“Did he mean it as a sort of threat? Like, either we turn ourselves in to Robert Lightwood or he does it for us? But Magnus wouldn’t—I can’t see him doing that. He’s much too loyal.”

“That’s not it,” Julian said. “Magnus wants to help us. He remembers other parabatai like us and he—he pointed out that no parabatai have ever gone to the Clave for help.”

“Because it’s the Clave’s Law—!”

“But that’s not the problem,” said Julian. “We could handle the Law. It’s the curse, which is the reason the Law exists—even if the Clave doesn’t know it. But we know it.”

Emma only looked at him.

“Every other parabatai have feared the Law more than the curse,” Julian said. “They’ve always either separated, left the Clave, or hidden what was happening to them until they were caught or the curse killed them. Magnus said we’d be the first, and that would count for something with Robert. And he pointed out something else, too. Robert was exiled, because he was in the Circle years ago. The exile temporarily suspended his bond with his parabatai. Magnus said Alec told him about it—that it cut their bond enough that Robert didn’t even realize his parabatai was dead.”

“Exile?” Emma’s voice shook. “Exile means the Clave sends you away—you have no choice about it—”

“But the Inquisitor is the one who chooses terms of exile,” said Julian. “Robert is the one who decided Aline could stay with Helen when she was exiled; the Clave was against it.”

“If one of us has to be exiled, it’ll be me,” said Emma. “I’ll go be with Cristina in Mexico. You’re indispensable to the children. I’m not.”

Her voice was firm, but her eyes were glimmering with tears. Julian sensed the same wave of desperate love he’d felt before threatening to overwhelm him and forced it back.

“I hate the idea of being separated too,” Julian said, running his hand over the blanket, the rough texture comforting against his fingers. “The way I love you is fundamental to me, Emma. It’s who I am. No matter how far we are from each other.”

The glimmer in her eyes had become liquid. A tear spilled down her cheek. She didn’t move to wipe it away. “Then—?”

“Exile will deaden the bond,” he said. He tried to keep his voice steady. There was still a part of him that hated the idea of not being Emma’s parabatai, despite everything, and hated the thought of exile, too. “Magnus is sure of it. Exile will do something separation can’t, Emma, because exile is deep Shadowhunter enchantment. The ceremony of exile lessens some of your Nephilim abilities, your magic, and having a parabatai is part of that magic. It means the curse will be postponed. It means we can have time—and I can stay with the kids. I’d have to leave them otherwise. The curse doesn’t just hurt us, Emma, it hurts the people around us. I can’t stay near the kids thinking I might be some kind of threat to them.”

She nodded slowly. “So if it gives us time, then what?”

“Magnus has promised to bring everything he has to bear on figuring out how to break the bond or end the curse. One or the other.”

Emma raised her hand to rub at her wet cheek, and he saw the long scar on her forearm that had been there since he’d handed her Cortana in a room in Alicante, five years ago. How we have left our marks on each other, he thought.

“I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate the idea of being away from you and the kids.”

He wanted to take her hand, but held himself back. If he let himself touch her, he might crumble and fall apart and he had to stay strong and reasonable and hopeful. He was the one who’d listened to Magnus, who’d agreed to this. It was on him.

“I hate it, too,” he said. “If there was any way it could be me going into exile, I would do it, Emma. Look, we’ll only agree to it if the terms are what we want—if the exile period is short, if you can live with Cristina, if the Inquisitor promises no dishonor will accrue to your family name.”

“Magnus really thinks Robert Lightwood is going to be that willing to help us? To basically let us dictate the terms of our exile?”

“He really does,” said Julian. “He didn’t say why exactly—maybe because Robert was exiled himself once, or because his parabatai died.”

“But Robert doesn’t know about the curse.”

“And he doesn’t need to,” said Julian. “Just being in love breaks the Law long before the curse is triggered. And the Law says we’ll have to be separated or have our Marks stripped anyway. That’s not good for the Clave. They’re hurting for Shadowhunters, certainly ones as good as you. He’ll want a solution that keeps you Nephilim pretty badly. And besides—we have leverage.”

“What leverage?”

Julian drew in a long breath. “We know how to cut the bond. We’ve been acting like we don’t, but we do.”

Emma went rigid all over. “Because we can’t even consider the idea,” she said. “It’s not something we could ever do.”

“It still exists,” Julian said. “We still know about it.”

Her hand shot out and grabbed the front of his shirt. Her grip was incredibly strong. “Julian,” she said. “It would be an unforgivable sin to use whatever magic it is the Seelie Queen was talking about. We wouldn’t just be hurting Jace and Alec, Clary and Simon. All the people we don’t know that we’d be harming—destroying this thing that’s as fundamental to them as how you love me and I love you—”

“They are not us,” Julian said. “This isn’t just about you and me, this is about the children. About my family. Our family.”

“Jules.” The dismay in her eyes was stark. “I’ve always known you’d do anything for the kids. We’ve always said we both would. But when we talk about anything, we still mean there are things we wouldn’t do. Don’t you know that?”

Julian

You scared me

“Yes, I know that,” he said, and she relaxed slightly. Her eyes were wide. He wanted to kiss her even more than he had before, partly because she was Emma and that meant she was good and honest and thoughtful.

Ironic, really.

“It’s just a threat,” he added. “Leverage. We wouldn’t do it, but Robert doesn’t need to know that.”

Emma let go of his shirt. “It’s too much of a threat,” she said. “Destroying parabatai as a thing that exists could rip the whole fabric of Nephilim apart.”

“We’re not going to destroy anything.” He took her face in his hands. Her skin was soft against his palms. “We’re going to fix it all. We’re going to be together. Exile will give us the time we need to find out how to break the bond. If it can be done the Seelie Queen’s way, it can be done some other way. The curse was like a monster at our heels. This gives us breathing room.”

She kissed his palm. “You sound so sure.”

“I am sure,” he said. “Emma, I am totally sure.”

He couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled her into his lap. She let her weight fall against his body, her face pressed to the crook of his neck. Her hand traced the collar of his T-shirt, just where his skin touched the cotton.