Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

3

W

HERE

D

WELL THE

G

HOULS

Vicious traffic meant it took Julian and Kit an hour to get from Malibu to Old Pasadena. By the time they found parking, Julian had a pounding headache, not helped by the fact that Kit had barely said a word to him since they’d left the Institute.

Even so long after sunset, the sky in the west was touched with feather-strokes of crimson and black. The wind was blowing from the east, which meant that even in the middle of the city you could breathe in desert: sand and grit, cactus and coyotes, the burning scent of sage.

Kit leaped out of the car the minute Julian turned the engine off, as if he couldn’t stand spending another minute next to him. When they’d passed the freeway exit that went to the Rooks’ old house, Kit had asked if he could swing by to pick up some of his clothes. Julian had said no, it wasn’t safe, especially at night. Kit had looked at him as if Julian had driven a knife into his back.

Julian was used to pleading and sulks and protestations that someone hated you. He had four younger siblings. But there was a special artistry to Kit’s glaring. He really meant it.

Now, as Julian locked the car behind them, Kit made a snorting sound. “You look like a Shadowhunter.”

Julian glanced down at himself. Jeans, boots, a vintage blazer that had been a gift from Emma. Since glamour runes weren’t much use at the Market, he’d had to fall back on pulling down his sleeve to cover his Voyance rune and flipping up his collar to conceal the very edges of Marks that would otherwise have peeked out from his shirt.

“What?” he said. “You can’t see any Marks.”

“You don’t need to,” said Kit, in a bored voice. “You look like a cop. All of you always look like cops.”

Julian’s headache intensified. “And your suggestion?”

“Let me go in alone,” Kit said. “They know me, they trust me. They’ll answer my questions and sell me whatever I want.” He held out a hand. “I’ll need some money, of course.”

Julian looked at him in disbelief. “You didn’t really think that would work, did you?”

Kit shrugged and retracted his hand. “It could’ve worked.”

Julian started walking toward the alley that led to the entrance to the Shadow Market. He’d only been there once, years ago, but he remembered it well. Shadow Markets had sprung up in the aftermath of the Cold Peace, a way for Downworlders to do business away from the spotlight of the new Laws. “So, let me guess. Your plan was to take some money from me, pretend you were going to the Shadow Market, and hop a bus out of town?”

“Actually, my plan was to take some money from you, pretend I was going to the Shadow Market, and hop on the Metrolink,” said Kit. “They have trains that leave this city now. Major development, I know. You should try to keep track of these things.”

Julian wondered briefly what Jace would do if he strangled Kit. He considered voicing the thought aloud, but they’d reached the end of the alley, where a slight shimmer in the air was visible. He grabbed Kit by the arm, propelling them both through it at the same time.

They emerged on the other side into the heart of the Market. Light flared all around them, blotting out the stars overhead. Even the moon seemed a pale shell.

Julian was still gripping Kit’s arm, but Kit was making no move to run. He was looking around with a wistfulness that made him look young—sometimes it was hard for Julian to remember that Kit was the same age as Ty. His blue eyes—clear and sky-colored, without the green tinge that characterized the Blackthorns’ eyes—moved around the Market, taking it in.

Rows of booths were lit with torches whose fires blazed gold, blue, and poison green. Trellises of flowers richer and sweeter-smelling than white oleander or jacaranda blossoms cascaded down the sides of stalls. Beautiful faerie girls and boys danced to the music of reeds and pipes. Everywhere were voices clamoring for them to come buy, come buy. Weapons were on display, and jewelry, and vials of potions and powders.

“This way,” said Kit, pulling his arm out of Julian’s grip.

Julian followed. He could feel eyes on them, wondered if it was because Kit had been right: He looked like a cop, or the supernatural version, anyway. He was a Shadowhunter, had always been a Shadowhunter. You couldn’t shed your nature.

They had reached one of the Market’s edges, where the light was dimmer, and it was possible to see the white lines painted on the asphalt under them that revealed this place’s daytime job as a parking lot.

Kit moved toward the closest booth, where a faerie woman sat in front of a sign that advertised fortune-telling and love potions. She looked up with a beaming smile as he approached.

“Kit!” she exclaimed. She wore a scrap of a white dress that set off her pale blue skin, and her pointed ears poked through lavender hair. Thin chains of gold and silver dangled around her neck and dripped from her wrists. She glared at Julian. “What is he doing here?”

“The Nephilim is all right, Hyacinth,” Kit said. “I’ll vouch for him. He just wants to buy something.”

“Doesn’t everyone,” she murmured. She cast Julian a sly look. “You’re a pretty one,” she said. “Your eyes are almost the same color as me.”

