Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

28

T

HE

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AD

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OUL

“That’s her!” Ethna cried, her voice rich and sweet. She drew the child in her grip closer to her, raised the blade in her hand. “That is the murderer who slew Fal.”

“It was a battle,” Emma said. “He would have killed me.” She looked at the other Riders. They stood in their row, facing her, a line of grim statuary. “I would think warriors would know the difference.”

“You should be killed like your parents,” hissed one of the other Riders. Delan. “Tortured and carved with knives, like they were.”

Emma’s heart lurched in her chest. Her fear for the girl was still there, but rage was starting to mix with it. “Let the girl go,” she said. “Let her go and you can fight me. Revenge yourselves on me like you want to.”

She could hear pounding on the doors behind her. Soon enough they’d get them open; she didn’t have any illusions of the locking rune holding forever. Her runes had surprising power now, because of Julian—but Julian would be a match for their capability.

Emma raised Cortana, the morning sun sliding down the blade like melted butter.

“I killed your brother with this sword,” she said. “You want revenge? Let the girl go, and I’ll fight you. Threaten her a moment longer and I’ll go back inside the Institute.” Her eyes flicked from one of them to the other. She thought of her parents, of their bodies, stripped and left on the beach for gulls to pick at. “We despoiled Fal’s corpse,” she lied. “Tore his armor from him, broke his weapon, left him for the rats and crows—”

Ethna gave a high screech and shoved the small girl away from her. The girl toppled to the ground—Emma gasped—but she found her feet and ran, sobbing, for the road. She looked back over her shoulder only once, mouth wide in her tearstained face as she sprinted through the gate and disappeared.

Relief shot through Emma. The girl was safe.

And then Ethna charged, her horse’s hooves silent on the courtyard stone. She was like a thrown spear hurtling through the air, noiseless and deadly; Emma bent her knees and sprang, using the height of the steps and the force of her fall to give the swing of her sword power.

Their blades clanged together in midair. The shock rattled Emma’s bones. Ethna’s arm flew wide; Emma landed in a crouch and drove her sword upward, but the faerie woman had already flung herself from the back of her horse. She was on her feet, laughing; the other Riders had dismounted as well. Their horses vanished, as if absorbed into the air as the children of Mannan surged toward Emma, blades raised.

She lifted herself out of her crouch, Cortana describing a wide arc above her head, striking each sword aside—Emma was reminded of a hand sliding across piano keys, hitting each note in turn.

But it was close. The last sword, Delan’s, caught Emma’s shoulder. She felt her gear rip, her skin sting. Another scar to add to the map of them.

She whirled, and Ethna was behind her. She held two shortswords, gleaming bronze, and slashed at Emma with first one and then the other. Emma leaped back, barely in time. If she hadn’t been wearing gear, she knew, she’d be dead, her guts spilled out on the flagstones. She felt her jacket tear, and even in the cold of battle, a hot spike of fear went down her spine.

This was impossible. No one person could fight six Riders. She’d been mad to try, but she thought of the little girl’s feet in their pink sneakers and couldn’t be sorry. Not even when she turned to find three Riders blocking the way back into the Institute.

The door of the Institute had stopped shaking. Good, Emma thought. The others should stay safely inside; it was the wise thing to do, the smart thing.

“Your friends have abandoned you,” sneered one of the Riders blocking her way. His bronze hair was short and curling, giving him the look of a Greek kouros. He was lovely. Emma hated his guts. “Give yourself up now and we will make your death quick.”

“I could give myself a quick death, if that was what I wanted,” Emma said, her sword outstretched to hold off the other three faeries. “As it happens.”

Ethna was glaring at her. The other Riders—she recognized Airmed, if not the others—were whispering; she caught the last few words of a sentence. “—is the sword, as I told you.”

“But runed work cannot harm us,” said Airmed. “Nor seraph blades.”

Emma dove for Ethna. The faerie woman spun, bringing her blades across in a whip-fast slashing gesture.

Emma leaped. It was a move she had practiced over and over with Julian in the training room, using a bar that they raised just a little bit every day. The blades whipped by beneath her feet, and in her mind’s eye she saw Julian, his arms raised to catch her.

Julian. She landed on the other side of Ethna, whirled, and drove her blade into the faerie woman’s back.

Or tried, at least. Ethna spun at the last moment, and the blade sliced open her bronze armor, opening a gash in her side. She shrieked and staggered back and Emma jerked Cortana free, blood spattering from the blade onto the flagstones.

Emma raised the sword. “This is Cortana,” she gasped, her chest heaving. “Of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal. There is nothing Cortana cannot cut.”

“A blade of Wayland the Smith,” cried the Rider with the bronze curls, and to Emma’s amazement, there was fear in his voice.

“Silence, Karn,” snapped one of the others. “It is yet only one blade. Kill her.”

