فصل 12

Chapter 12

BY THE MOUNTAINS

Mark shoved his way through the Unseelie Court. He had been among these people before only for revels: the Court was not always in the same place, but moved around the Unseelie Lands. Mark could smell blood on the night air now as he darted among the close-packed gentry. He could smell panic and fear and hate. Their hate of Shadowhunters. The King was calling to the Court to be quiet, but the crowd was shouting for Emma to spill her father’s blood.

No one was guarding Kieran. He slumped on his knees, the weight of his body pulling against the thorned ropes that held him as if they were barbed wire. Blood oozed sluggishly around the lacerations on his wrists, neck, and ankles.

Mark pushed past the last of the courtiers. This close, he could see that Kieran wore something around his neck on a chain. An elf-bolt. Mark’s elf-bolt. Mark’s stomach tightened.

“Kieran.” He put his hand against the other boy’s cheek.

Kieran’s eyes fluttered open. His face was gray with pain and hopelessness, but his smile was gentle. “So many dreams,” he said. “Is this the end? Have you come to bear me to the Shining Lands? You could not have chosen a better face to wear.” Mark ran his hands along the ropes of thorns. They were tough. A seraph blade could have cut them, but seraph blades did not work here, leaving him only ordinary daggers. An idea sparked in Mark’s mind, and he reached up to gently unfasten the elf-bolt from Kieran’s throat.

“Whatever gods have done this,” Kieran whispered, “they are gracious to bring me the one my soul loves, in my last moments.” His head fell back against the tree, exposing the scarlet gashes around his throat where the thorns had cut in. “My Mark.” “Hush.” Mark spoke through a tightened throat. The elf-bolt was sharp, and he drew the blade of it against the ropes that bound Kieran’s throat and then his wrists. They fell away, and Kieran gave a gasp of pain relieved.

“It is true, as they say,” said Kieran. “The pain leaves you as you die.”

Mark slashed away the ropes binding Kieran’s ankles, and straightened up. “That is enough,” he said. “I am Mark, not an illusion. You are not dying, Kieran. You are living.” He took Kieran by the wrist and helped him to his feet. “You are escaping.” Kieran’s gaze seemed dazzled by moonlight. He reached for Mark and laid his hands on Mark’s shoulders. There was a moment where Mark could have drawn away, but he didn’t. He stepped toward Kieran just as Kieran did toward him, and he could smell blood and cut vines on Kieran, and they were kissing.

The curve of Kieran’s lips under his own was as familiar to Mark as the taste of sugar or the feel of sunlight. But there was no sugar or sunlight here, nothing bright or sweet, only the dark pressure of the Court all around them and the scent of blood. And still his body responded to Kieran’s, pressing the other boy up against the bark of the tree, gripping him, hands sliding on his skin, scars and fresh wounds under his fingertips.

Mark felt himself lifted up and out of his body, and he was in the Hunt again, hands gripped in Windspear’s mane, leaning low into the wind that tore his hair and seared his throat and carried away his laughter. Kieran’s arms were around him, the only warm thing in a cold world, and Kieran’s lips against his cheek.

Something sang by his ear. He jerked away from Kieran. Another object whistled by and he instinctively crowded Kieran against the tree.

Arrows. Each arrow tipped with flame, they ripped their way through the Court like deadly fireflies. One of the Unseelie princes was racing toward Mark and Kieran, raising a bow as he came.

They had been noticed after all, it seemed.

The grass in front of the Institute seemed to boil, a mass of sea demons and Centurions, whipping tentacles and slashing seraph blades. Kit half-threw himself down the stairs, almost knocking into Samantha, who, alongside her twin, was battling furiously with a grotesque gray creature covered with sucking red mouths.

“Look where you’re going!” she yelled, and then shrieked as a tentacle snaked around her chest. Kit whipped Adriel forward, severing the tentacle just above Samantha’s shoulder. The demon shrieked from all its mouths and vanished.

“Disgusting,” said Samantha, who was now covered in thick grayish demon-blood. She was frowning, which seemed ungrateful to Kit, but he hardly had time to worry about it; he was already turning to raise his sword against a spiny-looking creature with nubbly, stony skin like a starfish.

He thought of Ty on the beach with the starfish in his hand, smiling. It filled him with rage—he hadn’t realized before how much demons seemed like the beautiful things of the world had been warped and sickened and made revolting.

