Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

17

H

AUNTED

It was a perfect English day. The sky was the color of Wedgwood china, smooth and blue. The air was warm and sweet and full of possibilities. Julian stood on the front step of the Institute, trying to prevent his smallest brother from choking him to death.

“Don’t go,” Tavvy wailed. “You were already gone. You can’t go again.”

Evelyn Highsmith sniffed. “In my time, children were seen and not heard, and they certainly did not complain.”

She was standing in the arch of the door, hands folded primly over the head of her cane. She had put on an amazing outfit in order to see them off to the train station: There was a sort of riding habit involved, and possibly jodhpurs. Her hat had a bird on it, though to Ty’s disappointment, the bird was definitely dead.

The ancient black car that belonged to the Institute had been unearthed, and Bridget was waiting beside it with Cristina and Emma. Their backpacks were stashed in the trunk—Mark had been amused to find out that in England, they called it a boot—and they were talking excitedly. Both were in jeans and T-shirts, since they’d have to pass as mundane on the train, and Emma’s hair was tied back into a braid.

Still, Julian was glad Cristina was going. In the back of his mind, he clung to the idea that she would be a buffer between him and Emma. Emma hadn’t betrayed any hint of being angry that morning, and the two of them had functioned well together, mapping their route to Polperro, figuring out the train schedules and raiding the storage room for clothes. They planned to get a room in a bed-and-breakfast, preferably one with a kitchen they could cook in, to minimize exposure to mundanes. They’d even purchased their train tickets from Paddington ahead of time. All the planning had been easy and simple: They were a parabatai team; they still worked, they still functioned better together than alone.

But even with the most iron self-control imposed on himself, the sheer force of love and yearning when he looked at her was like being hit unexpectedly by a train, over and over. Not that he imagined being hit expectedly by a train would be much better.

Best to be buffered against that, until it stopped happening. If it stopped happening. But he wouldn’t let himself think that way.

It had to end someday.

“Jules!” Tavvy wailed. Julian gave his brother a last hug and set him down. “Why can’t I come with you?”

“Because,” Julian explained. “You have to stay here and help Drusilla. She needs you.”

Tavvy looked as if he doubted that. Drusilla, wearing an overly long cotton skirt that reached her toes, rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going,” she said to Julian. “The minute you leave, Livvy and Ty start treating me like a servant.”

“Servants get paid,” Ty observed.

“See? See what I mean?” Dru poked Julian in the chest with an index finger. “You’d better hurry back so they don’t maltreat me.”

“I’ll try.” Julian met Mark’s look over Dru’s head; they shared a smile. Emma and Mark’s good-bye had been bizarre, to say the least. Emma had given him a quick, absentminded hug before descending the stairs; Mark hadn’t looked bothered until he’d noticed Julian and the others staring at him. He’d run down the steps after Emma, caught her hand, and spun her to face him.

“It is better that you go,” he said, “that I might forget your fair, cruel face, and heal my heart.”

Emma had looked stunned; Cristina, saying something in a low voice to Mark that sounded like unnecessary, had hauled Emma off toward the car.

Ty and Livvy were the last to come to say good-bye to Jules; Livvy embraced him fiercely, and Ty gave him a soft, shy smile. Julian wondered where Kit was. He’d been glued to Ty’s and Livvy’s sides the whole time they’d been in London, but he appeared to have vanished for the family farewell.

“I’ve got something for you,” Ty said. He held out a box, which Julian took with some surprise. Ty was absolutely punctual about Christmas and birthday presents, but he rarely gave gifts spontaneously.

Curious, Julian popped open the top of the box to find a set of colored pencils. He didn’t know the brand, but they looked pristine and unused. “Where did you get these?”

“Fleet Street,” said Ty. “I went out early this morning.”

An ache of love pressed against the back of Julian’s throat. It reminded him of when Ty was a baby, serious and quiet. He hadn’t been able to go to sleep for a long time without someone holding him, and though Julian had been very small himself, he remembered holding Ty while he fell asleep, all round wrists and straight black hair and long lashes. He’d felt so much love for his brother even then it had been like an explosion in his heart.

“Thanks. I’ve missed drawing,” Julian said, and tucked the box into his duffel bag. He didn’t fuss; Ty didn’t like fuss, but Julian made his tone as warm as he could, and Ty beamed.

Jules thought of Livvy, the night before, the way she’d kissed his forehead. Her thank-you. This was Ty’s.

“Be careful at Blackthorn Hall,” he said. He was nervous that they were going but tried not to show it; he knew he was being unreasonable. “Go during the day. During the day,” he insisted, when Livvy made a face. “And try not to get Drusilla and Tavvy into trouble. Remember, Mark is in charge.”