Karn’s beautiful face contracted. He lifted his weapon—a massive battle-ax—and started for Emma; she raised Cortana—

And the front door of the Institute burst open, disgorging Shadowhunters.

Julian. Emma saw him first, a blur of gear and sword and dark hair. Then Mark, Cristina. Kieran, Ty, Livvy. And Kit, who must have come from the infirmary, since he seemed to have thrown gear on over his pajamas. At least he was wearing boots.

They drove back the Riders on the steps, Julian and Mark first, their swords flashing in their hands. Neither of them carried seraph blades, Emma saw—they had taken only plain-bladed weapons, unruned, meant for slaying Downworlders. Even Kieran carried one, a sword whose pommel and grip gleamed with gold and silver instead of steel.

One of the Riders let out a roar of rage when he saw Kieran. “Traitor!” he snarled.

Kieran dropped a courtly little bow. “Eochaid,” he said, by way of greeting. “And Etarlam.” He winked at the sixth Rider, who made a sour face. “Well met.”

Eochaid lunged for him. Kieran dropped into a half crouch, swinging his sword with a lightness and skill that surprised Emma.

The clash of their blades seemed to signal the beginning of a much larger battle. Julian and Mark had forced the Riders from the steps in the first surprise of their appearance. Now the others poured after them, hounding and worrying at them with blades. Mark, carrying a double-edged straight sword, went for Delan; the twins harried Airmed while Cristina, looking beyond furious, engaged Etarlam.

Julian began to move through the blur of battle, slashing to either side of him, cutting his way toward Emma. His eyes suddenly widened. Behind you!

She spun. It was Ethna, her face twisted into a mask of hatred. Her blades made a scissoring motion—Emma raised Cortana just in time, and Ethna’s double blades closed on it with savage force.

And shattered.

The faerie woman gasped in surprise. A second later she was scrambling back, her hands moving in the air. Julian changed course and leaped after her, but another weapon was taking shape in her grasp, this one with a curved blade like a Persian shamshir.

Julian’s sword slammed against Ethna’s. Emma felt the collision between their weapons. It forked through her like lightning. Suddenly everything was happening very fast: Julian twisted gracefully away from the blade, but the edge of it caught him across the top of the arm. Emma felt the pain of it, her parabatai’s pain, just as she had felt his blade strike Ethna’s. She launched herself at the two of them, but Eochaid rose up in front of her and the point of a sword hurtled toward her face, a silver blur cutting the air.

It fell away to the side. Eochaid howled, a brutal, angry sound, and whirled from her to strike savagely at the figure who had come up behind him, whose blade had pierced his shoulder. Blood stained Eochaid’s bronze armor.

It was Kieran. His hair was a mass of black and white strands, sticky with blood over his temple. His clothes were stained with red, his lip split. He stared at Emma, breathing hard.

Eochaid leaped for him and they began to fight savagely. The world seemed a din of clashing blades: Emma heard a cry and saw Cristina fighting to get to Kit, who had been knocked to the ground by Delan. The Riders had swarmed up to the steps to block the Institute doors. Julian was holding off Ethna; the twins were fighting back-to-back, trying to hack their way up the steps alongside Mark.

Emma began to shove blindly toward Kit, a coldness at her heart. The Riders were too fierce, too strong. They wouldn’t tire.

Delan was standing over Kit, his blade high in the air. Kit was scrambling back on his elbows. A sword flashed in front of Emma; she knocked it away with Cortana, heard someone swear. Delan was staring at Kit intently, as if his face held a mystery. “Who are you, boy?” the Rider demanded, his blade stilled.

Kit wiped blood from his face. There was a dagger near him on the flagstones, just out of reach of his hand. “Christopher Herondale,” he said, his eyes flashing arrogantly. He was a Shadowhunter, Emma thought, through and through; he would never beg for his life.

Delan snorted. “Qui omnia nomini debes,” he said, and began to swing his sword down, just as Emma ducked and rolled under the blade, Cortana flashing up, shearing through Delan’s wrist.

The faerie warrior screamed, an echoing howl of rage and pain. The air was full of a mist of blood. Delan’s hand thumped to the ground, still gripping his sword; a second later Kit was on his feet, snatching up the weapon, his eyes blazing. Emma was beside him; together they began to back Delan up, his blood painting the flagstones beneath them as he retreated.

But Delan was laughing. “Slay me if you think you can,” he sneered. “But look around you. You have already lost.”

Kit had his blade up, pointed directly at Delan’s throat. “You look,” he said steadily. “I’ll stab.”

Emma’s head snapped around. Airmed had backed Ty and Livvy against a wall. Ethna had her weapon at Julian’s throat. Cristina had been driven to her knees by Etarlam. Mark was looking at her in horror but couldn’t move—Eochaid had his sword against Mark’s back, just where he could sever his spine.