The blade came down. The demon shrieked and flinched back—and arms were suddenly around Kit, dragging him backward.

It was Diana. She was half-drenched in blood, some human and some demon. She seized hold of Kit’s arm, pulling him back toward the stairs, the Institute.

“I’m fine—I don’t need help—” he panted, wrenching at her grip.

She plucked Adriel out of his hand and threw it toward Diego, who caught the blade and spun to drive it into the thick body of a jellyfish demon, bringing his ax down with the other hand. It was very impressive, but Kit was too angry to care.

“I don’t need help!” he shouted again, as Diana hauled him up the steps. “I don’t need to be saved!” She spun him around to look at her. One of her sleeves was bloody, and there was a red mark on her throat where her necklace had been ripped away. But she was as imperious as always. “Maybe you don’t,” she said. “But the Blackthorns do, and you are going to help them.” Stunned, Kit stopped fighting. Diana let go of him and shouldered the doors of the Institute open, stalking inside; after one last glance back, he followed.

The moments after Julian seized Erec and put his knife to his throat were chaotic. Several of the faeries near the pavilion howled; the knights fell back, looking terrified. The Unseelie King was shouting.

Julian kept his mind focused: Hold your prisoner. Keep the knife to his throat. If he gets away, you have nothing. If you kill him too quickly, you have nothing. This is your advantage. Take it.

At a command from the King, the knights moved aside, forming a sort of tunnel for Julian to walk down, marching Erec ahead of him. The tunnel ended below the King’s throne. The King was standing at the edge of the pavilion, his white cloak snapping in the breeze.

Erec didn’t struggle, but when they reached the pavilion, he craned his head back to look up at his father. Julian could feel them lock eyes.

“You won’t cut my son’s throat,” said the Unseelie King, gazing down at Julian with a look of disdain. “You’re a Shadowhunter. You have a code of honor.” “You’re thinking of Shadowhunters the way they used to be,” said Julian. “I came of age in the Dark War. I was baptized in blood and fire.” “You are soft,” said the King, “gentle as angels are gentle.”

Julian settled the knife more firmly into the curve of Erec’s throat. The faerie prince smelled like fear and blood. “I killed my own father,” he said. “You think I won’t kill your son?” A look of surprise passed over the King’s face. Adaon spoke. “He is telling the truth,” he said. “Many were in the Hall of Accords during the war. It was witnessed. He is a ruthless one, that one.” The King frowned. “Adaon, be silent.” But he was clearly troubled. Shadows moved behind his eyes. “The price you would pay for spilling the blood of my family in my Court would be unspeakable,” he said to Julian. “Not just you would pay it. All the Clave would pay it.” “Then don’t make me,” Julian said. “Let us depart in peace. We will take Erec with us, for the distance of a mile, then let him go. No one is to follow us. If we sense we are being followed, we will kill him. I will kill him.” Erec cursed and spat. “Let him kill me, Father,” he said. “Let my blood begin the war we know is coming.” The King’s eyes rested for a moment on his son. He is the King’s favorite, Mark had said. But Julian couldn’t help but wonder if the King was more concerned about the war to come, controlling how and when it began, than he was about Erec’s fate.

“You think angels are gentle,” said Julian. “They are anything but. They bring justice in blood and heavenly fire. They take vengeance with fists and iron. Their glory is such it would burn out your eyes if you looked at them. It is a cold and brutal glory.” He met the King’s gaze: his angry eye, and his empty one. “Look at me, if you doubt what I say I will do,” said Julian. “Look at my eyes. Faeries see much, they say. Do you think I am someone who has anything to lose?” * * *

They were in the entryway: Ty, Livvy, Arthur, and the younger ones, Dru holding Tavvy in her arms.

They lit up when Diana and Kit came in, though Kit didn’t know if that was for him, or for her. Arthur was sitting on the stairs, silent and staring in his bloodstained bathrobe. He lunged to his feet at the sight of them, though he clung to the banister with one hand.

