فصل 7

7

STONE FLOWERS

It was a clear California night, with a warm wind blowing inland from the desert, and the moon was bright and very definitely high in the sky when Cristina slipped out the back door of the Institute and hesitated on the top step.

It had been an odd evening—Helen and Aline had made spaghetti and left the pot on the stove so anyone who liked could come along and serve themselves. Cristina had eaten with Kit and Ty, who were bright-eyed and distant, caught up in their own world; at some point Dru had come in with bowls and put them in the sink. “I had dinner with Tavvy in his room,” she’d announced, and Cristina—feeling completely at sea—had stammered something about how she was glad they’d eaten.

Mark hadn’t appeared at all.

Cristina had waited until midnight before putting on a dress and denim jacket and going to see Mark. It was strange to have her own clothes back, her room with its árbol de vida, her own sheets and blankets. It wasn’t quite coming home, but it was close.

She paused at the top of the stairs. In the distance, the waves swayed and crashed. She’d stood here once and watched as Kieran and Mark kissed each other, Kieran holding Mark as if he were everything in the world.

It felt like a long time ago now.

She moved down the steps, the wind catching at the hem of her pale yellow dress, making it bell out like a flower. The “parking lot” was really a large rectangle of raked sand where the Institute’s car spent its time—at least the Centurions didn’t seem to have set it on fire, which was something. Near the lot were statues of Greek and Roman philosophers and playwrights, glowing palely under the stars, placed there by Arthur Blackthorn. They seemed out of place in the scrubby chaparral of the Malibu hills.

“Lady of Roses,” said a voice behind her.

Kieran! she thought, and turned. And of course, it wasn’t Kieran—it was Mark, tousled pale blond hair and blue jeans and a flannel shirt, which he’d buttoned slightly wrong. The Markness of him made her flush, partly at his nearness and partly that she’d thought for a moment that he might be someone else.

It was just that Kieran was the only one who called her Lady of Roses.

“I cannot bear all this iron,” Mark said, and he sounded more tired than she had ever heard anyone sound. “I cannot bear these inside spaces. And I have missed you so much. Will you come into the desert with me?” Cristina remembered the last time they were in the desert and what he had said. He had touched her face: Am I imagining you? I was thinking about you, and now here you are.

Faeries couldn’t lie, but Mark could, and yet it was his painful honesty that caught at Cristina’s heart. “Of course I will,” she said.

He smiled, and it lit up his face. He cut across the parking lot, Cristina beside him, following a nearly invisible trail between tangled scrub and fern-shrouded boulders. “I used to walk here all the time when I was younger,” he said. “Before the Dark War. I used to come here to think about my problems. Brood about them, whatever you want to call it.” “What problems?” she teased. “Romantic ones?”

He laughed. “I never really dated anyone back then,” he said. “Vanessa Ashdown for about a week, but just—well, she wasn’t very nice. Then I had a crush on a boy who was in the Conclave, but his family moved back to Idris after the Mortal War, and now I don’t remember his name.” “Oh dear,” she said. “Do you look at boys in Idris now and think ‘that might be him’?” “He’d be twenty now,” said Mark. “For all I know he’s married and has a dozen children.” “At twenty?” said Cristina. “He’d have to have been having triplets every year for four years!” “Or two sets of sextuplets,” said Mark. “It could happen.”

They were both laughing now, softly, in the way of people who were just glad to be with each other. I missed you, he had said, and for a moment Cristina let herself forget the past days and be happy to be with Mark in the beautiful night. She had always loved the stark lines of deserts: the gleaming tangles of sagebrush and thornbushes, the massive shadows of mountains in the distance, the smell of sugar pines and incense cedar, the golden sand turned silver by moonlight. As they reached the flat top of a steep-sided hill, the ground fell away below them and she could see the ocean in the distance, its wind-touched shimmer reaching to the horizon in a dream of silver and black.