Karn stood at the top of the steps, his blade out, grinning across his cruel and lovely face.

Emma swallowed. Kit swore softly under his breath. Karn spoke, his teeth flashing white with his smile. “Give us the Black Volume,” he said. “We will let you go.”

Kieran stood frozen, staring from Mark to Cristina. “Do not listen!” he cried. “The Riders are wild magic—they can lie.”

“We don’t have the book,” Julian said steadily. “We’ve never had it. Nothing has changed.”

He looked calm, but Emma could see beneath the surface of him, behind his eyes. She could hear the noise of his thundering heart. He was looking at her, at Mark, at Ty and Livvy, and he was mortally terrified.

“You are asking for something we cannot do,” said Julian. “But maybe we can make a deal. We can swear to you that we will bring you the book when we find it—”

“Your oaths mean nothing,” snarled Ethna. “Let us kill them now and send a message to the Queen, that her tricks will not be countenanced!”

Karn laughed. “Wise words, sister,” he said. “Ready your blades—”

Emma’s hand clamped down on Cortana. Her mind whirled—she couldn’t kill them all, couldn’t prevent what they were going to do, but by the Angel she’d take some of them with her—

The gates of the courtyard burst open. They hadn’t been locked, but they were flung wide now with such force that despite their weight, they flew to the sides, slamming into the stone walls of the yard, rattling like sundered chains.

Beyond the gate was fog—thick and incongruous on such a sunny day. The violent tableau in the courtyard remained still, arrested in shock, as the fog cleared and a woman stepped into the yard.

She was slight and of medium height, her hair a deep brown, falling to her waist. She wore a torn shift over a long skirt that didn’t fit her well, and a pair of low boots. The bare skin of her arms and shoulders proclaimed her a Shadowhunter, with a Shadowhunter’s scars. The Voyance rune decorated her right hand.

She held no weapons. Instead she hugged a book to herself—an old volume, bound in dark leather, scuffed and worn. A folded piece of paper was stuck between two pages, like a bookmark. She raised her head and looked steadily before her at the scene in the courtyard; her expression was unsurprised, as if she’d expected nothing else.

Emma’s heart began to thump. She’d seen this woman before, though it had been a dark night in Cornwall. She knew her.

“I am Annabel Blackthorn.” The woman spoke in a clear, even tone, slightly accented. “The Black Volume is mine.”

Eochaid swore. He had a fine-boned, cruel face, like an eagle. “You lied to us,” he snarled at Emma and the rest. “You told us you had no idea where the book was.”

“Nor did they,” said Annabel, still with the same composure. “Malcolm Fade had it, and I took it from his dead body. But it is mine and always has been mine. It belonged in the library of the house I grew up in. The book has always been Blackthorn property.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ethna, though she was looking at Annabel with a dubious respect. One due the undead, Emma suspected. “You will give it to us, or face the wrath of the Unseelie King.”

“The Unseelie King,” murmured Annabel. Her face was placid in a way that chilled Emma—surely no one could be placid in this situation, no one who wasn’t insane? “Give him my regards. Tell him I know his name.”

Delan blanched. “His what?” The true name of a faerie gave anyone who knew it power over them. Emma couldn’t imagine what it would mean for the King to have his name revealed.

“His name,” Annabel said. “Malcolm was very close to him for many years. He learned your monarch’s name. I know it too. If you do not clear off now, and return to the King with my message, I will tell it to everyone on the Council. I will tell every Downworlder. The King is not loved. He will find the results most unpleasant.”

“She lies,” said Airmed, his hawk’s eyes slitted.

“Risk it with your King, then,” she said. “Let him find out you are the ones responsible for the revelation of his name.”

“It would be easy enough to silence you,” said Etarlam.

Annabel did not move as he strode toward her, raising his free hand as if he meant to strike her across the face. He swung, and she caught his wrist, as lightly as a debutante taking her waltz partner’s arm during a dance.

And she flung him. He sailed across the courtyard and slammed into a wall with the clang of armor. Emma gasped.

“Etar!” Ethna cried. She started toward her brother, abandoning Jules—and froze. Her curved sword was rising out of her hand. She reached for it, but it was floating above her head. More cries came from the other Riders—their swords were being jerked out of their grasps, gliding into the air above their heads. Ethna glared at Annabel. “You fool!”

“That wasn’t her,” came a drawling voice from the doorway. It was Magnus, leaning heavily on Dru’s shoulder. She seemed to be half-supporting him. Blue fire sparked from the fingers of his free hand. “Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, at your service.”

The Riders exchanged glances. Emma knew they could make new weapons easily, but what good would it do them if Magnus just snatched them out of their hands? Their eyes narrowed; their lips curled.