Julian moved closer to the booth. It was at times like this he wished he was any good at flirting. He wasn’t. He had never in his life felt a flicker of desire for any girl who wasn’t Emma, so it was something he’d never learned to do.

“I’m seeking a potion to cure madness in a Shadowhunter,” he said. “Or at least to stop the symptoms for a while.”

“What kind of madness?”

“He was tormented in the Courts,” Julian said bluntly. “His mind was broken by the hallucinations and potions they forced on him.”

“A Shadowhunter with faerie-caused madness? Oh my,” she said, and there was skepticism in her tone. Julian began to explain about Uncle Arthur, without using his name: his situation and his condition. The fact that his lucid periods came and went. The fact that sometimes his moods made him bleak and cruel. That he recognized his family only part of the time. He described the potion Malcolm had made for Arthur, back when they trusted Malcolm and thought he was their friend.

Not that he mentioned Malcolm by name.

The faerie woman shook her head when he was done. “You should ask a warlock,” she said. “They will deal with Shadowhunters. I will not. I have no desire to run afoul of the Courts or the Clave.”

“No one needs to know about it,” said Julian. “I’ll pay you well.”

“Child.” There was an edge of pity in her voice. “You think you can keep secrets from all of Downworld? You think the Market hasn’t been buzzing with the news of the fall of the Guardian and the death of Johnny Rook? The fact that we now no longer have a High Warlock? The disappearance of Anselm Nightshade—though he was a terrible man—” She shook her head. “You should never have come here,” she said. “It’s not safe for either of you.”

Kit looked bewildered. “You mean him,” he said, indicating Julian with a tilt of his head. “It’s not safe for him.”

“Not for you, either, baby boy,” said a gravelly voice behind them.

They both turned. A short man stood in front of them. He was pale, with a flat, sickly cast to his skin. He wore a three-piece gray wool suit, which must have been boiling in the warm weather. His hair and beard were dark and neatly clipped.

“Barnabas,” said Kit, blinking. Julian noticed Hyacinth shrinking slightly in her booth. A small crowd had gathered behind Barnabas.

The short man stepped forward. “Barnabas Hale,” he said, holding out a hand. The moment his fingers closed around Julian’s, Julian felt his muscles tighten. Only Ty’s affinity for lizards and snakes, and the fact that Julian had had to carry them out of the Institute and dump them back in the grass more than once, kept him from pulling his hand away.

Barnabas’s skin wasn’t pale: It was a mesh of overlapping whitish scales. His eyes were yellow, and they looked with amusement on Julian, as if expecting him to jerk his hand away. The scales against Julian’s skin were like smooth, cold pebbles; they weren’t slimy, but they felt as if they ought to be. Julian held the grip for several long moments before lowering his arm.

“You’re a warlock,” he said.

“Never claimed anything different,” said Barnabas. “And you’re a Shadowhunter.”

Julian sighed and pulled his sleeve back into place. “I suppose there wasn’t much point in trying to disguise it.”

“None at all,” said Barnabas. “Most of us can recognize a Nephilim on sight, and besides, young Mr. Rook has been the talk of the town.” He turned his slit-pupilled eyes on Kit. “Sorry to hear about your father.”

Kit acknowledged this with a slight nod. “Barnabas owns the Shadow Market. At least, he owns the land the Market’s on, and he collects the rent for the stalls.”

“That’s true,” said Barnabas. “So you’ll understand I’m serious when I ask you both to leave.”

“We’re not causing any trouble,” said Julian. “We came here to do business.”

“Nephilim don’t ‘do business’ at Shadow Markets,” said Barnabas.

“I think you’ll find they do,” said Julian. “A friend of mine bought some arrows here not that long ago. They turned out to be poisoned. Any ideas about that?”

Barnabas jabbed a squat finger at him. “That’s what I mean,” he said. “You can’t turn it off, even if you want to, this thinking you get to ask the questions and make the rules.”

“They do make the rules,” said Kit.

“Kit,” said Julian out of the side of his mouth. “Not helping.”

“A friend of mine disappeared the other day,” said Barnabas. “Malcolm Fade. Any ideas about that?”

There was a low buzz in the crowd behind him. Julian opened and closed his hands at his sides. If he’d been here alone, he wouldn’t have been worried—he could have gotten himself out of the crowd easily enough, and back to the car. But with Kit to protect, it would be harder.

“See?” Barnabas demanded. “For every secret you think you know, we know another. I know what happened to Malcolm.”

