فصل 11

11

SOME FAR-OFF HAPPIER SEA

The wound was long but not deep, a slice across Kieran’s right upper arm. Kieran sat with his teeth gritted atop the bed in one of the Institute’s empty guest rooms, his sleeve cut away by Cristina’s balisong. Mark leaned nervously against a nearby wall, watching.

Cristina had been a little surprised at how muscular Kieran’s arm was; even after he’d carried her through London, she’d thought of faeries as delicate, fine-boned. And he was, but there was toughness there too. His muscles seemed more tightly wrapped against his bones than a human’s, giving his body a lean, tensile strength.

She finished carefully mopping the blood away from the cut and ran her fingers lightly over the skin around it. Kieran shivered, half-closing his eyes. She felt guilty for causing him pain. “I see no sign of infection or need for the wound to be stitched,” she said. “Bandaging it should do the trick.” Kieran looked at her sideways. It was hard to discern his expression in the shadows: There was only one lamp in the room, and it was heavily shaded.

“I’m sorry to have brought this trouble to you,” Kieran said in a soft voice. A nighttime voice, careful of waking those who might be sleeping. “Both of you.” “You didn’t bring us trouble,” said Mark, his voice roughened with tiredness. “You brought us information that can help us save the lives of people we love. We’re grateful.” Kieran frowned, as if he weren’t too fond of the word “grateful.” Before Cristina could add anything, a cry split the night—a howl of miserable terror.

Even knowing what it was, Cristina shivered. “Tavvy,” she said.

“He’s having a nightmare,” Mark confirmed.

“Poor child,” said Kieran. “The terrors of the night are grim indeed.”

“He’ll be all right,” Mark said, though worry shadowed his expression. “He wasn’t there when Livvy died, thank the Angel, but I think he heard whispers. Perhaps we shouldn’t have brought him to the funeral. To see the pyres—” “I believe such things are a comfort,” Cristina said. “I believe they allow our souls to say good-bye.” The door creaked open—someone ought to see to the hinges—and Helen stuck her head in, looking distressed. “Mark, will you go to Tavvy?” Mark hesitated. “Helen, I shouldn’t—”

“Please.” Helen leaned exhaustedly against the doorjamb. “He’s not used to me yet and he won’t stop crying.” “I’ll take care of Kieran,” Cristina said, with more confidence than she felt.

Mark followed Helen from the room with clear reluctance. Feeling awkward at being left alone with Kieran, Cristina took a bandage from the kit and began to wind it around his upper arm. “I always to seem to end up tending your wounds,” she said half-jokingly.

But Kieran did not smile. “That must be why,” he said, “whenever I suffer, I now long for the touch of your hands.” Cristina looked at him in surprise. He was clearly more delirious than she had thought. She laid a hand on his forehead: He was burning up. She wondered what a normal temperature for faeries was.

“Lie down.” She tied off the bandage. “You should rest.”

Her hair swung forward as she bent over him. He reached up and tucked a lock behind her ear. She went still, her heart thudding. “I thought of you at the Scholomance,” he said. “I thought of you every time anyone used Diego’s name, Rosales. I could not stop thinking of you.” “Did you want to?” Her voice shook. “Stop thinking of me?”

He touched her hair again, his fingers light where they brushed her cheek. The sensation made goose bumps flood across her skin. “I know that you and Mark are together. I do not know where I fit into all of that.” His cheeks were fever flushed. “I know how much I have hurt you both. I feel it, down in my bones. I would never want to hurt either of you a second time. Tomorrow I will leave here, and neither of you need ever see me again.” “No!” Cristina exclaimed, with a force that surprised her. “Do not go, not alone.”

“Cristina.” His right hand came up to curve around her other cheek; he was cupping her face. His skin was hot; she could see the blotches of fever on his cheeks, his collarbone. “Princess. You will be better off without me.” “I am not a princess,” she said; she was leaning over him, one of her hands braced against the blanket. His face was close to hers, so close she could see the dark fringe of his eyelashes. “And I do not want you to go.” He sat up, his hands still cradling her face. She gave a little gasp and felt her own temperature spike at the warmth of his hands as they moved from her face to her shoulders, to the curve of her waist, drawing her toward him. She let herself fall atop him, her body stretched along his, their hips and chests aligned. He was tense as a drawn bow, tight and arched beneath her. His hands were fever hot, carding through her soft hair.

She placed her palms against his hard chest. It rose and fell rapidly. Her mind was spinning. She wanted to press her lips against the fine skin over his cheekbone, graze his jaw with kisses. She wanted, and the wanting shocked her, the intensity of it.