“This is not finished,” said Karn, and he looked across the courtyard directly at Emma as he said it. This is not finished between us.

Then he vanished, and the remaining Riders followed. One moment they were there, the next gone, winking out of existence like vanishing stars. Their swords crashed to the ground with the loud clang of metal against stone.

“Hey,” muttered Kit. “Free swords.”

Magnus gave a low grunt and sagged backward; Dru caught at him, worry in her wide eyes. “Get inside, now. All of you.”

They scrambled to obey, the intact pausing to help those who had been injured, though none of the injuries were serious. Emma found Julian without even needing to look for him—her parabatai senses were still humming, her body’s interior knowledge that he had been cut, would need healing. She slid her arm around him as gently as she could, and he winced. His eyes met hers, and she knew he was feeling her own wound, the cut at the top of her shoulder.

She wanted to throw her arms around him, wanted to wipe the blood from his face, kiss his closed eyes. But she knew how that would look. She held herself back with a control that hurt more than her injury did.

Julian squeezed her hands and drew away reluctantly. “I have to go to Annabel,” he said in a low voice.

Emma started. She’d nearly forgotten Annabel, but she was still there, in the center of the courtyard, the Black Volume hugged to her chest. The others stood around her uncertainly—after all the time spent looking for Annabel, it was clear no one had ever imagined she’d come to them.

Even Julian paused before he reached her, hesitating as if deciding how to break the silence. Near him, Ty stood between Livvy and Kit, all of them staring at Annabel as if she were an apparition and not really there at all.

“Annabel.” It was Magnus. He had limped down the steps to the bottom; he had only a light hand on Dru’s shoulder now, though there were dark crescents of exhaustion below his eyes. He sounded sad, that depthless sort of sadness that came out of a time, a life, that Emma could not even imagine. “Oh, Annabel. Why did you come here?”

Annabel drew the folded piece of paper from the Black Volume. “I received a letter,” she said, in a voice so soft it was barely audible. “From Tiberius Blackthorn.”

Only Kit didn’t look surprised. He put his hand on Ty’s arm as Tiberius scanned the ground furiously.

“There was something in it,” she said. “I had thought the world’s hand turned against me, but as I read the letter, I imagined there was a chance it was not so.” She raised her chin, that characteristic, defiant Blackthorn gesture that broke Emma’s heart every time. “I have come to speak with Julian Blackthorn about the Black Volume of the Dead.”

* * *

“There is an undead person in our library,” said Livvy. She was sitting on one of the long beds in the infirmary. They’d all gathered there—all but Magnus, who had closed himself into the library with Annabel. They were in various stages of being runed and patched up and cleaned. There was a small pile of bloody cloths growing on the counter.

Ty was on the same bed as Livvy, his back to the headboard. As always after a battle, Emma noticed, he had withdrawn a bit, as if he needed time to recuperate from the clang and shock of it. He was twisting something between his fingers in regular rhythmic motions, though Emma couldn’t see what it was. “It’s not our library,” he said. “It’s Evelyn’s.”

“Still strange,” Livvy said. Neither she nor Ty had been injured in the fight, but Kit had, and she was finishing an iratze on his back. “All done,” she said, patting his shoulder, and he drew his T-shirt down with a wince.

“She isn’t undead, not exactly,” said Julian. Emma had given him an iratze, but some part of her had become afraid of drawing runes on him, and she’d stopped there, bandaging the wound instead. He’d had a long cut running down his upper arm, and even after he’d pulled his shirt back on, the bandages were visible through the fabric. “She’s not a zombie or a ghost.”

One of the glasses of water on a nightstand fell over with a crash.

“Jessamine didn’t appreciate that,” said Kit.

Cristina laughed—she wasn’t injured either, but she was worrying at the pendant around her throat as she watched Mark tend to Kieran’s injuries. Hunters healed faster, Emma knew, but they also bruised easily, it seemed. A map of blue-black spread over Kieran’s back and shoulders, and one of his cheekbones was darkening. With a cloth that Cristina had wet down in one of his hands, Mark was gently sponging away the blood.

The elf-bolt gleamed around Mark’s neck. Emma didn’t know what was going on with Mark and Kieran and Cristina exactly—Cristina had been remarkably reluctant to explain—but she knew Kieran had learned the truth about his and Mark’s relationship. Still, Kieran hadn’t taken his elf-bolt back, so that was something.

She realized with a small jolt of surprise that she was hoping things worked out for them. She hoped that wasn’t disloyal to Cristina. But she was no longer angry at Kieran—he might have made a mistake, but he’d made up for it many times over since then.

“Where was Jessamine earlier?” said Julian. “Isn’t she supposed to protect the Institute?”

Another crash of glass.

“She says she can’t leave the Institute. She can only protect inside of it.” Kit paused. “I don’t know if I should repeat the rest of what she said.” After a moment, he smiled. “Thank you, Jessamine.”