“Do you know what he did?” Julian asked, carefully controlling his voice. Malcolm had been a murderer, a mass murderer. He’d killed Downworlders as well as mundanes. Surely the Blackthorns couldn’t be blamed for his death. “Do you know why it happened?”

“I see only another Downworlder, dead at the hands of Nephilim. And Anselm Nightshade, too, imprisoned for a bit of simple magic. What next?” He spat on the ground at his feet. “There might have been a time I tolerated Shadowhunters in the Market. Was willing to take their money. But that time is over.” The warlock’s gaze skittered to Kit. “Go,” he said. “And take your Nephilim friend with you.”

“He’s not my friend,” said Kit. “And I’m not like them, I’m like you—”

Barnabas was shaking his head. Hyacinth watched, her blue hands steepled under her chin, her eyes wide.

“A dark time is coming for Shadowhunters,” said Barnabas. “A terrible time. Their power will be crushed, their might thrown down into the dirt, and their blood will run like water through the riverbeds of the world.”

“That’s enough,” Julian said sharply. “Stop trying to frighten him.”

“You will pay for the Cold Peace,” said the warlock. “The darkness is coming, and you would be well advised, Christopher Herondale, to stay far away from Institutes and Shadowhunters. Hide as your father did, and his father before him. Only then can you be safe.”

“How do you know who I am?” Kit demanded. “How do you know my real name?”

It was the first time Julian had heard him admit that Herondale was his real name.

“Everyone knows,” said Barnabas. “It’s all the Market has been buzzing about for days. Didn’t you see everyone staring at you when you came in?”

So they hadn’t been looking at Julian. Or at least not just at Julian. It wasn’t much comfort, though, Jules thought, not when Kit had that expression on his face.

“I thought I could come back here,” Kit said. “Take over my father’s stall. Work in the Market.”

A forked tongue flickered out between Barnabas’s lips. “Born a Shadowhunter, always a Shadowhunter,” he said. “You cannot wash the taint from your blood. I’m telling you for the last time, boy—leave the Market. And don’t come back.”

Kit backed up, looking around him—seeing, as if for the first time, the faces turned toward him, most blank and unfriendly, many avidly curious.

“Kit—” Julian began, reaching out a hand.

But Kit had bolted.

It took Julian only a few moments to catch up with Kit—the boy hadn’t really been trying to run; he’d just been pushing blindly through the crowds, with no destination. He’d fetched up in front of a massive stall that seemed to be in the middle of being torn apart.

It was just a bare latticework of boards now. It looked as if someone had ripped it to pieces with their hands. Jagged bits of wood lay scattered around on the blacktop. A sign dangled crookedly from the top of the stall, printed with the words PART SUPERNATURAL? YOU’RE NOT ALONE. THE FOLLOWERS OF THE GUARDIAN WANT YOU TO SIGN UP FOR THE LOTTERY OF FAVOR! LET LUCK INTO YOUR LIFE!

“The Guardian,” Kit said. “That was Malcolm Fade?”

Julian nodded.

“He was the one who got my father involved in all that stuff with the Followers and the Midnight Theater,” said Kit, his tone almost thoughtful. “It’s Malcolm’s fault he died.”

Julian didn’t say anything. Johnny Rook hadn’t been much of a prize, but he was Kit’s father. You only got one father. And Kit wasn’t wrong.

Kit moved then, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the sign. It clattered to the ground. In the moment before Kit pulled his hand back, wincing, Julian saw a flash of the Shadowhunter in him. If the warlock wasn’t already dead, Julian believed sincerely that Kit would have killed Malcolm.

A small crowd had followed from Hyacinth’s stall, staring. Julian put a hand on Kit’s back, and Kit didn’t move to shake him off.

“Let’s go,” Julian said.

* * *

Emma showered carefully—the downside of having your hair long when you were a Shadowhunter was never knowing after a fight if there was ichor in it. Once the back of her neck had been green for a week.

When she came out into her bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a tank top and rubbing her hair dry with a green towel, she found Mark curled up at the foot of her bed, reading a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

He was wearing a pair of cotton pajama bottoms that Emma had bought for three dollars from a vendor on the side of the PCH. He was partial to them as being oddly close in their loose, light material to the sort of trousers he’d worn in Faerie. If it bothered him that they also had a pattern of green shamrocks embroidered with the words GET LUCKY on them, he didn’t show it. He sat up when Emma came in, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and smiled at her.

Mark had a smile that could break your heart. It seemed to take up his whole face and brighten his eyes, firing the blue and gold from inside.

“A strange evening, forsooth,” he said.

