فصل 8

Chapter 8

NEAR THE RIVER

Emma saw Mark immediately. A shadow out on the gleaming path before them, the moonlight sparking off his pale hair. He didn’t seem to have noticed them yet.

Emma began to run, Cristina and Jules at her heels. Though the path surged and dipped under her, she was used to running on the beach where the soft sand gave way under her feet. She could see Mark clearly now: He’d stopped walking, and turned to face them, looking astonished.

His gear was gone. He was wearing clothes similar to the ones he’d come to the Institute in, though clean and undamaged: linen and soft, tanned hide, high laced boots and a duffel bag slung over his back. Emma could see the stars reflected in his wide eyes as she drew closer to him.

He dropped the duffel bag at his feet, looking accusingly at his three pursuers. “What are you doing here?” “Seriously?” Julian kicked Mark’s duffel bag aside, grabbing hold of his brother’s shoulders. “What are you doing here?” Julian was taller than Mark, a fact that always struck Emma as odd—Mark had been taller for so many years. Taller and older. But he was neither now. He looked like a slim pale blade in the darkness, against Julian’s more solid strength and height. He looked as if he might at any moment turn into moonlight on the waves and vanish.

He turned his gaze to Cristina. “You got my fire-message.”

She nodded, tendrils of her dark hair, caught in a jeweled clip at the back of her head, curling around her face. “We all read it.” Mark closed his eyes. “I had not thought you could follow me on the moon’s road.”

“But we did.” Julian tightened his hands on Mark’s shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere in Faerie, much less alone.” “It’s for Kieran,” Mark said simply.

“Kieran betrayed you,” said Julian.

“They will kill him, Jules,” said Mark. “Because of me. Kieran killed Iarlath because of me.” He opened his eyes to gaze into his brother’s face. “I should not have tried to leave without telling you. That was unfair of me. I knew you would try to stop me, and I knew I had little time. I will never forgive Kieran for what happened to you and Emma, but I will not leave him to death and torture, either.” “Mark, the Fair Folk aren’t fond of you,” said Julian. “They were forced to give you back, and they hate giving back anything they take. If you go into Faerie, they’ll keep you there if they can, and it won’t be easy, and they will hurt you. I won’t let that happen.” “Then you will be my jailer, brother?” Mark held out his hands, palms up. “You will bind my wrists in cold iron, my ankles with thorns?” Julian flinched. It was too dark to see Mark’s Blackthorn features, his blue-green eye, and in the dimness the brothers seemed only a Shadowhunter and a faerie, eternally at odds. “Emma,” Julian said, removing his hands from Mark’s shoulders. There was a desperate bitterness in his voice. “Mark loves you. You convince him.” Emma felt Julian’s bitterness like thorns under her skin, and heard Mark’s anguished words again: Will you be my jailer? “We aren’t going to stop you from going. We’re going to go with you.” Even in the moonlight, she could see Mark’s face lose color. “No. You’re obviously Nephilim. You’re in gear. Your runes aren’t hidden. Shadowhunters are not well-loved in the Land Under the Hill.” “Apparently only Kieran is,” said Julian. “He’s lucky to have your loyalty, Mark, since we don’t.” At that, Mark flushed and turned toward his brother, his eyes glittering angrily. “All right, stop—stop,” Emma said, taking a step toward them. The shimmering water bent and flexed beneath her feet. “Both of you—” “Who walks the path of moonlight?”

A figure approached, its voice a deep boom above the waves. Julian’s hand went to the hilt of the dagger at his waist. Emma’s seraph blade was out; Cristina had her balisong in hand. Mark’s fingers had reached for the place where the elf-bolt Kieran had given him had once rested in the hollow of his throat. It was gone now. His face tightened before relaxing into recognition.

“It’s a phouka,” he said under his breath. “Mostly, they’re harmless.”

The figure on the path before them had drawn closer. It was a tall faerie, dressed in ragged trousers held up by a belt of rope. Thin strands of gold were woven into his long dark hair and gleamed against his dark skin. His feet were bare.

He spoke, and his voice sounded like the tide at sunset. “Seek you to enter through the Gate of Lir?” “Yes,” said Mark.

Metallic gold eyes without irises or pupils passed over Mark, Cristina, Julian, and Emma. “Only one of you is fey,” the phouka said. “The others are human. No—Nephilim.” Thin lips curled into a smile. “That is a surprise. How many of you wish passage through the gate to the Shadow Lands?” “All of us,” said Emma. “The four.”

“If the King or Queen finds you, they will kill you,” said the phouka. “The Fair Folk are not friendly to the angel-blooded, not since the Cold Peace.” “I am half-faerie,” said Mark. “My mother was the Lady Nerissa of the Seelie Court.” The phouka raised his eyebrows. “Her death grieved us all.”

“And these are my brothers and sisters,” Mark continued, pressing his advantage. “They would accompany me; I will protect them.” The phouka shrugged. “It is not my concern what befalls you in the Lands,” he said. “Only that first you must pay a toll.” “No payments,” said Julian, his hand tightening on his dagger hilt. “No tolls.”

