Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare Page B

missed training and her saber, and about how their great-aunt’s idea of a training room was her barn, which was full of spiders.
    Cristina glanced back as she left the kitchen. The room was full of bright light, and it cast an odd halo over Emma and Julian, blurring out their features. Julian was holding Tavvy, and as Emma leaned in they made up an odd family picture. “You don’t have to do this for me,” Emma was saying, softly but earnestly, in a voice Cristina had never heard her use before.
    “I think I do,” Julian said. “I think I remember making a vow to that effect.”
    “‘Whither thou goest, I will go, whatever stupid thing you do, I shall do also’?” Emma said. “Was that the vow?”
    Julian laughed. If there were more words between the two, Cristina didn’t hear them spoken. She let the door close behind her without looking back again. She had once thought she would have a parabatai herself; though it was a dream she had long put to bed, there was something about that sort of intimacy that was painful to overhear.

4
    A ND T HIS W AS THE R EASON
    Emma hit the training mat hard, rolling quickly so that Cortana, still strapped to her back, wouldn’t be damaged—or damage her. In the early years of her training she’d inflicted more injuries on herself by accident with Cortana’s sharp edges than any exercises had, thanks to her stubborn refusal to take it off.
    Cortana was hers, her father’s, and her father’s father’s. She and Cortana were what was left of the Carstairs family. She never left the blade behind when she went to fight, even if they planned to use daggers or holy water or fire. Therefore she needed to know how to fight with it strapped to her in every conceivable circumstance.
    “Are you all right?” Cristina hit the mat beside her more lightly; she wasn’t armed, and was wearing only her training clothes. Cristina had sense, Emma thought, sitting up and rubbing her sore shoulder.
    “Fine.” Emma stood up, shaking out the kinks in her muscles. “One more time.”
    The medal around Cristina’s throat gleamed decorously as she craned her head back, watching Emma shinny back up the rope ladder. Dark gold sunlight was pouring through the windows—itwas late afternoon. They’d been training for hours, and before that they’d been busy bringing the contents of Emma’s Wall of Proof (Cristina refused to call it a Wall of Crazy) into the computer room so Livvy and Ty could scan it all. Livvy was still promising to come train with them, though she’d clearly been absorbed into the online search for clues. “You can stop there,” Cristina called when Emma was halfway up, but Emma ignored her and kept going, until her head was nearly bumping the ceiling.
    Emma looked down. Cristina was shaking her head, managing to look both composed and disapproving at the same time. “You can’t jump from such a height! Emma—”
    Emma let go and dropped like a stone. She hit the mat, rolled, and sprang up into a crouch, reaching back over her shoulder for Cortana.
    Her hand closed on empty air. She shot upright, only to find Cristina holding the blade. She’d slipped it from Emma’s scabbard as she was rising to her feet.
    “There is more to fighting than jumping the highest and falling the farthest,” Cristina said, and held Cortana out to her.
    Emma rose and took the blade back with a grudging smile. “You sound like Jules.”
    “Maybe he has a point,” Cristina said. “Have you always been this careless about your safety?”
    “More since the Dark War.” Emma slipped Cortana back into its scabbard. She drew the stiletto blades from her boots and handed one to Cristina before turning to face the target painted on the opposite wall.
    Cristina moved to Emma’s side and raised the blade in her hand, sighting down along the line of her arm. Emma hadn’t thrown knives with Cristina before, but she was unsurprised to see that Cristina’s posture and grip on the knife—her