“Don’t you forsooth me.” She flopped down on the bed next to him. He wouldn’t sleep on the bed, but he didn’t seem to mind using the mattress as a sort of giant sofa. He set his book down and leaned back against the footboard. “You know my rules about forsoothing in my room. Also the use of the words ‘howbeit,’ ‘welladay,’ and ‘alack.’ ”

“What about ‘zounds’?”

“The punishment for ‘zounds’ is severe,” she told him. “You’ll have to run naked into the ocean in front of the Centurions.”

Mark looked puzzled. “And then?”

She sighed. “Sorry, I forgot. Most of us mind being naked in front of strangers. Take my word for it.”

“Really? You’ve never swum naked in the ocean?”

“That’s kind of a different question, but no, I never have.” She leaned back beside him.

“We should one day,” he said. “All of us.”

“I can’t imagine Perfect Diego ripping off all his clothes and leaping into the water in front of us. Maybe just in front of Cristina. Maybe.”

Mark clambered off the bed and onto the pile of blankets she’d put on the floor for him. “I doubt it. I bet he swims with all his clothes on. Otherwise he’d have to take off his Centurion pin.”

She laughed and he gave her an answering smile, though he looked tired. She sympathized. It wasn’t the normal activities of Shadowhunting that were tiring her out. It was the pretense. Perhaps it made sense that she and Mark could only unwind at night around each other, since there was no one, then, to pretend for.

They were the only times she had relaxed since the day Jem had told her about the parabatai curse, how parabatai who fell in love would go insane and destroy themselves and everyone they loved.

She’d known immediately: She couldn’t let that happen. Not to Julian. Not to his family, who she loved too. She couldn’t have stopped herself loving Julian. It was impossible. So she had to make Julian not love her.

Julian had given her the key himself, only days before. Words, whispered against her skin in a rare moment of vulnerability: He was jealous of Mark. Jealous that Mark could talk to her, flirt with her, easily, while Julian always had to hide what he felt.

Mark was leaning against the footboard beside her now, his eyes half-closed. Crescents of color under his lids, his eyelashes a shade darker than his hair. She remembered asking him to come to her room. I need you to pretend with me that we’re dating. That we’re falling in love.

He’d held out his hand to her, and she’d seen the storm in his eyes. The fierceness that reminded her that Faerie was more than green grass and revels. That it was callous wild cruelty, tears and blood, lightning that slashed the night sky like a knife.

Why lie? he’d asked.

She’d thought for a moment he’d been asking her, Why do you want to tell this lie? But he hadn’t been. He’d been asking, Why lie when we can make it the truth, this thing between us?

She’d stood before him, aching all the way down to the floor of her soul, in all the places where she’d ripped Julian away from her as if she’d torn off a limb.

They said that men joined the Wild Hunt sometimes when they had sustained a great loss, preferring to howl out their grief to the skies than to suffer in silence in their ordinary gray lives. She remembered soaring through the sky with Mark, his arms around her waist: She had let the wind take her screams of excitement, thrilling to the freedom of the sky where there was no pain, no worry, only forgetfulness.

And here was Mark, beautiful in that way that the night sky was beautiful, offering her that same freedom with an outstretched hand. What if I could love Mark? she thought. What if I could make this lie true?

Then it would be no lie. If she could love Mark, it would end all the danger. Julian would be safe.

She had nodded. Reached her hand out to Mark’s.

She let herself remember that night in her room, the look in his eyes when he’d asked her, Why lie? She remembered his warm clasp, his fingers circling her wrist. How they had nearly stumbled in their haste to get nearer to each other, colliding almost awkwardly, as if they’d been dancing and had missed a step. She had clasped Mark by the shoulders and stretched up to kiss him.

He was wiry from the Hunt, not as muscled as Julian, the bones of his clavicle and shoulders sharp under her hands. But his skin was smooth where she pushed her hands down the neck of his shirt, stroking the top of his spine. And his mouth was warm on hers.

He tasted bittersweet and felt hot, as if he had a fever. She instinctively moved closer to him; she hadn’t realized she was shivering, but she was. His mouth opened over hers; he explored her lips with his, sending slow waves of heat through her body. He kissed the corner of her mouth, brushed his lips against her jaw, her cheek.

He drew back. “Em,” he said, looking puzzled. “You taste of salt.”

She drew her right hand back from its clasp around his neck. Touched her face. It was wet. She’d been crying.

He frowned. “I don’t understand. You want the world to believe we are a couple, and yet you are weeping as if I have hurt you. Have I hurt you? Julian will never forgive me.”