“What did she say?” Livvy asked, picking up her stele.

“That I’m a true Herondale,” he said. He frowned. “What did that metal guy say to me when I told him my name? Was it faerie language?”

“Oddly, it was Latin,” said Julian. “An insult. Something Mark Antony once said to Augustus Caesar—‘you, boy, who owe everything to a name.’ He was saying he would never have amounted to anything if he hadn’t been a Caesar.”

Kit looked annoyed. “I’ve been a Herondale for like three weeks,” he said. “And I’m not sure what I’ve gotten out of it.”

“Do not pay too much attention to the pronouncements of faeries,” said Kieran. “They will get under your skin in any way they can.”

“Does that include you?” asked Cristina, with a smile.

“Obviously,” said Kieran, and he smiled too, just slightly.

Theirs might be the weirdest friendship she’d ever seen, Emma thought.

“We’re off topic,” said Livvy. “Annabel Blackthorn is in our library. That’s weird, right? Doesn’t anyone else think it’s weird?”

“Why is that weirder than vampires?” said Ty, clearly perplexed. “Or werewolves?”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t think it was,” said Kit. “You’re the one who told her to come.”

“Yes, about that,” Julian began. “Is there a particular reason you didn’t tell any of us—”

Ty was saved from a brotherly chastisement by the infirmary door opening. It was Magnus. Emma didn’t like the way he looked—he seemed grimly pale, his eyes shadowed, his movements stiff, as if he were bruised. His mouth was set in a serious line.

“Julian,” he said. “If you could come with me.”

“What for?” asked Emma.

“I’ve been trying to talk to Annabel,” Magnus said. “I thought she might be willing to open up to someone who wasn’t a Shadowhunter if she had the option, but she’s stubborn. She’s stayed polite, but she says she’ll only speak to Julian.”

“Does she not remember you?” Julian asked, getting up.

“She remembers me,” said Magnus. “But as a friend of Malcolm’s. And she’s not his biggest fan these days.”

Ungrateful, Emma remembered Kieran saying. But he was silent now, rebuttoning his torn shirt, his bruised eyes cast downward.

“Why doesn’t she want to talk to Ty?” said Livvy. “He sent her the message.”

Magnus shrugged an I couldn’t tell you shrug.

“All right, I’ll be right back,” said Julian. “We’re leaving for Idris as soon as possible, so everyone grab anything they might need to take with them.”

“The Council meeting is this afternoon,” Magnus said. “I’ll have the strength to make a Portal in a few hours. We’ll be sleeping in Alicante tonight.”

He sounded relieved about it. He and Julian headed out into the hallway. Emma meant to hang back, but she couldn’t—she darted after them before the door closed.

“Jules,” she said. He had already started down the corridor with Magnus; at the sound of her voice, they both turned.

She couldn’t have done it in the infirmary, but it was just Magnus, and he already knew. She went up to Julian and put her arms around him. “Be careful,” she said. “She sent us into a trap in that church. This could be a trap too.”

“I’ll be right there, outside the room,” Magnus said, subdued. “I’ll be ready to intervene. But Julian, under no circumstances should you try to take the Black Volume from her, even if she isn’t holding it. It’s tied to her with pretty powerful magic.”

Julian nodded, and Magnus disappeared down the hallway, leaving them alone. For long moments, they held each other in silence, letting the anxiety of the day dissipate: their fear for each other in the battle, their fear for the children, their worry over what was going to happen in Alicante. Julian was warm and solid in her arms, his hand tracing a soothing line down her back. He smelled of cloves, as always, as well as antiseptic and bandages. She felt his chin nudge her hair as his fingers flew across the back of her shirt.

D-O-N-T W-O-R-R-Y.

“Of course I’m worried,” said Emma. “You saw what she did to Etarlam. Do you think you can convince her to just give you the book?”

“I don’t know,” Julian said. “I’ll know when I talk to her.”

“Annabel’s been lied to so much,” said Emma. “Don’t promise anything we can’t deliver.”

He kissed her forehead. His lips moved against her skin, his voice so low that no one who didn’t know him as well as Emma did could have understood him at all. “I will do,” he said, “whatever I need to do.”

She knew he meant it. There was nothing more to say; she watched him go down the corridor toward the library with troubled eyes.

* * *

Kit was in his room packing his meager belongings when Livvy came in. She’d dressed for the trip to Idris, in a long black skirt and a round-collared white shirt. Her hair was loose down her back.

She looked at Ty, sitting on Kit’s bed. They’d been discussing Idris and what Ty remembered of it. “It’s not like any place else,” he’d told Kit, “but when you get there, you’ll feel like you’ve been there before.”