The phouka smiled. “Come here and speak to me a moment, in private, and then decide if you would pay my price. I will not force you.” Julian’s expression darkened, but he stepped forward. Emma strained to hear what he was saying to the phouka, but the sound of wind and waves slid between them. Behind them, the air swirled and clouded: Emma thought she could see a shape in it, arched like the shape of a door.

Julian stood motionless as the phouka spoke, but Emma saw a muscle twitch in his cheek. A moment later, he unsnapped his father’s watch from around his wrist and dropped it into the phouka’s hand.

“One payment,” said the phouka loudly, as Julian turned away. “Who would come next?” “I will,” said Cristina, and moved carefully across the path toward the phouka. Julian rejoined Mark and Emma.

“Did he threaten you?” Emma whispered. “Jules, if he threatened you—”

“He didn’t,” Julian said. “I wouldn’t let Cristina near him if he had.”

Emma turned to watch as Cristina reached up and pulled the jeweled clip from her hair. It cascaded down over her back and shoulders, blacker than the night sea. She handed the clip over and began to walk back toward them, looking dazed.

“Mark Blackthorn will go last,” said the phouka. “Let the golden-haired girl come to me next.” Emma could feel the others watching her as she went toward the phouka, Julian more intensely than the rest. She thought of the painting he’d done of her, where she’d risen above the ocean with a body made of stars.

She wondered what he’d done with those paintings. If he’d thrown them all out. Were they gone, burned? Her heart ached at the thought. Such lovely work of Jules’s, every brushstroke a whisper, a promise.

She reached the faerie, who stood slyly smiling as his kind did when they were amused. All around them the sea stretched, black and silver. The phouka bent his head to speak to her; the wind rushed up around them. She stood with him inside a circle of cloud. She could no longer see the others.

“If you’re going to threaten me,” she said, before he could speak, “understand that I will hunt you down for it, if not now, then later. And I will make you die for a long time.” The phouka laughed. His teeth were also gold, tipped in silver. “Emma Carstairs,” he said. “I see you know little about phoukas. We are seducers, not bullies. When I tell you what I tell you, you will wish to go to Faerie. You will wish to give me what I ask for.” “And what do you ask for?”

“That stele,” he said, pointing at the one in her belt.

Everything in Emma rebelled. The stele had been given to her by Jace, years ago in Idris, after the Dark War. It was a symbol of everything that had marked her life after the War. Clary had given her words, and she treasured them: Jace had given her a stele, and with it given a grief-stricken and frightened girl a purpose. When she touched the stele, it whispered that purpose to her: The future is yours now. Make it what you will.

“What use could a faerie have for a stele?” she asked. “You don’t draw runes, and they only work for Shadowhunters.” “No use for a stele,” he said. “But for the precious demon bone of the handle, quite a lot.” She shook her head. “Choose something else.”

The phouka leaned in. He smelled of salt and seaweed baking in the sun. “Listen,” he said. “If you enter Faerie, you will again see the face of someone you loved, who is dead.” “What?” Shock stabbed through Emma. “You’re lying.”

“You know I cannot lie.”

Emma’s mouth had gone dry.

“You must not tell the others what I told you, or it will not happen,” said the phouka. “Nor can I tell you what it means. I am only a messenger—but the message is true. If you wish to look again upon one you have loved and lost, if you wish to hear their voice, you must pass through the Gate of Lir.” Emma drew the stele from her belt. A pang went through her as she handed it over. She turned away blindly from the phouka, his words ringing in her ears. She was barely aware of Mark brushing past her, the last to speak to the water faerie. Her heart was pounding too hard.

One you have loved and lost. But there were many, so many, lost in the Dark War. Her parents—but she dared not even think of them; she would lose her ability to think, to go on. The Blackthorns’ father, Andrew. Her old tutor, Katerina. Maybe— The sound of wind and waves died down. Mark stood before the phouka in silence, his face pale: All three of the others looked stricken, and Emma burned to know what the faerie had told them. What could compel Jules, or Mark, or Cristina, to cooperate?

The phouka thrust out his hand. “Lir’s Gate opens,” he said. “Take it now, or flee back toward the shore; the moon’s road begins to dissolve already.” There was a sound like shattering ice, melting under spring sunlight. Emma looked down: The shining path below was riven with black where the water was springing up through cracks.

Julian grabbed her hand. “We have to go,” he said. Behind Mark, who stood ahead of them on the path, an archway of water had formed. It gleamed bright silver, the inside of it churning with water and motion.

With a laugh, the phouka leaped from the path with an elegant dive and slipped between the waves. Emma realized she had no idea what Mark had given him. Not that it seemed to matter now. The path between them was shattering rapidly: Now it was in pieces, like ice floes in the Arctic.

