He dropped to his knees. His expression was dazed, though he was clearly fighting it. "We need to get out of here," he said hoarsely. "The shooter might come back, alone or with more--"
His voice choked off and he fell backward, sprawling in the grass. Emma moved faster than she ever had in her life, leaping across the pool, but she still wasn't there in time to catch him before he hit the ground.
Clouds were gathering out over the ocean. The wind up on the roof was cool, the ocean acting like a giant air conditioner. Cristina could hear the roar and crash of the surf in the distance as she moved gingerly across the shingles. What was it about the Blackthorns and Emma that meant that ever since she'd come to Los Angeles she'd spent half her time on top of buildings?
Mark was sitting near one of the copper gutters, his legs dangling over the side. The wind blew his fair hair around his face. His hands were long and white and bare, bracing him against the roof tiles behind him.
He was holding one of the Institute's spare cell phones in his hand. It seemed incongruous--it was incongruous, the faerie boy with the long, tangled hair, the tapestry of stars behind him, and the phone in his hand. "I am so sorry, Helen," she heard him say, and the word echoed with such a depth of love and loneliness that she nearly turned away.
Leaving silently didn't seem to be an option, though. Mark had heard her approach: He turned slightly, and gestured for Cristina to remain.
She hovered uncertainly. It was Dru who had told her that she would find Mark on the roof, and the others had urged her to go up and see if he was all right. She had wondered if it was really her place, but Ty and Livvy had been absorbed in their translation job, and she'd sensed Dru was afraid of Mark's harsh words. And it wasn't as if Tavvy could be sent to fetch his brother down. So with some reluctance, Cristina had climbed the ladder to the roof.
Now that she was here, though, she felt an aching sympathy for the boy perched at the roof's edge. The look on his face as he spoke to Helen--she couldn't imagine what it must be like for him, to know there was only one other person in his family quite like him, who shared his blood and heritage, and to know she was separated from him by a cruel and unbreakable Law.
"And I, you, my sister," Mark said, and let the phone fall from his hand. It was an old-fashioned one, with a screen that flickered and went dark as the call disconnected.
He slid it into a pocket and looked over at Cristina, the clouds casting shadows on his face.
"If you have come to tell me I behaved ill, I already know it," he said.
"That's not why I came," she said, moving closer to him but not sitting down.
"But you agree," he said. "I behaved ill. I should not have spoken as I did to Julian, especially in front of the little ones."
Cristina spoke carefully. "I don't know Julian well. But I do believe he was worried about you, and that's why he didn't want you to go with them."
"I know that," Mark said, surprising her. "But do you know what it's like, to have your little brother worry about you as if you were the child?" He raked his fingers through his hair. "I thought, while I was gone, that Helen would be raising them. I never thought it would fall so much upon Julian's shoulders. I cannot tell if that is why he seems unknowable to me."
Cristina thought of Julian, of his quiet competence and careful smiles. She remembered saying to Emma in a joking way that perhaps she would fall in love with Julian when she met him. And he had been much more beautiful than she'd thought, than Emma's blurry photos or vague descriptions had led her to believe. But though she liked him, she doubted she could love him. Too much of him was hidden for that.
"A great deal of him is, I think, locked away," she said. "Have you seen the mural on the wall of his room? The one of the fairy tale? He is like that castle, I think, surrounded by thorns that he has grown to protect himself. But with time, you can cut those thorns away. I believe you will know your brother again."
"I don't know how much time I have," he said. "If we do not solve their puzzle, the Wild Hunt will reclaim me."
"Do you want them to?" Cristina asked softly.
He said nothing, only glanced up at the sky.
"Is that why you come up to the roof? Because from here you can see the Hunt if they go by?"
Mark was silent for a long time. Then he said, "I imagine sometimes I can hear them. That I can hear the sound of their hooves against the clouds."
She smiled. "I like the way you talk," she said. "It always sounds like poetry."
