"Which way did it go?" Julian asked.
"Toward the end of the pier," said Mark; he alone had not reached for a weapon, but Emma knew how fast he was. His nickname in the Wild Hunt had been elf-shot, for he was swift and accurate with a bow and arrow or a thrown blade. "Toward the amusement park."
"I'll go that way," Emma said. "Try to drive it off the edge of the pier-Mark, Cristina, you go down under, catch it if it tries to crawl back into the water."
They barely had time to nod, and Emma was off and running. The wind tugged at her braided hair as she wove through the crowd toward the lighted park at the pier's end. Cortana felt warm and solid in her hand, and her feet flew over the sea-warped wooden slats. She felt free, her worries cast aside, everything in her mind and body focused on the task at hand.
She could hear footsteps beside her. She didn't need to look to know it was Jules. His footsteps had been beside hers for all the years she had been a fighting Shadowhunter. His blood had been spilled when hers was. He had saved her life and she had saved his. He was part of her warrior self.
"There," she heard him say, but she'd already seen it: a dark, humped shape clambering up the support structure of the Ferris wheel. The carriages continued to rotate around it, the passengers shrieking in delight, unaware.
Emma hit the line for the wheel and started shoving her way through it. She and Julian had put glamour runes on before they'd gotten to the pier, and they were invisible to mundane eyes. That didn't mean they couldn't make their presence felt, though. Mundanes in line swore and yelled as she stomped on feet and elbowed her way to the front.
A carriage was just swinging down, a couple-a girl eating purple cotton candy and her black-clad, lanky boyfriend-about to climb in. Glancing up, Emma saw a flicker as the Teuthida demon slithered around the top of the wheel support. Swearing, Emma pushed past the couple, nearly knocking them aside, and leaped into the carriage. It was octagonal, a bench running around the inside, with plenty of room to stand. She heard yells of surprise as the carriage rose, lifting her away from the scene of chaos she'd created below, the couple who'd been about to board the wheel yelling at the ticket taker, and the people in line behind them yelling at each other.
The carriage rocked under her feet as Julian landed beside her, setting it to swinging. He craned his head up. "Do you see it?"
Emma squinted. She had seen the demon, she was sure of that, but it seemed to have vanished. From this angle, the Ferris wheel was a mess of bright lights, spinning spokes, and white-painted iron bars. The two carriages below her and Julian were empty of people; the line must still be sorting itself out.
Good, Emma thought. The fewer people who got on the wheel, the better.
"Stop." She felt Julian's hand on her arm, turning her around. Her whole body tensed. "Runes," he said shortly, and she realized he was holding his stele in his free hand.
Their carriage was still rising. Emma could see the beach below, the dark water spilling up onto the sand, the hills of Palisades Park rising vertically above the highway, crowned with a fringe of trees and greenery.
The stars were dim but visible beyond the bright lights of the pier. Julian held her arm neither roughly nor gently, but with a sort of clinical distance. He turned it over, his stele describing quick motions over her wrist, inking runes of protection there, runes of speed and agility and enhanced hearing.
This was the closest Emma had been to Jules in two weeks. She felt dizzy from it, a little drunk. His head was bent, his eyes fixed on the task at hand, and she took the opportunity to absorb the sight of him.
The lights of the wheel had turned amber and yellow; they powdered his tanned skin with gold. His hair fell in loose, fine waves over his forehead. She knew the way the skin by the corners of his mouth was soft, and the way his shoulders felt under her hands, strong and hard and vibrant. His lashes were long and thick, so dark that they seemed to have been charcoaled; she half expected them to leave a dusting of black powder on the tops of his cheekbones when he blinked.
He was beautiful. He had always been beautiful, but she had noticed it too late. And now she stood with her hands at her sides and her body aching because she couldn't touch him. She could never touch him again.
He finished what he was doing and spun the stele around so the handle was toward her. She took it without a word as he pulled aside the collar of his shirt, under his gear jacket. The skin there was a shade paler than the tanned skin on his face and hands, scored over and over with the faint white Marks of runes that had been used up and faded away.