“We heard everything,” Livvy said. She was gray with shock, her hand in Ty’s. “Malcolm wants Blackthorn blood and he has an army of demons—” “When he says ‘Blackthorn blood,’ there isn’t any chance he just means, like, an ounce?” said Kit. “Maybe a pint?” Everyone glared at him except Ty. “I thought of that too,” Ty said, looking delightedly at Kit. “But spells are written in archaic language. ‘Blackthorn blood’ means a Blackthorn life.” “He isn’t getting what he wants,” said Diana. She shrugged off her blood-soaked jacket and threw it on the floor. “We need a Portal. Now.” She dug around for her phone in her jeans pocket, found it, and began to dial.

“But we can’t just disappear,” said Livvy. “Malcolm will release all those demons! People will be killed!” “You can’t bargain with Malcolm,” said Diana. “He lies. He could get the Blackthorn blood he wants and still release the demons. Getting you safe and then striking against him is the better bet.” “But—”

“She’s right,” said Kit. “Malcolm promised all sorts of things to my dad, including keeping him safe. In the end, it turned out he’d made sure that if anything happened to him, my father would die too.” “Catarina?” Diana turned aside, the phone pressed to her ear. “I need a favor. A big one.” “We’ll be seen as cowards,” said Dru unhappily. “Running away like this—”

“You are children,” said Arthur. “No one would expect you to stand and fight.” He went across the room to the window. No one moved to join him. The sounds coming from outside were enough. Tavvy had his face pressed against his sister’s shoulder.

“To London?” said Diana. “That’s fine. Thanks, Catarina.” She hung the phone up.

“London?” said Livvy. “Why London?”

“Why don’t we go to Idris?” said Dru. “Where Emma and Jules are.”

“Catarina can’t open up a Portal to Idris,” said Diana, not meeting Dru’s gaze. “But she has an arrangement with the London Institute.” “Then we should contact the Clave!” said Dru. She jumped back as the air in front of her began to shimmer.

“We need to get our things,” said Tavvy, looking at the growing shimmer with worry. It was spreading, a sort of pinwheel now of whirling colors and moving air. “We can’t go with nothing.” “We don’t have time for any of that,” said Diana. “And we don’t have time to contact the Clave. And there are Blackthorn houses in London, safe places, people you know—” “But why?” Livvy began. “If the Clave—”

“It’s entirely possible the Clave would prefer to trade one of you to Malcolm,” said Arthur. “Isn’t that what you mean, Diana?” Diana said nothing. The whirling pinwheel was resolving into a shape: the shape of a door, tall and broad, surrounded by glowing runes.

“As would the Centurions, at least some of them,” said Diana. “We are running from them, as much as from anyone else. They are already vanquishing the sea demons. There is little time.” “Diego would never—” Dru began indignantly.

“Diego isn’t in charge,” said Diana. The Portal had resolved into a steadily wavering door, which was open; through it, Kit could see a living room of sorts, with faded, flowered wallpaper. It seemed incongruous in the extreme. “Now, come—Drusilla, you first—” With a look of despairing anger, Drusilla crossed the room and stepped through the Portal, still holding Tavvy. Kit watched in stunned amazement as they spun away, vanishing.

Livvy moved toward the Portal next, hand in hand with Ty. She paused in front of it, the force of the magic that pulsed through it lifting her hair. “But we can’t leave this place to Zara and the Cohort,” she protested, turning toward Diana. “We can’t let them have it—” “Better than any of you dying,” Diana said. “Now, go.”

But it was Ty who hesitated. “Kit’s coming, right?”

Diana looked at Kit. He felt his throat hurt; he didn’t know why.

“I’m coming,” he said. He watched as Livvy and Ty stepped into the colorful void, watched as they vanished. Watched as Diana followed. Stepped up to the Portal himself, and paused there, looking at Arthur.

“Did you want to go first?” he said.

Arthur shook his head. There was an odd look on his face—odd even for Arthur. Though Arthur hadn’t been that odd tonight, Kit thought. It was as if the emergency had forced him to hold himself together in a way he normally couldn’t.

“Tell them,” he said, and the muscles in his face twitched. Behind him, the front door shook; someone was trying to open it. “Tell them—” “You’ll be able to tell them yourself, in a minute,” said Kit. He could feel the force of the Portal pulling at him. He even thought he could hear voices through it—Ty’s voice, Livvy’s. Yet he stood where he was.

“Is something going on?” he said.

