Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

10

S

O

W

ILLS

I

TS

K

ING

They were in Diana’s office. Through the window, the ocean looked like rippled aluminum, illuminated by black light.

“I’m sorry you had to learn this about your uncle,” said Diana. She was leaning back against her desk. She wore jeans and a sweater but still looked immaculate. Her hair was swept back into a mass of curls clipped by a leather barrette. “I had hoped—Julian had hoped—that you’d never know.”

Kit was leaning against the far wall; Ty and Livvy sat on Diana’s desk. Both of them looked stunned, as if they were recovering from having the wind knocked out of them. Kit had never been more conscious that they were twins, despite the difference in their coloring.

“So all these years it’s been Julian,” said Livvy. “Running the Institute. Doing everything. Covering up for Arthur.”

Kit thought of his drive with Julian to the Shadow Market. He hadn’t spent that much time with the second-oldest Blackthorn boy, but Julian had always seemed terrifyingly adult to him, as if he were years older than his calendar age.

“We should have guessed.” Ty’s hand twisted and untwisted the slim white cords of the headphones looped around his neck. “I should have figured it out.”

“We don’t see the things that are closest to us,” said Diana. “It’s the nature of people.”

“But Jules,” Livvy whispered. “He was only twelve. It must have been so hard on him.”

Her face shone. For a moment, Kit thought it was reflected light from the windows. Then he realized—it was tears.

“He always loved you so much,” said Diana. “It was what he wanted to do.”

“We need him here,” said Ty. “We need him here now.”

“I should go,” Kit said. He had never felt so uncomfortable. Well, maybe not never—there had been the incident with the five drunk werewolves and the cage of newts at the Shadow Market—but rarely.

Livvy looked up, her tearstained face baleful. “No, you shouldn’t. You need to stay here and help us explain to Diana about Zara.”

“I didn’t understand half of what she said,” Kit protested. “About Institute heads, and registries—”

Ty took a deep breath. “I’ll explain,” he said. The recitation of what had happened seemed to calm him down: the regular march of facts, one after another. When he was done, Diana crossed the room and double-locked the door.

“Do either of the rest of you remember anything else?” Diana asked, turning back to them.

“One thing,” said Kit, surprised he actually had something to contribute. “Zara said the next Council meeting was going to be soon.”

“I assume that’s the one where they tell everyone about Arthur,” said Livvy. “And make their play for the Institute.”

“The Cohort is a powerful faction inside the Clave,” said Diana. “They’re a nasty bunch. They believe in interrogating any Downworlders they find breaking the Accords with torture. They support the Cold Peace unconditionally. If I’d known Zara’s father was one of them . . .” She shook her head.

“Zara can’t have the Institute,” said Livvy. “She can’t. This is our home.”

“She doesn’t care about the Institute,” said Kit. “She and her father want the power it can give.” He thought of the Downworlders he knew at the Shadow Market, thought of them rounded up, forced to wear some kind of signs, branded or stamped with identification numbers . . . .

“The Cohort has the upper hand, though,” said Livvy. “She knows about Arthur, and we can’t afford to have anyone find out. She’s right: They’ll hand the Institute over to someone else.”

“Is there anything you know about the Dearborns, or the Cohort? Something that might discredit them?” said Kit. “Keep them from getting the Institute if it was up for grabs?”

“But we’d still lose the Institute,” said Ty.

“Yeah,” said Kit. “But they wouldn’t be able to start registering Downworlders. Maybe it doesn’t sound that harmful, but it never stops there. Zara clearly doesn’t care if Downworlders live or die—once she knows where they all are, once they have to report to her, the Cohort has power over them.” He sighed. “You should really read some mundane history books.”

“Maybe we could threaten her by saying we’ll tell Diego,” said Livvy. “He doesn’t know, and—I know he was a jerk to Cristina, but I can’t believe he’d be okay with all this. If he knew, he’d dump Zara, and she doesn’t want that.”

Diana frowned. “It’s not our strongest position, but it is something.” She turned to her desk, picked up a pen and notepad. “I’m going to write to Alec and Magnus. They head up the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance. If anyone knows about the Cohort, or any tricks we can use to defeat them, they will.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We try Diego,” said Diana. “I wish I believed I could trust him more than I do, but—” She sighed. “I like him. But I liked Manuel, too. People are not what they seem.”

