فصل 14

Chapter 14

THROUGH DARKENED GLASS

The Queen was silent as she walked, and Julian, barefoot, hurried to keep up with her. She moved purposefully down the long corridors of the Court.

It was hard to wrap one’s mind around the geography of Faerie, with its ever-changing terrain, the way huge spaces fitted inside smaller ones. It was as if someone had taken the philosopher’s question of how many angels could fit on the head of a pin and turned it into a landscape.

They passed other members of the gentry as they went. Here in the Seelie Court, there was less dark glamour, less viscera and bone and blood. Green livery echoed the color of plants and trees and grass. Everywhere there was gold: gold doublets on the men, long gold dresses on the women, as if they were channeling the sunshine that couldn’t reach them below the earth.

They turned at last from the corridor into a massive circular room. It was bare of any furniture, and the walls were smooth stone, curving up toward a crystal set into the peak of the roof. Directly below the crystal was a great stone plinth, with a golden bowl resting on top of it.

“This is my scrying glass,” said the Queen. “One of the treasures of the fey. Would you look into it?” Julian hung back. He didn’t have Cristina’s expertise, but he did know what a scrying glass was. It allowed you to gaze into a reflective surface, usually a mirror or pool of water, and see what was happening somewhere else in the world. He itched to use it to check on his family, but he would take no gifts from a faerie unless he had to.

“No, thank you, my lady,” he said.

He saw anger flash in her eyes. It surprised him. He would have thought her better at controlling her emotions. The anger was gone in a moment, though, and she smiled at him.

“A Blackthorn is about to put their own life in grave danger,” she said. “Is that not a good enough reason for you to look in the glass? Would you be ignorant of harm coming to your family, your blood?” Her voice was almost a croon. “From what I know of you, Julian, son of thorns, that is not in your nature.” Julian clenched his hands. A Blackthorn putting themselves in danger? Could it be Ty, throwing himself into a mystery, or Livvy, being willful and reckless? Dru? Tavvy?

“You are not easily tempted,” she said, and now her voice had grown softer, more seductive. Her eyes gleamed. She liked this, he thought. The chase, the game. “How unusual in one so young.” Julian thought with an almost despairing amusement of his near breakdown just now around Emma. But that was a weakness. Everyone had them. Years of denying himself anything and everything he wanted for the sake of his family had forged his will into something that surprised even him sometimes.

“I can’t reach through and change what happens, can I?” he said. “Wouldn’t it just be torture for me to watch?” The Queen’s lips curved. “I cannot tell you,” she said. “I do not know what will happen myself. But if you do not look, you will never know either. And it is not my experience of humans or Nephilim that they can bear not knowing.” She glanced down into the water. “Ah,” she said. “He arrives at the convergence.” Julian was beside the plinth before he could stop himself, gazing down into the water. What he saw shocked him.

The water was like sheer glass, like the screen of a television onto which a scene was projected with an almost frightening clarity. Julian was looking at night in the Santa Monica Mountains, a sight familiar enough to send a dart of homesickness through him.

The moon rose over the ruins of the convergence. Boulders lay tumbled around a plain of dry grass that stretched to a sheer drop toward the ocean, blue-black in the distance. Wandering among the boulders was Arthur.

Julian couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his uncle out of the Institute. Arthur had put on a rough jacket and boots, and in his hand was a witchlight, dimly glowing. He had never looked quite so much like a Shadowhunter, not even in the Hall of Accords.

“Malcolm!” Arthur called out. “Malcolm, I demand you come to me! Malcolm Fade! I am here, with Blackthorn blood!” “But Malcolm’s dead,” Julian murmured, staring at the bowl. “He died.”

“It is a weakness of your kind, to regard death as so final,” said the Queen with glee, “especially when it comes to warlocks.” Fear tore through Julian like an arrow. He had been sure when they’d left the Institute that they were leaving his family safe. But if Malcolm was there—still hunting for Blackthorn blood—though, if Arthur was offering it, Malcolm must still not have acquired it—but then, Arthur could hardly be trusted— “Hush,” said the Queen, as if she could hear the clamor of his thoughts. “Watch.”

“Malcolm!” Arthur cried, his voice echoing off the mountains.

“I am here. Though you are early.” The voice belonged to a shadow—a twisted, misshapen shadow. Julian swallowed hard as Malcolm stepped out into the moonlight and what had been done to him, or what he had done to himself, was clearly revealed.

The water in the bowl blurred. Julian almost reached for the image before checking himself and jerking his hand back. “Where are they?” he said, in a harsh voice. “What are they doing?” “Patience. There is a place they must go. Malcolm will take your uncle there.” The Seelie Queen gloated. She thought she had Julian in the palm of her hand now, he thought, and hated her. She dipped her long fingers into the water, and Julian saw a brief swirl of images—the doors of the New York Institute, Jace and Clary asleep in a green field, Jem and Tessa in a dark, shadowy place—and then the images resolved again.