“This is one of my favorite places.” Mark sank down onto the sand, leaning back on his hands. “The Institute and the highway are hidden and the whole world goes away. It’s just you and the desert.” She sat down beside him. The sand was still warm from the sunlight it had absorbed during the day. She dug her toes in, glad she’d worn sandals. “Is this where you used to do your thinking?” He didn’t answer. He seemed to have become absorbed in looking at his own hands; they were scarred lightly all over, calloused like any Shadowhunter’s, his Voyance rune stark on his right hand.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right for you not to be able to stand the iron, or inside spaces, or closed rooms or the sight of the ocean or anything at all. Your sister just died. There is nothing you could feel that would be wrong.” His chest hitched with an uneven breath. “What if I told you—if I told you that I am grieving for my sister, but since I five years ago decided she was dead, that all my family was dead, that I have already grieved her in a way? That my grief is different than the grief of the rest of my family, and therefore I cannot talk to them about it? I lost her and then I gained her and lost her again. It is more as if the having of her was a brief dream.” “It might be that it is easier to think of it that way,” she said. “When I lost Jaime—though it is not the same—but when he disappeared, and our friendship ended, I grieved for him despite my anger, and then I began to wonder sometimes if perhaps I had dreamed him. No one else spoke of him, and I thought perhaps he had never existed.” She drew up her knees, locking her arms around them. “And then I came here, and no one knew him at all, and it was even more as if he had never been.” Mark was looking at her now. He was silver and white in the moonlight and so beautiful to her that her heart broke a little. “He was your best friend.” “He was going to be my parabatai.”

“So you did not just lose him,” Mark said. “You lost that Cristina. The one with a parabatai.” “And you have lost that Mark,” she said. “The one who was Livia’s brother.”

His smile was wry. “You are wise, Cristina.”

She tensed against the feelings that rose in her at the sight of his smile. “No. I’m very foolish.” His gaze sharpened. “And Diego. You lost him, too.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I had loved him—he was my first love.”

“But you don’t love him now?” His eyes had darkened; blue and gold to a deeper black.

“You shouldn’t have to ask,” she whispered.

He reached for her; her hair was down and loose, and he took a lock of it and wound it around his finger, his touch impossibly gentle. “I needed to know,” he said. “I needed to know if I could kiss you and it would be all right.” She couldn’t speak; she nodded, and he wound his hands into her hair, lifted a handful of strands to his face, and kissed them. “Lady of Roses,” he whispered. “Your hair, like black roses. I have been wanting you.” Want me, then. Kiss me. Everything. Everything, Mark. Her thoughts dissolved as he leaned into her; when she murmured against his mouth, it was in Spanish. “Bésame, Mark.” They sank backward into the sand, entwined, his hands running through her hair. His mouth was warm on hers and then hot, and the gentleness was gone, replaced by a fierce intensity. It was gorgeously like falling; he drew her under him, the sand cradling her body, and her hands ran over him, touching all the places she’d ached to touch: his hair, the arch of his back, the wings of his shoulder blades.

He was already so much more present than he had been when he’d first come to the Institute, when he’d looked as if a high wind might blow him away. He’d gained weight, put on muscle, and she enjoyed the solidity of him, the long elegant muscles that curved along his spine, the breadth and warmth of his shoulders. She ran her hands up under his shirt where his skin was smooth and burning hot, and he gasped into her mouth.

“Te adoro,” he whispered, and she giggled.

“Where did you learn that?”

“I looked it up,” he said, cupping the back of her neck, brushing kisses along her cheek, her jaw. “It’s true. I adore you, Cristina Mendoza Rosales, daughter of mountains and roses.” “I adore you, too,” she whispered. “Even though your accent is terrible, I adore you, Mark Blackthorn, son of thorns.” She smoothed her hand along his face and smiled. “Though you are not so prickly.” “Would you rather I had a beard?” Mark teased, rubbing his cheek against hers, and she giggled and whispered to him that his shirt was buttoned wrong.

“I can fix that,” he said, and pulled it off; she heard some of the buttons pop and hoped it hadn’t been a favorite shirt. She marveled at his lovely bare skin, flecked with scars. His eyes deepened in color; they were black as the depths of the ocean now, both the blue and the gold.

“I love the way you look at me,” he said.

Both of them had stopped giggling; she ran the flat of her palms down his bare chest, his stomach, to the belt of his jeans, and he half-closed his eyes. His own hands went to the buttons that ran down the front of her dress. She continued to touch him as he undid them, neck to hem, until the dress fell away and she was lying on it in only her bra and underwear.

She would have expected to feel self-conscious. She always had with Diego. But Mark was looking at her as if he were stunned, as if he had unwrapped a present and found it to be the one thing he’d always wanted.

“May I touch you?” he said, and when she said yes, he exhaled a shaky breath. He lowered himself slowly over her, kissing her mouth, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, the desert air on her bare skin like silk.

