Bred in the Bone #7
Emma always hated it when Julian didn’t let her in on his plans. This time, he had, and it turned out that was stressful too. Now she had to worry about whether it would work.
Of course it will work. It’s Julian, she told herself. They’d reached the mouth of the cave. Kindling witchlights, they plunged into the darkness.
It was easy enough to follow the Other Emma, even when the marks of her footprints faded out as the sand turned to rock. She’d left them a trail of blood drops, one after the other, as if they were in a horrible sort of fairy tale.
They inched through the maze of caverns and corridors, until—
Emma stopped, her ears pricking like a cat’s. She could hear the rush of water in the distance, at the cave’s mouth. And over that: the sound of breathing. A cough.
She looked up.
Her witchlight illuminated a jagged outcropping of rock, a few feet above their heads. On it lay the Other Emma, flat on her stomach, glaring down at them over the lip of the rock. She held a knife in her hand, but loosely, as if it was too heavy.
She grinned at them in the dark. Then coughed a spray of blood. She wiped her mouth on her black sleeve, a snarl twisting her face.
“Emma, she’s trying to trick us,” Julian said. He had a new seraph blade in his hand, though it was unlit. “She wants us to think she’s weak.”
“It’s not a trick,” said the Other Emma. “This world is poison to me. It’s killing me. As Thule would have killed you, in time.”
“She’s not lying,” Emma said. She could feel the truth, feel the sickness spreading through the Other Emma. She looked up. “We can help you,” she said, though she wasn’t at all sure that was true. “Maybe heal you. If you tell us what we need to know.”
“And what’s that? You want to know what dark plans my world has for yours?
You want to know what bloody fate awaits you and all your courageous friends?
” The Other Emma made courageous sound like a curse word.
“No,” she said, after a moment, her hungry gaze fixed on Julian.
“That’s not it, is it? You want to know about Livvy. My Livvy.”
“She’s not yours,” Julian said, fiercely. “Just like Emma is nothing like you.”
“Just like you’re nothing like him?” Thule Emma said in a mocking tone. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? But I know better.” Other Emma’s voice was slow, a little thickened. “I see my Julian when I look at you.”
Jules stiffened. Emma traced her fingers along the back of his hand.
L-E-T-H-E-R-T-A-L-K
They had a little time. Maybe she would slip up, say something useful.
“You know it’s true,” Thule Emma said dreamily.
“You just want her to think that Julian Blackthorn is an essentially good person. That you only do cruel things when necessary. But what if necessity was stripped away, and you still desired cruelty? What if everything you think matters—your family, your Law—is the distraction? What if the real you, the best version of you, is the cruel one? What if deep down, she knows it? And that’s why she loves you. ”
“It’s not,” Emma said tightly.
Thule Emma turned onto her side with a gasp of pain.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “I was you. Once. But you’ve never been me.
You don’t know what it feels like to be the only thing he loves.
To be two sparks of celestial fire circling each other, and only each other.
Which means you don’t know love at all.”
But didn’t she know? Hadn’t she and Julian blazed together, in terrifying spectacle? Hadn’t that love literally consumed them?
But it had been their love for others that had brought them back. Before they blazed into ashes.
“I don’t need to be the only person he cares about,” Emma said. “Because I’m not a sociopath.”
“Ignore her,” Julian whispered. “We just need to keep her here until—”
“You love him for his ruthlessness.” Thule Emma pressed on, her thin voice fraying, her eyes burning. “He loves you for your fire, for the rage that drives you. That used to drive you, I should say. But if he had to choose between you and his family…”
“Shut up,” Julian said, his voice ragged. “Emma is my family.”
Water was rushing around Emma’s boots. The tide coming in. Thule Emma glanced down and coughed, a racking, bloody cough. “Fitting,” she said, faintly. “I had dreamed of watching Julian see you die, Emma. Now we will all drown together. Good enough.”
“You don’t need to die,” Emma said. “We can bring you to the Institute. The Silent Brothers can help you. You just have to climb down.” And answer a few questions. “Otherwise we walk away, leave you here to drown. Your choice.”
A long hesitation. At last, Thule Emma rolled to the edge of the outcrop. She reached down a hand, its back marked with a scar where once there had been a rune. “Help me down.”
And Emma reached up.
And took her hand.
—
It burned. A small prick, at first, at the center of her palm.