“Does he know that?” said Livvy.

Julian sought Mark in the crowd on the steps. He was standing with his hands behind his back, exchanging a mistrustful look with a carved stone gnome. “Your pretense does not fool me, gnome,” he muttered. “My eye will be upon you.”

Julian sighed. “Just do what he says.”

“Julian!” Emma called. She was standing beside the car, Cortana—glamoured to be invisible to mundanes—glittering just over her right shoulder. “We’re going to miss the train.”

Julian nodded and held up two fingers. He made his way across the steps to Mark and gripped his shoulder. “You going to be okay?”

Mark nodded. Julian thought about asking where Kieran was, but decided there was no point. It would probably just stress Mark out more. “Thanks for trusting me to be in charge,” said Mark. “After what happened before, with the kitchen.”

In Los Angeles, Julian had left Mark for a night to look after their siblings. Mark had managed to destroy the kitchen, cover Tavvy in sugar, and almost give Jules a nervous breakdown.

“I do trust you.” Unspeaking, Julian and Mark looked at each other. Then Julian grinned. “Besides,” he added, “this isn’t my kitchen.”

Mark laughed softly. Julian headed down the stairs as Emma and Cristina piled into the car. He went around the back to toss his bag into the trunk and came to a stop. Wedged into the space beside the luggage was a small figure in a smudged white T-shirt.

Tavvy looked up at him, wide-eyed. “I want to go too,” he announced.

Julian sighed and began to roll up his sleeves. A brother’s work was never done.

* * *

One of the benefits of being a Shadowhunter that was rarely talked about, Emma thought, was easy parking at places like train stations and churches. Often a place had been set aside for Shadowhunters to leave their cars, glamoured to appear to mundanes as something they would ignore—a construction site or a pile of trash bins. Bridget pulled the rattling black Austin Metro to a stop on Praed Street, mere feet from Paddington Station, and the Shadowhunters piled out to retrieve their bags while she locked up the vehicle.

They’d packed fast and light, just enough for a few days. Weapons, gear, and few clothes besides the ones on their backs, though Emma had no doubt that Cristina would look elegant all the time anyway. Demurely, Cristina tucked her knife into her pocket and bent to sling her backpack over her shoulder. She winced.

“Are you all right?” Emma asked, sliding into step beside her. She was enormously glad to have Cristina there between her and Jules, something to smooth the prickly and dangerous roads of their conversations.

They passed into the station, which was brightly lit and modern, the walkways lined with stores like the Body Shop and Caffè Nero. She glanced ahead at Julian, but he was deep in discussion with Bridget. Julian had an amazing ability to make conversation with literally anyone. She wondered what he could possibly find to talk to Bridget about. Evelyn’s odd habits? London history?

“Have you gotten a chance to talk to Mark at all about, you know, the kiss?” asked Emma as they passed an Upper Crust bakery that smelled like butter and cinnamon, mixed with the smoke of the station. “Especially with the whole Kieran thing going on now.”

Cristina shook her head. She looked drawn and pale, as if she hadn’t slept well. “Kieran and Mark have history. Like Diego and me. I can’t find fault with Mark for being drawn to his history. It was the reason I was drawn to Diego, and I did that without all the pressures that are on Mark now.”

“I don’t know how it’ll play out. Mark’s not much of a liar,” said Emma. “I say this as someone who isn’t great at it myself.”

Cristina gave a pained smile. “You are terrible. Watching you and Mark pretend to be in love was like watching two people who kept falling over and then hoping nobody noticed.”

Emma giggled. “Very flattering.”

“I am only saying that for the good of us all, Kieran must believe in Mark’s feelings,” said Cristina. “A faerie who thinks they have been scorned or spited can be very cruel.”

She gasped suddenly, bending almost double. Emma caught her as she sank down. In a blind panic, she dragged Cristina into a corner between two shops. She didn’t dare scream; she wasn’t glamoured, mundanes would hear her. But she glanced toward Julian and Bridget, still deep in conversation, and thought as hard as she could.

Jules, Julian, I need you, right now, come right now, please!

“Emma—” Cristina had her arms crossed, hugging her stomach as if it pained her, but it was the blood on her shirt that terrified Emma.

“Cristina—sweetheart—let me see, let me see.” She pulled frantically at Cristina’s arms until the other girl let go.

There was blood on her right hand and sleeve. Most of it seemed to be coming from her arm and to have transferred itself to her shirt. Emma breathed a little easier. A wound to the arm was less serious than one to the body.