Cristina was on Emma’s other side. The three of them pushed forward, leaping from one solid piece of path to another. Mark was gesturing toward them, shouting, the archway behind him solidifying. Emma could see green grass through it, moonlight and trees. She pushed Cristina forward; Mark caught her, and the two of them vanished through the gate.

She moved to take a step forward, but the path gave way under her feet. For what seemed like much more than seconds she tumbled toward the black water. Then Julian had caught her. His arms around her, they fell together through the arch.

The shadows had lengthened in the attic. Arthur sat motionless, gazing out the window with its torn paper at the moonlight over the sea. He could guess where Julian and the others were now: He knew the moon’s road, as he knew the other roads of Faerie. He had been driven down them by hooting packs of pixies and goblins, riding ahead of their masters, the unearthly beautiful princes and princesses of the gentry. Once in a winter forest he had fallen, and his body had shattered the ice of a pond. He recalled watching his blood spray across the pond’s silvered surface.

“How pretty,” a faerie lady had mused, as Arthur’s blood melted into the ice.

He thought of his mind that way sometimes: a shattered surface reflecting back a broken and imperfect picture. He knew his madness was not like human madness. It came and went, sometimes leaving him barely touched so he hoped it was gone forever. Then it would return, crushing him beneath a parade of people no one else could see, a chorus of voices no one else could hear.

The medicine helped, but the medicine was gone. Julian had always brought the medicine, from the time he was a small boy. Arthur wasn’t sure how old he was now. Old enough. Sometimes Arthur wondered if he loved the boy. If he loved any of his brother’s children. There had been times he had awoken from dreams in which terrible things had happened to them with his face wet with tears.

But that might have been guilt. He had lacked either the ability to raise them, or the bravery to let the Clave replace him with a better guardian. Though who would have kept them together? No one, perhaps, and family should be together.

The door at the foot of the stairs creaked. Arthur turned eagerly. Perhaps Julian had thought better of his mad plan and returned. The moon’s road was dangerous. The sea itself was full of treachery. He had grown up near the sea, in Cornwall, and he recalled its monsters. And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour.

Or perhaps there had never been monsters.

She appeared at the top of the steps and looked at him coolly. Her hair was pulled back so tightly her skin seemed stretched. She tilted her head, taking in the cramped, dirty room, the papered-over windows. There was something in her face, something that stirred a flicker of memory.

Something that made cold terror wash through him. He gripped the arms of his chair, his mind chattering with bits of old poetry. Her skin was white as leprosy, the nightmare Life-in-Death was she— “Arthur Blackthorn, I presume?” she said with a demure smile. “I’m Zara Dearborn. I believe you knew my father.” * * *

Emma landed hard on thick grass, tangled up in Julian. For a moment he was propped over her, elbows on the ground, his pale face luminous in the moonlight. The air around them was cold, but his body was warm against hers. She felt the expansion of his chest as he inhaled a sharp breath, the current of air against her cheek as he turned his face quickly away from hers.

A moment later he was on his feet, reaching down to pull her up after him. But she scrambled upright on her own, spinning around to see that they were standing in a clearing surrounded by trees.

The moonlight was bright enough for Emma to see that the grass was intensely green, the trees hung with fruit that was vividly colored: purple plums, red apples, star- and rose-shaped fruits that Emma didn’t recognize. Mark and Cristina were there too, under the trees.

Mark had pushed the sleeves of his shirt up and was holding his hands out as if he were touching the air of Faerie, feeling it on his skin. He tipped his head back, his mouth slightly open; Emma, looking at him, blushed. It felt like a private moment, as if she were watching someone reconnect with a lover.

“Emma,” Cristina breathed. “Look.” She pointed upward, at the sky.

The stars were different. They arched and whirled in patterns that Emma didn’t recognize, and they had colors—icy blue, frost green, shimmering gold, brilliant silver.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. She saw Julian look over at her, but it was Mark who spoke. He no longer looked quite so abandoned to the night, but he still seemed a little dazed, as if the air of Faerie were wine and he had drunk too much.

“The Hunt rode through the sky of Faerie sometimes,” he said. “In the sky the stars look like the crushed dust of jewels—powdered ruby and sapphire and diamond.” “I knew about the stars in Faerie,” Cristina said in an awed, quiet voice. “But I never thought I would see them myself.” “Should we rest?” Julian asked. He was prowling the outline of the clearing, peering between the trees. Trust Jules to ask the practical questions. “Gather our energy for traveling tomorrow?” Mark shook his head. “We can’t. We must travel through the night. I know only how to navigate the Lands by the stars.” “Then we’re going to need Energy runes.” Emma held out her arm to Cristina. It wasn’t meant as a deliberate snub to Jules—runes your parabatai put on you were always more powerful—but she could still feel where his body had crashed against hers when they’d fallen. She could still feel the visceral twist inside her when his breath had ghosted against her cheek. She needed him not to be close to her right now, not to see what was in her eyes. The way Mark had looked at the sky of Faerie: that was how she imagined she looked at Julian.