The mention of Julian’s name almost undid her. She sank down at the foot of her bed, gripping her knees. “Julian has so much to cope with,” she said. “I can’t have him worrying about me. About my relationship with Cameron.”

Silently, she apologized to Cameron Ashdown, who really hadn’t done anything wrong.

“It’s not a good relationship,” she said. “Not healthy. But every time it ends, I fall back into it again. I need to break that pattern. And I need Julian not to be anxious about it. There’s already too much—the Clave will be investigating the fallout from Malcolm’s death, our involvement with the Court—”

“Hush,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I understand.”

He reached up and pulled the blanket down from her bed. Emma watched him in surprise as he wrapped it around the two of them, tucking it around both their shoulders.

She thought of the Wild Hunt then, the way he must have been with Kieran, huddling in shelters, wrapping themselves in their cloaks to block the cold.

He traced the line of her cheekbone with his fingers, but it was a friendly gesture. The heat that had been in their kiss was gone. And Emma was glad. It had seemed wrong to feel that, even the shadow of it, with anyone but Julian. “Those who are not faeries find comfort in lies,” he said. “I cannot judge that. I will do this with you, Emma. I will not abandon you.”

She leaned against his shoulder. Relief made her feel light.

“You must tell Cristina, though,” he added. “She is your best friend; you cannot hide so much from her.”

Emma nodded. She had always planned to tell Cristina. Cristina was the only one who knew about her feelings for Julian, and she would never for a moment believe that Emma had suddenly fallen in love with Mark instead. She would have to be told for practicality’s sake, and Emma was glad.

“I can trust her completely,” she said. “Now—tell me about the Wild Hunt.”

He began to speak, weaving a story of a life lived in the clouds and in the deserted and lost places of the world. Hollow cities at the bottom of copper canyons. The shell of Oradour-sur-Glane, where he and Kieran had slept in a half-burned hayloft. Sand and the smell of the ocean in Cyprus, in an empty resort town where trees grew through the floors of abandoned grand hotels.

Slowly Emma drifted off to sleep, with Mark holding her and whispering stories. Somewhat to her surprise, he’d come back the next night—it would help make their relationship seem convincing, he’d said, but she’d seen in his eyes that he’d liked the company, just as she had.

And so they’d spent every night since then together, sprawled in the covers piled on the floor, trading stories; Emma spoke of the Dark War, of how she felt lost sometimes now that she was no longer searching for the person who’d killed her parents, and Mark talked about his brothers and sisters, about how he and Ty had argued and he worried he’d made his younger brother feel as if he wasn’t there to be relied on, as if he might leave at any minute.

“Just tell him you might leave, but you’ll always come back to him,” Emma said. “Tell him you’re sorry if you ever made him feel any different.”

He only nodded. He never told her if he’d taken her advice, but she’d taken his and told Cristina everything. It had been a huge relief, and she’d cried in Cristina’s arms for several hours. She’d even gotten Julian’s permission to tell Cristina an abbreviated version of the situation with Arthur—enough to make it clear how badly Julian was needed here at the Institute, with his family. She’d asked Julian’s permission to share that information; an extremely awkward conversation, but he’d almost seemed relieved that someone else would know.

She’d wanted to ask him if he’d tell the rest of the family the truth about Arthur soon. But she couldn’t. Walls had gone up around Julian that seemed as impenetrable as the thorns around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. She wondered if Mark had noticed, if any of the others had noticed, or if only she could see it.

She turned to look at Mark now. He was asleep on the floor, his cheek pillowed on his hand. She slid off the bed, settling among the blankets and pillows, and curled up next to him.

Mark slept better when he was with her—he’d said so, and she believed it. He’d been eating better too, putting on muscle fast, his scars fading, color back in his cheeks. She was glad. She might feel like she was dying inside every day, but that was her problem—she’d handle it. No one owed her help, and in a way she welcomed the pain. It meant Julian wasn’t suffering alone, even if he believed he was.

And if she could help Mark at all, then that was something. She loved him, the way she should love Julian: Uncle Arthur would have called it philia, friendship love. And though she could never tell Julian about the way she and Mark were helping each other, it was at least something she felt she could do for him: make his brother happier.

Even if he’d never know.

A knock on the door yanked her out of her reverie. She started up; the room was dim, but she could make out bright red hair, Clary’s curious face peering around the door’s edge. “Emma? Are you awake? Are you on the floor?”

Emma peered down at Mark. He was definitely asleep, huddled in blankets, out of Clary’s view. She held up two fingers to Clary, who nodded and shut the door; two minutes later Emma was out in the hallway, zipping up a hoodie.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Clary said. She was still so small, Emma thought, it was sometimes hard to remember that she was in her twenties. Her hair was caught back in braids, making her seem even younger.