Arthur moved toward the Portal. For a moment, Kit relaxed, thinking Arthur was going to step into it beside him. Instead he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Tell Julian thank you,” Arthur said, and shoved, hard.

Kit fell into the whirling, soundless nothingness.

The faerie prince let fly his arrow.

Kieran moved faster than Mark would have thought possible. He swung his body around, covering Mark’s. The arrow whistled through the air, singing like a deadly bird. Mark only had time to grab for Kieran to push him away when the arrow struck, burying itself in Kieran’s back just below his shoulder blade.

He slumped against Mark’s shoulder. With his free hand, Mark pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it; the prince fell, screaming, the blade in his thigh.

Mark began to drag Kieran from the clearing. The arrows had stopped, but fire was blooming from the banners with their mark of the broken crown. They had caught fire. The gentry faeries were screaming and milling, many breaking free to run.

Still holding Kieran, Mark vanished into the forest.

“Emma,” Cristina whispered. The clearing was thick with noise; laughter, hoots and jeers. In the distance she could see Julian with his knife to Erec’s throat; gasps rose up as he pushed his way toward the King’s pavilion, though the King, distracted by Emma, had not yet seen.

Emma was kneeling on the ground, gripping the arm of the wounded Faerie champion. She looked up and saw Cristina, and her eyes brightened.

“Help me with my dad,” Emma said. She was tugging at her father’s arm, trying to get it looped around her neck. He lay motionless, and for a moment Cristina feared he was dead.

He pulled away from Emma and lumbered to his feet. He was a slender man, tall, and the family resemblance was clear: He had Emma’s features, the shape of her eyes. His were blank, though, their blue dulled to milkiness.

“Let me go,” he said. “Bitch Nephilim girl. Let me go. This has gone far enough.” Cristina’s blood froze at his words. The King burst out into another round of laughter. Cristina caught at Emma, pulling her toward her. “Emma, you can’t believe everything you see here.” “This is my father,” said Emma. Cristina was holding her wrist; she could feel the pulse pounding in Emma’s veins. Emma held her free hand out. “Dad,” she said. “Please. Come with me.” “You are Nephilim,” said Emma’s father. Faintly, on his throat, the white scars of old Marks were visible. “If you touch me, I will drag you to the feet of my King, and he will have you killed.” The faeries all around them were giggling, uproarious, clutching at each other, and the thought that it was Emma’s horror and confusion that was making them chuckle sent spikes of murderous rage through Cristina’s veins.

It was one thing to study faeries. One thing to read about how their emotions were not like human emotions. How the Unseelie Court faeries were raised to find pleasure in the pain of others. To wrap you in a net of words and lies and watch smiling while you choked on their tricks.

It was another thing to see it.

There was a sudden commotion. The Unseelie King ran to the opposite edge of the pavilion; he was shouting orders, the knights in sudden disarray.

Julian, Cristina thought. And yes, she could see him, Julian holding Erec in front of him, at the foot of the King’s pavilion. He had deliberately drawn the King away from Emma and Cristina.

“It will be easy enough to decide this,” Cristina said. She took her balisong from her belt and held it out to the champion. “Take this,” she said.

“Cristina, what are you doing—?” Emma said.

“It is cold iron,” said Cristina. She took another two steps toward the champion. His face was changing even as she watched, less and less like Emma’s, more and more like something else—something grotesque living under the skin. “He’s a Shadowhunter. Cold iron shouldn’t bother him.” She moved closer—and the champion who had looked like John Carstairs changed completely. His face rippled and his body flexed and changed, his skin growing mottled and gray-green. His lips pushed outward as his eyes sprang horrifyingly wide and yellow, his hair receding to show a slick, lumpy pate.

Where Emma’s father had stood was a faerie knight with a squat body and the head of a toad. Emma stared, white-faced. Its wide mouth opened and it spoke in a croaking voice.

“At last, at last, free to slough the illusion of the disgusting Nephilim—” It didn’t finish its sentence. Emma had seized up Cortana and lunged forward, slamming the blade into the knight’s throat.

It made a wet, squelching sound. Pus-colored blood sprayed from its wide mouth; it staggered back, but Emma followed, twisting the hilt of the knife. The stench of blood and the sound of wetly tearing flesh almost made Cristina vomit.

“Emma!” Cristina shouted. “Emma!”

