Lady Midnight

Page 74

Sed lex, dura lex. The Law is hard, but it is the Law.
When Emma came into the kitchen, Julian was by the sink, cleaning up the remains of breakfast. Mark was leaning against the kitchen island in dark jeans and a black shirt. With his new short hair, in the daylight, he looked astonishingly different from the ragged feral boy who’d pushed back his hood in the Sanctuary. She’d gone for a deliberately long run on the beach that morning, missing the family meal on purpose, trying to clear her head. She grabbed a bottled smoothie out of the refrigerator instead. When she turned around, Mark was grinning.
“As I understand it, what I am currently wearing is not semiformal enough for the performance tonight?” he inquired.
Emma glanced from him to Julian. “So Mr. Rules unbent and decided you could come tonight?”
Julian gave a fluid shrug. “I’m a reasonable man.”
“Ty and Livvy have promised to help me find something to wear,” said Mark, heading for the kitchen door.
“Don’t trust them,” Julian called after him. “Don’t—” He shook his head as the door closed. “Guess he’ll have to learn on his own.”
“That reminds me,” Emma said, leaning on the counter. “We have an emergency situation.”
“An emergency?” With a concerned look, he thumbed off the water and turned to face her.
Emma set her bottled drink down. Soap suds were clinging to Jules’s forearms, and his T-shirt was damp from the hot water. She couldn’t help a flash of memory: Jules in the back of the car, looking up at her with gritted teeth. The way his skin had felt, under her hands, the slipperiness of his blood.
“Is it Diana?” he said, reaching for paper towels.
“What?” That snapped her out of her reverie. “Is Diana all right?”
“Presumably,” he said. “She left a note saying she was going to be gone today. Back to Ojai to see her warlock friend.”
“She doesn’t know about tonight.” Emma leaned on the counter. “Does she?”
Jules shook his head. A damp curl stuck to his cheekbone. “Didn’t exactly get a chance to tell her.”
“You could text,” Emma pointed out. “Or call.”
“I could,” he said neutrally. “But then I’d feel like I needed to tell her about me getting hurt last night.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I mean, really, fine. Like nothing ever happened.” He shook his head. “I don’t want her insisting I stay back from tonight. The theater could be nothing, but if it’s something, I want to be there.” He dropped the paper towels in the trash. “If you’re there, I want to be there.”
“I like it when you’re deceptive.” Emma stretched up on her toes, arms behind her head, trying to work out the kinks in her back muscles. Cool air touched the bare skin of her stomach as her tank pulled up. “If you’re totally fine, though, maybe you don’t ever have to tell Diana? Just a suggestion.”
When Julian didn’t answer, she glanced up at him.
He was arrested midmotion, looking at her. Each of his lashes was a perfect dark line; he was expressionless, his gaze shuttered, as if caught in a peculiar stillness.
He was beautiful. The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She wanted to crawl inside his skin, live where he breathed. She wanted.
She was terrified. She had never wanted like this around Julian before. It was because he’d almost died, she told herself. Her whole system was wired to monitor his survival. She needed him to live. He’d nearly died, and everything inside her was short-circuiting.
He would be horrified, she told herself. If he knew how she was feeling—he’d be disgusted. Things would go back to the way they were when he’d first come back from England, when she’d thought that he was angry at her. That maybe he hated her.
He knew even then, said a small voice at the back of her mind. He knew about your feelings. He knew what you didn’t know.
She pressed her hands hard against the counter, the marble digging into her palms, the pain clearing her head. Shut up, she told the voice in her head. Shut up.
“An emergency.” His voice was low. “You said there was an emergency?”
“A fashion emergency—Cristina needs a dress to blend in tonight, and there’s literally nothing in the house.” She glanced at her watch. “It should take us thirty minutes, tops.”
He relaxed, clearly relieved. “Hidden Treasures?” he asked. It was a good guess: Emma’s favorite vintage store was well known to the family. Every time she went she picked things up for them: a bow tie for Tavvy, a flowered headband for Livvy, an old horror movie poster for Dru.
“Yep. Do you want anything?”
“I’ve always kind of wanted a Batman clock that says ‘WAKE UP, BOY WONDER’ when it goes off,” he said. “It would liven up my room.”
“We’ve got it!” Livvy said, bounding into the kitchen. “Well, some of it, anyway. But it’s weird.”
Emma turned to her with relief. “Got what?”
“In English, Livvy,” said Julian. “What’s weird?”
“We translated some of the lines in the cave,” said Ty, trailing in on Livvy’s heels. He was wearing an oversize gray hooded sweater that swallowed up his hands. His dark hair spilled over the edge of the hood. “But they don’t make sense.”
“Are they a message?” Emma said.
Livvy shook her head. “Lines from a poem,” she said, unfolding the paper she held.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. . . .
“‘Annabel Lee,’” said Julian. “Edgar Allan Poe.”
“I know the poem,” Livvy said, scrunching up her eyebrows. “I just don’t know why it was written on the walls of the cave.”
“I thought maybe it was a book cipher,” said Ty. “But that would mean there was a second half of it. Something in another location, maybe. Might be worth checking with Malcolm.”
“I’ll add it to the list,” said Julian.
Cristina stuck her head in through the kitchen door. “Emma?” she said. “Are you ready to go?”
“You look worried,” said Livvy. “Is Emma taking you somewhere to kill you?”
“Worse,” Emma said, heading over to join Cristina at the door. “Shopping.”
“For tonight? First, I am so jealous, and second, don’t let her take you to that place in Topanga Canyon—”
“That’s enough!” Emma clapped her hands over Cristina’s ears. “Don’t listen to her. She’s lost her mind from all that code breaking.”
“Pick me up some cuff links,” Jules called, heading back toward the sink.
“What color?” Emma paused halfway out the door with Cristina.
“I don’t care as long as they hold my cuffs together. Otherwise they’ll be sad and unlinked,” Jules said. “And get back as quick as you can.” The sound of the water running in the sink was drowned out by Livvy, who had already begun reciting more of the poem.