“On the roof,” Emma decided. “I’ll show you.”

She led Clary up the stairs, to the ladder and trapdoor, and then out to the dark expanse of roof. She hadn’t been there herself since the night she’d come up with Mark. It seemed like years ago, though she knew it was only weeks.

The day’s heat had left the black, shingled roof sticky and hot. But the night was a cool one—desert nights always were, the temperature dropping like a rock as soon as the sun set—and the breeze off the ocean ruffled Emma’s damp hair.

She crossed the roof, with Clary following, to her favorite spot: a clear view of the ocean below, the highway folded into the hill below the Institute, mountains rising behind in shadowy peaks.

Emma sat down on the roof’s edge, knees drawn up, letting the desert air caress her skin, her hair. The moonlight silvered her scars, especially the thick one along the inside of her right forearm. She had gotten it in Idris, when she’d woken up there screaming for her parents, and Julian, knowing what she needed, had put Cortana into her arms.

Clary settled herself lightly beside Emma, her head cocked as if she were listening to the breathing roar of the ocean, its soft push-pull. “Well, you’ve definitely got the New York Institute beat in terms of views. All I can see from the roof there is Brooklyn.” She turned toward Emma. “Jem Carstairs and Tessa Gray send their regards.”

“Are they the ones who told you about Kit?” Emma asked. Jem was a very distant, very old relative of Emma’s—though he looked twenty-five, he was more like a hundred and twenty-five. Tessa was his wife, a powerful warlock in her own right. They had uncovered the existence of Kit and his father, just in time for Johnny Rook to be slaughtered by demons.

Clary nodded. “They’re off on a mission—they wouldn’t even tell me what they were looking for.”

“I thought they were looking for the Black Volume?”

“Could be. I know they were headed for the Spiral Labyrinth first.” Clary leaned back on her hands. “I know Jem wishes he was around for you. Someone you could talk to. I told him you could always talk to me, but you haven’t called since the night after Malcolm died—”

“He didn’t die. I killed him,” Emma interrupted. She kept having to remind herself that she had killed Malcolm, shoved Cortana through his guts, because it seemed so unlikely. And it hurt, the way brushing up suddenly against barbed wire hurt: a surprising pain out of nowhere. Though he had deserved it, it hurt nonetheless.

“I shouldn’t feel bad, right?” Emma said. “He was a terrible person. I had to do it.”

“Yes, and yes,” said Clary. “But that doesn’t always fix things.” She reached out and put her finger under Emma’s chin, turning Emma’s face toward her. “Look, if anyone’s going to understand about this, I will. I killed Sebastian. My brother. I put a knife in him.” For a moment Clary looked much younger than she was; for a moment, she looked Emma’s age. “I still think about it, dream about it. There was good in him—not much, just a tiny bit, but it haunts me. That tiny potential I destroyed.”

“He was a monster,” Emma said, horrified. “A murderer, worse than Valentine, worse than anyone. You had to kill him. If you hadn’t, he would have literally destroyed the world.”

“I know.” Clary lowered her hand. “There was never anything like a chance of redemption for Sebastian. But it doesn’t stop the dreams, does it? In my dreams, I still sometimes see the brother I might have had, in some other world. The one with green eyes. And you might see the friend you thought you had in Malcolm. When people die, our dreams of what they could be die with them. Even if ours is the hand that ends them.”

“I thought I would be happy,” Emma said. “For all these years, all I’ve wanted was revenge. Revenge against whoever killed my parents. Now I know what happened to them, and I’ve killed Malcolm. But what I feel is . . . empty.”

“I felt the same way, after the Dark War,” Clary said. “I’d spent so much time running and fighting and desperate. And then things were ordinary. I didn’t trust it. We get used to living one way, even if it’s a bad way or a hard one. When that’s gone, there’s a hole to fill. It’s in our nature to try to fill it with anxieties and fears. It can take time to fill it with good things instead.”

For a moment, Emma saw through Clary’s expression into the past, remembering the girl who’d chased her into a small room in the Gard, refused to leave her alone and grieving, who’d told her, Heroes aren’t always the ones who win. They’re the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don’t give up.

That’s what makes them heroes.

They were words that had carried Emma through some of the worst times of her life.

“Clary,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Nightshade,” Emma said. “The vampire, you know—”

Clary looked surprised. “The head vampire of L.A.? The one you guys discovered was using dark magic?”

“It was true, right? He really was using illegal magic?”