“Ty-Ty,” Livvy said. “Bridget says you can take one of the old Sherlock Holmes books from the library and keep it.”

Ty’s face lit up. “Which one?”

“Whichever you want. Your choice. Just hurry up; we’re going to leave as soon as we can, Magnus said.”

Ty bounded to the door, seemed to remember Kit, and swung back around. “We can talk more later,” he said, and darted off down the hallway.

“Only one book! One!” Livvy called after him with a laugh. “Ouch!” She reached up to fiddle with something at the back of her neck, her face crinkled in annoyance. “My necklace is caught on my hair—”

Kit reached up to untangle the thin gold chain. A locket dangled from it, kissing the hollow of her throat. Up close, she smelled like orange blossoms.

Their faces were very close together, and the pale curve of her mouth was near his. Her lips were light rose pink. Confusion stirred in Kit.

But it was Livvy who shook her head. “We shouldn’t, Kit. No more kissing. I mean, we only did it once anyway. But I don’t think that’s how we’re meant to be.”

The necklace came free. Kit drew his hands away quickly, confused.

“Why?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not even a little.” She looked at him for a moment with her wise and thoughtful eyes; there was a soft happiness in Livvy that drew Kit, but not in a romantic way. She was right, and he knew it. “Everything’s great. Ty even says he thinks we should be parabatai, after all this is cleared up.” Her face glowed. “I hope you’ll come to the ceremony. And you’ll always be my friend, right?”

“Of course,” he said, and only later did he stop to think that she had said my friend, and not our friend, hers and Ty’s. Right now he was just relieved that he didn’t feel hurt or bothered by her decision. He felt instead a pleasant anticipation of getting through this Council meeting and going home—back to Los Angeles—where he could start his training and have the twins to help him through the rough parts. “Friends always.”

* * *

Julian felt a twist of apprehension in his stomach as he entered the library. Part of him half-expected Annabel to have vanished, or to be drifting around the stacks of books like a long-haired ghost in a horror movie. He’d seen one once where the ghost of a girl had crawled out of a well, her pale face hidden behind masses of wet, dark hair. The memory gave him shivers even now.

The library was well illuminated by its rows of green banker’s lamps. Annabel sat at the longest table, the Black Volume in front of her, her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair was long and dark, and half-hid her face, but it wasn’t wet and there wasn’t anything obviously uncanny about her. She looked—ordinary.

He sat down across from her. Magnus must have brought her something to wear from the storage room: She was in a very plain blue dress, a little short in the sleeves. Jules guessed she had been around nineteen when she died, maybe twenty.

“That was quite a trick you pulled,” he said, “with the note in the church. And the demon.”

“I didn’t expect you to burn the church down.” That pronounced accent was back in her voice, the strangeness of a way of speaking long outdated now. “You surprised me.”

“And you’ve surprised me, coming here,” Julian said. “And saying you’d only talk to me. You don’t even like me, I thought.”

“I came because of this.” She drew the folded paper from the book and held it out to him. Her fingers were long, the joints strangely misshapen. He realized he was looking at evidence that her fingers had been broken, more than once, and that the bones had knit back together oddly. The visible remnants of torture. He felt a little sick as he took the letter and opened it.

To: Annabel Blackthorn

Annabel,

You might not know me, but we are related. My name is Tiberius Blackthorn.

My family and I are looking for the Black Volume of the Dead. We know you have it, because my brother Julian saw you take it from Malcolm Fade.

I’m not blaming you. Malcolm Fade is not our friend. He tried to hurt our family, to destroy us if he could. He’s a monster. But the thing is, we need the book now. We need it so that we can save our family. We’re a good family. You would like us if you knew us. There’s me—I’m going to be a detective. There is Livvy, my twin, who can fence, and Drusilla, who loves everything scary, and Tavvy, who likes stories read to him. There is Mark, who is part faerie. He’s an excellent cook. There is Helen, who was exiled to guard the wards, but not because she did anything wrong. And Emma, who isn’t strictly a Blackthorn but is like our extra sister anyway.

And there is Jules. You might like him the best. He is the one who takes care of us all. He is the reason we’re all okay and still together. I don’t think he knows we know that, but we do. Sometimes he might tell us what to do or not listen, but he would do anything for any of us. People say we’re unlucky because we don’t have parents. But I think they’re unlucky because they don’t have a brother like mine.

Julian had to stop there. The pressure behind his eyes had built to a shattering intensity. He wanted to put his head down on the table and burst into unmanly, undignified tears—for the boy he had been, scared and terrified and twelve years old, looking at his younger brothers and sisters and thinking, They’re mine now.

For them, their faith in him, their expectation his love would be unconditional, that he wouldn’t need to be told he was loved back because of course he was. Ty thought this about him and probably thought it was obvious. But he had never guessed.