Cristina’s touch was warm and comforting, her stele swift and skilled, its tip tracing the shape of an Energy rune onto Emma’s forearm. Finished, she let Emma’s wrist go. Emma waited for the usual alert, searing heat, like a double jolt of caffeine.

Nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” she said, with a frown.

“Let me see—” Cristina stepped forward. She glanced down at Emma’s skin, and her eyes widened. “Look.” The Mark, black as ink when Cristina had placed it on Emma’s forearm, was turning pale and silvery. Fading, like melting frost. In seconds it had blended back into Emma’s skin and was gone.

“What on earth . . . ?” Emma began. But Julian had already whirled on Mark. “Runes,” he said. “Do they work? In Faerie?” Mark looked astonished. “It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t,” he said. “No one’s ever mentioned it.” “I’ve studied Faerie for years,” Cristina said. “I’ve never seen it said anywhere that runes do not work in the Lands.” “When was the last time you tried to use one here?” Emma asked Mark.

He shook his head, blond curls falling into his eyes. He shoved them back with narrow fingers. “I can’t remember,” he said. “I didn’t have a stele—they broke it—but my witchlight always worked—” He dug into his pocket and drew out a round, polished rune-stone. They all watched, breathless, as he held it up, waiting for the light to come, to shine brilliantly from his palm.

Nothing happened.

With a soft curse, Julian drew one of his seraph blades from his belt. The adamas gleamed dully in the moonlight. He turned it so that the blade lay flat, reflecting the multicolored brilliance of the stars. “Michael,” he said.

Something sparked inside the blade—a brief, dull gleam. Then it was gone. Julian stared at it. A seraph blade that could not be brought to life was barely more use than a plastic knife: dull-bladed, heavy, and short.

With a violent jerk of his arm, Julian cast the blade aside. It skidded across the grass. He raised his eyes. Emma could sense how tightly he was holding back. She felt it like a pressure in her own body that made it hard to breathe.

“So,” he said. “We’re going to have to journey across Faerie, a place where Shadowhunters aren’t welcome, using only the stars to navigate, and we can’t use runes, seraph blades, or witchlight. Is that the situation, roughly?” “I would say it’s the situation exactly,” said Mark.

“Also, we’re heading for the Unseelie Court,” Emma added. “Which is supposed to be like one of those horror movies Dru likes, but less, you know, fun.” “Then we will travel at night,” Cristina said. She pointed into the distance. “There are landmarks that I’ve seen on maps. Do you see those ridges in the distance, against the sky? I think that those are the Thorn Mountains. The Unseelie Lands lie in their shadow. It is not so far away.” Emma could see Mark relax at the sound of Cristina’s sensible voice. It didn’t seem to be working on Julian, though. His jaw was clenched, his hands rigid fists at his sides.

It wasn’t that Julian didn’t get angry. It was that he didn’t let himself show it. People thought he was quiet, calm, but that was deceptive. Emma recalled something she had read once: that volcanoes had the lushest green slopes, the loveliest and quietest aspect, because the fire that pulsed through them kept their earth from ever freezing.

But when they erupted, they could rain down devastation for miles.

“Jules,” she said. He glanced over at her; fury gleamed behind his eyes. “We might not have witchlight, or runes, but we are still Shadowhunters. With everything that means. We can do this. We can.” It felt like a clumsy speech to her, but she saw the fire die in his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry.” “And I’m sorry for bringing you all here,” said Mark. “If I had known—about the runes—but it must be something recent, very much so . . . .” “You didn’t bring us here,” said Cristina. “We followed you. And we all came through not just for you but because of what the phouka told each of us; isn’t that true?” One you have loved and lost. “It’s true for me,” said Emma. She glanced at the sky. “We should get going, though. Morning is probably in just a few hours. And if we don’t have Energy runes, we’ll have to get our energy the old-fashioned way.” Mark looked puzzled. “Drugs?”

“Chocolate,” Emma said. “I brought chocolate. Mark, where do you even come up with these things?” Mark smiled crookedly, shrugging one shoulder. “Faerie humor?”

“I thought faeries mostly made jokes at other people’s expense and played pranks on mundanes,” said Julian.

“Sometimes they tell very long, rhyming stories they think are hilarious,” said Mark. “But I have to admit I never really understood why.” Julian sighed. “That actually sounds worse than anything else I’ve heard about the Unseelie Court.” Mark shot Julian a grateful look, as if to say that he understood that his brother had mastered his temper in part for him, for all of them, so that they would be all right. So that they could continue on their way, and find Kieran, with Julian leading them as he always did. “Come,” Mark said, turning. “It is this way—we should begin walking; it may not be very many more hours until dawn.” Mark headed into the shadows between the trees. Mist clung to the branches, like ropes of white and silver. Leaves rustled softly in the wind above their heads. Julian moved to walk up ahead next to his brother; Emma could hear him asking, “Puns? At least promise me there won’t be puns.” “The way that boys tell each other they love each other is so very odd,” said Cristina as she and Emma ducked beneath a branch. “Why can’t they just say it? Is it so difficult?” Emma grinned at her friend. “I love you, Cristina,” she said. “And I’m glad you’re getting to visit Faerie, even if it’s under weird circumstances. Maybe you can find a hot faerie guy and forget about Imperfect Diego.” Cristina smiled. “I love you, too, Emma,” she said. “And maybe I will.”