"I speak the way I was taught by the Folk. So many years under their tutelage." He turned his hands over and placed them on his knees. The insides of his wrists were marked by odd, long scars.
"How many years? Do you know?"
He shrugged. "Time is not measured there as it is measured here. I could not say."
"The years do not show on your face," she said quietly. "Sometimes you look as young as Julian and sometimes you look as the fey do--ageless."
Now he looked at her sideways. "You don't think I look like a Shadowhunter?"
"Do you want to?"
"I want to look like my family," he said. "I cannot have the Blackthorn coloring, but I can look as much like Nephilim as possible. Julian was right--if I wish to be part of the investigation, I cannot stand out."
Cristina held back from telling Mark that there was no world in which he didn't stand out. "I can make you look like a Shadowhunter. If you come downstairs with me."
He moved as noiselessly on the shingled roof as if he had the padded feet of a cat or as if he were wearing a Soundless rune. He stepped aside to let her lead the way downstairs. Even that was hushed, and when she brushed by him, his skin was cool as night air.
She led the way to his room; he had left the lights off, so she illuminated her witchlight and set it down by the bed. "That chair," she said, pointing. "Bring it into the middle of the room and sit down. I'll be right back."
He looked after her quizzically as she left the room. When she returned, carrying a damp comb, a towel, and a pair of scissors, he was seated in the chair, still with the same quizzical look. He didn't sit the way other teenage boys did, all sprawl and legs and arms. He sat the way kings did in drawings, upright but deliberate, as if the crown rested uneasily on his head.
"Are you going to cut my throat?" he asked as she came toward him with the towel and the sharp scissors gleaming.
"I'm going to cut your hair." She looped the towel around his neck and moved to stand behind him. His head tipped back to follow her movements as she took hold of his hair, running her fingers through it. It was the kind of hair that should have been curly but was weighed down by its own length and tangles.
"Hold still," she said.
"As my lady requests."
She ran the comb through his hair and began to cut, careful to keep the length even. As she snipped away the weight of his silvery-blond mane, it sprang free in adorable curls like Julian's. They twined up against the back of his neck as if they wanted to be close to him.
She remembered touching Diego's hair; it had been thick under her fingers, dark and textured. Mark's was fine, like corn silk. It fell like gleaming chaff, catching the witchlight.
"Tell me about the faerie Court," she said. "I've always heard stories. My mother told me some, and my uncle."
"We didn't see it much," he said, sounding very ordinary for a moment. "Gwyn and the Hunters aren't part of any Court. He keeps himself to himself. We joined the Courts and the gentry only on nights when there were revels. But those were--"
He was silent for so long she wondered if he had fallen asleep or was perhaps simply deathly bored.
"If you had been to one you would not forget it," he said. "Great sparkling caves or deserted copses in woodlands full of will-o'-the-wisp lights. There are still some parts of this world that are undiscovered by all but the Folk. There was dancing to wear your feet down, and there were beautiful boys and girls, and kisses were cheaper than wine but the wine was sweet and the fr
uit sweeter. And you would wake up in the morning and it would all be gone, but you could still hear the music in your head."
"I think I would find it very frightening." She moved around to stand in front of him. He looked up at her with his curious two-colored eyes and she felt a tremor run through her hand, one she'd never felt when she cut Diego's hair or his brother Jaime's or any of her little cousins'. Of course, they'd been twelve when she'd clipped their hair, showing off what her mother had taught her, so maybe it was different when you were older. "Everything so glamorous and beautiful. How can a human compare?"
He looked surprised. "But you would be lovely in the Court," he said. "They would turn leaves and flowers into jeweled crowns and sandals for you. You would sparkle and be admired. The Folk love nothing more than mortal beauty."
"Because it fades," she said.
"Yes," he admitted. "It is true that eventually you will become gray and bent and withered, and it is possible that hair will sprout from your chin. And there is also the issue of warts." He caught her glare. "But that time is a long time away," he added hastily.