He trailed a path of kisses down her throat; he kissed her where the wind touched her skin, on her belly and breasts, the peaks of her hips. By the time he slid back up her body to her mouth she was shaking. I want to touch him, I have to, she thought hazily; she slipped her hand down his body and under the waistband of his jeans. He inhaled sharply, murmuring between kisses for her not to stop. His body kept time with the movement of her hand, his hips pressing harder and harder against her. Until he pulled away, sitting up, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

“We have to stop—or it’ll be over now,” he said, sounding more human and less faerie than she remembered him ever sounding before.

“You told me not to stop,” she pointed out, smiling at him.

“Did I?” he said, looking surprised. “I want it to be good for you, too, Cristina,” he said. “I don’t know what you and Diego—” “We didn’t,” she interrupted. “I’m a virgin.”

“You are?” He looked absolutely shocked.

“I wasn’t ready,” she said. “Now, I’m ready.”

“I just thought—you’d been dating a long time—”

“Not all relationships are about sex,” she said, and then wondered if making that statement while lying half-naked on a hill made it slightly more unconvincing. “People should only have sex if they want to, and I do want to, with you.” “And I want to with you,” he said, his eyes softening. “But do you have the rune?”

The rune.

The birth control rune. Cristina had never put it on; she’d never thought she was that close to needing it. “Oh, no,” she said. “My stele is down in the Institute.” “Mine as well,” he said. Cristina almost giggled at the disappointed look on his face, though she felt the same. “Still,” he said, brightening. “There is much else I can do to make you feel good. Allow me?” Cristina settled back into the sand, feeling as if she might die from blushing. “All right.” He came back into her arms, and they held each other and kissed through the night, and he touched her and showed her he did indeed know how to make her feel good—so good she shook in his arms and muffled her cries against his shoulder. And she did the same for him, and this time he didn’t ask her to stop, but arched his back and cried out her name, whispering afterward that he adored her, that she made him feel whole.

They decided to return to the Institute when dawn began to turn the sky rose-colored, and fingers of light illuminated their hilltop mesa. They wandered back down the path holding hands, and only unlinked their fingers when they reached the back door of the Institute. It stuck when Mark pushed on it, and he took his stele out to scrawl a quick Open rune on the wood.

It popped open, and he held it for Cristina, who slipped past him into the entryway. She felt incredibly disheveled, with sand stuck to half her body, and her hair a tangled mess. Mark didn’t look much better, especially considering that most of the buttons had been ripped off his shirt.

He smiled at her, a heart-meltingly sweet smile. “Tomorrow night—”

“You have your stele,” Cristina said.

He blinked. “What?”

“You have your stele. You told me that you didn’t, when I needed to make the birth control rune. But you just used it to open the door.” He glanced away from her, and any hope Cristina had that he’d simply forgotten or been wrong vanished. “Cristina, I—” “I just don’t know why you lied to me,” she said.

She turned away from him and walked up the stairs that led to her room. Her body had been humming with happiness; now she felt dazed and sticky and in need of a shower. She heard Mark call after her, but she didn’t turn around.

Diego was asleep and dreaming restlessly about pools of blue water in which a dead woman floated. So he was only a little bit upset to be woken by the impact of a flying boot.

He sat up, reaching automatically for the ax propped next to his bed. The next thing that hit him was a ball of socks, which didn’t hurt but was annoying. “What?” he sputtered. “What’s going on?” “Wake up,” said Divya. “By the Angel, you snore like an outboard motor.” She gestured at him. “Put your clothes on.” “Why?” said Diego, in what he felt was a very reasonable manner.

“They took Kieran,” Divya said.

“Who took Kieran?” Diego was up, grabbing a sweater and jamming his feet into socks and boots.

“The Cohort,” Divya said. She looked as if she’d just woken up herself; her thick dark hair was tangled, and she wore a gear jacket unbuttoned over her uniform. “They burst into my room and grabbed him. We tried to fight them off, but there were too many.” Diego’s heart raced: Kieran had been under his protection. If he was harmed, Diego would have failed, not just Cristina but himself. He grabbed for his ax.

“Diego, stop,” Divya said. “You can’t ax Manuel to death. He’s still a student.”