Arthur and Malcolm were inside a church, an old-fashioned one with stained-glass windows and carved pew-ends. Something covered in a black cloth lay on the altar. Something that moved ever so slightly, restlessly, like an animal waking from sleep.

Malcolm stood watching Arthur, with a smile playing on his ruined face. He looked like something dragged up from some watery Hell dimension. Cracks and runnels in his skin leaked seawater. His eyes were milky and opaque; half his white hair was gone, and his bald skin was patchy and scabbed. He wore a white suit, and the raw fissures in his skin disappeared incongruously under expensive collar and cuffs.

“For any blood ritual, willing blood is better than unwilling,” said Arthur. He stood in his usual slumped posture, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll give you mine willingly if you’ll swear to leave my family alone.” Malcolm licked his lips; his tongue was bluish. “That’s all you want? That promise?”

Arthur nodded.

“You don’t want the Black Volume?” Malcolm said in a taunting voice, tapping the book tucked into the waistband of his trousers. “You don’t want assurance I’ll never harm a single Nephilim?” “Your revenge only matters to me inasmuch as my family remains unharmed,” said Arthur, and relief weakened Julian’s knees. “The Blackthorn blood I give you should slake your thirst for it, warlock.” Malcolm smiled. His teeth were twisted and sharp, like a shark’s. “Now, if I make this agreement, am I taking advantage of you, given that you are a madman?” he mused aloud. “Has your shaky mind mistaken the situation? Are you confused? Bewildered? Do you know who I am?” Arthur winced, and Julian felt a pang of sympathy for his uncle, and a flash of hate for Malcolm.

Kill him, he thought. Tell me you brought a seraph blade, Uncle, and run him through.

“Your uncle will not be armed,” said the Queen. “Fade would have seen to that.” She was watching with an almost avaricious delight. “The mad Nephilim and the mad warlock,” she said. “It is like a storybook.” “You are Malcolm Fade, betrayer and murderer,” said Arthur.

“Quite an ungrateful thing to say to someone who’s been providing you with your cures all these years,” Malcolm murmured.

“Cures? More like temporary lies. You did what you had to do to continue to deceive Julian,” said Arthur, and Julian started to hear his own name. “You gave him medicine for me because it made him trust you. My family loved you. More than they ever did me. You twisted a knife in their hearts.” “Oh,” Malcolm murmured. “If only.”

“I would rather be mad my way than yours,” said Arthur. “You had so much. Love once, and power, and immortal life, and you have thrown it away as if it were trash by the side of the road.” He glanced toward the twitching thing on the altar. “I wonder if she will still love you, the way you are now.” Malcolm’s face contorted. “Enough,” he said, and a quick look of triumph passed over Arthur’s tired, battered features. He had outwitted Malcolm, in his own way. “I agree to your promise. Come here.” Arthur stepped forward. Malcolm seized him and began to propel him toward the altar. Arthur’s witchlight was gone, but candles burned in brackets fastened to the walls, casting a flickering, yellowish light.

Malcolm held Arthur with one hand, bending him over the altar; with the other he drew the dark covering away from the altar. Annabel’s body was revealed.

“Oh,” breathed the Queen. “She was lovely, once.”

She was not now. Annabel was a skeleton, though not the clean white down-to-the-bones type one usually saw in art and pictures. Her skin was leathery and dried, and pocked with holes where worms had crawled in and out. Nausea rose in Julian’s stomach. She was covered with white winding-sheets, but her legs were visible, and her arms: There were places the skin had peeled away, and moss grew on the bones and dried tendons.

Brittle dark hair spilled from her skull. Her jaw worked as she saw Malcolm, and a moan issued from her destroyed throat. She seemed to be shaking her head.

“Don’t worry, darling,” said Malcolm. “I’ve brought you what you need.”

“No!” Julian cried, but it was as he had feared: He could not halt the events unfolding before him. Malcolm snatched up the blade from beside Annabel and sliced open Arthur’s throat.

Blood fountained over Annabel, over her body and the stone she lay on. Arthur groped at his neck, and Julian gagged, clutching the sides of the bowl with his fingers.

Annabel’s winding-sheets had turned crimson. Arthur’s hands dropped slowly to his sides. He was upright now only because Malcolm was holding him. Blood soaked Annabel’s brittle hair and dried skin. It turned the front of Malcolm’s white suit to a sheet of scarlet.