Cristina snorted. "I thought faeries were meant to be charming." She slid a hand under his chin to steady his head as she snipped away the last unruly strands. That was different too; his skin was as smooth as hers, no hint of stubble or roughness. His eyes narrowed, their color thinning to a gleam as she set the scissors aside and cleared her throat. "There," she said. "Would you like to see?"
He straightened up in the chair. Cristina was bending down; their heads were on a level. "Lean closer," he said. "For years I have had no mirror; I have learned to make do. The eyes of another can be a mirror more effective than water. If you will look at me, I can see my reflection in yours."
I have had to make do. Whose eyes had he been looking into, all those years? Cristina wondered as she leaned forward. She didn't know why she did it, exactly; maybe it was the way his eyes stayed fixed on hers, as if he couldn't imagine anything more fascinating than looking at her. His gaze didn't stray, either, not to the V of her shirt or her bare legs or even her hands, as she opened her eyes wide and looked directly back at him.
"Beautiful," he said finally.
"Do you mean your haircut?" she asked, trying for a teasing voice, but it wobbled in the middle. Maybe she shouldn't have offered to so intimately touch a complete stranger, even if he did seem harmless, even if she hadn't meant anything by it--had she?
"No," he said on a soft exhale. She felt his breath warm on her neck, and his hand slid over hers. His was rough and calloused, scarred along the palm. Her heart gave an uneven leap in her chest just as Mark's bedroom door opened.
She nearly jumped away from him as Ty and Livvy appeared in the doorway. Livvy was holding her phone, and her eyes were wide and worried. "It's Emma," she said, lifting the phone. "She texted nine-one-one. We need to go meet them right away."
Emma made a screeching right turn off Fairfax into a parking lot down the street from Canter's Delicatessen. It belonged to a paint store that was closed now. She wheeled around to the back, where the lot was totally empty, and pulled the car to a jerking stop, making Jules swear.
She looked back at him, unbuckling her belt. He was pale, clutching his side. She couldn't see much, given the darkness inside the car and the black clothes he was wearing, but blood was leaking through his fingers in slow pulses. Her stomach went cold.
When he'd fallen at Wells's house, the first thing she'd done was sketch a healing rune on his skin. The second was get him to his feet and half-drag him, the weapons, and Ava's purse into the backseat of the car.
It was only after they'd driven a few blocks that he'd moaned and she'd looked back to realize he was still bleeding. She'd pulled over and put on another healing rune, and then another. That would work. It had to.
There were very few kinds of wounds that healing runes couldn't help. Those made by demon poisons, and those bad enough to kill you. She'd felt her brain hitch and freeze up at the thought of either of those possibilities and had gone immediately for her phone. She'd texted Livvy the first location she could think of that was familiar--they all knew and loved Canter's--and then driven straight for it as fast as she could.
She turned the car off with a jerk of her wrist and climbed into the backseat beside Jules. He was wedged into the corner, pale and sweating with obvious pain. "Okay," she said in a shaking voice. "You have to let me look at you."
He was biting his lip. The streetlights from Fairfax illuminated the backseat, but not enough for Emma to see him well. He reached down for the hem of his shirt--and hesitated.
She took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it, filling the car with bright light. Jules's shirt was soaked with blood, and worse, the healing runes she'd drawn had vanished from his skin.
They weren't working.
"Jules," she said. "I have to call the Silent Brothers. They can help you. I have to."
His eyes screwed shut with pain. "You can't," he said. "You know we can't call the Silent Brothers. They report directly to the Clave."
"So we'll lie to them. Say it was a routine demon patrol. I'm calling," she said, and reached for her phone.
"No!" Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. "Silent Brothers know when you're lying! They have the Mortal Sword, Emma. They'll find out about the investigation. About Mark--"
"You're not going to bleed to death in a car for Mark!"
"No," he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily blue-green, the only deep color in the witch-lit interior of the car. "You're going to fix me."
Emma could feel it when Jules was hurt, like a splinter lodged under her skin. The physical pain didn't bother her--it was the terror, the only terror worse than her fear of the ocean. The fear of Jules being hurt, of him dying. She would give up anything, sustain any wound, to prevent that from happening.