“What’s going on?” It was Julian’s voice. He and Bridget had reached them; Jules was white-faced. She saw the terror in his eyes and realized what had caused it: He’d thought something had happened to Emma.

“I’m all right,” Emma said mechanically, shocked by the look on his face.

“Of course you are,” said Bridget impatiently. “Let me get to the girl. Stop clinging to her, for goodness’ sake.”

Emma detached herself and watched as Bridget knelt and peeled Cristina’s sleeve back. Cristina’s wrist was banded with a bracelet of blood, her skin puffy. It was as if someone was tightening an invisible wire around her arm, cutting into the flesh.

“What are you two just sitting there for?” Bridget demanded. “Put a healing rune on the girl.”

They both reached for steles; Julian got to his first and drew a quick iratze on Cristina’s skin. Emma leaned forward, holding her breath.

Nothing happened. If anything, the skin around the bleeding circle seemed to swell more. A fresh gush of blood welled up, spattering Bridget’s clothes. Emma wished she still had her old stele; she’d always superstitiously believed she could draw stronger runes with it. But it was in faerie hands now.

Cristina didn’t whimper. She was a Shadowhunter, after all. But her voice shook. “I don’t think an iratze will help this.”

Emma shook her head. “What is it—?”

“It looks like a faerie charm,” said Bridget. “While you were in the Lands, did any fey seem to cast a spell on you? Were your wrists ever tied?”

Cristina pushed herself up on her elbows. “That—I mean, that couldn’t be it . . . .”

“What happened?” Emma demanded.

“At the revel, two girls tied my wrist and Mark’s together with a ribbon,” Cristina said reluctantly. “We sliced it off, but there may have been a stronger magic there than I guessed. It could be a sort of binding spell.”

“This is the first time you’ve been away from Mark since we were in Faerie,” Julian said. “You think that’s it?”

Cristina looked grim. “The farther I go from him, the worse it becomes. Last night was almost the first time I’d left his side, and my arm burned and ached. And as we drove away from the Institute, the pain got worse and worse—I hoped it would go away, but it didn’t.”

“We need to get you back to the Institute,” said Emma. “We’ll all go. Come on.”

Cristina shook her head. “You and Julian should still go to Cornwall,” she said, and gestured with her uninjured hand overhead, toward the board on which the schedules for the trains were posted. The train for Penzance left in less than five minutes. “You need to. This is necessary.”

“We could wait a day,” Emma protested.

“This is faerie magic,” said Cristina, letting Bridget help her to her feet. “There’s no assurance it will be fixed in a day.”

Emma hesitated. She hated the thought of leaving Cristina.

Bridget spoke in a sharp voice, surprising them all. “Go,” she said. “You are parabatai, the most powerful team the Nephilim can offer. I have seen what parabatai can do. Stop hesitating.”

“She’s right,” Julian said. He shoved his stele back into his belt. “Come on, Emma.”

A blur followed, of Emma hugging Cristina hurriedly good-bye, Julian catching at her hand, drawing her away, of the two of them running haphazardly through the train station, nearly knocking over the ticket barriers, and flinging themselves into the empty coach of a Western Railway train just as it pulled out of the station with a loud screeching of released brakes.

* * *

With every mile she and Bridget covered that brought them closer to the Institute, Cristina’s pain faded. At Paddington, her arm had screamed with agonizing pain. Now it was a dull ache that seemed to push down into her bones.

I have lost something, the ache seemed to whisper. There is something I am missing. In Spanish, she might have said, Me haces falta. She had noticed early on when she learned English that a direct translation of that phrase didn’t really exist: English speakers said I need you, where me haces falta meant something closer to, You are lacking to me. That was what she felt now, a lack like a missing chord in a song or a missing word on a page.

They pulled up in front of the Institute with a squeal of brakes. Cristina heard Bridget call her name, but she was already out of the car, cradling her wrist as she ran toward the front steps. She couldn’t help herself. Her mind revolted at the thought of being controlled by something outside herself, but it was as if her body was dragging her along, pushing her toward what it needed to make itself whole.

The front doors banged open. It was Mark.

There was blood on his arm, too, soaking through the light blue sleeve of his sweater. Behind him was a chatter of voices, but he was only looking at Cristina. His light hair was disarrayed, his blue and gold eyes burning like banners.

Cristina thought she had never seen anything so beautiful.

He ran down the steps—he was barefoot—and caught at her hand, pulling her against him. The moment their bodies slammed together, Cristina felt the ache inside her vanish.

“It’s a binding spell,” Mark whispered into her hair. “Some kind of binding spell, tying us together.”