“Uncle Arthur,” Julian whispered. He tasted salt on his lips. For a moment he was terrified that he was crying, and in front of the Queen—but to his relief he had only bitten his lip. He swallowed the metal of his own blood as Arthur went limp in Malcolm’s grasp, and Malcolm shoved his body impatiently away. He crumpled to the ground beside the altar and lay still.

“Annabel,” Malcolm breathed.

She had begun to stir.

Her limbs moved first, her legs and arms stretching, her hands reaching for nothing. For a moment Julian thought there was something wrong with the water in the bowl, an odd reflection, before he realized that it was actually Annabel herself. A white glow was creeping over her—no, it was skin, rising to cover bare bones and stripped tendons. Her corpse seemed to swell up and out as flesh filled out the shape of her, as if a smooth, sleek glove had been drawn over her skeleton. Gray and white turned to pink: Her bare feet and her calves looked human now. There were even clear half-moons of nails at the tips of her toes.

The skin crawled up her body, slipping under the winding-sheets, rising to cover her chest and collarbones, spreading down her arms. Her hands starfished out, each finger splayed as she tested the air. Her neck arched back as black-brown hair exploded from her skull. Breasts rose under the sheets, her hollow cheeks filled, her eyes snapped open.

They were Blackthorn eyes, shimmering blue-green as the sea.

Annabel sat up, clutching the rags of her bloody winding-sheets to her. Under them she had the body of a young woman. Thick hair cascaded around a pale oval face; her lips were full and red; her eyes shimmered in wonder as she stared at Malcolm.

And Malcolm was transformed. Whatever the vicious damage done to him, it seemed to fade away, and for a moment Julian saw him as he must have been when he was a young man in love. There was a wondering sweetness about him; he seemed frozen in place, his face shining in adoration as Annabel slid down from the altar. She landed on the stone floor beside Arthur’s crumpled body.

“Annabel,” Malcolm said. “My Annabel. I have waited so long for you, done so much to bring you back to me.” He took a stumbling step toward her. “My love. My angel. Look at me.” But Annabel was looking down at Arthur. Slowly, she bent down and picked up the knife that had fallen by his body. When she straightened up, her gaze fixed on Malcolm, tears streaked her face. Her lips formed a soundless word—Julian craned forward, but it was too faint to hear. The surface of the scrying glass had begun to roil and tremble, like the surface of the sea before a storm.

Malcolm looked stricken. “Do not weep,” he said. “My darling, my Annabel.” He reached for her. Annabel stepped toward him, her face lifting to his. He bent down as if to kiss her just as she swept her arm up, driving the knife she held into his body.

Malcolm stared at her in disbelief. Then he cried out. It was a cry of more than pain—a howl of utter, despairing betrayal and heartbreak. A howl that seemed to rip through the universe, tearing apart the stars.

He staggered back, but Annabel pursued him, a wraith of blood and terror in her white-and-scarlet grave clothes. She slashed at him again, opening his chest, and he fell to the ground.

Even then he didn’t raise a hand to fend her off as she moved to stand over him. Blood bubbled from the corner of his lips when he spoke. “Annabel,” he breathed. “Oh, my love, my love—” She stabbed down viciously with the blade, driving it into his heart. Malcolm’s body jerked. His head fell back, his eyes rolling to whites. Expressionless, Annabel bent over him and snatched the Black Volume from his belt. Without another glance at Malcolm, she turned and strode from the church, disappearing from the view of the scrying glass.

“Where did she go?” Julian said. He barely recognized his own voice. “Follow her, use the glass—” “The scrying glass cannot find its way through so much dark magic,” said the Queen. Her face was shining as if she’d just seen something wonderful.

Julian flinched away from her—he couldn’t help it. He wanted nothing more than to stagger off to a corner of the room and be sick. But the Queen would see that as weakness. He found his way to a wall and leaned against it.

The Queen stood with one hand on the edge of the golden bowl, smiling at him. “Did you see how Fade never raised a hand to defend himself?” she said. “That is love, son of thorns. We welcome its cruelest blows and when we bleed from them, we whisper our thanks.” Julian braced himself against the wall. “Why did you show me that?”

“I would bargain with you,” she said. “And there are things I would not have you be ignorant of when we do.” Julian tried to steady his breathing, forcing himself deeper into his own head, his own worst memories. He was in the Hall of Accords, he was twelve years old and he had just killed his father. He was in the Institute, and he had just found out that Malcolm Fade had kidnapped Tavvy. He was in the desert, and Emma was telling him that she loved Mark; Mark, and not him.

“What kind of bargain?” he said, and his voice was as steady as a rock.