“And do we keep telling everyone that Julian and the others went to the Academy?” Livvy asked, sliding off the desk. Her eyes were dark-rimmed with exhaustion. Ty’s shoulders drooped. Kit felt a little as if he’d been hit with a sandbag himself. “If anyone finds out they went to Faerie, it won’t matter what we do about Zara—we’ll lose the Institute anyway.”

“We hope they come back soon,” Diana said, looking out at the moon’s reflection on the ocean water. “And if hoping doesn’t work, we pray for it.”

* * *

The woods had gone, and as the twilight deepened into true night, the four Shadowhunters trekked through a spectral land of green fields, separated by low stone walls. Every once in a while they would see another patch of the strange blighted earth through the mist. Sometimes they would glimpse the shape of a town in the distance and fall silent, not wanting to attract attention.

They had eaten what was left of their food back on the hill, though it wasn’t much. Emma wasn’t hungry, though. A snarl of misery had taken up residence in her stomach.

She couldn’t forget what she’d seen when she’d woken up, alone in the grass.

Rising, she had looked around for Julian. He was gone, even the impression in the grass where he’d lain beside her fading.

The air had been heavy and gray-gold, making her head buzz as she climbed up over the ridge, about to call Julian’s name.

Then she’d seen him, standing halfway down the hill, the dank air lifting his sleeves, the edges of his hair. He wasn’t alone. A faerie girl in a black, ragged shift was with him. Her hair was the color of burnt rose petals, a sort of gray-pink, drifting around her shoulders.

Emma thought the girl looked up at her for a moment and smiled. She might have imagined it, though. She knew she didn’t imagine what happened next, when the faerie girl leaned in to Jules and kissed him.

She wasn’t sure what she thought would happen; some part of her expected Jules to push the girl away. He didn’t. Instead he put his arms around her and drew her in, his hand tangling in her shimmering hair. Emma’s stomach turned itself inside out as he pressed her close. He held the faerie girl tightly, their mouths moving together, her hands sliding from his shoulders down his back.

There was something almost beautiful about the sight, in a horrible way. It stabbed Emma through with the remembrance of what it had been like to kiss Jules herself. And there was no hesitancy in him, no reluctance, nothing held back as if he were reserving any piece of himself for Emma. He gave himself up utterly to the kiss, and he was as beautiful doing it as the realization that she had really lost him now was awful.

She thought she could actually feel her heart break, like a friable piece of china.

The faerie girl had broken away, and then there had been Mark and Cristina there, and Emma hadn’t been able to watch what was happening: She’d turned away, crumpling into the grass, trying not to throw up.

Her hands balled into fists against the ground. Get up, she told herself fiercely. She owed that much to Jules. He’d hidden whatever pain he’d felt when she’d ended things between them, and she owed it to him to do the same.

Somehow she’d managed to get to her feet, plaster a smile on her face, speak normally when she came down the hill to join the others. Nod as they sat and divided up food, as the stars came out and Mark determined that he could navigate by them. Seem unconcerned as they set off, Julian beside his brother, and she and Cristina behind them, following Mark down the winding, unmarked paths of Faerie.

The sky was radiant now with multicolored stars, each blazing an individual path of pigment across the sky. Cristina was uncharacteristically quiet, kicking at stones with the toe of her boot as she walked. Mark and Julian were up ahead of them, just far enough to be out of earshot.

“¿Qué onda?” Cristina asked, looking sideways at Emma.

Emma’s Spanish was bad, but even she understood what’s going on? “Nothing.” She felt awful about lying to Cristina, but worse about her own feelings. Sharing them would only make them seem more real.

“Well, good,” Cristina said. “Because I have something to tell you.” She took a deep breath. “I kissed Mark.”

“Whoa,” said Emma, diverted. “Whoa ho ho.”

“Did you just say ‘whoa ho ho’?”

“I did,” Emma admitted. “So is this like a high-five-slash-chest-bump situation or an oh-my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do situation?”

