Lady Midnight (42 page)

Jules,
she thought, but the door didn’t open, and he didn’t come. Instead she curled up around her pillow and lay awake until dawn.

18

A
LL THE
N
IGHT
-T
IDE

After the darkness, there was
light. Bright white and silver—starlight on water and sand. And Emma was flying. Over the surface of the water, now shallow—she could see the sand of the beach underneath, and a pool of fire where the moon reflected.

There was a pain in her chest. She twisted to get away from it and realized she wasn’t flying; she was being carried. She was being held against a hard chest and arms were around her. She saw the glimmer of blue-green eyes.

Julian.
Julian
was carrying her. Wet, dark curls crowned his head.

She tried to draw in a breath to speak, and choked. Her chest spasmed; water filled her mouth, bitter and salty like blood. She saw Julian’s face twist with panic, and then he was half-running up the beach, finally crashing to his knees, depositing her in the sand. She was still coughing, choking, looking up at him with frightened eyes. She saw the same fear mirrored on his face; she wanted to tell him it would be all right, everything was going to be fine, but she couldn’t speak past the water in her throat.

He fumbled a stele from his belt and she felt the tip burn against her skin. Her head fell back as the rune formed. She saw the moon over her, behind Julian’s head like a halo. She wanted to tell him
he had a halo. Maybe he’d think it was funny. But the words were drowning in her chest. She was drowning. Dying on land.

The rune was finished. Julian pulled the stele back and Emma’s chest seemed to cave in. She cried out, and water exploded from her lungs. She curled up, racked with deep coughs. It hurt as her body expelled the seawater, as if she were being turned inside out. She felt Julian’s hand on her back, his fingers between her shoulder blades, holding her steady.

At last the coughing slowed. She rolled onto her back and stared up at Julian and the sky behind him. She could see a million stars, and he still had his halo, but there was no longer anything funny about it. He was shivering, his black shirt and jeans plastered to his body, his face whiter than the moon.

“Emma?” he whispered.

“Jules,” she said. Her voice sounded weak and rough to her own ears. “I—I’m all right.”

“What the hell happened? What were you doing in the water?”

“I went to the convergence,” she whispered. “There was some kind of spell—it sucked me out into the ocean—”

“You went to the convergence by yourself?” His voice rose. “How could you be so reckless?”

“I had to try—”

“You didn’t have to try alone!”
His voice seemed to echo off the water. His fists were clenched at his sides. She realized he wasn’t shaking from cold after all—it was rage. “What the hell is the point of being
parabatai
if you go off and risk yourself without me?”

“I didn’t want to put you in danger—”

“I almost drowned inside the Institute! I coughed up water! Water
you
breathed!”

Emma stared at him in shock. She started to prop herself up on her elbows. Her hair, heavy and soaked, hung down her back like a weight. “How is that possible?”

“Of course it’s possible!” His voice seemed to explode out of his body. “We are bound together, Emma, bound together—I breathe when you breathe, I bleed when you bleed, I’m yours and you’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and I have always,
always
belonged to you!”

She had never heard him say anything like this, never heard him talk this way, never seen him so close to losing control.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. She started to sit up, reaching for him. He caught her wrist.

“Are you joking?” Even in the darkness, his blue-green eyes had color. “Is this a joke to you, Emma? Don’t you understand?” His voice dropped to a whisper.
“I don’t live if you die!”

Her eyes searched his face. “Jules, I’m so sorry, Jules—”

The wall that usually hid the truth deep in his eyes had crumbled; she could see the panic there, the desperation, the relief that had punched through his defenses.

He was still holding her wrist. She didn’t know if she leaned into him first or if he pulled her toward him. Maybe both. They crashed together like stars colliding, and then he was kissing her.

Jules.
Julian
. Kissing
her.

His mouth moved against hers, hot and restless, turning her body to liquid fire. She clawed at his back, pulling him closer. His clothes were wet, but his skin under them was hot wherever she could touch it. When she placed her hands at his waist, he gasped into her mouth, a gasp that was half incredulity and half desire.