She shook her head. Her red hair rayed out around her gaunt and hollowed face. “I would have all of your group there when the bargain is made, Shadowhunter.” “I will not bargain with you,” said Julian. “The Cold Peace—”

She laughed. “You have shattered the Cold Peace a thousand times, child. Do not pretend that I know nothing of you or your family. Despite the Cold Peace, despite all I have lost, I am still the Queen of the Seelie Court.” Julian couldn’t help but wonder what despite all I have lost meant—what had she lost, exactly? Did she only mean the strain of the Cold Peace, the shame of losing the Dark War?

“Besides,” she said, “you don’t know what I am offering yet. And neither do your friends. I think they might be quite interested, especially your lovely parabatai.” “You have something for Emma?” he demanded. “Then why did you bring me here alone?”

“There was something I wished to say to you. Something that you might not wish her to know that you knew.” A tiny smile played across her lips. She took another step toward him. He was close enough to see the detail of the feathers on her dress, the flecks of blood that showed they had been torn by the roots from the bird. “The curse of the parabatai. I know how to break it.” Julian felt as if he could not catch his breath. It was what the phouka had said to him at the Gate: In Faerie, you will find one who knows how the parabatai bond might be broken.

He had carried that knowledge in his heart since they had arrived here. He had wondered who it would be. But it was the Queen—of course it was the Queen. Someone he absolutely should not trust.

“The curse?” he said, keeping his voice mild and a little puzzled, as if he had no idea why she’d called it that.

Something indefinable flashed in her eyes. “The parabatai bond, I should say. But it is a curse to you, is it not?” She caught his wrist, turning his hand over. The crescents he’d dug into his palms with his bitten nails were faint but visible. He thought of the scrying glass. Of her watching him with Emma in Fergus’s room. Of course she had. She’d known when Emma fell asleep. When he was vulnerable. She knew he loved Emma. It might be something he could conceal from his family and friends, but to the Queen of the Seelie Court, accustomed to seeking out weakness and vulnerability and cruelly attuned to unpleasant truths, it would be as clear as a beacon. “As I said,” she told him, smiling, “we welcome the wounds of love, do we not?” A wave of rage went through him, but his curiosity was stronger. He drew his hand from hers. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you know.” * * *

Faerie knights in green and gold and red came to fetch Emma and bring her to the throne room. She was a little bewildered at Julian’s absence, though reassured when she met Mark and Cristina in the hall, similarly escorted, and Mark told her in a low voice that he’d heard one of the guards say that Julian was already waiting for them in the throne room.

Emma cursed her own exhaustion. How could she not have noticed him leave? She’d forced herself to sleep, unable to bear another second of being so physically close to Jules without being able to even hug him. And he’d been so calm, so totally calm; he’d looked at her with distant friendliness—kindness, even, when he reassured her their friendship was intact—and it hurt like hell and all she wanted was for exhaustion to wipe it all away.

She reached to touch Cortana, strapped across her back. She carried the rest of her and Julian’s things in her pack. She felt silly wearing a weapon over a filmy dress, but she hadn’t been about to change in front of the Queen’s Guard. They’d offered to carry the sword for her, but she’d refused. No one touched Cortana but her.

Cristina was nearly twitching with excitement. “The throne room of the Seelie Queen,” she whispered. “I have read about it but never thought to actually see it. The look of it is meant to change with the moods of the Queen, as she changes.” Emma remembered Clary telling her stories of the Court, of a room of ice and snow where the Queen wore gold and silver, of a curtain of fluttering butterflies. But it was not quite like that when they arrived. Just as Mark had said, Julian was already in the throne room. It was a bare oval place, filled with grayish smoke. Smoke drifted across the floor and crackled along the ceiling, where it was forked with small darts of black lightning. There were no windows, but the gray smoke formed patterns against the walls—a field of dead flowers, a crashing wave, the skeleton of a winged creature.

Julian was sitting on the steps that led up to the great stone block where the Queen’s throne stood. He wore a piecemeal mix of gear and ordinary clothes, and over his shirt was thrown a jacket he could only have found here in Faerie. It shimmered with bright thread and bits of brocade, the sleeves turned back to expose his forearms. His sea-glass bracelet glittered on his wrist.

He looked up when they came in. Even against the colorless background, his blue-green eyes shone.

“Before you say anything, I have something to tell you,” he said. Only half of Emma’s mind was on his words as he began to speak; the other was on how strangely at ease he seemed.

He looked calm, and when Julian was calm was always when he was at his most frightening. But he spoke on, and she began to realize what he was saying. Waves of shock went through her. Malcolm: dead, alive, and dead again? Arthur, murdered? Annabel risen from the grave? The Black Volume gone?

“But Malcolm was dead,” she said, numbly. “I killed him. I saw his body float away. He was dead.” “The Queen cautioned me against thinking death was final,” said Julian. “Especially in the case of warlocks.” “But Annabel is alive,” said Mark. “What does she want? Why did she take the Black Volume?”