Clary nodded. “Yes, of course. Everything in his restaurant was tested. He certainly was. He wouldn’t be in prison now if he hadn’t been!” She put a hand lightly atop Emma’s. “I know the Clave sucks sometimes,” she said. “But there are a lot of people in it who try to be fair. Anselm really was a bad guy.”

Emma nodded, wordless. It wasn’t Anselm she’d been doubting, after all.

It was Julian.

Clary’s mouth curved into a smile. “All right, enough of the boring stuff,” she said. “Tell me something fun. You haven’t talked about your love life in ages. Are you still dating that Cameron Ashdown guy?”

Emma shook her head. “I’m—I’m dating Mark.”

“Mark?” Clary looked as if Emma had handed her a two-headed lizard. “Mark Blackthorn?”

“No, a different Mark. Yes, Mark Blackthorn.” A touch of defensiveness crept into Emma’s voice. “Why not?”

“I just—I never would have pictured you together.” Clary looked legitimately stunned.

“Well, who did you picture me with? Cameron?”

“No, not him.” Clary pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. “That’s just the thing,” she said. “I—I mean, who I pictured you with, it doesn’t make any sense.” She met Emma’s confused look with a lowering of her eyes. “I guess it was nothing. If you’re happy with Mark, I’m happy for you.”

“Clary, what are you not telling me?”

There was a long silence. Clary looked out toward the dark water. Finally she spoke. “Jace asked me to marry him.”

“Oh!” Emma had already begun opening her arms to hug the other girl when she caught sight of Clary’s expression. She froze. “What’s wrong?”

“I said no.”

“You said no?” Emma dropped her arms. “But you’re here—together—are you not still . . . ?”

Clary rose to her feet. She stood at the roof’s edge, looking out toward the sea. “We’re still together,” she said. “I told Jace I needed more time to think about it. I’m sure he thinks I’m out of my mind, or—well, I don’t know what he thinks.”

“Do you?” Emma asked. “Need more time?”

“To decide if I want to marry Jace? No.” Clary’s voice was tense with an emotion Emma couldn’t decipher. “No. I know the answer. Of course I want to. There’s never going to be anyone else for me. That’s just how it is.”

Something in the matter-of-factness of her voice sent a slight shiver through Emma. There’s never going to be anyone else for me. There was a recognition of kinship in that shiver, and a bit of fear, too. “Then why did you say it?”

“I used to have dreams,” Clary said. She was staring out at the path the moon left across the dark water, like a slash of white bisecting a black canvas. “When I was your age. Dreams of things that were going to happen, dreams of angels and prophecies. After the Dark War was over, they stopped. I thought they wouldn’t start again, but just these past six months, they have.”

Emma felt a bit lost. “Dreams?”

“They’re not as clear as they used to be. But there’s a sense—a knowing something awful is coming. Like a wall of darkness and blood. A shadow that spreads out over the world and blots out everything.” She swallowed. “There’s more, though. Not so much an image of something happening, but a knowledge.”

Emma stood up. She wanted to put a hand on Clary’s shoulder, but something held her back. This wasn’t Clary, the girl who’d comforted her when her parents had died. This was Clary who’d gone into the demon realm of Edom and killed Sebastian Morgenstern. Clary who’d faced down Raziel. “A knowledge of what?”

“That I’m going to die,” Clary said. “Not a long time from now. Soon.”

“Is this about your mission? Do you think something’s going to happen to you?”

“No—no, nothing like that,” Clary said. “It’s hard to explain. It’s a knowledge that it will happen, but not exactly when, or how.”

“Everyone’s afraid of dying,” Emma said.

“Everyone isn’t,” said Clary, “and I’m not, but I am afraid of leaving Jace. I’m afraid of what it would do to him. And I think being married would make it worse. It alters things, being married. It’s a promise to stay with someone else. But I couldn’t promise to stay for very long—” She looked down. “I realize it sounds ridiculous. But I know what I know.”

There was a long silence. The sound of the ocean rushed under the quiet between them, and the sound of the wind in the desert. “Have you told him?” Emma asked.

“I haven’t told anyone but you.” Clary turned and looked at Emma anxiously. “I’m asking you for a favor. A huge one.” She took a deep breath. “If I do die, I want you to tell them—Jace and the others—that I knew. I knew I was going to die and I wasn’t scared. And tell Jace this is why I said no.”

“I—but why me?”

“There isn’t anyone else I know I could tell this to without them freaking out or thinking I was having a breakdown and needed a therapist—well, in Simon’s case, that’s what he’d say.” Clary’s eyes were suspiciously bright as she said her parabatai’s name. “And I trust you, Emma.”