Cristina tugged nervously on her hair. “I don’t know—I like him very much, but—at first I thought I was only kissing him because of the faerie drink—”

Emma gasped. “You drank faerie wine? Cristina! That’s how you black out and wake up the next day under a bridge with a tattoo that says I LOVE HELICOPTERS.”

“It wasn’t really wine! It was just juice!”

“Okay, okay.” Emma lowered her voice. “Do you want me to end things with Mark? I mean, you know, tell the family it’s over?”

“But Julian,” Cristina said, looking troubled. “What about him?”

For a moment, Emma couldn’t speak—she was remembering Julian as the pretty faerie girl had come through the grass toward him, the way she had put her hands on his body, the way his arms had locked across her back.

She had never felt jealousy like that before. It still ached in her, like the scar of an old wound. She welcomed the pain in a strange way. It was pain she deserved, she thought. If Julian hurt, she should hurt too, and she had cut him free—he was free to kiss faerie girls and look for love and be happy. He was doing nothing wrong.

She remembered what Tessa had told her, that the way to make Julian stop loving her was to make him think she didn’t love him. To convince him. It seemed she had.

“I think my whole charade with Mark has done what it needed to do,” she said. “So if you want . . .”

“I don’t know,” Cristina said. She took a deep breath. “I have to tell you something. Mark and I argued, and I didn’t mean to, but I—”

“Stop!” It was Mark, up ahead. He whirled, Julian beside him, and held out a hand toward them. “Do you hear that?”

Emma strained her ears. She wished it was possible to rune herself—she missed the runes that improved speed and hearing and reflex.

She shook her head. Mark had changed into what must have been his Hunt clothes, darker and more ragged, and had even rubbed dirt into his hair and face. His two-colored eyes glittered in the twilight.

“Listen,” he said, “it’s getting louder,” and suddenly Emma could hear it: music. A sort of music she’d never heard before, eerie and tuneless, it made her nerves feel like they were wriggling under her skin.

“The Court is near,” Mark said. “Those are the King’s pipers.” He plunged into the thicker woods alongside the path, turning only to call “Come along!” to the others.

They followed. Emma was conscious of Julian just ahead of her; he’d taken out a shortsword and was using it to hack away undergrowth. Piles of leaves and branches studded with small, blood-colored flowers tumbled at her feet.

The music was louder now, and grew louder still as they passed through thick forest, the trees above them glimmering with will-o’-the-wisp lights. Multicolored lanterns hung from the branches, pointing the way toward the darkest part of the forest.

The Unseelie Court appeared suddenly—a burst of louder music and bright lights that stung Emma’s eyes after so long in the dark. She wasn’t sure what she’d imagined when she’d tried to picture the Unseelie Court. A massive stone castle, perhaps, with a grim throne room. A dark jewel of a chamber at the top of a tower with a winding gray stair. She recalled the shadowy darkness of the City of Bones, the hush of the place, the chill in the air.

But the Unseelie Court was outside—a number of tents and booths not unlike the ones at the Shadow Market, clustered in a glade in a circle of thick trees. The main part of it was a massive draped pavilion, with banners of velvet on which was displayed the emblem of a broken crown, stamped in gold, flying from every part of the structure.

A single tall throne made of smooth, glimmering black stone sat in the pavilion. It was empty. The back was carved with the two halves of a crown, this time hanging above a moon and a sun.

A few gentry faeries in dark cloaks were milling around in the pavilion near the throne. Their cloaks bore the crown insignia, and they wore thick gloves like the one Cristina had found at the ruins of Malcolm’s house. Most were young; some barely looked older than fourteen or fifteen.

“The Unseelie King’s sons,” whispered Mark. They were crouched behind a tumble of boulders, peering around the edges, weapons in hand. “Some of them, anyway.”

“Doesn’t he have any daughters?” Emma muttered.

“He has no use for them,” said Mark. “They say he has girl children killed at birth.”

Emma couldn’t prevent a flinch of anger. “Just let me get close to him,” she whispered. “I’ll show him what use girls are.”

There was a sudden blare of music. The faeries in the area began to move toward the throne. They were brilliant in their finery, gold and green and blue and flame-red, the men as brightly clothed as the women.

“It’s almost time,” said Mark, straining to see. “The King is calling the gentry to him.”

