Julian gave him a long look. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Actually, I do.”

Cameron had only just gone off muttering when Julian heard the water in the bathroom switch off. A moment later Emma appeared, wrapped in a towel, cheeks pink and glowing. Had she always looked like that? Such intense colors, the gold of her hair, black Marks against pale skin, the soft brown of her eyes—

“I’m sorry,” he said as she reached for the clothes on the bed. She froze. “I’m only just starting to understand how sorry I am.”

She went into the bathroom and came out a moment later dressed in black cargo pants and a green tank top. The permanent Marks twining her arms looked stark and startling, a reminder that no one else here had them. “Whoever was eyeballing our sizes has way overestimated my attributes,” she said, buckling her belt. “The bra they gave me is huge. I could wear it as a hat.”

Cameron barged back in without knocking again. “Got what you asked for,” he said, and dumped a pile of pencils and a Canson sketch pad into Julian’s lap. “Have to admit, it’s a first. Most newbies ask for chocolate.”

“Do you have chocolate?” Emma said.

“No,” said Cameron, and stomped back out of the room. Emma watched him go with a bemused expression.

“I really like this new Cameron,” she said. “Who knew he had it in him to be such a badass? He was such a nice guy, but . . .”

“He always had kind of a secret side,” Julian said. He wondered if there was something about suddenly getting his emotions back that meant he didn’t feel like covering things up. Maybe he’d regret it later. “A while ago, he approached Diana, because he was pretty sure Anselm Nightshade was murdering werewolf children. He couldn’t prove it, but he had some good reasons for thinking it. His family kept telling him to drop it, that Nightshade had powerful friends. So he brought it to us—to the Institute.”

“That’s why you had Nightshade arrested,” said Emma, realizing. “You wanted the Clave to be able to search his house.”

“Diana told me they found a basement full of bones,” said Julian. “Werewolf children, just like Cameron said. They tested the stuff in the restaurant and there was death magic all over the place. Cameron was right, and he stood up to his family, in his own way. And he did it for Downworlders that he didn’t know.”

“You never said anything,” Emma said. “Not about Cameron, or about you—why you really got Anselm arrested. There are people who still blame you.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Sometimes you have to let people blame you. When the only other option is letting bad things happen, it doesn’t matter what people think.”

She didn’t reply. When he glanced over at her, she looked as if she’d forgotten all about Cameron and Nightshade. Her eyes were wide and luminous as she reached out to touch a few of the Prismacolors that had rolled onto the bed.

“You asked for art supplies?” she whispered.

Julian looked down at his hands. “All this time, since the spell, I’ve been walking around missing the whole center of myself, but the thing is—I didn’t even notice. Not consciously. But I felt it. I was living in black and white and now the color is back.” He exhaled. “I’m saying it all wrong.”

“No,” Emma said, “I think I get it. You mean that the part of you that feels is also the part of you that creates things.”

“They always say faeries steal human children because they can’t make art or music of their own. Neither can warlocks or vampires. It requires mortality to make art. The knowledge of death, of things limited. There is fire inside us, Emma, and as it blazes, it burns us, and the burning causes pain—but without its light, I cannot see to draw.”

“Then draw now,” she said, her voice husky. She pressed several pencils into his open hand and began to turn away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t burden you.”

“You’re not burdening me,” she said, still facing away. “You’re reminding me why I love you.”

The words caught at his heart, sharp with a painful joy.

“You’re not off the hook, though,” she added, and went over to the wardrobe. He left her alone to rifle through the pairs of socks and shoes, looking for something that might fit. He wanted to talk to her—talk to her forever, about everything—but that had to be at her discretion. Not his.

Instead he put pencil to paper and let his imagination go, let the images that rose up inside him and captured his brain flow out in Alicante silver and Seelie green, in Unseelie black and blood red. He drew the King on his throne, pale and powerful and unhappy. He drew Annabel holding Ash’s hand. He drew Emma with Cortana, surrounded by thorns. He drew Drusilla, all in black, a murder of crows circling behind her.

He was conscious that Emma had come to lie down beside him and was watching him with quiet curiosity, her head propped on her arm. She was half-asleep, lips parted, when the door banged open again. Julian threw the sketchbook down. “Look, Cameron—”

But it wasn’t Cameron. It was Livvy.

She had taken off her Sam Browne ammo belt, but otherwise looked much the same. In the brighter light of the bedroom, Julian could see the shadows smudged under her eyes. “Cameron said you asked for a sketch pad and pencils,” she said in a near whisper.

Julian didn’t move. He half felt as if any movement would spook her, as if he were trying to lure a nervous forest creature closer. “Do you want to see?”

Julian held out the sketch pad; she took it and flipped through it, slowly and then faster. Emma was sitting up now, clutching one of the pillows.

Livvy thrust the sketch pad back at Julian. She was looking down; he couldn’t see her face, only twin fringes of dark lashes. He felt a twinge of disappointment. She doesn’t believe me; the pictures meant nothing to her. I’m nothing to her.

“No one draws like my brother,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She lifted her head and looked directly at Julian with a sort of bewilderment that was half hurt, half hope. “But you do.”

“You remember when I tried to teach you to draw, when you were nine?” said Julian. “And you snapped all my pencils?”

Something almost like a smile touched the edge of Livvy’s mouth. For a moment, she was familiar Livvy, despite the scars and black leather. A second later it was as if a mask had passed across her face, and she was a different Livia, a rebel leader, a scarred warrior. “You don’t need to try to convince me anymore,” she said. She turned away, her movements precise and military. “Finish getting cleaned up. I’ll meet you two in the main office in an hour.”

*

“Did we ever date in this world?” Emma said. “You know, you and me.”

Cameron nearly fell down several metal steps. They were in the maze of stairs and catwalks that crisscrossed the inside of the Bradbury Building. “Of course not!”

Emma felt mildly stung. She knew it wasn’t a big deal, considering, but sometimes you wanted to focus on something trivial to take your mind off the apocalypse. Cameron in her world had been almost embarrassingly devoted, always coming back after they broke up, sending love notes and flowers and sad llama pictures.

“You were always with Julian,” Cameron added. “Aren’t you together in your world?”

“I’m right here,” Julian said in the deceptively mild tone that meant he was annoyed.

“I mean, yes,” Emma said. “At least, we’re on and off. Sometimes very on, sometimes very off. You and I dated briefly, is all.”

“We don’t really have time for that kind of personal drama here,” Cameron said. “It’s hard to focus on your love life when giant spiders are chasing you.”

Cameron was pretty funny here, Emma thought. If he’d been this amusing at home, their relationship might have lasted longer.

“When you say ‘giant,’ how giant exactly?” she said. “Bigger than Dumpsters?”

“Not the babies,” Cameron said, and gave them a horrible smile. “We’re here—go on in, and don’t tell Livvy we dated in your world, because it’s weird.”

They found Livvy in another repurposed office—this one had clearly once been more of a loft, big and airy and probably full of light before the windows had been covered. Strips of brick alternated with polished wood on the walls, and dozens of vintage fruit labels advertising California apples, pears, and oranges hung between the boarded-up windows. A group of four sleek, modern couches formed a square around a glass coffee table. Livvy was lounging on one of the couches, drinking a glass of something dark brown.

“That’s not alcohol, is it?” Julian sounded appalled. “You shouldn’t be drinking.”

“You’ll be drinking tomorrow,” Livvy said, and pointed at a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the glass table. “Just saying.” She waved a hand. “Sit down.”