He forced himself to stay silent, to keep his face expressionless. He laid the letter down on the table so that the shaking of his hand was less visible. There was only a little writing left.

Don’t think I’m asking you to do us a favor for nothing in return. Julian can help you. He can help anyone. You can’t want to be running and hiding. I know what happened to you, what the Clave and Council did. Things are different now. Let us explain. Let us show you how you don’t have to be exiled or alone. You don’t have to give us the book. We just want to help.

We’re at the London Institute. Whenever you want to come, you’d be welcome.

Yours,

Tiberius Nero Blackthorn

“How does he know what happened to me?” Annabel didn’t sound angry, only curious. “What the Inquisitor and the others did to me?”

Julian got to his feet and went across the room to where the aletheia crystal rested on a bookcase. He brought it back and gave it to her. “Ty found this in Blackthorn Hall,” he said. “These are someone’s memories of your—trials—in the Council chamber.”

Annabel raised the crystal to eye level. Julian had never seen the expression of someone looking into an aletheia crystal before. Her eyes widened, tracking back and forth as she gazed at the scene moving before her. Her cheeks flushed, her lips shook. Her hand began to jerk uncontrollably, and she flung the crystal away from her; it hit the table, denting the wood without breaking.

“Oh God, is there to be no mercy?” she said in an empty voice. “Will there never be any mercy or forgetfulness?”

“Not while this is still an injustice.” Julian’s heart was beating hard, but he knew he showed no outward signs of agitation. “It will always hurt as long as they haven’t recompensed you for what they did.”

She raised her eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

“Come with me to Idris,” Julian said. “Testify in front of the Council. And I will see to it that you get justice.”

She turned pale and swayed slightly. Julian half-rose from his chair. He reached for her and stopped; maybe she wouldn’t want to be touched.

And there was some part of him that didn’t want to touch her. He’d seen her when she was a skeleton held together with a fragile cobwebbing of yellowed skin and tendon. She looked real and solid and alive now, but he couldn’t help but feel his hand would pass through her skin and strike crumbling bone beneath.

He drew his hand back.

“You cannot offer me justice,” she said. “You cannot offer me anything I want.”

Julian felt cold all over, but he could not deny the excitement sparking through his nerves. He saw the plan, suddenly, in front of him, the strategy of it, and the excitement of that overrode even the chill of the razor’s edge he was walking.

“I never told anyone you were in Cornwall,” he said. “Even after the church. I kept your secret. You can trust me.”

She looked at him with wide eyes. This was why he had done it, Julian thought. He had kept this information to himself as possible leverage, even when he hadn’t known for sure that there would ever be a moment he could use it. Emma’s voice whispered in his head.

Julian, you scared me a little.

“I wanted to show you something,” Julian said, and drew from his jacket a rolled-up paper. He handed it across the table to Annabel.

It was a drawing he had done of Emma, on Chapel Cliff, the sea breaking under her feet. He had been pleased with the way he had captured the wistful look on her face, the sea thick as paint below her, the weak sun gray-gold on her hair.

“Emma Carstairs. My parabatai,” said Julian.

Annabel raised grave eyes. “Malcolm spoke of her. He said she was stubborn. He spoke of all of you. Malcolm was afraid of you.”

Julian was stunned. “Why?”

“He said what Tiberius said. He said you would do anything for your family.”

You have a ruthless heart. Julian pushed away the words Kieran had said to him. He couldn’t be distracted. This was too important. “What else can you tell from the picture?” he said.

“That you love her,” said Annabel. “With all of your soul.”

There was nothing suspicious in her gaze; parabatai were meant to love each other. Julian could see the prize, the solution. Kieran’s testimony was one piece of the puzzle. It would help them. But the Cohort would object to it, to any alliance with faeries. Annabel was the key to destroying the Cohort and ensuring the safety of the Blackthorns. Julian could see the image of his family safe, Aline and Helen returned, in front of him like a shimmering city on a hill. He went toward it, thinking of nothing else. “I saw your sketches and paintings,” he said. “I could tell from them what you loved.”

“Malcolm?” she said, with her eyebrows raised. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Not Malcolm. Blackthorn Manor. The one in Idris. Where you lived when you were a child. All your drawings of it were alive. Like you could see it in your mind. Touch it with your hand. Be there in your heart.”

She laid his sketch down on the table. She was silent.

“You could get that back,” he said. “The manor house, all of it. I know why you ran. You expected that if the Clave caught you, they’d punish you, hurt you again. But I can promise you they won’t. They’re not perfect, they’re far from perfect, but this is a new Clave and Council. Downworlders sit on our Council.”

Her eyes flew open. “Magnus said that, but I didn’t believe him.”

“It’s true. Marriage between a Downworlder and a Shadowhunter isn’t illegal anymore. If we bring you before the Clave, they won’t just not hurt you—you’ll be reinstated. You’ll be a Shadowhunter again. You could live in Blackthorn Manor. We’d give it to you.”