“Emma,” he said, a word halfway between a prayer and a groan. His mouth was wild on hers; they were kissing as if they were trying to tear down the bars that held them inside a prison. As if they were both drowning and they could breathe only through each other.

Her bones felt as if they had turned to glass. They seemed to be shattering all through her body; she crumpled backward, pulling Julian with her, letting the weight of his body push them both
down into the sand. She clutched at his shoulders, thought of the disoriented moment when he’d pulled her out of the water, the moment she hadn’t quite known who he was. He was stronger, bigger than she remembered. More grown-up than she had let herself know, though every kiss was burning away her memories of the boy he had been.

When he leaned closer into her, she jumped in surprise at the wet coldness of his shirt. He reached down and grasped the collar, tearing it over his head. When he leaned back down over her, the expanse of his bare skin stunned her, and her hands slid up his sides, over the wings of his shoulder blades, as if she were articulating the shape of him, creating him with the touch of her palms and fingers. The light scars of his old Marks; the heat of his skin, filmed with salty ocean water; the feel of his smooth sea-glass bracelet—he took her breath away with the
Julian
-ness of him. There was no one else he could be. She knew him by touch, by the way he breathed, by the beat of his heart against hers.

The touch of her hands was undoing him. She could see him unraveling, piece by piece. Her knees came up to clasp his hips; her hand cupped the bare skin above the waistband of his jeans, gently as the ocean at low tide, and he shuddered against her as if he were dying. She had never seen him like this, not even when he was painting.

Gasping, he tore his mouth away from hers, forcing himself still, forcing his body to stop moving. She could see what it cost him in his eyes, black with hunger and impatience. In the way that when he drew his hands away, they dug into the sand on either side of her, fingers clawing into the ground. “Emma,” he whispered. “You’re sure?”

She nodded and reached for him. He made a sound of desperate relief and gratitude and caught her against him, and this time there was no hesitation. Her arms were open; he went into them and
gathered her up against him, shivering down to his bones as she locked her ankles behind his calves, pinning him against her. As she opened herself, making her body a cradle for him to lie against.

He found her mouth with his again, and as if her lips were connected to every nerve ending in her body, her whole self seemed to spark and dance. So this was what it was supposed to be like, what kissing was supposed to be like, what
all
of it was supposed to be like.
This.

He leaned in to outline her mouth, her cheek, the sandy curve of her jaw with kisses. He kissed his way down her throat, his breath warm on her skin. Tangling her hands in his wet curls, she stared up in wonder at the sky above them, wheeling with stars, shimmering and cold, and thought that this couldn’t be happening, people didn’t get things they wanted like this.

“Jules,” she whispered. “My Julian.”

“Always,” he whispered, returning to her mouth, “always,” and they fell into each other with the inevitability of a wave crashing against the beach. Fire raced up and down Emma’s veins as the barriers between them vanished; she tried to press each moment, each gesture into her memory—the feel of his hands closing on her shoulders, the drowning gasp he made, the way he dissolved into her as he lost himself. To the last moment of her life, she thought, she would recall the way he buried his face against her neck and said her name over and over as if every other word had been forgotten forever in the depths of the ocean. To the last hour.

*   *   *

When the stars stopped spinning, Emma was lying in the curve of Julian’s arm, looking up. His dry flannel jacket was spread over them. He was gazing at her, head propped up on one hand. He looked dazed, his eyes half-lidded. His fingers traced slow circles on her bare shoulder. His heart was still racing, slamming against hers. She loved him so much it felt like her chest was cracking open.

She wanted to tell him so, but the words stuck in her throat. “Was that—” she began. “Was that your first kiss?”

“No, I’ve been practicing on random strangers.” He grinned, wild and beautiful in the moonlight. “Yes. That was my first kiss.”

A shiver went through Emma. She thought,
I love you, Julian Blackthorn. I love you more than starlight.

“It really wasn’t that bad,” she said, and smiled at him.

