Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(239)
Ty bounded to the door, seemed to remember Kit, and swung back around. "We can talk more later," he said, and darted off down the hallway.
"Only one book! One!" Livvy called after him with a laugh. "Ouch!" She reached up to fiddle with something at the back of her neck, her face crinkled in annoyance. "My necklace is caught on my hair-"
Kit reached up to untangle the thin gold chain. A locket dangled from it, kissing the hollow of her throat. Up close, she smelled like orange blossoms.
Their faces were very close together, and the pale curve of her mouth was near his. Her lips were light rose pink. Confusion stirred in Kit.
But it was Livvy who shook her head. "We shouldn't, Kit. No more kissing. I mean, we only did it once anyway. But I don't think that's how we're meant to be."
The necklace came free. Kit drew his hands away quickly, confused.
"Why?" he asked. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Not even a little." She looked at him for a moment with her wise and thoughtful eyes; there was a soft happiness in Livvy that drew Kit, but not in a romantic way. She was right, and he knew it. "Everything's great. Ty even says he thinks we should be parabatai, after all this is cleared up." Her face glowed. "I hope you'll come to the ceremony. And you'll always be my friend, right?"
"Of course," he said, and only later did he stop to think that she had said my friend, and not our friend, hers and Ty's. Right now he was just relieved that he didn't feel hurt or bothered by her decision. He felt instead a pleasant anticipation of getting through this Council meeting and going home-back to Los Angeles-where he could start his training and have the twins to help him through the rough parts. "Friends always."
* * *
Julian felt a twist of apprehension in his stomach as he entered the library. Part of him half-expected Annabel to have vanished, or to be drifting around the stacks of books like a long-haired ghost in a horror movie. He'd seen one once where the ghost of a girl had crawled out of a well, her pale face hidden behind masses of wet, dark hair. The memory gave him shivers even now.
The library was well illuminated by its rows of green banker's lamps. Annabel sat at the longest table, the Black Volume in front of her, her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair was long and dark, and half-hid her face, but it wasn't wet and there wasn't anything obviously uncanny about her. She looked-ordinary.
He sat down across from her. Magnus must have brought her something to wear from the storage room: She was in a very plain blue dress, a little short in the sleeves. Jules guessed she had been around nineteen when she died, maybe twenty.
"That was quite a trick you pulled," he said, "with the note in the church. And the demon."
"I didn't expect you to burn the church down." That pronounced accent was back in her voice, the strangeness of a way of speaking long outdated now. "You surprised me."
"And you've surprised me, coming here," Julian said. "And saying you'd only talk to me. You don't even like me, I thought."
"I came because of this." She drew the folded paper from the book and held it out to him. Her fingers were long, the joints strangely misshapen. He realized he was looking at evidence that her fingers had been broken, more than once, and that the bones had knit back together oddly. The visible remnants of torture. He felt a little sick as he took the letter and opened it.
To: Annabel Blackthorn
Annabel,
You might not know me, but we are related. My name is Tiberius Blackthorn.
My family and I are looking for the Black Volume of the Dead. We know you have it, because my brother Julian saw you take it from Malcolm Fade.
I'm not blaming you. Malcolm Fade is not our friend. He tried to hurt our family, to destroy us if he could. He's a monster. But the thing is, we need the book now. We need it so that we can save our family. We're a good family. You would like us if you knew us. There's me-I'm going to be a detective. There is Livvy, my twin, who can fence, and Drusilla, who loves everything scary, and Tavvy, who likes stories read to him. There is Mark, who is part faerie. He's an excellent cook. There is Helen, who was exiled to guard the wards, but not because she did anything wrong. And Emma, who isn't strictly a Blackthorn but is like our extra sister anyway.
And there is Jules. You might like him the best. He is the one who takes care of us all. He is the reason we're all okay and still together. I don't think he knows we know that, but we do. Sometimes he might tell us what to do or not listen, but he would do anything for any of us. People say we're unlucky because we don't have parents. But I think they're unlucky because they don't have a brother like mine.