Emma drew the sword back and stabbed again, and again, until Cristina grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back. The faerie knight sank to the ground, dead.

Emma was shaking, spattered with foul blood. She swayed on her feet.

“Come on.” Cristina grabbed her friend’s arm, started to pull her away from the pavilion. Just then the air exploded with a rustling, singing sound. Arrows. They were tipped with fire, lighting the clearing with an eerie, moving glow. Cristina automatically ducked, only to hear a loud clang a few inches from her head. Emma had whipped Cortana to the side and an arrow had struck the blade, crumbling instantly into pieces.

Cristina picked up her pace. “We have to get out of here—”

A flaming arrow shot by them and struck a banner dangling from the King’s pavilion. The banner caught alight in crackling flames. It illuminated the princes running from the pavilion, dropping off the edges into shadow. The King still stood before his throne, though, staring down into emptiness. Where was Jules? Where had he and Erec gone?

As they neared the edge of the clearing, the faerie woman in the bone dress loomed up in front of them. Her eyes were fish-green, without pupils, shimmering like oil in the starlight. Cristina brought her foot down hard on the faerie woman’s; her screams were drowned in the Court’s howls as Cristina elbowed her aside. She crashed into the pavilion, small bones raining down from her gown like misshapen snow.

Emma’s hand was in Cristina’s. Her fingers felt like ice. Cristina tightened her grip. “Come on,” she said, and they plunged back into the trees.

Mark didn’t dare go far. Julian, Emma, and Cristina were still in the Court. He pulled Kieran behind a thick oak tree and drew him down to sit leaning against it.

“Are you all right? Are you in pain?” Mark demanded.

Kieran looked at him with clear exasperation. Before Mark could stop him, he reached back, grasped the arrow, and yanked it out. Blood came with it, a welter that soaked the back of his shirt.

“Christ, Kieran, what the hell—”

“What foreign gods do you call on now?” Kieran demanded. “I thought you said I wasn’t dying.” “You weren’t.” Mark pulled off his linen vest, wadding up the material to press it to Kieran’s back. “Except now I might kill you for being so stupid.” “Hunters heal fast,” said Kieran with a gasp. “Mark. It really is you.” His eyes were luminous. “I knew you would come for me.” Mark said nothing. He was concentrating on holding the cloth against Kieran’s wound, but a sense of anxiety pressed against the inside of his rib cage. He and Kieran had hardly ended things on good terms. Why would Kieran think Mark would come for him, when Mark very nearly hadn’t?

“Kier,” he said. He moved the vest away; Kieran was right about the healing. The blood had slowed to a sluggish trickle. Mark dropped the blood-wet linen and touched the side of Kieran’s face. It was furnace hot. “You’re burning up.” He reached up to sling the elf-bolt necklace back around Kieran’s throat, but the other boy stopped him.

“Why do I have your necklace?” he said, frowning. “It should be yours.”

“I gave it back to you,” Mark said.

Kieran gave a hoarse laugh. “I would remember that.” His eyes went wide then. “I don’t remember killing Iarlath,” he said. “I know that I did. They told me that much. And I believe it; he was a bastard. But I don’t remember it. I don’t remember anything after I saw you through the window of the Institute, in the kitchen, talking to that girl. Cristina.” Mark went cold all over. Automatically, he slung the elf-bolt necklace over his head, feeling it thump against his chest. Kieran didn’t remember?

That meant he didn’t remember betraying Mark, telling the Wild Hunt that Mark had shared faerie secrets with Nephilim. He didn’t remember the punishment, the whippings Julian and Emma had borne.

He didn’t remember that Mark had broken things off between them. Given him his necklace back.

No wonder he’d thought Mark would come for him.

“That girl Cristina is right here,” said a voice above them. Cristina had joined them in the shadows. She looked disheveled, though not nearly as much as Emma, who was splattered with faerie blood and bleeding from a long scratch on her cheek. Mark sprang up.

“What’s going on? Are either of you hurt?”

“I—I think we’re all right,” Emma said. She sounded bewildered and worryingly blank.

“Emma killed the King’s champion,” said Cristina, and then closed her mouth. Mark sensed there was more to it, but didn’t press.