He laughed and pulled her closer against him. She relaxed into the curve of his body. The air was cold, but she was warm here, in this small circle with Julian, hidden by the outcroppings of rock, wrapped in the flannel jacket that smelled like him. His hand was gentle in her hair. “Shh, Emma. Go to sleep.”

She closed her eyes.

*   *   *

Emma slept, by the side of the ocean. And she had no nightmares.

*   *   *

“Emma.” There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. “Emma, wake up.”

She rolled over and blinked, then froze in surprise. There was no ceiling over her, only bright blue sky. She felt stiff and sore, her skin abraded by sand.

Julian was hovering over her. He was fully dressed, his face gray-white like scattered ash. His hands fluttered around her, not quite touching her, like Ty’s butterflies. “Someone was here.”

At that she did sit up. She was sitting on the beach—a small, bare half circle of a beach, hemmed in on either side by fingers of stone reaching into the ocean. The sand around her was thoroughly churned up, and she blushed, memory crashing into her like a wave. It looked like it was at least midday, though thankfully the beach was deserted. It was familiar, too. They were close to the Institute, closer than she’d thought. Not that she’d thought much.

She dragged air into her lungs. “Oh,” she said. “Oh my God.”

Julian didn’t say anything. His clothes were wet, crusted with sand where they folded. Her own clothes were on, Emma realized belatedly. Julian must have dressed her. Only her feet were bare.

The tide was low, seaweed lying exposed at the waterline. Their footsteps from the night before had long been washed away, but there were other footsteps embedded in the sand. It looked as if someone had climbed over one of the rock walls, walked up to them, and then doubled back and walked away. Two lines of footsteps. Emma stared at them in horror.

“Someone saw us?” she said.

“While we were sleeping,” said Julian. “I didn’t wake up either.” His hands knotted at his sides. “Some mundane, I hope, just figuring we were a dumb teenage couple.” He let out a breath. “I hope,” he said again.

Flashes of memory of the night before shot through Emma’s mind—the cold water, the demons, Julian carrying her, Julian kissing her. Julian and her, lying entwined on the sand.

Julian. She didn’t think she could think of him as
Jules
again. Jules was her childhood name for him. And they had left their childhood behind.

He turned to look at her, and she saw the anguish in his sea-colored eyes. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. “Emma, I am so, so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” she asked.

“I didn’t think.” He was pacing, his feet kicking up sand. “About—being safe. Protection. I didn’t think about it.”

“I’m protected,” she said.

He whirled to face her. “What?”

“I have the rune,” she said. “And I don’t have any diseases, and neither do you, do you?”

“I—no.” The relief on his face was palpable and for some reason made her stomach ache. “That was my first time, Emma.”

“I know,” she said in a whisper. “Anyway, you don’t need to apologize.”

“I do,” he said. “I mean, this is good. We’re lucky. But I should have thought of it. I don’t have an excuse. I was out of my mind.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“I must have been, to do that,” he said.

“To do what?” She was impressed by how clearly and calmly each word came out. Anxiety beat through her like a drum.

“What we did.” He exhaled. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re saying what we did was wrong.”

“I meant—” He looked as if he were trying to contain something that wanted to tear its way out of him. “There’s nothing wrong with it morally,” he said. “It’s a stupid Law. But it is a Law. And we can’t break it. It’s one of the oldest Laws there is.”

“But it doesn’t make
sense.
”

He looked at her without seeing her, blindly. “The Law is hard, but it is the Law.”

Emma got to her feet. “No,” she said. “No Law can control our feelings.”

“I didn’t say anything about feelings,” said Julian.

Her throat felt dry. “What do you mean?”

“We shouldn’t have slept together,” he said. “I know it meant something to me, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, but the Law doesn’t forbid sex, it forbids
love.
Being
in love.
”

“I’m pretty sure sleeping together is against the rules too.”

“Yeah, but it’s not what they exile you for! It’s not what they strip your Marks for!” He raked a hand through his snarled hair. “It’s against the rules because—being intimate like that, physically intimate, it opens you up to be emotionally intimate and
that’s
what they care about.”