Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(73)

"We hope they come back soon," Diana said, looking out at the moon's reflection on the ocean water. "And if hoping doesn't work, we pray for it."

* * *

The woods had gone, and as the twilight deepened into true night, the four Shadowhunters trekked through a spectral land of green fields, separated by low stone walls. Every once in a while they would see another patch of the strange blighted earth through the mist. Sometimes they would glimpse the shape of a town in the distance and fall silent, not wanting to attract attention.

They had eaten what was left of their food back on the hill, though it wasn't much. Emma wasn't hungry, though. A snarl of misery had taken up residence in her stomach.

She couldn't forget what she'd seen when she'd woken up, alone in the grass.

Rising, she had looked around for Julian. He was gone, even the impression in the grass where he'd lain beside her fading.

The air had been heavy and gray-gold, making her head buzz as she climbed up over the ridge, about to call Julian's name.

Then she'd seen him, standing halfway down the hill, the dank air lifting his sleeves, the edges of his hair. He wasn't alone. A faerie girl in a black, ragged shift was with him. Her hair was the color of burnt rose petals, a sort of gray-pink, drifting around her shoulders.

Emma thought the girl looked up at her for a moment and smiled. She might have imagined it, though. She knew she didn't imagine what happened next, when the faerie girl leaned in to Jules and kissed him.

She wasn't sure what she thought would happen; some part of her expected Jules to push the girl away. He didn't. Instead he put his arms around her and drew her in, his hand tangling in her shimmering hair. Emma's stomach turned itself inside out as he pressed her close. He held the faerie girl tightly, their mouths moving together, her hands sliding from his shoulders down his back.

There was something almost beautiful about the sight, in a horrible way. It stabbed Emma through with the remembrance of what it had been like to kiss Jules herself. And there was no hesitancy in him, no reluctance, nothing held back as if he were reserving any piece of himself for Emma. He gave himself up utterly to the kiss, and he was as beautiful doing it as the realization that she had really lost him now was awful.

She thought she could actually feel her heart break, like a friable piece of china.

The faerie girl had broken away, and then there had been Mark and Cristina there, and Emma hadn't been able to watch what was happening: She'd turned away, crumpling into the grass, trying not to throw up.

Her hands balled into fists against the ground. Get up, she told herself fiercely. She owed that much to Jules. He'd hidden whatever pain he'd felt when she'd ended things between them, and she owed it to him to do the same.



       
         
       
        

Somehow she'd managed to get to her feet, plaster a smile on her face, speak normally when she came down the hill to join the others. Nod as they sat and divided up food, as the stars came out and Mark determined that he could navigate by them. Seem unconcerned as they set off, Julian beside his brother, and she and Cristina behind them, following Mark down the winding, unmarked paths of Faerie.

The sky was radiant now with multicolored stars, each blazing an individual path of pigment across the sky. Cristina was uncharacteristically quiet, kicking at stones with the toe of her boot as she walked. Mark and Julian were up ahead of them, just far enough to be out of earshot.

"¿Qué onda?" Cristina asked, looking sideways at Emma.

Emma's Spanish was bad, but even she understood what's going on? "Nothing." She felt awful about lying to Cristina, but worse about her own feelings. Sharing them would only make them seem more real.

"Well, good," Cristina said. "Because I have something to tell you." She took a deep breath. "I kissed Mark."

"Whoa," said Emma, diverted. "Whoa ho ho."

"Did you just say 'whoa ho ho'?"

"I did," Emma admitted. "So is this like a high-five-slash-chest-bump situation or an oh-my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do situation?"

Cristina tugged nervously on her hair. "I don't know-I like him very much, but-at first I thought I was only kissing him because of the faerie drink-"

Emma gasped. "You drank faerie wine? Cristina! That's how you black out and wake up the next day under a bridge with a tattoo that says I LOVE HELICOPTERS."

"It wasn't really wine! It was just juice!"

"Okay, okay." Emma lowered her voice. "Do you want me to end things with Mark? I mean, you know, tell the family it's over?"