Julian straightened, still hidden by the boulders. “Then we should move now. I’m going to see if we can get any closer to the pavilion.” His shortsword gleamed in the moonlight. “Cristina,” he said. “Come with me.”

After a single startled moment, Cristina nodded. “Of course.” She took out her knife, sliding a quick apologetic look toward Emma as she and Julian disappeared into the trees.

Mark leaned forward against the massive boulder blocking them from the view of the glade. He didn’t look at Emma, only spoke in a low voice. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I can no longer lie to my brother.”

Emma froze. “Lie to him about what?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

“About us,” he said. “The lie that we’re in love. We must end it.”

Emma closed her eyes. “I know. You and Cristina—”

“She told me,” Mark interrupted. “That Julian is in love with you.”

Emma didn’t open her eyes, but she could still see the bright light of the torches surrounding the pavilion and the clearing burning against her eyelids.

“Emma,” Mark said. “It was not her fault. It was an accident. But when she spoke the words to me, I understood. None of this ever had anything to do with Cameron Ashdown, did it? You were trying to protect Julian from his own feelings. If Julian loves you, you must convince him it’s impossible for you to love him back.”

His sympathy almost broke her. She opened her eyes—closing them was cowardice, and the Carstairs were not cowards. “Mark, you know about the Law,” she said. “And you know Julian’s secrets—about Arthur, the Institute. You know what would happen if anyone found out, what they would do to us, to your family.”

“I do know,” he said. “And I am not angry at you. I would stand beside you if you found someone else to deceive him. Sometimes we must deceive the ones we love. But I cannot be the instrument that causes him pain.”

“But it can only be you. You think if there was anyone else, I would have asked you?” She could hear the desperation in her own voice.

Mark’s eyes clouded. “Why only me?”

“Because there isn’t anyone else Jules is jealous of,” she said, and she saw the astonishment bloom in his eyes just as a twig snapped behind her. She whirled, Cortana flashing out.

It was Julian. “You should know better than to draw steel on your own parabatai,” he said, with a crook of a smile.

She lowered the blade. Had he heard anything she and Mark had said? It didn’t look like it. “You should know better than to make noise when you walk.”

“No Soundless runes,” said Jules, and glanced from her to Mark. “We’ve found a position closer to the throne. Cristina’s already—”

But Mark had gone still. He was staring at something Emma couldn’t see. Julian’s gaze met hers, full of unguarded alarm, and then Mark was moving, pushing through the undergrowth.

The other two threw themselves after him. Emma could feel sweat gather in the hollow of her back as she strained herself not to step on a twig that might break, a leaf that might crack. It was painful, humbling almost to realize how much Nephilim relied on their runes.

She came up short quickly, almost bumping into Mark. He hadn’t gone that far, only to the very edge of the clearing, where he was still hidden from the view of the pavilion by an overgrowth of ferns.

Their view of the clearing was unobstructed. Emma could see the Unseelie Faeries gathered close in front of the throne. There were likely a hundred of them, maybe more. They were dressed in stunning finery, much more elegant than she’d imagined. A woman with dark skin wore a dress made of the feathers of a swan, stark and white, a necklace of down encircling her slender throat. Two pale men were dressed in rose silk overcoats and waistcoats of shimmering blue bird’s wings. A wheat-skinned woman with hair made of rose petals approached the pavilion, her dress an intricate cage of the bones of small animals, fastened together with thread made of human hair.

But Mark was looking at none of them, nor was he looking at the pavilion where the Unseelie princes stood, clearly waiting. Instead he was staring at two of the Unseelie princes, both clothed in black silk. One was tall with deep brown skin, the skull of a raven, dipped in gold, dangling around his throat. The other was pale and black-haired, his face narrow and bearded. Slumped between them was the figure of a prisoner, his clothes bloodstained, his body limp. The crowd parted for them, their voices quiet murmurs.

“Kieran,” Mark whispered. He started forward, but Julian caught at the back of his shirt, gripping his brother so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“Not yet,” he hissed under his breath. His eyes were flat, glittering; in them Emma saw the ruthlessness that she had once told him frightened her. Not for herself, but for him.