She had never felt such intensity for anyone but Mark.

Mark. She drew away from Kieran, nearly tumbling to the coverlet. “Kieran, I—we shouldn’t, you—you have a fever.” He rolled onto his side, eyes bright as he studied her. “I do have a fever,” he said. “I am not out of my mind, though. I have been wanting to hold you for a long time.” “You haven’t even known me that long,” she whispered, though she knew she was lying in a very human way, hiding what she really meant behind irrelevancies. The truth was that she had wanted Kieran, too, and she suspected she had for some time. “Lie back. You need to rest. We will have plenty of time to . . . talk more if you do not leave.” She sat up. “Promise me you won’t leave.” Kieran’s eyes were averted, his lashes like the rays of a dark star. “I should not stay. I will only bring sorrow to you and to Mark.” “Promise me,” Cristina hissed.

“I promise I will stay,” he said at last. “But I cannot promise that you will not regret that I did.” * * *

Nene showed Emma into the room she and Julian had stayed in the last time they’d been in the Seelie Court. The silvery-quartz walls pulsed with low light, and the rose hedge Emma remembered was gone. Instead the waterfall cascaded fiercely down the rock wall as if powered by a flood, pouring into an unshaded pool several feet below the floor.

“It’s kind of Fergus to let us stay in his room,” Emma said as Nene ushered her in.

“Fergus has no choice,” said Nene serenely. “It’s what the Queen desires.”

Emma blinked. That seemed odd and not auspicious. Why did the Queen care where they stayed? Her gaze strayed over the rest of the room—there was a table she could put her bag down on, there was a sofa made of vines twining closely together. . . . She frowned. “Where’s the bed?” “Behind the waterfall, in Fergus’s bower.”

“His what?”

“His bower.” Nene pointed. Sure enough, a set of stone steps wound behind the curtain of the waterfall. Apparently Fergus liked to mix it up in the design area. “What is wrong with a bower?” “Nothing,” said Emma. “I was thinking of getting one myself.”

Nene gave her a suspicious look before leaving her alone. Emma heard the key turn in the lock as she shut the door and didn’t even bother to try the knob. Even if she escaped from the room, she’d have no way of finding her way through the corridors. And it wasn’t as if she’d go anywhere without Julian, who wanted to be here anyway.

The last thing she felt like was sleeping, but she’d learned to snatch rest at any time on missions. She changed into her nightgown and mounted the stone steps behind the waterfall. They led to a stone platform hidden behind the water.

Despite her miserable mood, Emma was struck by the beauty of it. The bed was massive, piled with cloudy white cushions and a heavy coverlet. The waterfall sheeted by past the foot of the bed in a curtain of glimmering silver; the rush and roar of water surrounded the space, reminding Emma of the crash of waves against the beach.

She sank down on the bed. “Nice room,” she said, to no one in particular. “Sorry. Bower.”

Time to sleep, she decided. She lay down and closed her eyes, but the first image that sprang up against her lids was the image of Julian holding Livvy’s body in the Council Hall. His face against her blood-wet hair. Emma’s eyelids popped open, and she turned over restlessly. It didn’t help; the next time she tried, she saw Dane’s open, staring eyes as the kelpie sank its teeth into his body.

Too much. Too much blood, too much horror. She wanted Julian badly; she missed him as if it had been a week since she’d seen him. In a way, it had been. Even her parabatai rune felt strange—she was used to the pulse of its energy, but even before they had come to Faerie, reaching for that energy had been like slamming into a blank wall.

She turned over again, wishing for Cristina, who she could talk to. Cristina, who would understand. But could she tell even Cristina about the spell that had stripped Julian of his emotions? And what about his deal with the Queen? It had been an ugly sort of brilliant, she thought, to make a copy for the Fair Folk. They were both tricky and literal enough to at least consider the copy as sufficient for their purposes. It was too bad Julian couldn’t simply have given the copy to Horace, but he would have laughed in their faces: Even a Dearborn knew what printer paper looked like. He didn’t want to perform the spells in the book, after all; he simply wanted back the property he believed Annabel had stolen, the Black Volume that had lived so many years on the shelves of the Cornwall Institute.

She heard the door of the room open, voices, Julian’s tread on the stairs, and then he was by the bed; she hadn’t realized how the light pouring through the water would turn him into an effigy of silver. Even his dark hair was silvered, as if she was seeing him the way he might look in thirty years.