“The girls at the revel—one tied our wrists together and the other laughed—”

“I know.” He brushed his lips across her forehead. She could feel his heart pounding. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll fix it.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, but not before she saw that several others had spilled out onto the front step and were staring at them. In the center of the group was Kieran, his elegant face pale and set, his eyes unreadable.

* * *

The tickets they had bought were first class, so Emma and Julian had a compartment to themselves. The gray-brown of the city had been left behind, and they were rolling through green fields, studded with wildflowers and copses of green trees. Charcoal stone farmers’ walls ran up and down the hills, dividing the land into puzzle pieces.

“It looks a bit like Faerie,” said Emma, leaning against the window. “You know, without the rivers of blood or the high-body-count dance parties. More scones, less death.”

Julian glanced up. He had his sketchbook on his knees and a black box of colored pencils on the seat next to him. “I think that’s what it says on the front gate of Buckingham Palace,” he said. He sounded calm, entirely neutral. The Julian who had snapped at her in the entryway of the Institute was gone. This was polite Julian, gracious Julian. Putting-up-a-front-for-strangers Julian.

There was absolutely no way she could handle interacting only with that Julian for however long they were in Cornwall. “So,” she said. “Are you still angry?”

He looked at her for a long moment and set his sketchbook aside. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What I said—that was unacceptable and cruel.”

Emma stood up and leaned against the window. The countryside flew by: gray, green, gray. “Why did you say it?”

“I was angry.” She could see his reflection in the window, looking up at her. “I was angry about Mark.”

“I didn’t know you were that invested in our relationship.”

“He’s my brother.” Julian touched his own face as he spoke, unconsciously, as if to connect with those features—the long cheekbones and eyelashes—that were so like Mark’s. “He’s not—he gets hurt easily.”

“He’s fine,” she said. “I promise you.”

“It’s more than that.” His gaze was steady. “When you were together, at least I could feel like you were both with someone I cared about and could trust. You loved someone I loved too. Is that likely to happen again?”

“I don’t know what’s likely to happen,” she said. I know you have nothing to worry about. I wasn’t in love with Mark. I’ll never be in love with anyone again who isn’t you. “Just that there are things we can and can’t control.”

“Em,” he said. “This is me we’re talking about.”

She turned away from the window, pressed her back to the cold glass. She was looking at Julian directly, not just his reflection. And though his face betrayed no anger, his eyes at least were open and honest. It was real Julian, not pretend Julian now. “So you admit you’re a control freak?”

He smiled, the sweet smile that went straight to Emma’s heart because it recalled for her the Julian of her childhood. It was like sun, warmth, the sea, and the beach all rolled up in one punch to the heart. “I admit nothing.”

“Fine,” she said. She didn’t have to say she forgave him and knew he forgave her; they both knew it. Instead she sat down in the seat opposite him and gestured toward his art supplies. “What are you drawing?”

He picked up the sketchbook, turning it so she could see his work—a gorgeous rendition of a stone bridge they’d passed, surrounded by the drooping boughs of oak trees.

“You could sketch me,” said Emma. She flung herself down onto her seat, leaning her head on her hand. “ ‘Draw me like one of your French girls.’ ”

Julian grinned. “I hate that movie,” he said. “You know I do.”

Emma sat up indignantly. “The first time we watched Titanic, you cried.”

“I had seasonal allergies,” Jules said. He’d started to draw again, but his smile still lingered. This was the heart of her and Julian, Emma thought. This gentle joking, this easy amusement. It almost surprised her. But this was what they always returned to, the comfort of their childhood—like birds returning and returning in migratory patterns toward their home.

“I wish we could get in touch with Jem and Tessa,” Emma said. Green fields flashed by the window in a blur. A woman was pushing a refreshment cart up and down the narrow train corridor. “And Jace and Clary. Tell them about Annabel and Malcolm and everything.”

“The whole Clave knows about Malcolm’s return. I’m sure they have their ways of finding out, too.”

“But only we really know about Annabel,” said Emma.

“I drew her,” Julian said. “I thought somehow if we could look at her, it might help us find her.”

He turned his sketch pad. Emma suppressed a small shudder. Not because the face looking out was hideous—it wasn’t. It was a young face, oval and even-featured, almost lost in a cloud of dark hair. But an air of something haunted and almost feral burned in Annabel’s eyes; she clutched her hands at her throat, as if trying to wrap herself in a covering that had vanished.

“Where could she be?” Emma wondered aloud. “Where would you go, if you were so sad?”

“Do you think she looks sad?”

“Don’t you?”

“I thought she seemed angry.”