The princes had reached a tall, white-barked tree just to the left and in front of the pavilion. The bearded prince slammed Kieran up against it, hard. The prince with the raven necklace spoke to him sharply, shaking his head. The other prince laughed.

“The one with the beard is Prince Erec,” said Mark. “The King’s favorite. The other is Prince Adaon. Kieran says that Adaon does not like to see people hurt. But Erec enjoys it.”

It seemed to be true. Erec produced a rope of thorns and held it out toward Adaon, who shook his head and walked away toward the pavilion. Shrugging, Erec commenced binding Kieran to the tree trunk. His own hands were protected with thick gloves, but Kieran was wearing only a torn shirt and breeches, and the thorns cut into his wrists and ankles, and then his throat when Erec pulled a strand of the vicious rope tight against his skin. Through it all, Kieran slumped inertly, his eyes half-closed, clearly beyond caring.

Mark tensed, but Julian held on to him. Cristina had rejoined them and was pressing her hand over her mouth; she stared as Erec finished with Kieran and stepped back.

Blood welled from the lacerations where the thorn bindings cut into Kieran’s skin. His head had fallen back against the trunk of the tree; Emma could see his silver eye, and the black one as well, both half-lidded. There were bruises on his pale skin, on his cheek and above his hip where his shirt was torn.

There was a commotion atop the pavilion, and a single blast from a horn shattered the murmuring quiet in the clearing. The gentry looked up. A tall figure had appeared beside the throne. He was all in white, salt-white, with a doublet of white silk and gauntlets of white bone. White horns curled from either side of his head, startling against the blackness of his hair. A gold band encircled his forehead.

Cristina exhaled. “The King.”

Emma could see his profile: It was beautiful. Clear, precise, clean like a drawing or painting of something perfect. Emma couldn’t have described the shape of his eyes or cheekbones or the turn of his mouth, and she lacked Jules’s ability to paint it, but she knew it was uncanny and wonderful and that she would remember the face of the King of the Unseelie Court for all her life.

He turned, bringing his face into full view. Emma heard Cristina gasp faintly. The King’s face was divided down the middle. The right side was the face of a young man, luminous with elegance and beauty, though his eye was red as flame. The left side was an inhuman mask, gray skin tight and leathery over bone, eye socket empty and black, mottled with brutal scars.

Kieran, bound to the tree, looked once at the monstrous face of his father and turned his head away, his chin dropping, tangled black hair falling to hide his eyes. Erec hurried toward the pavilion, joining Adaon and a crowd of other princes at their father’s side.

Mark was breathing hard. “The face of the Unseelie King,” he whispered. “Kieran spoke of it, but . . .”

“Steady,” Julian whispered back. “Wait to hear what he says.”

As if on cue, the King spoke. “Folk of the Court,” he said. “We have gathered here for a sad purpose: to witness justice brought against one of the Fair Folk who has taken up arms and murdered another in a place of peace. Kieran Hunter stands convicted of the murder of Iarlath of the Unseelie Court, one of my own knights. He slew him with his blade, here in the Unseelie Lands.”

A murmur ran through the crowd.

“We pay a price for the peace among our folk,” said the King. His voice was like a ringing bell, lovely and echoing. Something touched Emma’s shoulder. It was Julian’s hand, the one that wasn’t clasping Mark’s arm. Emma looked at him in surprise, but he was staring ahead, toward the clearing. “No Unseelie faerie shall raise hand against another. The price of disobedience is justice. Death is paid with death.”

Julian’s fingers moved quickly against Emma’s skin through her shirt, the age-old language of their shared childhood. S-T-A-Y H-E-R-E.

She whipped around to look at him, but he was already moving. She heard Mark’s breath hiss out in a gasp and caught at his wrist, preventing him from going after his brother.

Under the starlight, Julian walked out into the clearing full of Unseelie gentry. Emma, her heart pounding, held tight to Mark’s wrist; everything in her wanted to rush out after her parabatai, but he had asked her to stay, and she would stay, and hold on to Mark. Because Julian was moving as if he had a plan, and if he had a plan, she owed it to him to trust that it might work.