Kit’s list of grievances against the Shadowhunters had now gotten long enough that he’d started writing it down. Stupid hot people, he’d written, won’t let me go home and get my stuff.

They won’t tell me anything about what it would mean to actually become a Shadowhunter. Would I have to go somewhere and train?

They won’t tell me how long I can stay here, except “as long as you need to.” Don’t I have to go to school eventually? Some kind of school?

They won’t talk about the Cold Peace or how it sucks.

They won’t let me eat cookies.

He thought for a while, and then crossed that one out. They did let him eat cookies; he just suspected they were judging him for it.

They don’t seem to understand what autism is, or mental illness, or therapy, or medical treatment. Do they believe in things like chemotherapy? What if I get cancer? I probably won’t get cancer. But if I did . . .

They won’t tell me how Tessa and Jem found my dad. Or why my dad hated Shadowhunters so much.

That one was the hardest to write. Kit had always thought of his father as a small-time con man, a lovable rogue, a sort of Han Solo type, swindling his way across the galaxy. But lovable rogues didn’t get torn apart by demons the moment their elaborate protection spells fell apart. And though mostly Kit was confused by what had happened at the Shadow Market, he had learned one thing: His dad had not been like Han Solo.

Sometimes, in the dark watches of the night, Kit wondered who he was like himself.

Speaking of the dark watches of the night, he had a new grievance to add to his list. They make me get up early.

Diana, whose official title was tutor but who seemed to function as a guardian-slash-high school principal, had woken Kit up early in the morning and herded him, along with Ty and Livvy, into a corner office with an expansive view and a massive glass desk. She looked pissed off the way adults sometimes looked pissed off when they were angry at someone else, but they were going to take it out on you.

Kit was correct. Diana was currently furious at Julian, Emma, Mark, and Cristina, who, according to Arthur, had disappeared to Faerie in the dead of night to rescue someone named Kieran who Kit had never met. Further discussion illuminated that Kieran was the son of the Unseelie King and Mark’s ex-boyfriend, both of which were interesting pieces of information that Kit filed away for later.

“This is not good,” Diana finished. “Any travel to Faerie is entirely off-limits to Nephilim without special permissions.” “But they’ll come back, right?” Ty said. He sounded strained. “Mark will come back?” “Of course they’ll come back,” said Livvy. “It’s just a mission. A rescue mission,” she added, turning to Diana. “Won’t the Clave understand they had to go?” “Rescuing a faerie—no,” Diana said, shaking her head. “They are not entitled to our protection under the Accords. The Centurions can’t know. The Clave would be furious.” “I won’t tell,” said Ty.

“I won’t either,” agreed Livvy. “Obviously.”

They both looked at Kit.

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” he said.

“You have a point,” said Livvy. She turned to Diana. “Why is he here?”

“You seem to have a way of knowing everything,” Diana said to Kit. “I thought it would be better to control your information. And get a promise from you.” “That I won’t tell? Of course I won’t tell. I don’t even like the Centurions. They’re . . .” What I always thought Shadowhunters would be like. You’re not. You’re all . . . different. “Jerks,” he finished.

“I cannot believe,” Livvy said, “that Julian and them have found a fun adventure to go on and just left the rest of us here to fetch towels for Centurions.” Diana looked surprised. “I thought you’d be upset,” she said. “Worried about them.”

Livvy shook her head. Her long hair, shades lighter than Ty’s, flew around her. “That they’re off having fun and getting to see Faerie? While we drudge around here? When they get back, I’m going to have words with Julian.” “Which words?” Ty looked confused for a moment, before his face cleared. “Oh,” he said. “You’re going to curse him out.” “I’m going to use every bad word I know, and look up some other ones,” said Livvy.

Diana was biting her lip. “You’re really all right?”

Ty nodded. “Cristina has studied Faerie extensively, Mark was a Hunter, and Julian and Emma are clever and brave,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Diana looked stunned. Kit had to admit he was surprised too. The Blackthorns had struck him as a family so close-knit that “enmeshed” didn’t begin to cover it. But Livvy kept up her cheerful annoyance when they went to tell Dru and Tavvy that the others had gone to the Shadowhunter Academy to fetch something—she was quite convincing, too, as she told them how Cristina had gone along because visiting the Academy was now a required part of one’s travel year—and they repeated the same story to a glowering Diego and a bunch of Centurions, including his fiancée, who Kit had taken to calling Loathsome Zara in his mind.

“In sum,” Livvy finished sweetly, “you may have to launder some of your own towels. Now if you’ll excuse us, Ty and I are going to take Kit here on a tour of the perimeter.” Zara arched an eyebrow. “The perimeter?”