Emma blinked, slowly focusing on Mark and Kieran. “Oh, it’s you,” she said to Kieran, sounding more like her old self. “Weasel Face. Committed any acts of monstrous personal betrayal lately?” Kieran looked stunned. People didn’t usually talk to Unseelie princes that way, and besides, Mark thought, Kieran no longer remembered why Emma might be angry with him or accuse him of betrayal. “You brought her here with you to rescue me?” he said to Mark.

“We all came to rescue you.” It was Julian, only partly visible behind Erec, who he was shoving ahead of him. Emma exhaled, an audible sound of relief. Julian looked over at her quickly, and they shared a glance. It was what Mark had always thought of as the parabatai glance: the quick once-over to make sure the other person was all right, that they were beside you, safe and living. Though now that he knew of Julian’s true feelings for Emma, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a layer more to what they shared.

Erec’s throat was bleeding where the dagger had likely slipped; he was glaring out from beneath black brows, his face contorted into a snarl.

“Blood traitor,” he said to Kieran. He spat past the knife. “Kin-slayer.”

“Iarlath was no kin of mine,” said Kieran, in an exhausted voice.

“He was more your kin than these monsters,” said Erec, glaring around at the Shadowhunters surrounding him. “Even now, you betray us for them.” “As you betrayed me to the King our father?” said Kieran. He was huddled among the tree roots, looking surprisingly small, but when he tipped his face back to look at Erec, his eyes were hard as gems. “You think I do not know who told the King I killed Iarlath? You think I do not know at whose feet I can lay the blame for my exile to the Hunt?” “Arrogant,” said Erec. “You have always been arrogant, whelp, thinking you belonged in the Court with the rest of us. I am the King’s favorite, not you. You earned no special place in his heart or the hearts of the Court.” “Yet they liked me better,” Kieran said quietly. “Before—”

“Enough,” Julian said. “The Court is on fire. Knights will be coming after us as soon as the chaos dies down. It’s madness to stay here and gossip.” “Important Court business is not gossip,” snarled Erec.

“It is to me.” Julian peered through the woods. “There must be a quick way out of here, toward Seelie Lands. Can you lead us?” Erec was silent.

“He can,” said Kieran, rising unsteadily to his feet. “He can’t lie and say it’s not possible; that’s why he’s not talking.” Emma raised an eyebrow at Kieran. “Weasel Face, you’re surprisingly helpful when you want to be.” “I wish you would not be so familiar,” Kieran said disapprovingly.

Erec made a grunting noise—Julian was digging the knife into his neck. There was a slight tremble to Julian’s hand, his grip on the blade. Mark imagined it must be a physical strain to keep Erec contained, but he suspected there was more to it than that. Julian did not have a torturer’s nature, for all that he could and would be ruthless in protecting those he loved.

“I will kill you if you don’t take us in the right direction,” he said now. “I will do it slowly.” “You promised my father—”

“I am not a faerie,” said Julian. “I can lie.”

Erec looked darkly furious, in a way that alarmed Mark. Faeries could hold grudges for a very long time. He began to walk, though, and the others followed him, leaving behind the orange light glowing from the clearing.

They headed into the dark fastness of the forest. The trees grew close together, and there were thick roots snaking up through the dark soil. Clusters of flowers in deep colors, blood-reds and poison-greens, clustered around the low boughs of the trees. They passed a giggling tree faerie who sat in the fork of a branch, naked except for an elaborate net of silvery wires, and winked at Mark as he went by. Kieran was leaning heavily against his shoulder; Mark kept a hand splayed in the small of Kieran’s back. Were the others puzzled or wondering what was going on between them? He saw Cristina glance back toward him, but couldn’t read her expression.

Emma and Cristina walked close together. Julian was in front, letting Erec guide them. Mark still felt uneasiness. It seemed as if they had gotten away too easily. For the King of the Unseelie Court to have let them go, and to have them take his favorite son . . .

“Where are the others?” Erec asked as the trees thinned out and the sky, multicolored in all its glory, became visible. “Your friends?” “Friends?” Mark said, in a puzzled tone.

“The archers,” said Erec. “Those flaming arrows in the Court—clever, I’ll grant you. We wondered how you would cope with weapons once we took your angel powers away.” “How did you do that?” Mark asked. “Did you unhallow all this land?”