“She did kill Malcolm,” said Emma. “I don’t understand why she’d do that—he brought her back. He loved her.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to be brought back.” He was still looking down at the sketch. “Maybe she was happy where she was. Strife, agony, loss—those are things the living experience.” He closed the sketchbook as the train pulled into a small white station whose sign read LISKEARD. They had arrived.

* * *

“Was this planned?” Kieran said. His expression was stony. “It cannot be a coincidence.”

Mark raised his eyebrows. Cristina was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the infirmary, her wrist bandaged; Mark’s injury was hidden by the sleeve of his sweater. There was no one else in the room. Tavvy had been upset by the sight of blood on Mark and Cristina, and Dru had taken him away to calm him down. Livvy and the other two boys had left for Blackthorn Hall while Cristina was at the train station.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mark said. “You think Cristina and I planned to spray blood all over London for fun?”

Cristina looked at him in surprise; he sounded more human than she’d ever heard him.

“Such a binding spell,” said Kieran. “You must have held your wrists out for it. You would have to have remained still while you were bound.”

He sounded bewildered, hurt. He looked enormously out of place in his breeches and linen shirt, now very crumpled, in the heart of the Institute. All around them were hospital-style beds, glass and copper jars of tinctures and powders, stacks of bandages and runed medical tools.

“It happened at a revel,” said Mark. “We couldn’t expect it—we didn’t expect it. And no one would want this, no one would set it up on purpose, Kieran.”

“A faerie would,” Kieran said. “It is just the sort of thing one of us would do.”

“I am not a faerie,” said Mark.

Kieran flinched, and Cristina saw the hurt in his eyes. She felt a wave of sympathetic pain for him. It must be horrible to be so alone.

Even Mark looked stricken. “I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I am not only a faerie.”

“And how glad you are,” said Kieran, “how you brag of it at every opportunity.”

“Please,” said Cristina, “please, don’t fight. We need to be on the same side in this.”

Kieran turned puzzled eyes on her. Then he stepped close to Mark; he put his hands on Mark’s shoulders. They were nearly the same height. Mark didn’t avert his gaze. “There is only one way I know that you cannot lie,” Kieran said, and kissed Mark on the mouth.

A pulse of pain went through Cristina’s wrist. She had no idea if it was random or some reflection of the intensity of what Mark was feeling. There was no way he could reject the kiss, not without rejecting Kieran and severing the delicate chain of lies that kept the faerie prince bound here.

If, indeed, Mark didn’t want to kiss Kieran back. Cristina couldn’t tell; he returned the kiss with a fierceness like the fierceness Cristina had seen in him the first time she’d glimpsed him with Kieran. But there was more anger in it now. He gripped Kieran’s shoulders, his fingers digging in; the force of the kiss angled Kieran’s head back. He sucked at Kieran’s bottom lip and bit it, and Kieran gasped.

They broke apart. Kieran touched his mouth; there was blood on his lip, and hot triumph in his eyes. “You did not look away,” he said to Cristina. “Was it that interesting?”

“It was for my benefit.” Cristina felt odd and shivery and hot, but refused to show it. She sat with her hands in her lap and smiled at Kieran. “It would have seemed rude not to watch.”

At that Mark, who had been looking furious, laughed. “She understands you, Kier.”

“It was very well-done kissing,” she said. “But we should talk practically now, about the spell.”

Kieran was still staring at Cristina. He looked at most people with disgust or fury or consideration, but when he looked at Cristina, he seemed bewildered, as if he were trying to put her together like a puzzle and couldn’t.

Abruptly, he spun on his heel and stalked out of the room. The door slammed behind him. Mark looked after him, shaking his head.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone aggravate him like that,” he said. “Not even me.”

* * *

Diana had hoped to see Jia the moment she arrived in Idris, but the bureaucracy of the Clave was worse than she had recalled. There were forms to fill out, messages to be given and carried up the chain of command. It didn’t help that Diana refused to state her business: For the delicate matter of Kieran and what was happening in Faerie, Diana didn’t dare trust the information to anyone other than the Consul herself.

Her small apartment in Alicante was above the weapons shop on Flintlock Street that had been in her family for years. She’d closed it up when she went to live in Los Angeles with the Blackthorns. Impatience jittering her nerves, she went downstairs into the store and threw open the windows, letting in light, making the dust motes dance in the bright summer air. Her sore arm still ached, though it had nearly healed.

The shop was musty inside, dust on the formerly bright blades and rich leather of sheaths and ax handles. She took down a few of her favorite weapons and put them aside for the Blackthorns.

The children deserved new weapons. They’d earned them.

When a knock came on the door, she’d successfully managed to distract herself and was sorting sword blades by the hardness of the metal. She set down one of her favorites—a weapon of Damascus steel—and went to open the door.