“Fine. I’ll take a shorter blade.” Diego shoved the ax back against the wall with a clang and reached for a dagger. “Where did they take Kieran?” “The Place of Reflection, or at least that’s what they said,” said Divya. “Rayan’s out looking for them. Come on.” Diego shook the last cobwebs of sleep from his head and bolted after Divya. They jogged down the corridors, calling for Rayan.

“The Place of Reflection,” said Diego. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Is this a room for quiet meditation, or—?” “No. You don’t understand. It’s called the Place of Reflection because there’s a reflecting pool in it, but it isn’t a regular reflecting pool. Some people call it the Hollow Place.” Oh. Diego did know of the Hollow Place, a secret room where, it was said, a pool had been filled with enchanted water. To gaze into the water was to gaze into your own soul: to see all the evil you had ever done, intentionally or otherwise.

“It’s awful for anyone,” said Divya. “And for someone in the Wild Hunt, it could kill them.” “What?” They turned a corner and encountered a blaze of light. It was Rayan, standing in the middle of a long corridor, wearing a grim expression. He had a massive sword strapped to his back.

“They just went into the Hollow Place,” he said. “I couldn’t follow them—I don’t have my stele on me. Do either of you?” “I do,” said Diego, and they jogged down a short, sloping hallway to a set of closed doors. Loud giggles spilled out from inside the room.

Diego scrawled a quick Open rune on the door. It wrenched open with a puff of rust and they charged inside.

The Hollow Place was a wide space with granite floors, clear of any furniture. The walls were rough rock, glittering with mica. In the center of the room was a tile-lined pool with water so clear and clean it reflected like a mirror. Gold metal lettering decorated the floor: And God split open the hollow place, and water came out from it.

“Well, thank the Angel,” drawled Manuel, who was leaning against a far wall in a pose of total disinterest. “Look who’s here to save us all.” Zara giggled. She was surrounded by a group of other Cohort members—among them Diego recognized several Scholomance students and their family members. Mallory Bridgestock and Milo Coldridge. Anush Joshi, Divya’s cousin. Several Centurions were there too: Timothy Rockford, Samantha Larkspear, and Jessica Beausejours were standing around smirking while Anush dragged Kieran toward the pool in the center of the room. Kieran was jerking and twisting in his grip; there was blood on his face, his shirt.

“It’s a fair punishment for the princeling, don’t you think?” said Zara. “If you look or swim in the water of the pool, you feel the pain you’ve inflicted on others. So if he’s innocent, it should be just fine for him.” “No one is that innocent,” said Rayan. “The pool is to be used sparingly, to allow students to seek for truth within themselves. Not as a torture device.” “What an interesting thought, Rayan,” said Manuel. “Thank you for sharing. But I don’t see Gladstone running in here to stop us, do you? Is it possible you didn’t want to get in trouble for harboring a faerie fugitive?” “I think it’s interesting you know so much about Kieran,” said Divya. “Is it possible you knew he was here and didn’t want to report it so you could torture and kill him yourself?” She was right, Diego thought, but none of this was helping Kieran, who was gagging and choking on his own blood.

I swore I would protect him. Diego reached for his ax, only to realize it wasn’t there. He saw Zara’s eyes narrow and turned; Divya had yanked Rayan’s sword from its scabbard and was pointing it at the Cohort.

“Enough,” she said. “Stop it, all of you. And I’m especially ashamed of you, Anush,” she added, shooting her cousin a dark look. “You know what it’s like to be treated unfairly. When your mother finds out . . .” Anush let Kieran go with a shove. He landed at the edge of the pool with a grunt of agony. Move away from the water, Diego thought, but Kieran was clearly wounded; he knelt in place, dazed and gasping.

“We’re just having a little fun,” protested Anush.

“What are you going to do, Divya, attack us?” said Samantha. “Just for having a little fun?” “He’s bleeding,” said Diego. “That’s more than just ‘a little fun.’ And what happens if you kill him? Do you really want to deal with the consequences? He’s the son of the Unseelie King.” There was a rumble of discontent among the Cohort. Clearly they’d never thought about that.

“Fine, fine,” said Zara. “Be killjoys. But I knew he was here, hiding out in your room,” she said to Diego. “I saw a hollowed acorn on your floor. So this is your fault. If you hadn’t brought him here, none of this would have happened.” “Give it a rest, Zara,” said Divya, still holding the sword levelly. “Diego, go get Kieran.” Diego started across the room, just as Manuel spoke. “Why don’t you look in the water yourself, Rocio Rosales?” he said. “If you think your soul is so clean. It should be painless for you.” “Cállate la pinche boca,” Diego snapped, nearly at Kieran’s side; the faerie prince was coughing, blood on his lips. He’d started to pull himself upright when Manuel moved with the speed of a snake: Planting a boot in Kieran’s back, he kicked him into the water.