“All good questions, Miach,” said a voice from across the room. They all turned in surprise, save Julian.

She came out of the gray shadows wrapped in more gray: a long gray gown made of moth wings and ashes, dipped low in front so that it was easy to see the jutting bones of her clavicle. Her face was pinched, triangular, dominated by burning blue eyes. Her red hair was bound back tightly in a silver net. The Queen. There was a glitter in her eye: malice or madness, it would be hard to be sure.

“Who’s Miach?” Emma asked.

The Queen indicated Mark with the sweep of her hand. “Him,” she said. “The nephew of my handmaiden Nene.” Mark looked stunned.

“Nene called Helen ‘Alessa,’ ” said Emma. “So—Alessa and Miach are their fey names?”

“Not their full names, which would give power. No. But much more harmonious than Mark and Helen, don’t you agree?” The Queen moved toward Mark, one hand holding up her skirt. She reached to touch his face.

He didn’t move. He seemed frozen. Fear of the faerie gentry, and the monarchs in particular, had been bred into him for years. It was Julian’s eyes that narrowed as the Queen put a hand against Mark’s cheek, her fingers stroking down his skin.

“Beautiful boy,” she said. “You were wasted on the Wild Hunt. You could have served here in my Court.” “They kidnapped me,” Mark said. “You didn’t.”

Even the Queen seemed a bit nonplussed. “Miach—”

“My name is Mark.” He said it without any hostility or resistance. It was a simple fact. Emma saw the spark in Julian’s eyes: pride in his brother, as the Queen dropped her hand. She walked back toward her throne, and Julian rose and came down the steps, joining the others below her as she took her seat.

The Queen smiled down at them, and the shadows moved around her as if commanded: curling into wisps and shapes like flowers. “So now Julian has told you all there is to know,” she said. “Now we can bargain.” Emma didn’t like the way the Queen said Jules’s name: the possessive, almost languid Julian. She also wondered where the Queen had been while Julian had told them what happened. Not out of earshot, of that she was sure. Somewhere close, where she could overhear him, could gauge their reactions.

“You have brought us all here, my lady, though we do not know why,” said Julian. It was clear from his expression that he didn’t know what the Queen planned to ask of them. But it was also clear that he had not made up his mind to refuse her. “What do you want from us?” “I want you to find Annabel Blackthorn for me,” she said, “and retrieve the Black Volume.”

They all looked at each other; whatever they had expected, that had not been it.

“You just want the Black Volume?” said Emma. “Not Annabel?”

“Just the book,” said the Queen. “Annabel does not matter, save that she has the book. Having been brought back so long after her death, she is likely quite mad.” “Well, that does make looking for her so much more fun,” said Julian. “Why can’t you send your Court to search the mundane world for her yourself?” “The Cold Peace makes that difficult,” the Queen said dryly. “I or my folk will be seized on sight. You, on the other hand, are the darlings of the Council.” “I wouldn’t say ‘darlings,’ ” Emma said. “That might be overstating things.”

“So tell us, what does the Queen of Faerie want with the Black Volume of the Dead?” said Mark. “It is a warlock’s toy.” “Yet dangerous in the wrong hands, even when those hands are faerie hands,” said the Queen. “The Unseelie King grows in power since the Cold Peace. He has blighted the Lands of Unseelie with evil and filled the rivers with blood. You have seen yourself that no works of the Angel can survive in his land.” “True,” said Emma. “But what do you care if he’s made the Unseelie Lands off-limits to Shadowhunters?” The Queen looked at her with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I do not,” she said. “But the King has taken one of my people. A member of my Court, very dear to me. He holds that person captive in his land. I want them back.” Her voice was cold.

“How will the book help you with that?” Emma asked.

“The Black Volume is more than necromancy,” said the Queen. “It contains spells that will allow me to retrieve the captive from the Unseelie Court.” Cristina shook her head. “My lady,” she said. She sounded very sweet and firm and not at all anxious. “While we are sympathetic to your loss, that is a great deal of danger and work for us, just to assist you. I think you would have to offer something quite special to gain our help.” The Queen looked amused. “You are very decided, for one so young.” Rings sparkled on her fingers as she gestured. “But our interests are aligned, you see. You do not want the Black Volume in the King’s hands, and neither do I. It will be safer here in my Court than it will ever be out in the world—the King will be looking for it, too, and only in the heart of Seelie can it be protected from him.” “But how do we know you won’t also use it to work against Shadowhunters?” said Emma, uneasily. “It wasn’t such a long time ago that Seelie soldiers attacked Alicante.” “Times change and so do alliances,” said the Queen. “The King is now a greater threat to me and mine than the Nephilim. And I will prove my loyalty.” She leaned her head back, and her crown shimmered. “I offer the end of the Cold Peace,” she said, “and the return of your sister, Alessa, to you.” “That is beyond your power,” said Mark. But he had not been able to control his reaction to his sister’s name; his eyes were overly bright. So were Julian’s. Alessa. Helen.