“The wards you just put up,” said Livvy, and marched outside. She didn’t actually drag Ty and Kit after her physically, but something about the force of her personality accomplished basically the same thing. The Institute doors fell shut behind them as she was already clattering down the front steps.

“Did you see the look on those Centurions’ faces?” she demanded as they made their way around the massive side of the Institute. She was wearing boots and denim shorts that showed off her long, tanned legs. Kit attempted to seem as if he wasn’t looking.

“I don’t think they appreciated what you said about washing their own towels,” said Ty.

“Maybe I should have drawn them a map to where the detergent is,” said Livvy. “You know, since they like maps so much.” Kit laughed. Livvy glanced over at him, half-suspicious. “What?”

They’d passed the parking lot behind the Institute and reached a low hedge of sagebrush, behind which was a statuary garden. Greek playwrights and historians stood around in plaster poses, holding wreaths of laurel. It seemed oddly out of place, but then Los Angeles was a city of things that didn’t seem like they belonged where they were.

“It was funny,” Kit said. “That was all.”

She smiled. Her blue T-shirt matched her eyes, and the sunlight found the red and copper threads in her dark brown hair and made them shine. At first Kit had been a little unnerved by how much the Blackthorns all looked like each other—except Ty, of course—but he had to admit, if you had to share family traits, luminous blue-green eyes and wavy dark hair weren’t bad ones. The only things he shared with his father were moodiness and a penchant for burglary.

As for his mother—

“Ty!” Livvy called. “Ty, get down from there!”

They had moved far enough away from the house that they were now in real chaparral desert. Kit had only been in the Santa Monica Mountains a few times, on school trips. He remembered drinking in the air, the mix of salt and sagebrush, the soft breathless heat of the desert. Hasty green lizards bloomed like sudden leaves in between the scrub cactus, and disappeared just as quickly. Large rocks were tumbled everywhere—the castoffs of some fast-moving glacier, a million years ago.

“I will when I’m done with this.” Ty was busy climbing one of the largest rocks, expertly finding handholds and footholds. He hauled himself up to the top, totally unself-conscious, arms out to keep his balance. He looked as if he were getting ready to launch himself into flight, his hair blowing back like dark wings.

“Is he going to be all right?” Kit asked, watching him climb.

“He’s a really good climber,” said Livvy. “It used to freak me out when we were younger. He didn’t have any kind of realistic sense of when he was in danger or wasn’t. I thought he was going to fall off the rocks at Leo Carillo and smash in his head. But Jules went with him everywhere and Diana showed him how, and he learned.” She looked up at her brother and smiled. Ty had raised himself up on the balls of his feet and was looking down at the ocean. Kit could almost imagine him on a desolate plain somewhere, with a black cloak flapping around him like a hero in a fantasy illustration.

Kit took a deep breath. “You didn’t really believe what you told Diana,” he said to Livvy. She whipped around to stare at him. “About not being worried about Julian and the others.” “Why do you think that?” Her tone was carefully neutral.

“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “All of you.”

“I know.” She looked up at him with her bright eyes, half-amused. “It’s like you’ve been taking mental notes.” “Habit. My dad taught me everyone in the world was divided into two categories. Those you could trick and cheat and the ones you couldn’t. So you observe people. Try to figure out what they’re about. How they tick.” “How do we tick?”

“Like a very complicated machine,” said Kit. “You’re all intertwined—one of you moves a little and that drives the others. And if you move the other way, that directs what they do too. You’re more connected than any family I’ve seen. And you can’t tell me you’re not worried about Julian and the others—I know you are. I know what you people think about the Fair Folk.” “That they’re evil? It’s a lot more complicated than that, believe me.”

Livvy’s blue gaze darted away, toward her brother. Ty was lying down on his back on the rock now, barely visible. “So why would I lie to Diana?” “Julian lies to protect all of you,” said Kit. “If he’s not around, then you’ll lie to protect the younger ones. Nothing to worry about, Julian and Mark are off to the Unseelie Court, hope they send a postcard, wish we were there.” Livvy seemed poised between irritation and relief—angry that Kit had guessed the truth, relieved there was someone with whom she didn’t have to pretend. “Do you think I convinced Diana?” she said finally.

“I think you convinced her you weren’t worried,” said Kit. “She’s still worried. She’s probably pulling whatever strings she’s got to pull to figure out how to find them.” “We’re pretty low on strings here, you might have noticed,” Livvy said. “As Institutes go, we’re a weird one.” “I don’t really have a lot of points of reference. But I believe you.”

“So you didn’t actually tell me.” Livvy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Are we the kind of people you can trick and cheat, or not?” “Not,” said Kit. “But not because you’re Shadowhunters. Because you genuinely seem to care about each other more than you care about yourselves. Which makes it hard to convince you to be selfish.” She took a few steps away, reaching out to touch a small red flower blooming on a silvery-green hedge. When she turned back to Kit, her hair was blowing around her face, and her eyes were unnaturally bright. For a moment, he worried she might be about to cry, or yell at him.