A coldly burning pain like acid flooded her veins. Up her arm, into her shoulder, her chest, her legs, her heart. The ice of it seared through flesh, through bone.
Emma wanted to pull her hand away but she could not will it to move. She could not will her legs to stand. And then she was lying on her back and she was staring up into the dark and she could hear Julian calling for her but she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak—but she could feel.
She could feel everything. Every grain of sand on her back was agony. Even the breeze felt like a razor, raking across her flesh. She was a raw nerve.
She could feel the edge of a blade pressed to her throat and oh by the Angel, it burned.
“What did you do to her?” Julian’s voice sounded dim, far. As if he was speaking through glass.
Thule Emma hoisted Emma’s body up, and shoved her into a sitting position against the rock wall. No doubt she wanted Emma to watch Julian’s face as she died.
Jules. She could only see him barely through the blackness dotting her vision. His face was a mask, expressionless. Emma knew what that meant: He was terrified.
“I said,” Julian snarled, “what did you do to her?”
“Drevak demon poison,” the Other Emma said.
She still sounded weak, she was still coughing—her sickness hadn’t been a trick.
It just wasn’t a match for her rage. “Don’t worry, it’s not fatal.
I gather it causes a delightful amount of pain.
” She squeezed Emma’s wrist. Emma felt the pressure of her fingers like a thousand tiny knives, and, somewhere deep inside herself, screamed and screamed.
“But it won’t kill her. That wouldn’t be any fun.
I want to feel her blood run through my fingers.
But I want to see the look on your face more. ”
Emma tried to speak to Julian with her eyes. Don’t do anything foolish. Whatever happens to me, you need to destroy her.
Even her tears burned.
“If you hurt her,” Julian said, evenly, “I will kill you.”
The ground beneath her was wet. Tidewater was rushing into the cave. Emma knew these caves well: The water would rise higher and faster until there was no way out. If they were still here when it happened, the ocean would carry them all away.
Good.
“Better death than a life without my Julian,” Thule Emma said.
“Vengeance is the only purpose left to me. And I know you understand that, because you fell in love with it. Even in this pathetic form. You loved her fire. Her rage. You miss it, don’t you?
I saw the way you looked at each other in my world—I recognized desire. But now? Something’s changed.”
It was like a nightmare, Emma’s own voice speaking her own worst fears.
“Is that what you think about, Julian, when you sit on the roof in the moonlight? Are you wishing on a star to get the old Emma back? It’s almost like you were wishing for me.”
The water was rising. It soothed the burning, and Emma wondered if it would be so bad, the ocean rising up, stealing her away.
“Maybe you’re right,” Julian said. He sounded defeated. “When I look at you…I see the Emma I fell in love with. A vengeful goddess, clothed in light.”
Emma had never more desperately wanted to move than she did right now. Her whole body was fire, but hearing Julian speak those words…
“You’re lying,” said the Other Emma, but there was a sharp tension in her voice. “You don’t really mean that. I’m going to kill her, your Emma. Even if you kill me as I sink the blade in, I’ll die happy, knowing you’ll die without her.”
He won’t, Emma thought. You don’t understand this world.
This Julian loved more than just Emma, lived for more than just Emma.
He loved Dru and Ty and Helen and Mark. If he lost Emma, he would survive it, just as he had survived losing Livvy.
He would mourn, but he would live. I am his love, but I am not his everything.
She imagined she could hear the Other Emma’s response echoing in her head. What kind of sorry excuse for love is that?
You don’t understand, Emma whispered back silently to the Emma in her mind. Love multiplies love. The more Julian loves his family, the more he can love me. You had all your Julian’s love, but what was it worth when he was incapable of caring for anyone or anything else?
Julian dropped his seraph blade to the ground. He moved toward Thule Emma, who took a step back in surprise. But he kept coming toward her, and now the Other Emma wasn’t moving—she was standing still, waiting as Julian approached her.
The water was lapping at Emma’s legs now. The ocean was unpredictable. The tide could rise slowly—or a wave could crash, water could flood in, and Emma would float, frozen in the sea. A corpse before death, drifting into the abyss.
“I can’t kill you,” Julian said.
Thule Emma’s lip curled. “You killed your own father. You put a dagger through the eye of your own self. I hardly think you’d hesitate to kill me.”