“Why?” She rose to her feet and began to pace. “Why would you do all that for me? For the book? Because I will not give it to you.”

“Because I need you to stand up in front of the Council and say that you killed Malcolm,” he told her. She had left the Black Volume on the table before him. She was still pacing, not looking at him. Recalling Magnus’s warning—under no circumstances should you try to take the Black Volume from her, even if she isn’t holding it—Julian opened it cautiously, peered at a page of cramped, unreadable lettering. An idea was beginning to unfurl inside his mind, like a cautious flower. He reached into his pocket.

“That I killed Malcolm?” She spun to stare at him. He had his phone out, but he suspected it meant nothing to her—she’d probably seen mundanes wandering around with cell phones, but she’d never think of it as a camera. In fact, a camera wouldn’t mean anything to her either.

“Yes,” he said. “Believe me, you’ll be hailed as a hero.”

She’d begun pacing again. Julian’s shoulders ached. The position he was in, both hands occupied and leaning forward, was an awkward one. But if this worked, it would be more than worth the pain.

“There is someone who is lying,” he said. “Taking credit for Malcolm’s death. She is doing it so that she can get control of an Institute. Our Institute.” He took a deep breath. “Her name is Zara Dearborn.”

The name electrified her, as he had suspected it would. “Dearborn,” she breathed.

“The Inquisitor who tortured you,” said Julian. “His descendants are no better. They will all be there now, carrying their signs shaming Downworlders, shaming those who stand up to the Clave. They would bring an awful darkness down on us. But you can prove them liars. Discredit them.”

“Surely you could tell them the truth—”

“Not without revealing how I know. I saw you kill Malcolm in the Seelie Queen’s scrying glass. I’m telling you this because I am desperate—if you heard Malcolm speaking of the Cold Peace, you must know contact with faeries is forbidden. What I did would be considered treason. I’d take the punishment for it, but—”

“Your brothers and sisters couldn’t bear that,” she finished for him. She turned back toward him just as he leaned away from the book. Were her eyes more like Livvy’s or Dru’s? They were blue-green and depthless. “I see things have not changed as much as all that. The Law is still hard, and is still the Law.”

Julian could hear the hate in her voice, and knew he had her.

“But the Law can be circumvented.” He leaned across the table. “We can trick them. And shame them. Force them to confront their lies. The Dearborns will pay. They’ll all be there—the Consul, the Inquisitor, all those who have inherited the power that was abused when they hurt you.”

Her eyes glittered. “You will make them acknowledge it? What they did?”

“Yes.”

“And in return—?”

“Your testimony,” he said. “That’s all.”

“You wish me to come to Idris with you. To stand before the Clave and Council, and the Inquisitor, as I did before?”

Julian nodded.

“And if they call me mad, if they declare I am lying, or under Malcolm’s duress, you will stand for me? You will insist I am sane?”

“Magnus will be with you every step of the way,” Julian said. “He can stand beside you on the dais. He can protect you. He is the warlock representative on the Council, and you know how powerful he is. You can trust him even if you don’t trust me.”

It was not a real answer, but she took it for one. Julian had known she would.

“I do trust you,” she said with wonder. She came forward and picked up the Black Volume, hugging it to her chest. “Because of your brother’s letter. It was honest. I had not thought of an honest Blackthorn before. But I could hear the truth in how he loves you. You must be worthy of such love and trust, to have inspired it in one so truthful.” Her eyes bored into him. “I know what you want—what you need. And yet now that I have come to you, you have not once asked for it. That should count for something. Though you failed my trial, I understand it now. You were acting for your family.” He could see her swallow, the muscles moving in her thin, scarred throat. “You swear that if the Black Volume is given to you, you will keep it hidden from the Lord of Shadows? You will use it only to help your family?”

“I swear on the Angel,” said Julian. He knew how powerful an oath on the Angel was, and Annabel would know it too. But he was speaking only the truth, after all.

His heart was beating in swift and powerful hammer-blows. He was blinded by the light of what he could imagine, what the Queen could do for them if they gave her the Black Volume: Helen, Helen could come back, and Aline, and the Cold Peace could end.

And the Queen knows. She knows . . .

He forced the thought back. He could hear Emma’s voice, a whisper in the back of his mind. A warning. But Emma was good in her heart: honest, straightforward, a terrible liar. She didn’t understand the brutality of need. The absoluteness of what he would do for his family. There was no end to its depth and breadth. It was total.

“Very well,” Annabel said. Her voice was strong, forceful: He could hear the unbreakable cliffs of Cornwall in her accent. “I will come with you to the City of Glass and speak before the Council. And if I am acknowledged, then the Black Volume will be yours.”