“It is not,” said the Queen. “Bring me the book, and I will offer my Lands and arms to the Council that we might defeat the King together.” “And if they say no?”

“They will not.” The Queen sounded supremely confident. “They will understand that only by allying themselves with us will they be able to defeat the King, and that to make such an alliance means they must first end the Cold Peace. It is my understanding your sister was punished with the Nephilim punishment of exile because she is part faerie. It is in the Inquisitor’s power to overturn such a sentence of exile. With the end of the Cold Peace, your sister will be free.” The Queen couldn’t lie, Emma knew. Still, she felt that somehow they were being tricked. Looking around, she could tell from the uneasy expression of the others that she wasn’t the only one with that thought. And yet . . .

“You wish to seize the Unseelie Lands?” said Julian. “And you wish the Clave to help you do it?” She waved a lazy hand. “What use have I for the Unseelie Lands? I am not driven by conquest. Another shall be placed on the throne to replace the Shadow Lord, one more friendly to the concerns of Nephilim. That should interest your kind.” “Have you someone in mind?” said Julian.

And now the Queen smiled, really smiled, and one could forget how thin and wasted she looked. Her beauty was glorious when she smiled. “I do.” She turned toward the shadows behind her. “Bring him in,” she said.

One of the shadows moved and detached itself. It was Fergus, Emma saw, as he slipped through an arched doorway and returned a moment later. Emma didn’t think anyone was surprised to see who he had with him, blinking and startled and sullen-looking as ever.

“Kieran?” said Mark, in amazement. “Kieran, King of the Unseelie Court?”

Kieran managed to look frightened and insulted all at once. He had been put into new clothes, linen shirt and breeches and a fawn-colored jacket, though he was still very pale and the bandages wrapping his torso were visible through his shirt. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not.” The Queen began to laugh. “Not Kieran,” she said. “His brother. Adaon.”

“Adaon will not want that,” Kieran said. Fergus was holding the prince firmly by the arm; Kieran seemed to be pretending it wasn’t happening, as a way to retain his dignity. “He is loyal to the King.” “Then he doesn’t sound very friendly to Nephilim,” said Emma.

“He hates the Cold Peace,” said the Queen. “All know it; all know as well that he is loyal to the Unseelie King and accepts his decisions. But only as long as the King lives. If the Unseelie Court is defeated by an alliance of Shadowhunters and Seelie folk, it will be easy to place our choice on the throne there.” “You make it sound so simple,” Julian said. “If you do not plan on putting Kieran on the throne, why drag him in here?” “I have another use for him,” said the Queen. “I require an envoy. One whose identity they know.” She turned to Kieran. “You will be my messenger to the Clave. You will swear loyalty to one of these Shadowhunters, here. Because of that, and because you are the Shadow King’s son, when you speak to the Council, they will know you are speaking from me, and that they will not be tricked again as they were with the liar Meliorn.” “Kieran must agree to this plan,” said Mark. “It must be his choice.”

“Well, it is his choice, certainly,” said the Queen. “He can agree, or he can most likely be murdered by his father. The King does not like it when condemned captives escape him.” Kieran muttered something under his breath and said, “I will swear loyalty to Mark. I will do as he bids me do, and follow the Nephilim for his sake. And I shall argue with Adaon for your cause, though it is his choice in the end.” Something flickered in Julian’s eyes. “No,” he said. “You will not do this for Mark.”

Mark looked at his brother, startled; Kieran’s expression tensed. “Why not Mark?”

“Love complicates things,” said Julian. “An oath should be free of entanglements.”

Kieran looked as if he might explode. His hair had gone completely black. With an angry look at Julian, he strode toward the Shadowhunters—and knelt in front of Cristina.

Everyone looked surprised, none more than Cristina. Kieran tossed his dark hair back and looked up at her, a challenge in his eyes. “I swear fealty to you, Lady of Roses.” “Kieran Kingmaker,” said Mark, looking at Kieran and Cristina with an absolutely unreadable look in his eyes. Emma couldn’t blame him. He must be constantly waiting for Kieran to remember what he had forgotten. She knew he would be dreading the pain the memories would bring them both.

“I am not doing this because of Adaon or the Cold Peace,” said Kieran. “I am doing it because I want my father dead.” “Reassuring,” muttered Julian, as Kieran rose to his feet.

“It is settled, then,” said the Queen, looking satisfied. “But so that you understand: You may promise my assistance and my goodwill to the Council. But I will not make war on the Shadow Throne until I hold the Black Volume.” “What if he makes war on you?” Julian said.