“Kiss me,” she said.

Kit didn’t know where he’d thought the conversation was going, but definitely not there. He just managed not to start coughing. “What?” “You heard me.” She moved back toward him, pacing slowly and deliberately. He tried not to stare at her legs again. “I asked you to kiss me.” “Why?”

She was starting to smile. Behind her, Ty was still balanced on his rock, gazing out to sea. “Haven’t you ever kissed anyone before?” she inquired.

“Yes. I’m not sure how that’s relevant, though, to you wanting me to kiss you right now, right here.” “Are you sure you’re a Herondale? I’m pretty sure a Herondale would lunge at this kind of opportunity.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is there some reason you don’t want to kiss me?” “For one, you have a terrifying older brother,” said Kit.

“I do not have a terrifying older brother.”

“That’s true,” Kit said. “You have two.”

“Fine,” Livvy said, dropping her arms and turning away. “Fine, if you don’t want to—” Kit caught her shoulder. It was warm under his grasp, the heat of her skin tactile through the thin material of her T-shirt. “I do, though.” To his surprise, he meant it. His world was sliding away from him; he felt as if he were falling toward something, a dark unknown, the ragged edge of unwanted choices. And here was a pretty girl offering him something to cling to, a way to forget, something to catch and hold, even if only for a moment.

The pulse fluttered lightly in her neck as she half-turned her head, her hair brushing his hand. “All right,” she said.

“But tell me one thing. Why me? Why do you want to kiss me?”

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” she said in a low voice. “In my whole life. I hardly ever meet anyone. It’s us alone, against the whole world, and I don’t mind that, I’d do anything for my family, but I feel like I’m missing all the chances I should have. You’re my age, and you’re a Shadowhunter, and you don’t get on my nerves. I don’t have that many options.” “You could kiss a Centurion,” Kit suggested.

She turned around completely at that, his hand still on her shoulder, her expression indignant.

“Okay, I guess that suggestion was a little out of bounds,” he admitted. The urge to kiss her had become overwhelming, so he gave up trying not to, and curved his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Her eyes widened, and then she tilted her head back, her mouth angled toward his and their mouths slanted together surprisingly gently.

It was soft and sweet and warm, and she moved into the circle made by his arm, her hands coming to rest at first hesitantly and then with greater purpose on his shoulders. She gripped tightly, pulling him in, his eyes shutting against the blue dazzle of the ocean in the distance. He forgot the ground under his feet, the world around him, everything but the sense of being comforted by someone holding him. Someone caring.

“Livvy. Ty! Kit!”

It was Diana’s voice. Kit snapped out of his daze and let Livvy go; she moved away from him looking surprised, one hand rising to touch her lips.

“All of you!” Diana called. “Get back here, now! I need your help!”

“So how was it?” Kit asked. “Okay for your first?”

“Not bad.” Livvy lowered her hand. “You really put your back into it. I didn’t expect that.” “Herondales don’t do perfunctory kisses,” said Kit. There was a brief flurry of movement, and Ty was down from the rock he’d climbed, picking his way toward them through the desert scrub.

Livvy gave a short, soft laugh. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you call yourself a Herondale.” Ty joined them, his pale oval face unreadable. Kit couldn’t tell anything from his expression—whether he’d seen Kit and Livvy kiss or not. Though what reason would he have to care if he had?

“Looks like it’s going to be clear tonight,” he said. “No clouds coming in.”

Livvy said something about better weather for following suspicious Centurions, and she was already moving to walk next to Ty, like she always did. Kit followed after them, hands in the pockets of his jeans, though he could feel the Herondale ring, heavy on his finger, as if he had only now remembered the weight.

The Land Under the Hill. The Delightful Plain. The Place Beneath the Wave. The Lands of the Ever-Young.

As the hours wore on, all the names Emma had ever heard for Faerieland ran through her head. Conversation between the four of them had grown quieter and fallen eventually into an exhausted silence; Cristina trudged along beside Emma wordlessly, her pendant glimmering in the moonlight. Mark led the way, checking their path against the stars every short while. In the distance the Thorn Mountains became clearer and closer, rising stark and unforgettable against a sky the color of blackened sapphire.

The mountains weren’t often visible, though. Mostly the path they followed wound through low-hanging trees that grew close together, boughs occasionally intertwining. More than once Emma would catch a glimpse of bright eyes flashing out from between the shadows. When tree branches rustled, she would look up to catch sight of shadows moving quickly above them, laughter trailing behind them like mist.

“These are the places of the wild fey,” said Mark, as the road curved around a hill. “The gentry fey stay within the Courts or sometimes town. They like their creature comforts.” Here and there were signs of habitation: crumbled mossy bits of old stone walls, wooden fences cleverly fitted together without the use of nails. They passed through several villages in the hour before dawn: Every one of them was shuttered and dark, windows broken and empty. As they went farther into Faerie they began to see something else, too. The first time they saw it, Emma stopped short and exclaimed—the grass they’d been walking on had suddenly dissolved under her feet, puffing up white and gray like ash around her ankles.