Diego lunged forward, catching at the back of Kieran’s shirt, but not before Kieran had gotten a faceful of pool water. Diego yanked him out, coughing and gasping, and tried to set him on his feet; Kieran staggered and Rayan caught him.

“Just get out,” Samantha said, striding toward them. “When the Inquisitor hears about this—” “Samantha!” Jessica called in alarm, but it was too late; Samantha had slipped on the water at the edge of the pool and tumbled in with a scream.

“By the Angel.” Divya lowered her sword, staring. “Is she—”

Samantha surfaced, screaming. It was a terrible scream, as if she were dying, or watching someone she loved die. It was a scream of horror and revulsion and misery.

The Cohort members stood stunned; only a few moved toward Samantha. Hands reached into the water, grasped her arms, and drew her out.

Kieran’s hands. Still coughing blood, he deposited Samantha on the side of the pool. She rolled over, retching and gagging water, as Zara shoved herself between Samantha and the faerie prince. “Get away from her,” she snarled at Kieran.

He turned and limped toward Diego. Diego caught Kieran as he nearly collapsed. The Cohort was occupied with Samantha; there was no time to waste. As Diego hurried from the room, half-supporting Kieran between himself and Rayan, Divya following with her sword, he was almost sure he could hear Manuel laughing.

“Okay,” Julian said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

They were in what Emma could only describe as a glade. Glades were the sort of thing she didn’t have a lot of experience with—there weren’t too many in L.A.—but this was definitely one: open and grassy, surrounded by trees, filled with sunlight and the low humming of what might have been insects or tiny pixies.

You never could tell in Faerie.

She was still dizzy from the trip through the faerie gate, buried deep in the woods of Brocelind Forest. How Horace had known about it, she couldn’t guess. Perhaps it was information given to all the high officials of the Clave. He had been impatient, nearly shoving them through without ceremony, but not too impatient to give Emma the medallion, and both of them black rucksacks packed with weapons, gear, and food.

The last thing he’d said was: “Remember, you’re heading toward the Unseelie Court. Follow the map.” A map wouldn’t work in Faerie, Emma had thought, but Horace had shoved her toward the gate of twisted branches, and a moment later she was thudding to her knees on green grass and the scent of Faerie air was in her nose and mouth.

She reached up a hand and touched the medallion. It didn’t have an angel on it, like Cristina’s; in fact, it looked as if it had once borne a Shadowhunter family crest that had since been scratched away. Otherwise it looked much like the Rosales necklace. It made a comforting weight at the base of her throat.

“The Clave packed us sandwiches,” Julian said, fishing around in his rucksack. “I guess for today, because they won’t keep. There’s cheese, bread, dried meat, and fruit. Some bottles of water.” Emma moved closer to him to see what he was unpacking and spreading on the grass. He’d taken out two gray blankets, an assortment of weapons—they also carried weapons on their belts—and folded clothes. When Julian shook them out, they turned out to be smooth linen in earth tones, fastened with laces and loops, no zippers or buttons.

“Faerie clothes,” Emma said.

“It’s a good idea,” said Julian. Both outfits consisted of a long overshirt, trousers that laced up the front, and vests made of tough hide. “We should change. The longer we stand around in Shadowhunter gear, the longer we’re a target.” Emma took the smaller set of clothes and went behind a copse of trees to change. She wished she could have asked Julian to go with her, especially when she was hopping on one foot, pulling on her trousers with one hand while gripping her weapons belt with the other. She’d rarely felt more vulnerable to attack, but even though Julian had seen her with no clothes on at all, it felt awkward now. She wasn’t sure how this new Julian, the one without feelings, would react, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

The faerie clothes were comfortable at least, soft and loose. When she emerged from the trees, she stood blinking in the bright sunlight for a moment, looking for Julian.

She saw him as he turned; he was holding up what looked like a piece of old parchment, frowning. He had put on the faerie trousers, but he was naked from the waist up.