Smirking on the doorstep was Manuel, who Diana had last seen fighting sea demons on the front lawn of the Institute. He was out of his Centurion gear, wearing a fashionable black sweater and jeans, his hair gelled into curls. He smiled sideways at her.

“Miss Wrayburn,” he said. “I’ve been sent to bring you up to the Gard.”

Diana locked up the store and fell in beside Manuel as he made his way up Flintlock Street toward the northern part of Alicante. “What are you doing here, Manuel?” she asked. “I thought you’d be in Los Angeles.”

“I was offered a post at the Gard,” he said. “I couldn’t pass up the chance for advancement. There are plenty of Centurions still in Los Angeles, guarding the Institute.” He looked at Diana sideways; she said nothing. “It’s a pleasure to see you in Alicante,” Manuel went on. “The last time we were together, I believe, you were fleeing for London.”

Diana gritted her teeth. “I was taking the children who were in my charge to safety,” she said. “They’re all fine, by the way.”

“I assumed I would have heard if it had been otherwise,” said Manuel airily.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said. “Jon Cartwright.”

Manuel was silent. They had reached the gate to the path leading up to the Gard. Once it had closed only with a latch. Now Diana watched as Manuel passed his hand over it and it clicked open.

The path was as rough as it had been when Diana was a child, snaked with the roots of trees. “I didn’t know Jon well,” said Manuel as they began the climb. “I understand his girlfriend, Marisol, is very upset.”

Diana said nothing.

“Some people cannot manage their grief as Shadowhunters should,” added Manuel. “It’s a shame.”

“Some people do not show the empathy and tolerance a Shadowhunter should,” said Diana. “That’s also a shame.”

They had reached the upper part of the path, where Alicante spread out before them like a map, and the demon towers rose to pierce the sun. Diana remembered walking this path with her sister, when they were both children, and her sister’s laughter. She missed her so much sometimes it felt as if her heart were being clutched by talons.

In this place, she thought, looking out over Alicante, I was lonely. In this place I had to hide the person I knew I was.

They reached the Gard. It rose up above them, a mountain of gleaming stone, sturdier than ever since its rebuilding. A path lined with witchlights led to the front gate. “Was that a jab at Zara?” Manuel looked amused. “She’s very popular, you know. Especially since she killed Malcolm. Something the Los Angeles Institute couldn’t manage.”

Shocked out of her reverie, Diana could only stare at him. “Zara didn’t kill Malcolm,” she said. “That’s a lie.”

“Is it?” Manuel said. “I’d like to see you prove that.” He grinned his beaming grin and walked away, leaving Diana to stare after him, squinting her eyes in the sunlight.

* * *

“Let me see your wrist,” Cristina said to Mark. They were sitting side by side on the infirmary bed. His shoulder was warm against hers.

He drew his sweater up and held his arm out silently. Cristina folded back her bandage and put her wrist against his. They looked in silence at their identical wounds.

“I know nothing about this kind of magic,” said Mark. “And we cannot go to the Clave or the Silent Brothers. They can’t know we were in Faerie.”

“I’m sorry about Kieran,” she said. “That he’s angry.”

Mark shook his head. “Don’t be—it’s my fault.” He took a deep breath. “I am sorry I was angry with you, in Faerie, after the revel. People are complicated. Their situations are complicated. I know why you hid Julian’s feelings from me. I know you and Emma had little choice.”

“And I am not angry at you now,” she hastened to assure him. “About Kieran.”

“I am changed,” said Mark, “because of you. Kieran can sense that my feelings for him have altered in some way, though he doesn’t know why. And I cannot tell him.” He looked up at the ceiling. “He is a prince. Princes are spoiled. They cannot bear to be thwarted.”

“He must feel so alone,” said Cristina. She remembered the way she had felt with Diego, that what they’d had once had was gone, and she couldn’t understand how to get it back. It had been like trying to catch smoke that had dissolved into the air. “You are his only ally here, and he cannot understand why his connection to you feels broken.”

“He did swear to you,” said Mark. He ducked his head, as if he were ashamed of what he was saying. “It is possible that if you order him to do something, he’ll have to do it.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Cristina.”

“No, Mark,” she said firmly. “I know this binding spell affects you, too. And upsetting Kieran affects the chances he’ll testify. But I won’t force him into anything.”

“Aren’t we already?” Mark said. “Lying to him about the situation so he’ll talk to the Clave?”

Cristina’s fingers crept to her injured wrist. The skin felt odd under her fingertips: hot and swollen. “And after he testifies? You’ll tell him the truth, right?”