“That wouldn’t make a difference,” said Emma. “Runes work even in demon realms. This is something stranger.” “And the blight,” said Mark. “What is the meaning of the blighted land? It is everywhere in the Unseelie Lands, like cancer in a sick body.” “As if I would speak of it,” snapped Erec. “And it is no use threatening me—it would be worth my life to tell you.” “Believe me, I’m tired of threatening you myself,” said Julian.

“Then let me go,” said Erec. “How long do you plan to keep me? Forever? For that is how long you’d have to use me for protection to keep my father and his knights from finding you and cutting your throats.” “I said I was tired of threatening you, not that I was going to stop doing it,” said Jules, tapping the knife blade. They’d come to the edge of the forest, where the trees ended and fields began. “Now, which way?” Erec set off into the field, and they followed. Kieran was leaning more heavily on Mark. His face was very pale in the moonlight. The stars picked out the blue and green in his hair—his mother had been an ocean faerie, and a little of the shimmering loveliness of water remained in the colors of Kieran’s hair and eyes.

Mark’s arm curved around him unconsciously. He was angry at Kieran, yes, but here in Faerie, under the brilliant polychromatic stars, it was hard not to remember the past, not to think of all the times he’d clung to Kieran for warmth and companionship. How it had been just them, and he had thought perhaps it always would be. How he’d thought himself lucky that someone like Kieran, a prince, and beautiful, would ever look at him.

Kieran’s whisper was a light caress against Mark’s neck. “Windspear.”

Windspear was Kieran’s horse, or had been. He had come with him from the Court when Kieran had joined the Hunt.

“What about him? Where is he?”

“With the Hunt,” said Kieran, and coughed, hard. “He was a gift from Adaon, when I was very young.” Mark had never before met Kieran’s half brothers, the dozens of princes by different mothers who vied for the Unseelie Throne. Adaon, he knew from Kieran’s tales, was one of the kinder ones. Erec was the opposite. He had been brutal to Kieran for most of his life. Kieran rarely spoke of him without anger.

“I thought I heard his hoofbeats,” Kieran said. “I hear them still.”

Mark listened. At first he heard nothing. His hearing was not as sharp as Kieran’s or any true faerie’s, at least not when his runes weren’t working. He had to strain his ears to finally hear the sound. It was hoofbeats, but not Windspear’s. Not any one horse’s. This was a thunder of hoofbeats, dozens of them, coming from the forest.

“Julian!” he cried.

There was no keeping the panic from his voice; Jules heard it and turned, fast, his grip on Erec loosening. Erec tore away, exploding into motion. He streaked across the field, his black cloak flying behind him, and plunged into the forest.

“And he was such awesome company, too,” Emma muttered. “All that ‘Nephilim, you will die in a welter of your own blood’ stuff was really refreshing.” She paused. She had heard the horses. “What’s that—?” Cortana seemed to fly into her hand. Julian was still holding his dagger; Cristina had reached for her balisong.

“The King’s cavalry,” said Kieran, with surprising calm. “You cannot fight them.” “We must run,” Mark said. “Now.”

No one argued. They ran.

They tore through the field, leaped a stone wall on the far side, Mark half-carrying Kieran over. The ground had begun to tremble by then with the force of distant hoofbeats. Julian was swearing, a low steady stream of curses. Mark guessed he didn’t get to swear all that much back at the Institute.

They were moving fast, but not fast enough, unless they could find more woods, some kind of cover. But nothing was visible in the distance, and looking up at the stars told Mark little. He was exhausted enough that they dizzied him. Half his strength felt as if it were going to Kieran: not just dragging him along but willing him upright.

They reached another wall, not high enough to stop faerie horses but high enough to be annoying. Emma leaped it; Julian sprang after her, his fingers lightly brushing the top of the wall as he sailed over.

Kieran shook his head. “I cannot do it,” he said.

“Kier—” Mark began angrily, but Kieran had his head down, like a beaten dog. His hair fell, sweat-tangled, into his face, and his shirt and the waist of his breeches were soaked in blood. “You’re bleeding again. I thought you said you were healing.” “I thought I was,” Kieran said softly. “Mark, leave me here—”

A hand touched Mark’s shoulder. Cristina. She had put her knife away. She looked at him levelly. “I’ll help you get him over the wall.” “Thanks,” Mark said. Kieran didn’t seem to even have the energy to look at her angrily. She scrambled to the wall’s top and reached her hands down; together she and Mark hauled Kieran up over the barrier. They jumped down, into the grass beside Emma and Julian, who were waiting, looking worried. Kieran landed beside them and collapsed to the ground.