She looked around in astonishment and discovered that the others were staring too. They had wandered into the edge of a ragged circle of diseased-looking land. It reminded Emma of photos she’d seen of crop circles. Everything within the perimeter of the circle was a dull, sickly whitish gray: the grass, the trees, the leaves and plants. The bones of small animals were scattered among the gray vegetation.

“What is this?” Emma demanded. “Some kind of dark faerie magic?”

Mark shook his head. “I have never seen any blight such as this before. I do not like it. Let us make haste away.” No one argued, but as they hurried through the ghost towns and across the hills, they saw several more patches of the ugly blight. At last the sky began to turn light with dawn. All of them were nearly dropping with exhaustion when they left the road behind and found themselves in a place of trees and rolling hills.

“We can rest here,” Mark said. He pointed to a rise of ground opposite, whose top was hidden by a number of stone cairns. “Those will give some shelter, and some cover.” Emma frowned. “I hear water,” she said. “Is there a stream?”

“You know we can’t drink the water here,” Julian said, as she picked her way downhill, toward the sound of fluid bubbling over rocks and around tree roots.

“I know, but we could at least wash off in it—” Her voice died. There was a stream, of sorts, bisecting the valley between the two low hills, but the water wasn’t water. It was scarlet, and thick. It moved sluggishly, slow and red and dripping, between the black trunks of trees.

“ ’All the blood that’s shed on earth, runs through the springs of that country,’ ” said Mark, at her elbow. “You quoted that to me.” Julian moved to the edge of the blood stream and knelt down. With a quick gesture, he dipped his fingers in. They came out scarlet. “It clots,” he said, frowning in mixed fascination and disgust, and wiped his hand off on the grass. “Is it really—human blood?” “That’s what they say,” said Mark. “Not all the rivers of faerie are like this, but they claim that the blood of the murdered dead of the human world runs through the streams and creeks and springs here in the woods.” “Who is they?” Julian asked, standing up. “Who says that?”

“Kieran,” said Mark simply.

“I know the story too,” said Cristina. “There are different versions of the legends, but I have heard many and most say that the blood is human, mundane blood.” She backed up, took a running jump, and landed on the other side of the bloody stream with some feet to spare.

The rest of them followed her, and trudged up the hill to the flat, grassy top, which commanded a view of the surrounding countryside. Emma suspected the cairns of crumbled stones had once been a watchtower of some sort.

They unrolled the blankets they had and spread out coats, huddling under them for warmth. Mark curled up and immediately fell asleep. Cristina lay down more cautiously, her body wrapped in her dark blue coat, her long hair spilling over the arm on which her head rested.

Emma found a place for herself in the grass, folding her gear jacket up to make a pillow. She had nothing to wrap herself in, and shivered when her skin touched the cold ground as she reached to balance Cortana carefully on a nearby stone.

“Emma.” It was Julian, rolling over toward her. He’d been so still she’d thought he was asleep. She didn’t even remember lying down this close to him. In the dawn light, his eyes glowed like sea glass. “I’ve got a spare blanket. Take it.” It was soft and gray, a thin coverlet that used to lie across the foot of his bed. Forcibly, Emma pushed away memories of waking up with it bunched around her feet, yawning and stretching in the sunlight of Julian’s room.

“Thanks,” she whispered, sliding under the blanket. The grass was dampening with dew. Julian was still watching her, his head resting on his curved arm.

“Jules,” Emma whispered. “If our witchlight doesn’t work here, and seraph blades don’t work here, and runes don’t work here—what does that mean?” He sounded weary. “When I looked into an inn, in one of the towns we passed, I saw an angelic rune someone had scrawled on a wall. It was splattered in blood—scratched and defaced. I don’t know what’s happened here since the Cold Peace, but I know they hate us.” “Do you think Cristina’s pendant will still work?” Emma said.

“I think it’s just Shadowhunter magic that’s blocked here,” Julian said. “Cristina’s pendant was a faerie gift. It should be all right.” Emma nodded. “Good night, Jules,” she whispered.

He smiled faintly. “It’s morning, Emma.”

She didn’t say anything, only closed her eyes—but not all the way, so she could still see him. She hadn’t slept near him since that terrible day Jem had told her about parabatai and their curse, and she didn’t realize how much she had missed it. She was exhausted, her tiredness seeping out of her bones and into the ground beneath her as her aching body relaxed; she had forgotten what it was like to let consciousness go slowly, as the person she trusted most in the world lay beside her. Even here in Faerie, where Shadowhunters were hated, she felt safer than she had in her own bedroom alone, because Jules was there, so close that if she’d reached out, she could have touched him.

She couldn’t reach out, of course. Couldn’t touch him. But they were breathing close together, breathing the same breath as consciousness fragmented, as Emma let go of wakefulness and fell, the image of Julian in the dawn light following her down into dreams.