“He will make war on you first,” said the Queen. “That much I know.”

“What if we don’t find it?” said Emma. “The book, I mean.”

The Queen sliced her hand lazily through the air. “Then the Clave will still have my goodwill,” she said. “But I will not add my folk to their army until I have the Black Volume.” Emma looked at Julian, who shrugged, as if to say he hadn’t expected the Queen to say anything else.

“There is one last thing,” said Julian. “Helen. I don’t want to wait for the Cold Peace to be over to get her back.” The Queen looked briefly annoyed. “There are things I cannot do, little Nephilim,” she snapped, and it was the first thing she’d said that Emma really believed.

“You can,” he said. “Swear that you will insist to the Clave that Helen and Aline be your ambassadors. Once Kieran has finished his duty and given your message to the Council, his role is ended. Someone else will have to go back and forth from Faerie for you. Let it be Helen and her wife. They will have to bring them back from Wrangel Island.” The Queen hesitated a moment, and then inclined her head. “You understand, they have no reason to do as I say unless they are awaiting aid from me and mine,” she said. “So when you have the Black Volume, yes, you may make that a condition of my assistance. Kieran, I authorize you to make such a demand, when the time comes.” “I will make it,” said Kieran, and looked at Mark. Emma could almost read the message in his eyes. Though not for you.

“Lovely,” said the Queen. “You could be heroes. The heroes who ended the Cold Peace.”

Cristina stiffened. Emma remembered the other girl saying to her, It has always been my hope that one day I might be part of brokering a better treaty than the Cold Peace. Something more fair to Downworlders and those Shadowhunters who might love them.

Cristina’s dream. Mark and Julian’s sister. Safety for the Blackthorns when Helen and Aline returned. The Queen had offered them all their desperate hopes, their secret wishes. Emma hated to be afraid, but at that moment, she was afraid of the Queen.

“Is it finally settled, fussing children?” asked the Queen, her eyes glowing. “Are we agreed?” “You know we are.” Julian almost flung the words. “We’ll start looking, though we have no idea where to begin.” “People go to the places that mean something to them.” The Queen cocked her head to the side. “Annabel was a Blackthorn. Learn about her past. Know her soul. You have access to the Blackthorn papers, to histories no one else can touch.” She rose to her feet. “Some of my folk visited them once when they were young and happy. Fade had a house in Cornwall. Perhaps it still stands. There could be something there.” She began to descend the steps. “And now it is time to speed your journey. You should return to the mundane world before it is too late.” She had reached the foot of the steps. She turned, magnificent in her finery, her imperiousness. “Come in!” she called. “We have been awaiting you.” Two figures appeared in the doorway of the room, flanked on either side by knights in the Queen’s livery. One Emma recognized as Nene. There was a look on her face, one of respect and even a little fear, as she came in. She was escorting beside her the formidable figure of Gwyn ap Nudd. Gwyn wore a formal doublet of dark velvet, against which his massive shoulders strained.

Gwyn turned to Mark. His eyes, blue and black, fixed on him with a look of pride. “You saved Kieran,” he said. “I should not have doubted you. You did everything I could have asked of you, and more. And now, for one last time, you will ride with me and the Wild Hunt. I shall take you to your family.” * * *

The five of them followed the Queen, Nene, and Gwyn down a series of tangled corridors until one ended in a sloping tunnel down which blew fresh, cool air. It opened into a green space: There was no sign of trees, only grass studded with flowers, and above them the night sky whirling with multicolored clouds. Emma wondered if it was still the same night that they’d arrived at the Seelie Court, or if a whole day had passed underground. There was no way of knowing. Time in Faerie moved like a dance whose steps she didn’t know.

Five horses stood in the clearing. Emma recognized one as Windspear, Kieran’s mount, who he had ridden into battle with Malcolm. He whinnied when he caught sight of Kieran, and kicked at the sky.

“This is what the phouka promised me,” Mark said in a low voice. He stood behind Emma, his eyes fixed on Gwyn and the horses. “That if I came to Faerie, I would ride with the Wild Hunt again.” Emma reached out and squeezed his hand. At least for Mark, the phouka’s promise had come true without a bitter sting in its tail. She hoped the same for Julian and Cristina.

Cristina was approaching a red roan, which skittishly kicked at the dirt. She murmured softly to the horse until it calmed, and swung herself up onto its back, reaching to stroke the horse’s neck. Julian pulled himself onto a black mare whose eyes were an eerie green. He looked unfazed. Cristina’s eyes were glowing with delight. She met Emma’s gaze and grinned as if she could barely contain herself. Emma wondered how long Cristina must have dreamed of riding with a faerie host.