“What is he doing?” Cristina moaned, in an agony of suspense. Emma could only shake her head. Some of the faeries on the edge of the crowd had spotted him now and were gasping, drawing back as he approached. He had done nothing to cover the black, permanent runes on his skin—the Voyance rune on the back of his hand glared like an eye at the Fair Folk in their gaudy finery. The woman in the dress made of bones gave a screech.

“Shadowhunter!” she cried.

The King sat bolt upright. A moment later a row of faerie knights in black-and-silver armor—among them the princes who had dragged Kieran to the tree—had surrounded Julian, forming a circle around him. Swords of silver and brass and gold flashed up around him like a grim tribute.

Kieran raised his head and stared. The shock on his face as he recognized Julian was complete.

The King rose. His bifurcated face was grim and terrible. “Bring the Shadowhunter spy to me that I may kill him with my own hand.”

“You will not kill me.” Julian’s voice, calm and confident, rose above the din of voices. “I am no spy. The Clave sent me, and if you kill me, it will mean open war.”

The King hesitated. Emma felt a wild half urge to laugh. Julian had spoken the lie so calmly and confidently that she almost believed it herself. Doubt flickered across the King’s face.

My parabatai, she thought, looking at Jules, standing with his back straight and his head back, the only seventeen-year-old boy in the world who could make the King of the Dark Court doubt himself.

“The Clave sent you? Why not an official convoy?” said the King.

Julian nodded, as if he’d expected the question. Probably he had. “There was no time. When we heard of the threat to Kieran Hunter, we knew we had to move immediately.”

Kieran made a choked sound. There was a lash of thorned wire around his throat. Blood trickled down onto his collarbone.

“What cares the Clave or Consul for the life of a boy from the Wild Hunt?” said the King. “And a criminal, at that?”

“He is your own son,” said Julian.

The King smiled. It was a bizarre sight, as half his face sprang into light and the other displayed a ghastly grimace. “No one can then,” he said, “accuse me of favoritism. The Unseelie Court extends the hand of justice.”

“The man he murdered,” said Julian. “Iarlath. He was a kin-slayer. He plotted with Malcolm Fade to murder others of the Fair Folk.”

“They were of the Seelie Court,” said the King. “Not of our people.”

“But you say you are the ruler of both Courts,” said Julian. “Should not then the people who will one day be yours to rule expect your fairness and clemency?”

There was a murmur in the crowd, this one softer in tone. The King frowned.

“Iarlath also murdered Nephilim,” said Julian. “Kieran prevented other Shadowhunter lives from being lost. Therefore we owe him, and we pay our debts. We will not let you take his life.”

“What can you do to stop us?” snapped Erec. “Alone, as you are?”

Julian smiled. Though Emma had known him all her life, though he was like another part of herself, the cold surety of that smile sent ice through her veins. “I am not alone.”

Emma let go of Mark. He strode forward into the clearing without looking back, and Emma and Cristina came after. None of them drew their weapons, though Cortana was strapped to Emma’s back, visible to everyone. The crowd parted to let them pass through and join Julian. Emma realized, as they stepped into the circle of guards, that Mark’s feet were still bare. They looked pale as a white cat’s paws against the long dark grass.

Not that it mattered. Mark was a formidable warrior even barefoot. Emma had good cause to know.

The King looked at them and smiled. Emma didn’t like the look of that smile. “What is this?” he said. “A convoy of children?”

“We are Shadowhunters,” said Emma. “We bear the mandate of the Clave.”

“So you said,” said Prince Adaon. “What is your demand?”

“A good question,” said the King.

“We demand a trial by combat,” said Julian.

The King laughed. “Only one of the Fair Folk can enter a trial by combat in the Unseelie Lands.”

“I am one of the Fair Folk,” said Mark. “I can do it.”

At that, Kieran began to struggle against his bonds. “No,” he said, violently, blood running down his fingers, his chest. “No.”

Julian didn’t even look at Kieran. Kieran might be who they were there to save, but if they had to torture him to save him, Julian would. You’re the boy who does what has to be done because no one else will, Emma had told him once. It seemed like years ago.

“You are a Wild Hunter,” said Erec. “And half Shadowhunter. You are bound by no laws, and your loyalty is to Gwyn, not to justice. You cannot fight.” His lip curled back. “And the others are not faerie at all.”