“I’ll do it,” Emma said. “And of course you can trust me, I won’t tell anyone, but—”

“I didn’t mean I trusted you to keep it a secret,” Clary said. “Though I do. In my dreams, I see you with Cortana in your hand.” She stretched upward, nearly on her tiptoes, and kissed Emma on the forehead. It was almost a motherly gesture. “I trust you to always keep fighting, Emma. I trust you not to ever give up.”

* * *

It wasn’t until they got back into the car that Kit noticed that his knuckles were bleeding. He hadn’t felt the pain when he punched the sign, but he felt it now.

Julian, about to start the car, hesitated. “I could heal you,” he said. “With an iratze.”

“A what now?”

“A healing rune,” said Julian. “It’s one of the gentlest. So it would make sense if it was your first.”

A thousand snide remarks ran through Kit’s head, but he was too tired to make them. “Don’t poke me with any of your weird little magic wands,” he said. “I just want to go”—he almost said home, but stopped himself—“back.”

As they drove, Kit was silent, looking out the window. The freeway was nearly empty, and stretched ahead of them, gray and deserted. Signs for Crenshaw and Fairfax flashed by. This wasn’t the beautiful Los Angeles of mountains and beaches, green lawns and mansions. This was the L.A. of cracked pavement and struggling trees and skies leaden with smog.

It had always been Kit’s home, but he felt detached as he looked at it now. As if already the Shadowhunters were pulling him away from everything he knew, into their weird orbit. “So what happens to me?” he said suddenly, breaking the silence.

“What?” Julian frowned at the traffic in the rearview mirror. Kit could see his eyes, the blue-green of them. It was almost a shocking color, and all the Blackthorns seemed to have it—well, Mark had one—except for Ty.

“So Jace is my actual family,” Kit said. “But I can’t go live with him, because him and his hot girlfriend are going off on some sort of secret mission.”

“Guess you Herondales have a type,” Julian muttered.

“What?”

“Her name’s Clary. But basically, yes. He can’t take you in right now, so we’ll do it. It’s not a problem. Shadowhunters take in Shadowhunters. It’s what we do.”

“You really think that’s such a good idea?” Kit said. “I mean, your house is pretty screwed up, what with your agoraphobic uncle and your weird brother.”

Julian’s hands tightened on the wheel, but the only thing he said was, “Ty isn’t weird.”

“I meant Mark,” said Kit. There was an odd pause. “Ty isn’t weird,” Kit added. “He’s just autistic.”

The pause stretched out longer. Kit wondered if he’d offended Julian somehow. “It’s not a big deal,” he said finally. “Back when I went to mundane school, I knew some kids who were on the spectrum. Ty has some things in common with them.”

“What spectrum?” Julian said.

Kit looked at him in surprise. “You really don’t know what I mean?”

Julian shook his head. “You may not have noticed this, but we don’t involve ourselves much with mundane culture.”

“It’s not mundane culture. It’s—” Neurobiology. Science. Medicine. “Don’t you have X-rays? Antibiotics?”

“No,” Julian said. “For minor stuff, like headaches, healing runes work. For major things, the Silent Brothers are our doctors. Mundane medicine is strictly forbidden. But if there’s something you think I should know about Ty . . .”

Kit wanted to hate Julian sometimes. He really did. Julian seemed to love rules; he was unbending, annoyingly calm, and as emotionless as everyone had always said Shadowhunters were. Except he wasn’t, really. The love that was audible in his voice when he said his brother’s name put the lie to that.

Kit felt a sudden tightness through his body. Talking to Jace earlier had eased some of the anxiety he’d felt ever since his father had died. Jace had made everything seem like maybe it would be easy. That they were still in a world where you could give things chances and see how they worked out.

Now, staring at the gray freeway ahead of him, he wondered how he could possibly have thought he could live in a world where everything he knew was considered wrong knowledge to have, where every one of his values—such as they were, having grown up with a father who was nicknamed Rook the Crook—was turned upside down.

Where associating with the people his blood said he belonged to meant that the people he’d grown up with would hate him.

“Never mind,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything about Ty. Just meaningless mundane stuff.”

“I’m sorry, Kit,” Julian said. They’d made it to the coast highway now. The water stretched away in the distance, the moon high and round, casting a perfect white path down the center of the sea. “About what happened at the Market.”

“They hate me now,” Kit said. “Everyone I used to know.”

“No,” said Julian. “They’re afraid of you. There’s a difference.”

Maybe there was, Kit thought. But right now, he wasn’t sure if it mattered.