"Okay," she said. Her voice sounded dry and thin to her own ears. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Hang on."
She unzipped her jacket, threw it aside. Leaned over the console between the seats to put her witchlight on the floorboard. Then she reached for Jules. The next few seconds were a blur of Jules's blood on her hands and his harsh breathing as she pulled him partly upright, wedging him against the back door. He didn't make a sound as she moved him, but she could see him biting his lip and the blood on his mouth and chin, and she felt as if her bones were popping inside her skin.
"Your jacket," she said through gritted teeth. "I have to cut it off."
He nodded, letting his head fall back. She reached for Cortana.
Despite the toughness of the material, the blade went through the gear jacket like a knife through paper. It fell away in pieces. Emma sliced down the front of his T-shirt and pulled it apart as if she were peeling open a fruit.
Emma had seen blood before, often, but this felt different. It was Julian's, and there seemed to be a lot of it. It was smeared up and down his chest and rib cage; she could see where the arrow had gone in and where the skin had torn when he'd yanked it out.
"Why did you pull the arrow out?" she demanded, pulling her sweater over her head. She had a tank top on under it. She patted his chest and side with the sweater, absorbing as much of the blood as she could.
Jules's breath was coming in harsh pants. "Because when someone--shoots you with an arrow--" he gasped, "your immediate response is not--'Thanks for the arrow, I think I'll keep it for a while.'"
"Good to know your sense of humor is intact."
"Like I said, it was burning," Julian said. "Not like a normal wound. Like there was something on the arrowhead, acid or something."
Emma had mopped away as much of the blood as she could. It was still welling from the puncture wound, running in thin streams down his stomach, gathering in the lines between his abdominal muscles. He had deep gaps above his hip bones, too, and his sides were hard and smooth to the touch.
She took a deep breath. "You're too skinny," she said as brightly as she could. "Too much
coffee, not enough pancakes."
"I hope they put that on my tombstone." He gasped as she shifted forward, and she realized abruptly that she was squarely in Julian's lap, her knees around his hips. It was a bizarrely intimate position.
"I--Am I hurting you?" she asked.
He swallowed visibly. "Try with the iratze again."
"Fine," she said. "Grab the panic bar."
"The what?" He opened his eyes and peered at her.
"The plastic handle! Up there, above the window!" She pointed. "It's for grabbing on to when the car is going around curves."
"Are you sure? I always thought it was for hanging things on," he said. "Like dry cleaning."
"Julian, now is not the time to be pedantic. Grab the bar or I swear--"
"All right!" He reached up, grabbed hold of it, and winced. "I'm ready."
She nodded and set Cortana aside, reaching for her stele. Maybe her previous iratzes had been too fast, too sloppy. She'd always focused on the physical aspects of Shadowhunting, not the more mental and artistic ones: seeing through glamours, drawing runes.
She set the tip of it to his shoulder and drew, carefully and slowly. She had to brace herself with her hand against his body. She tried to press as lightly as she could, but she could feel him tense under her fingers. The skin on his shoulder was smooth under her touch, and she wanted to get closer to him, put her hand over the wound on his side and heal it with the sheer force of her will--
Stop. She had finished the iratze. She sat back, her hand clamped around the stele. Julian straightened, the ragged remnants of his shirt hanging off his shoulders. He took a deep breath, glancing down at himself--and the iratze faded back into his skin, like black ice melting, spreading, being absorbed by the sea.
He looked up at Emma. She could see her own reflection in his eyes: She looked wrecked, panicked, blood on her neck and her white tank top. "It hurts less," he whispered.
The wound pulsed again; blood slid down the side of his rib cage, staining his leather belt and the waistband of his jeans. She put her hands on his bare skin, panic rising up inside her. His skin felt hot, too hot. Fever hot.
"You're lying," she said. "Jules. Enough. I'm going to get help--"