The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight

Chapter 02

Chapter 02:

Breakfast With A Crowd

Emma could hear the clang of cutlery against itself before she even entered the dining room.

The dining room was practically filled up by only one table, which spanned almost the whole length of the room. Emma knew from sitting at it multiple times that the table was soft, even though it was wooden. High backed chairs were pushed up against the table, maybe twenty, but only two of them were filled.

One was filled by thirteen year old Drusilla Blackthorn, a girl who everybody said would grow up to be curvy and small unlike most of her family, which was tall and lanky. Dru's messy brown hair was cut so the ends just rested on her shoulders and her Blackthorn blue-green eyes were whizzing around the room.

The other chair held the six year old Octavian Blackthorn. Tavvy had short brown hair with bangs that nearly brushed his forehead and the bright Blackthorn eyes.

The two looked up as Emma took a seat in a chair across from them and dropped the cutlery they had been play fighting with. "Good morning," she said, smiling at them.

"Good morning!" both of the kids said gleefully. Their eyes flicked behind Emma as a door to the kitchen was pushed open, revealing none other than another Blackthorn, this one Emma's parabatai.

"Jules?" Emma looked up quizzically at Julian as he carried a large plate of toast and eggs and jams and crumpets and pancakes and just food over to the table and placed it in front of everybody. Then, he handed plates to everybody seated and saved one for himself.

Once he sat down, Julian turned to Emma and asked, "What, Em?"

"Why are we having breakfast?" Emma glanced at the food. "Isn't it eleven?"

"Yeah, it is." Julian smiled at her. "Think of it as a breakfast-lunch for all of us," he gestured at himself and his younger siblings, "and just a breakfast for you."

Emma smiled back at Julian and said, "Got it."

At the end of her sentence, the doors to the kitchen opened again and this time two more Blackthorns appeared.

The first to walk through was fifteen year old Tiberius Blackthorn, his black curls messy and his gray eyes sparkling. Many people had found it weird how Ty hadn't manifested any physical traits from their father, who seemed to have passed his looks down to almost all his children, but most just shrugged it off.

The second to come through the door was Ty's twin sister, though she looked nothing like him, Livia Blackthorn. Her long, messy brown hair was tied back into a high ponytail, giving people a full view of her elegant face and Blackthorn eyes. Emma had always been slightly jealous of Livvy, mostly because she had "filled out" quicker than she had, but she had eventually.

Ty took a seat five seats away from Emma, so Livvy took a seat beside him, four seats away from Emma. The two of them fell into a quiet conversation, full of big hand gestures that made Emma look over at Julian and giggle.

Jules just shrugged and started to pick things off of the platter of food that he had brought out, thus making everybody dig in, except for Ty and Livvy.

Halfway through eating, Julian looked over at his brother and sister in the corner of the table and called out, "Are you going to join us?"

"Maybe." Livvy called back, smiling over her shoulder. "Only if you're good."

Ty just had his head hung low so his hair shielded his eyes.

Because of this, Dru asked, "Everything alright, Ty?"

Ty shrugged.

"He's all sad," Livvy explained, pivoting her body in the chair to face the ret of the group, "because he couldn't make a killer bee army."

"What?" everybody asked, some in more forceful tones than others.

"I was going to use hypnotic tones on my flute to pull the bees into a trance." Ty said, his voice rough. "Once they were in the trance, we were going to slowly pull them into a state of mind where they could be controlled by the snap of fingers." For effect, he held up his right hand, the voyance rune a black stain of the back of his pale hand, and snapped his fingers.

The sound echoed in the silence.

"Well," Julian said, "I hope you didn't bring the bees in here, because you know how Uncle Arthur gets-"

"I didn't." Ty's voice perked up and he raised his head. "We had them outside whilst doing the tests."

"Good." Jules smiled at his brother just as the doors Emma had walked through to get into the dining room admitted another. To be specific, Diana Wrayburn.

She sped into the room and ducked down to whisper something into Julian's ear, who went rigid all over before Diana straightened up. "Come on," she said aloud so everyone could hear, gesturing with her head to the doors she had just entered through.

"What's wrong, Diana?" Dru asked, already getting to her feet.

"Nothing, Dru." Julian cut in before getting to his own feet. "You all just keeping eating. Me and Emma are going to go with Diana for a few minutes." His voice held a slight urgency as he looked down at Emma.

She got to her feet without asking questions. That was what parabatai were supposed to do; trust each other without a question.

She was able to glance back at everybody in the room just before Julian, Diana and her left and turned down a hallway.

All of them had confused looks on their faces, just like her.