She hung back, waiting to hear Gwyn call her name. Why were there only five horses, not six? She got her answer when Mark swung himself up onto Windspear and reached down to pull Kieran up after him. The elf-bolt around Mark’s throat gleamed in the multicolored starlight.

Nene came up to Windspear then, and reached for Mark’s hands, ignoring Kieran. Emma couldn’t hear what she was whispering to him, but there was deep pain on her face; Mark’s fingers clung to hers for a moment before he released them. Nene turned and went back into the hill.

Silent, Kieran settled himself into place behind Mark, but he didn’t touch the other boy.

Mark half-turned in his seat. “Are you worried?” he asked Kieran.

Kieran shook his head. “No,” he said. “Because I am with you.”

Mark’s face tightened. “Yes,” he said. “You are.”

Beside Emma, the Queen laughed softly. “So many lies in just three words,” she said. “And he did not even say ‘I love you.’ ” A dart of anger went through Emma. “You would know lies,” she said. “In fact, if you ask me, the biggest lie the Fair Folk have ever told is that they don’t tell them.” The Queen drew herself up. She seemed to be looking down at Emma from a great height. The stars wheeled behind her, blue and green, purple and red. “Why are you angry, girl? I have offered you a fair bargain. Everything you might desire. I have given you fair hosting. Even the clothes on your back are Faerie clothes.” “I don’t trust you,” Emma said flatly. “We bargained with you because we had no choice. But you have manipulated us every step of the way—even the dress I’m wearing is a manipulation.” The Queen arched an eyebrow.

“Besides,” Emma said, “you allied yourself with Sebastian Morgenstern. You helped him wage the Dark War. Because of the war, Malcolm got the Black Volume and my parents died. Why shouldn’t I blame you?” The Queen’s eyes raked Emma, and now Emma could see in them what the Queen had been at pains to hide before: her anger, and her viciousness. “Is that why you have set yourself as the protector of the Blackthorns? Because you could not save your parents, you will save them, your makeshift family?” Emma looked at the Queen for a long moment before she spoke. “You bet your ass it is,” she said.

Without another glance at the ruler of the Seelie Court, Emma stalked off toward the horses of the Hunt.

Julian had never much liked horses, though he’d learned to ride them, as most Shadowhunters did. In Idris, where cars didn’t work, they were still the main form of transportation. He’d learned on a crabby pony that kept blowing out its sides and darting under low-hanging branches, trying to knock him off.

The horse Gwyn had given him had a dark look in its ghastly green eyes that didn’t bode much better. Julian had braced himself for a lurching plunge upward, but when Gwyn gave the order, the horse simply glided up into the air like a toy lifted on a string.

Julian gasped out loud with the shock of it. He found his hands plunging into the horse’s mane, gripping hard, as the others shot up into the air around him—Cristina, Gwyn, Emma, Mark and Kieran. For a moment they hovered, shadows under the moonlight.

Then the horses shot forward. The sky blurred above them, the stars turning to streaks of shimmering, multicolored paint. Julian realized that he was grinning—truly grinning, the way he rarely had since he was a child. He couldn’t help it. Buried in everyone’s soul, he thought as they spun forward through the night, must be the yearning desire to fly.

And not the way mundanes did, trapped inside a metal tube. Like this, exploding up through clouds as soft as down, the wind caressing your skin. He glanced over at Emma. She was leaning down over her horse’s mane, long legs curved around its sides, her brilliant hair flying like a banner. Behind her rode Cristina, who had her hands in the air and was shrieking with happiness. “Emma!” she shouted. “Emma, look, no hands!” Emma glanced back and laughed aloud. Mark, who rode Windspear with an air of familiarity, Kieran clinging to his belt with one hand, was not as amused. “Use your hands!” he yelled. “Cristina! It’s not a roller coaster!” “Nephilim are insane!” shouted Kieran, pushing his wildly blowing hair out of his face.

Cristina just laughed, and Emma looked at her with a wide smile, her eyes glowing like the stars overhead, which had turned to the silver-white stars of the mundane world.

Shadows loomed up in front of them, white and black and blue. The cliffs of Dover, Julian thought, and felt an ache inside that it might be over so quickly. He turned his head and looked at his brother. Mark sat astride Windspear as if he’d been born on a horse’s back. The wind tore his pale hair, revealing his sharply pointed ears. He was smiling too, a calm and secret smile, the smile of someone doing what they loved.

Far below them the world spun by, a patchwork of silver-black fields, shadowy hills, and luminous, winding rivers. It was beautiful, but Julian could not take his eyes off his brother. So this is the Wild Hunt, he thought. This freedom, this expanse, this ferocity of joy. For the first time, he understood how and why Mark’s choice to stay with his family might not have been an easy one. For the first time he thought in wonder of how much his brother must love him after all, to have given up the sky for his sake.