Mark rose to his feet. “By the Angel, yes. What do you take me for?”

“Someone in a difficult situation,” said Cristina. “As we all are. If Kieran doesn’t testify, innocent Downworlders may die; the Clave may sink further into corruption. I understand the need for deception. That doesn’t mean I like it—or that you do either.”

Mark nodded, not looking at her. “I had better search for him,” he said. “If he’ll agree to be helpful, he’s our best way to fix this.” He indicated his wrist.

Cristina felt a slight ache inside. She wondered if she had hurt Mark; she hadn’t meant to. “Let’s see what kind of range this has,” she said. “How far from each other we can go without it hurting.”

Mark stopped in the doorway. The clean, sharp planes of his face looked cut from glass. “It already hurt me to be away from you,” he said. “Perhaps that was meant to be the joke.”

He was gone before Cristina could answer.

She got to her feet and went to the counter where the powders and medicines were. She had a rough idea of medicinal Shadowhunter work: Here were the leaves that had anti-infection properties, here the poultices that kept swelling down.

The door of the infirmary opened while she was unscrewing a jar. She looked up: It was Kieran. He looked flushed and windblown, as if he’d been outside. There were patches of color on his high cheekbones.

He looked as discomfited to see her as she was to see him. She set the jar down carefully and waited.

“Where is Mark?” he said.

“He went to find you.” Cristina leaned against the counter. Kieran was quiet. A faerie sort of quiet: inward, considering. She had a feeling many people would feel compelled to fill that silence. She let him have it; let him draw the silence into himself, shape and decipher it.

“I should apologize,” he said finally. “It was uncalled for to accuse you and Mark of having arranged the binding spell. Foolish, too. You have nothing to gain from it. If Mark did not want to be with me, he would say so.”

Cristina said nothing. Kieran took a step toward her, carefully, as if afraid of frightening her. “Might I see your arm again?”

She held her arm out. He took it—she wondered if he had ever touched her deliberately before. It felt like the touch of cool water in summer.

Cristina felt a slight shiver up her spine as he studied her injury. She wondered what he had looked like when both of his eyes had been black. They were even more startling now than Mark’s, the contrast between the dark and the shimmering silver, like ice and ash.

“The shape of a ribbon,” he said. “You say you were tied together during a revel?”

“Yes,” said Cristina. “By two girls. They knew we were Nephilim. They laughed at us.”

Kieran’s grip on her tightened. She remembered the way he’d clung to Mark in the Unseelie Court. Not as if he were weak and needed help. It was a grip of strength, a grip that held Mark in place, that said, Stay with me, it is my command.

He was a prince, after all.

“That sort of binding spell is one of the oldest,” he said. “Oldest and strongest. I do not know why someone would play such a prank on you. It is quite vicious.”

“But do you know how to undo it?”

Kieran dropped Cristina’s hand. “I was an unwanted son of the Unseelie King. I received little schooling. Then I was thrown into the Wild Hunt. I am no expert on magic.”

“You’re not useless,” Cristina said. “You know more than you think you do.”

Kieran looked as if she’d startled him once again. “I could speak to my brother, Adaon. I am meant to ask him about taking the throne. I could inquire of him as to whether he knows anything of binding spells or how to end them.”

“When do you think you will talk to him?” asked Cristina. An image came into her mind of the way Kieran, asleep, had clung to her hand in the Seelie Court. Trying not to blush, she glanced down at her bandage, tugging it back into place.

“Soon,” he said. “I have tried to reach him already, but not yet with success.”

“Tell me if there is anything I can do to help you,” she said.

His eyebrow quirked. He bent down then and lifted her hand, this time to kiss it, not seeming to mind the blood or the bandage. It was a gesture of courts long past in this world, but not in Faerie. Startled, Cristina did not protest.

“Lady Mendoza Rosales,” he said. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“I’d rather you called me Cristina,” she said. “Honestly.”

“Honestly,” he echoed. “Something we faeries never say. Every word we speak is an honest word.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Cristina. “Would you?”

A thunderclap shook the Institute. At least, it felt like a thunderclap: It rattled the windows and walls.

“Stay here,” Kieran said. “I will go find out what that was.”

Cristina almost laughed. “Kieran,” she said. “Really, you don’t need to protect me.”

His eyes flashed; the infirmary door flew open and Mark was there, wide-eyed. He only grew more so when he saw Kieran and Cristina standing at the counter together.

“You’d better come,” he said. “You won’t believe who’s just Portaled into the parlor.”

