Lord of Shadows

She had nodded. Reached her hand out to Mark’s.

She let herself remember that night in her room, the look in his eyes when he’d asked her, Why lie? She remembered his warm clasp, his fingers circling her wrist. How they had nearly stumbled in their haste to get nearer to each other, colliding almost awkwardly, as if they’d been dancing and had missed a step. She had clasped Mark by the shoulders and stretched up to kiss him.

He was wiry from the Hunt, not as muscled as Julian, the bones of his clavicle and shoulders sharp under her hands. But his skin was smooth where she pushed her hands down the neck of his shirt, stroking the top of his spine. And his mouth was warm on hers.

He tasted bittersweet and felt hot, as if he had a fever. She instinctively moved closer to him; she hadn’t realized she was shivering, but she was. His mouth opened over hers; he explored her lips with his, sending slow waves of heat through her body. He kissed the corner of her mouth, brushed his lips against her jaw, her cheek.

He drew back. “Em,” he said, looking puzzled. “You taste of salt.”

She drew her right hand back from its clasp around his neck. Touched her face. It was wet. She’d been crying.

He frowned. “I don’t understand. You want the world to believe we are a couple, and yet you are weeping as if I have hurt you. Have I hurt you? Julian will never forgive me.”

The mention of Julian’s name almost undid her. She sank down at the foot of her bed, gripping her knees. “Julian has so much to cope with,” she said. “I can’t have him worrying about me. About my relationship with Cameron.”

Silently, she apologized to Cameron Ashdown, who really hadn’t done anything wrong.

“It’s not a good relationship,” she said. “Not healthy. But every time it ends, I fall back into it again. I need to break that pattern. And I need Julian not to be anxious about it. There’s already too much—the Clave will be investigating the fallout from Malcolm’s death, our involvement with the Court—”

“Hush,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I understand.”

He reached up and pulled the blanket down from her bed. Emma watched him in surprise as he wrapped it around the two of them, tucking it around both their shoulders.

She thought of the Wild Hunt then, the way he must have been with Kieran, huddling in shelters, wrapping themselves in their cloaks to block the cold.

He traced the line of her cheekbone with his fingers, but it was a friendly gesture. The heat that had been in their kiss was gone. And Emma was glad. It had seemed wrong to feel that, even the shadow of it, with anyone but Julian. “Those who are not faeries find comfort in lies,” he said. “I cannot judge that. I will do this with you, Emma. I will not abandon you.”

She leaned against his shoulder. Relief made her feel light.

“You must tell Cristina, though,” he added. “She is your best friend; you cannot hide so much from her.”

Emma nodded. She had always planned to tell Cristina. Cristina was the only one who knew about her feelings for Julian, and she would never for a moment believe that Emma had suddenly fallen in love with Mark instead. She would have to be told for practicality’s sake, and Emma was glad.

“I can trust her completely,” she said. “Now—tell me about the Wild Hunt.”

He began to speak, weaving a story of a life lived in the clouds and in the deserted and lost places of the world. Hollow cities at the bottom of copper canyons. The shell of Oradour-sur-Glane, where he and Kieran had slept in a half-burned hayloft. Sand and the smell of the ocean in Cyprus, in an empty resort town where trees grew through the floors of abandoned grand hotels.

Slowly Emma drifted off to sleep, with Mark holding her and whispering stories. Somewhat to her surprise, he’d come back the next night—it would help make their relationship seem convincing, he’d said, but she’d seen in his eyes that he’d liked the company, just as she had.

And so they’d spent every night since then together, sprawled in the covers piled on the floor, trading stories; Emma spoke of the Dark War, of how she felt lost sometimes now that she was no longer searching for the person who’d killed her parents, and Mark talked about his brothers and sisters, about how he and Ty had argued and he worried he’d made his younger brother feel as if he wasn’t there to be relied on, as if he might leave at any minute.

“Just tell him you might leave, but you’ll always come back to him,” Emma said. “Tell him you’re sorry if you ever made him feel any different.”

He only nodded. He never told her if he’d taken her advice, but she’d taken his and told Cristina everything. It had been a huge relief, and she’d cried in Cristina’s arms for several hours. She’d even gotten Julian’s permission to tell Cristina an abbreviated version of the situation with Arthur—enough to make it clear how badly Julian was needed here at the Institute, with his family. She’d asked Julian’s permission to share that information; an extremely awkward conversation, but he’d almost seemed relieved that someone else would know.

She’d wanted to ask him if he’d tell the rest of the family the truth about Arthur soon. But she couldn’t. Walls had gone up around Julian that seemed as impenetrable as the thorns around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. She wondered if Mark had noticed, if any of the others had noticed, or if only she could see it.

She turned to look at Mark now. He was asleep on the floor, his cheek pillowed on his hand. She slid off the bed, settling among the blankets and pillows, and curled up next to him.

Mark slept better when he was with her—he’d said so, and she believed it. He’d been eating better too, putting on muscle fast, his scars fading, color back in his cheeks. She was glad. She might feel like she was dying inside every day, but that was her problem—she’d handle it. No one owed her help, and in a way she welcomed the pain. It meant Julian wasn’t suffering alone, even if he believed he was.

And if she could help Mark at all, then that was something. She loved him, the way she should love Julian: Uncle Arthur would have called it philia, friendship love. And though she could never tell Julian about the way she and Mark were helping each other, it was at least something she felt she could do for him: make his brother happier.

Even if he’d never know.

A knock on the door yanked her out of her reverie. She started up; the room was dim, but she could make out bright red hair, Clary’s curious face peering around the door’s edge. “Emma? Are you awake? Are you on the floor?”

Emma peered down at Mark. He was definitely asleep, huddled in blankets, out of Clary’s view. She held up two fingers to Clary, who nodded and shut the door; two minutes later Emma was out in the hallway, zipping up a hoodie.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Clary said. She was still so small, Emma thought, it was sometimes hard to remember that she was in her twenties. Her hair was caught back in braids, making her seem even younger.

“On the roof,” Emma decided. “I’ll show you.”

She led Clary up the stairs, to the ladder and trapdoor, and then out to the dark expanse of roof. She hadn’t been there herself since the night she’d come up with Mark. It seemed like years ago, though she knew it was only weeks.

The day’s heat had left the black, shingled roof sticky and hot. But the night was a cool one—desert nights always were, the temperature dropping like a rock as soon as the sun set—and the breeze off the ocean ruffled Emma’s damp hair.