“Not quite true,” said Julian. “It has often been said that children and the mad are of the faerie kind. That there is a bond between them. And we are children.”

Erec snorted. “That’s ridiculous. You are grown.”

“The King called us children,” said Julian. “ ‘A convoy of children.’ Would you call your liege lord a liar?”

There was a collective gasp. Erec went pale. “My Lord,” he began, turning to the King. “Father—”

“Silence, Erec, you’ve said enough,” said the King. His gaze was on Julian, the brilliant eye and the dark, empty socket. “An interesting one,” he said, to no one in particular, “this boy who looks like a Shadowhunter and speaks like gentry.” He rose to his feet. “You will have your trial by combat. Knights, lower your blades.”

The flashing wall of bright metal around Emma and her friends vanished. Stony faces regarded them instead. Some were princes, bearing the distinct stamp of Kieran’s delicate angular features. Some were badly scarred from past battles. Quite a few had their faces hidden by hoods or veils. Beyond them, the gentry of the Court were milling and exclaiming, clearly excited. The words “trial by combat” drifted through the clearing.

“You will have your trial,” the King said again. “Only I shall pick which of you will be the champion.”

“We are all willing,” Cristina said.

“Of course you are. That is the nature of Shadowhunters. Foolish self-sacrifice.” The King turned to glance at Kieran, throwing the skeletal side of his face into sharp relief. “Now how to choose? I know. A riddle of sorts.”

Emma felt Julian tense. He wouldn’t like the idea of a riddle. Too random. Julian didn’t like anything he couldn’t control.

“Come closer,” said the King, beckoning them with a finger. His hands were pale like white bark. A hook like a short claw extended from each finger just above the knuckle.

The crowd parted to let Emma and the others closer to the pavilion. As they went, Emma was conscious of a strange scent that hung all around them. Thick and bittersweet, like tree sap. It intensified as they drew close to the throne until they stood looking up at it, the King looming above them like a statue. Behind him stood a row of knights whose faces were covered by masks wrought from gold and silver and brass. Some were in the shape of rats, some golden lions or silver panthers.

“Truth is to be found in dreams,” the King said, looking down at them. From this angle, Emma could see that the odd splitting of his face ended at his throat, which was ordinary skin. “Tell me, Shadowhunters: You enter a cave. Inside the cave is an egg, lit from within and glowing. You know that it beats with your dreams—not the ones you have during the day, but the ones you half-remember in the morning. It splits open. What emerges?”

“A rose,” said Mark. “With thorns.”

Cristina cut her eyes toward him in surprise, but remained motionless. “An angel,” she said. “With bloody hands.”

“A knife,” said Emma. “Pure and clean.”

“Bars,” Julian said quietly. “The bars of a prison cell.”

The King’s expression didn’t change. The murmurs of the Court around them seemed confused rather than angry or intrigued. The King reached out a long white taloned hand.

“You there, girl with the bright hair,” he said. “You will be the champion of your people.”

Relief speared through Emma. It would be her; the others would not be risked. She felt lighter, as if she could breathe again.

Cristina turned her face toward Emma, looking stricken; Mark seemed to be holding himself in with main force. Julian caught Emma’s arm, moving to whisper in her ear, urgency in every line of his body.

She stood still, her eyes fixed on his face, letting the chaos of the Court flow around her. The coldness of battle was already beginning to descend on her: the chill that dampened emotions, letting everything but the fight fall away.

Julian was part of that, the beginning of battle and the cold of the middle of it and the fierceness of the fighting. There was nothing she wanted to look at more in the moments before a battle than his face. Nothing that made her feel more fully at home in herself, more like a Shadowhunter.

“Remember,” Julian whispered into Emma’s ear. “You’ve spilled faerie blood before, in Idris. They would have killed you, killed us all. This is a battle too. Show no mercy, Emma.”

“Jules.” She didn’t know if he heard her say his name. Knights surrounded them suddenly, separating her from the others. Her arm slipped away from Julian’s grip. She looked one last time at the three of them before being guided roughly forward. A space was being cleared just in front of the pavilion.