* * *

The town of Polperro was tiny, whitewashed, and picturesque. It was nestled into a quiet harbor, with miles of blue sea spreading out where the harbor opened into the ocean. Small houses in different pale colors clambered up and down the hills that rose steeply on either side of the port. Cobblestoned streets wound among shops selling pastries and soft-serve ice cream.

There were no cars. The bus from Liskeard had let them off outside the town; nearing the harbor, they crossed a small bridge at the bottom of the marina. Emma thought of her parents. Her father’s gentle smile, the sun on his blond hair. He’d loved the sea, living near the ocean, any kind of beach holiday. He would have loved a town like this, where the air smelled like seaweed and burnt sugar and sunscreen, where fishing boats traced white trails across the blue surface of the distant sea. Her mother would have loved it too—she had always liked to lie in the sun, like a cat, and watch the ocean dance.

“What about here?” Julian said. Emma blinked back to reality, realizing they’d been talking about finding something to eat before they’d passed over the bridge and her mind had wandered.

Julian was standing in front of a half-timbered house with a restaurant menu pasted up in the diamond-paned window. A group of girls passed by, in shorts and bikini tops, on their way to the sweetshop next door. They giggled and nudged each other when they saw Julian.

Emma wondered what he looked like to them—handsome, with all that windblown brown hair and luminous eyes, but surely odd as well, a little unearthly maybe, Marked and scarred as he was.

“Sure,” she said. “This is fine.”

Julian was tall enough to need to duck under the low-hanging doorframe to get into the inn. Emma followed, and a few moments later they were being shown to a table by a cheerful, plump woman in a flowered dress. It was nearly five o’clock and the place was mostly deserted. A sense of history hung lightly about it, from the uneven floorboards to the walls decorated with smuggling memorabilia, old maps, and cheerful illustrations of Cornish piskies, the mischievous Fair Folk native to the area. Emma wondered how much the locals believed in them. Not as much as they should, she suspected.

They ordered—Coke and fries for Jules, sandwich and lemonade for Emma—and Julian spread his map out over the table. His phone was next to it; he flipped through the photos he’d been taking with one hand, poking at the map with the other. Smears of colored pencil decorated his hand, familiar smudges of blue and yellow and green.

“The east side of the harbor is called the Warren,” he said. “Lots of houses, and a lot of them are old, but most of them are rented out now to tourists. And none of them are on top of any caves. That leaves the area around Polperro and to the west.”

Their food had arrived. Emma started wolfing her sandwich; she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing at the map.

“That’s Chapel Cliff, love,” said the waitress, setting down Emma’s drink. She pronounced it chaypel. “Start of the coastal path. From there, you can walk all the way to Fowey.” She glanced over at the bar, where two tourists had just sat down. “Oi! Be right there!”

“How do you find the path?” Julian said. “If we were to walk it today, where would we start?”

“Oh, it’s a long way to Fowey,” said the waitress. “But the path starts up behind the Blue Peter Inn.” She pointed out the window, across the harbor. “There’s a walking trail that goes up the hill. You turn onto the coastal path at the old net loft, it’s all broken down now, you’ll see it easy. It’s just above the caves.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. “The caves?”

The waitress laughed. “The old smugglers’ caves,” she said. “I guess you came in at high tide, didn’t you? Or you’d have seen them for sure.”

Emma and Julian exchanged a single look before scrambling to their feet. Heedless of the waitress’s startled protests, they spilled out into the street beside the inn.

She’d been right, of course: The tide had come down and the harbor looked very different now, the boats beached on rises of muddy sand. Behind the harbor rose a narrow spit of land shingled with gray rocks. It was easy to see why it was called Chapel Cliff. The spit was tipped with gray rocks, which twisted narrowly up into the air like the spires of a church cathedral.

The water had lowered enough so that a great deal of the cliff was revealed. The sea had been pounding against the rocks when they’d arrived; now it sloshed quietly in the harbor, retreating to reveal a small, sandy beach, and behind it, the dark openings of several cave mouths.

Above the caves, perched on the steep slope of the cliff, was a house. Emma had barely spared it a glance when they’d first arrived—it had simply been one of many small houses that dotted the side of the harbor across from the Warren, though she could see now that it was farther out along the spit of land than any of the others. In fact, it was quite distant from them, standing small and alone between the sea and the sky.

Its windows were boarded up; its whitewash had peeled away in gray strips. But if Emma looked with her Shadowhunter eyes, she could see more than an abandoned house: She could see white lace curtains in the windows, and new shingles on the roof.

There was a mailbox nailed to the fence. A name was painted onto the box, in sloppy white letters, barely visible from this distance. They certainly wouldn’t have been visible to a mundane, but Emma could see them.

FADE.