“He can’t keep running,” said Mark.

Julian glanced over the wall. The hoofbeats were loud now, like thunder overhead. The leading edge of the Unseelie cavalry was in view, a dark and moving line. “He has to,” he said. “They’ll kill us.” “Leave me here,” said Kieran. “Let them kill me.”

Julian dropped to one knee. He put a hand under Kieran’s chin, forcing the prince’s face up so their eyes met. “You called me ruthless,” he said, his fingers pale against Kieran’s bloodied skin. “I have no pity for you, Kieran. You brought this on yourself. But if you think we came all the way here to save your life just to let you lie down and die, you’re more foolish than I thought.” His hand fell from Kieran’s face to his arm, hauling him upright. “Help me, Mark.” Together they lifted Kieran between them and started forward. It was a blindingly hard task. Panic and the strain of holding up Kieran threw off Mark’s hunting senses; they stumbled over rocks and roots, plunged into a thick copse of trees, its branches reaching down to tear at their skin and gear. Halfway through the copse, Kieran went limp. He had finally fainted.

“If he dies—” Mark began.

“He won’t die,” Julian said grimly.

“We could hide him here, come back to get him—”

“He’s not a spare pair of shoes. We can’t just leave him somewhere and expect him to be there when we get back,” Julian hissed.

“Would you two stop—” Emma began, and then broke off with a gasp. “Oh!”

They had burst out of the small patch of trees. In front of them rose a hill, green and smooth. They could climb it, but it would demand digging in with hands and feet, scrambling over the top. It would be impossible to do and keep Kieran with them.

Even Julian stopped dead. Kieran’s arm had been looped around Julian’s neck; now it swung free, dangling at his side. Mark had the distant horrible feeling he was already dead. He wanted to lay Kieran down in the grass, check for his heartbeat, hold him as a Hunter should be held in his last moments.

Instead he turned his head and looked behind them. Cristina had her eyes closed; she was holding her pendant, her mouth moving in silent prayer. Emma held Cortana the same way, her eyes watchful and glittering. She would defend them to the last, Kieran too; she would go down under the hooves of the dark cavalry.

And they were coming. Mark could see them, shadows between the trees. Horses like black smoke, blazing eyes like red coals, shod in silver and burning gold. Fire and blood gave them life: They were murderous, and brutal.

Mark thought he could see the King, riding at their head. His battle helmet was etched with a pattern of screaming faces. Its faceplate covered only that half of the King’s face that was human and beautiful, leaving the dead gray skin exposed. His single eye burned like red poison.

The sound of their coming was like the sound of a glacier breaking apart. Deafening, deadly. Mark wished suddenly that he could hear what Cristina was saying, the words of her quiet prayer. He watched her lips move. Angel, provide for us, bless us, save us.

“Mark.” Julian turned his head toward his brother, his blue-green eyes suddenly unguarded, as if he were about to say something he had been desperate to say for a long time. “If you—” The hill seemed to crack apart. A large square in the front of it peeled away from the rest and swung open like a door. Mark’s mouth fell open. He had heard of such things, hills with doors in the sides, but he had never seen one.

Light glowed from the opening. It seemed to be a corridor, winding into the heart of the hill. A young faerie woman with gently pointed ears, her pale hair bound back with ropes of flowers, stood in the entryway, holding a lamp. She reached out a hand toward them.

“Come,” she said, and her voice had the undeniable accent of the Seelie Court. “Come quickly, before they reach you, for the King’s riders are savage and they will not leave you alive.” “And you?” Julian said. “Do you mean us well?”

Only Julian would argue with providence, Mark thought. But then Julian trusted no one but his family. And sometimes, not even them.

The woman smiled. “I am Nene,” she said. “I will aid you and not harm you. But come, now, quickly.” Mark heard Cristina whisper a thank-you. Then they were all racing again, not daring to look behind them. One by one they leaped through the door and onto the packed earth inside. Mark and Julian came last, carrying Kieran. Mark caught one last glimpse of the dark riders behind them, and heard their screams of disappointed rage. Then the door slammed shut behind them, sealing up the hill.