped open. Julian turned sideways to slide through the opening. “What witty remarks?”

“Oh, you are going to pay for that,” Emma muttered, following him. “I am incredibly witty.”

Julian chuckled. They had come to a lined pathway that led up to a large stucco house with enormous arched front doors, two huge panes of glass on either side. The lights lining the path were on, but the house was dark and silent.

Emma sprang up the steps and peered in through one of the windows; she could see nothing but dark, smudged shapes. “No one home—oh!” She jumped back a step as something flung itself against the window: a lumpy, hair-covered ball. Slime slicked the glass. Emma was already crouching, about to pull a stiletto from her boot. “What is it?” She straightened. “A Raum demon? A—”

“I think it’s a minipoodle,” said Julian, the corner of his mouth twitching. “And I don’t think it’s armed,” he added as she glanced down to stare accusingly at what was, yes, definitely a small dog, its face pressed to the glass. “I’m almost positive, in fact.”

Emma hit him on the shoulder, then drew an Open rune on the door. There was the snapping click of the lock, and the door swung open.