A horn blew, the sharp sound parting the night like a knife. One of the princes strode out from behind the pavilion beside a masked knight. The knight wore thick gray armor like an animal’s hide. His helmet covered his face. A crude drawing was painted onto the front of the helmet: wide eyes, a mouth stretched in a grin. Someone had touched the helmet with paint-wet hands, and there were red streaks along the sides that lent an ominous air to what might otherwise have been clownish.

The prince guided the masked knight to his side of the cleared space and left him there, facing Emma. He was armed with a longsword of faerie workmanship, its blade silver traced with gold, its hilt studded with gems. The edges gleamed sharp as razor blades.

A strong sword, but nothing could break Cortana. Emma’s weapon would not fail her. She could only fail herself.

“You know the rules,” said the King in a bored tone. “Once the battle commences, neither warrior can be helped by a friend. The fight is to the death. The victor is he or she who survives.”

Emma drew Cortana. It flashed like the setting sun, just before it drowned in the sea.

There was no reaction from the knight with the painted helmet. Emma focused on his stance. He was taller than her, had greater reach. His feet were carefully planted. Despite the ridiculous helmet, he was clearly a serious fighter.

She moved her own feet into position: left foot forward, right foot back, arcing the dominant side of her body toward her opponent.

“Let it begin,” said the King.

Like a racehorse bursting out of the box, the knight rushed toward Emma, sword leaping forward. Caught off guard by his speed, Emma spun out of the way of the blade. But it was a late start. She should have raised Cortana earlier. She’d been counting on the swiftness of her Sure-Strike rune, but it was no longer working. A sharp terror she hadn’t known in a long time went through her as she felt the whisper of the tip of the knight’s sword gliding inches from her side.

Emma remembered her father’s words when she’d first been learning. Strike at your enemy, not his weapon. Most fighters went for your blade. A good fighter went for your body.

This was a good fighter. But had she expected anything else? The King had chosen him, after all. Now she just had to hope that the King had underestimated her.

Two quick turns brought her to a slightly raised hillock of grass. Maybe she could even their height difference. The grass rustled. Emma didn’t need to look to know that the knight was plunging toward her again. She whirled, bringing Cortana around in a slicing arc.

He barely moved backward. The sword cut along the material of his thick leather armor, opening a wide slit. He didn’t flinch, though, or seem hurt. He certainly wasn’t slowed down. He lunged for Emma, and she slid into a crouch, his blade whistling over her head. He lunged again and she sprang back.

She could hear her own breath, ragged in the cool air of the forest. The faerie knight was good, and she didn’t have the benefit of runes, of seraph blades—any of the armaments of a Shadowhunter. And what if she was tiring earlier? What if this dark land was sucking out even the power in her blood?

She parried a blow, leaped back, and remembered, oddly, Zara’s sneering voice, Faeries fight dirty. And Mark, Faeries don’t fight dirty, actually. They fight remarkably cleanly. They have a strict code of honor.

She was already bending, striking at the other knight’s ankles—he leaped upward, nearly levitating, and brought his own sword down, just as she seized a handful of leaves and dirt and rose, hurling them at the gaps in the faerie warrior’s mask.

He choked and stumbled back. It was only a second, but it was enough; Emma slashed at his legs, one-two, and then his torso. Blood soaked his armored chest; his legs went out from under him, and he hit the ground on his back with a crash like a felled tree.

Emma slammed her foot down on his blade, as the crowd roared. She could hear Cristina calling her name, and Julian and Mark. Heart pounding, she stood over the motionless knight. Even now, sprawled in the grass, blackened around him by his own blood, he didn’t make a sound.

“Remove his helmet and end it,” said the King. “That is our tradition.”

Emma took a deep breath. Everything that was Shadowhunter in her revolted against this, against taking the life of someone lying weaponless at her feet.

She thought of what Julian had said to her just before the combat. Show no mercy.

The tip of Cortana clanged against the rim of the helmet. She wedged it beneath the edge and pushed.

The helmet fell away. The man lying in the grass beneath Emma was human, not faerie. His eyes were blue, his hair blond streaked with gray. His face was more familiar to Emma than her own.

Her hand fell to her side, Cortana dangling from nerveless fingers.

It was her father.