Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(172)

He went to join Emma by the fire. She was bright-eyed, smiling as she took the plate from him. "You know what I'm worried about?"

His heart did a slow curl inside his chest. "What?"

"Church," she said. "He's all alone in the Institute in L.A."

"No, he isn't. He's surrounded by Centurions."

"What if one of them tries to steal him?"

"Then they'll be appropriately punished," said Julian, moving slightly closer to the fire.

"What's the appropriate punishment for stealing a cat?" Emma asked around her sandwich.

"In Church's case, having to keep him," said Julian.

Emma made a face. "If there were any crusts on this sandwich, I'd throw them at you."

"Why don't you just throw the sandwich?"

She looked horrified. "And give up the tasty cheese? I would never, ever give up the tasty cheese."

"My mistake." Julian tossed another log onto the fire. A bubble of happiness swelled in his chest, sweet and unfamiliar.

"Cheese this tasty doesn't just come along every day," she informed him. "You know what would make it even better?"

"What?" He sat back on his heels.

"Another sandwich." She held out her empty plate, laughing. He took the plate, and it was a completely ordinary moment, but it was also everything he'd ever wanted and never let himself imagine. A house, with Emma; laughing by a fire together.

All that would make it better would be his brothers and sisters somewhere nearby, where he could see them every day, where he could fence with Livvy and watch movies with Dru and help Tavvy learn the crossbow. Where he could look for animals with Ty, hermit crabs down by the edge of the water, scuttling under their shells. Where he could cook massive dinners with Mark and Helen and Aline and they'd all eat them together, out under the stars in the desert air.

Where he could hear the sea, as he could hear it now. And where he could see Emma, always Emma, the better, brighter half of him, who tempered his ruthlessness, who forced him to acknowledge the light when he saw only darkness.



       
         
       
        

But they would all have to be together, he thought. Long ago the pieces of his soul had scattered, and every piece lived in one of his brothers or sisters. Except for the piece that lived in Emma, which had been burned into its home in her by the flame of the parabatai ceremony, and the pressure of his own heart.

It was impossible, though. An impossible thing that could never happen. Even if by some miracle his family came through all this unscathed and together-and if Helen and Aline could come back to them-even then, Emma, his Emma, would someday have her own family and her own life.

He wondered if he would be her suggenes, if he would give her away at her wedding. It was the usual thing, with parabatai.

The thought made him feel as if he was being cut up inside with razor blades.

"Do you remember," she was saying, in her soft, teasing voice, "when you said you could sneak Church into class without Diana noticing, and then he bit you in the middle of the lecture on Jonathan Shadowhunter?"

"Not at all." He settled back on the floor, one of the diaries by his hand. The warmth in the room, the smell of tea and burnt bread, the glow of the firelight on Emma's hair, were making him sleepy. He was as intensely happy as he was miserable, and it exhausted him to be pulled in two such different directions at once.

"You yelled," she said. "And then you told Diana it was because you were really excited to be learning."

"Is there a reason you remember every embarrassing thing that happens to me?" he wondered aloud.

"Someone has to," she said. The curve of her face was rosy in the firelight. The glass bracelet on his wrist glinted, cold against his cheek when he lowered his head.

He had been frightened that without Cristina here, they would fight and argue. That they would be bitter with each other. Instead everything was perfect. And in its own way, that was so much worse.

* * *

Pain woke Mark in the middle of the night, the feeling that his wrist was ringed with nails.

They'd worked in the library until late, Magnus fiddling with the recipe for the binding spell antidote and the rest of them poring through old books about the Black Volume. Combining the memories from the aletheia crystal and the information from the notes Emma and Julian had sent was beginning to create a more complete picture of Annabel and Malcolm, but Mark couldn't help wondering if it was doing any good. What they needed was the Black Volume, and even if its story was woven in the past, would that help the Blackthorns find it in the present?