Her stomach tightened. Emma had seen Julian shirtless at the beach plenty of times, but somehow this was different. Maybe because now she knew what it was like to run her hands over his shoulders, pale gold in the sunlight. He was smoothly muscled all over, the ridges in his abdomen sharply defined. She had kissed her way down that skin while he ran his hands through her hair, saying Emma, Emma, in the gentlest voice. Now she was staring like a curious onlooker.

But she couldn’t stop. There was something about it—illicit, nerve-racking—as if Julian were a dangerous stranger. Her gaze slipped over him: his hair, soft and dark and thick, curling where it touched the nape of his neck; his hips and collarbones made elegant arches under his skin; his runes described whorls and spirals across his chest and biceps. His parabatai rune seemed to glow under the sun. Around his wrist was the same knotted rag of red-brown cloth.

He looked up at that moment and saw her. He lowered the parchment he was holding, angling it to cover the thing on his wrist. “Come here,” he called, “and look at the map,” and turned away, reaching for his shirt. By the time she’d gotten near him, he’d pulled it on and the rag was covered.

He handed over the map and she forgot everything else. She stared at it as he knelt down, unpacking the food from one of the rucksacks.

The parchment showed a sketch of Faerie—the Thorn Mountains, various lakes and streams, and the Courts of Seelie and Unseelie. It also showed a bright red dot that seemed to be trembling slightly, as if it weren’t a part of the page.

“The dot is us,” Julian said, putting out sandwiches. “I figured the map out—it shows where we are in relation to the Courts. No real map would work here. The landscape of Faerie always shifts, and the Unseelie Court moves around. But since this shows where we are and where the Unseelie Court is, as long as we keep walking toward it we should be all right.” Emma sat down on the grass across from him and picked up a sandwich. They were both cheese, lettuce, and tomato—not her favorite but she didn’t care, since she was hungry enough to eat pretty much anything.

“And what about Jace and Clary? We said to Simon and Isabelle that we’d look for them.” “We only have four days,” Julian said. “We have to find the Black Volume first, or Horace will destroy our lives.” And the kids’ lives. And Helen’s and Aline’s. And even Cristina’s, because she knew our secret and she didn’t tell. Emma knew it was all true, and Julian was being practical. Still, she wished he seemed more regretful that they couldn’t look for their friends yet.

“But we can look for them if we find the book?” said Emma.

“If we still have time left on Horace’s clock,” said Julian. “I don’t see why not.”

“Four days isn’t that much time,” said Emma. “Do you think this plan could work? Or is Horace just trying to get us killed?” “Be a pretty elaborate way to kill us,” said Julian. He took a bite out of his sandwich and looked meditatively into the distance. “He wants the Black Volume. You heard him. I don’t think he cares how he gets it, and we’ll probably have to watch our step. But as long as we have it in our hands . . .” He pointed at the map. “Look. Bram’s Crossroads.” The fact that their extraction point actually existed made Emma feel slightly better.

“I wish I knew what he was going to do with the Black Volume,” Emma muttered.

“Probably nothing. He wants it so the faeries can’t have it. It would be a political coup for him. The Consul couldn’t get it, now he does, he gets to hold it up at the next Council meeting and praise himself.” “He’ll probably say Zara found it,” Emma said—and then paused, staring at Julian. “You’re eating lettuce,” she said.

“Yes?” He was leaning over the map, his fingers keeping it flat.

“You hate lettuce.” She thought of all the times he’d eaten lettuce in front of the kids to be a good example and then complained to her later that it tasted like crunchy paper. “You’ve always hated it.” “Have I?” He sounded puzzled. He rose to his feet, starting to gather up their things. “We should head out. This time we travel by daylight. Too much weird stuff abroad in Faerie at night.” It’s just lettuce, Emma told herself. Not that important. Still, she found herself biting her lip as she bent to pick up her rucksack. Julian was strapping his crossbow to his back; his rucksack went across the other shoulder.

From the woods came a cracking noise, the kind a breaking branch might make. Emma whirled around, her hand at her hip, feeling for the hilt of a knife. “Did you hear that?” Julian tightened the strap of his crossbow. They stood there for long moments, on their guard, but there was no second sound, and nothing appeared. Emma wished fiercely for a Vision or Hearing rune.

“It could have been nothing,” Julian said, finally, and though Emma knew he wasn’t really trying to comfort her, just trying to get them on the road, it still seemed like something the Julian she knew would say.

In silence they headed away from the clearing, which moments ago had been bright with sunlight and now seemed ominous and full of shadows.