She sat up. He didn’t move or seem as if he was about to say anything. He stood looking at her, and when he raised his hand to push his hair back, she saw again the stained cloth tied around his wrist.

“So how’d it go?” she asked finally. “Did you find out how to break all the parabatai bonds in the world?” “As it turns out, it’s not possible.” He leaned against a bedpost. “You must be pleased.”

“Yes.” She kicked a pillow down to the foot of the bed. “I mean, that’s a relief, but I’m still curious why you suddenly decided to trust the Seelie Queen when she’s literally never been trustworthy.” “She didn’t betray us before,” said Julian. “We made a deal with her, but we never brought her the Black Volume—until now.” “She did terrible things to Jace and Clary—”

“Maybe they just didn’t know how to deal with her properly.” His blue-green eyes glittered. “The Queen only cares about the Queen. She isn’t interested in causing pain for the sake of causing it. She just wants what she wants. If you remember that, you can deal with her.” “But why did we ever have to—”

“Look, it was obvious we couldn’t trust Dearborn from the beginning. This isn’t just a secret mission like Clary and Jace’s. He brought us to Brocelind alone. He sent us through the door to Faerie without anyone else there. Horace Dearborn is not on our side,” Julian said. “He thinks we’re enemies. Downworlder-lovers. Sure, he thinks we can get the Black Volume back for him—but he planned for us to die doing it. What do you think happens, Emma, when we go home if we don’t have it? In fact, how do you think we even get back—do you really feel like we can trust some guy standing at Bram’s Crossroads on Horace’s orders?” She’d been so caught up in anger at Julian she hadn’t stopped to think about how they might get home from Faerie. “Dane said it wasn’t just him,” she said. “Do you think he meant there’ll be someone waiting at Bram’s Crossroads to kill us?” “There could be someone waiting around every corner to kill us,” Julian said. “Dane was an idiot—he came for us too fast, before we had the real book. But they may not all be. Our lives are in danger here every second. If we have a deal with the Queen, we’re under her protection.” “We need an ally,” Emma said. “And she’s weird and opportunistic and terrible but better than nothing. That’s what you’re saying?” “Every plan involves risk,” Julian said. “Not going to the Queen was a risk. Strategy is choosing between the risks—there is no safe way, Emma, not for us. Not since the minute Horace called us into his office.” “And if we return with the real Black Volume, he’ll just kill us and take it,” said Emma. “That was his plan anyway.” “No,” Julian said. “That was his plan when he thought he was controlling how we returned. If we decide how and where we return, we can walk into any Council meeting and present the Black Volume, bravely rescued from our faerie foes. Horace thought he could get rid of us easily because we were in disgrace. It’ll be much harder to do if we return in triumph.” “Fine,” she said. “I get what you think we’re doing. I don’t know if I agree about working with the Queen, but at least I understand. But you know what would have been better? If you’d included me in the part where you chose what risk we were going to take.” “I didn’t see the point,” he said. “You would have worried, and for what?”

Emma felt tears burn behind her eyes. “This isn’t you. You’d never say that.”

Julian’s eyes flashed. “You know I’ve always done whatever needed to be done to keep us safe. I thought you understood that about me.” “This is different. Remember—Julian, remember what Dane said, that you were the kind of guy who would have a girl for a parabatai?” She knelt up on the bed, raising her chin to look him directly in the eye. “That’s what I always loved about you, even before I was in love with you. You never thought for a second about it diminishing you to have a girl as your warrior partner, you never acted as if I was anything less than your complete equal. You never for a moment made me feel like I had to be weak for you to be strong.” He looked away. Emma pressed on:

“You knew we were always stronger together. You’ve always treated me as though my opinion matters. You’ve always respected my ability to make decisions for myself. But you’re not acting like that now. It’s not some small thing that you lied to me, Julian, it’s a betrayal of everything we swore in our parabatai ceremony. It’s one thing for you to not want to treat me like your girlfriend, but it’s entirely another for you to not treat me like your parabatai.” Julian crawled onto the bed beside her. “This isn’t what I planned,” he said. “I was concerned that you’d refuse to go to the Seelie Court, and I was just trying to move fast.” The shimmer of the waterfall altered, and Julian’s hair was dark again, his lashes making shadows against his cheeks. “I had no idea you’d be so upset about—everything.” “Of course you had no idea.” Having Julian this close made her nerves feel like they were jumping inside her skin. They were both kneeling, facing each other; he was so close she could have reached out and put her arms around him without even needing to lean forward. “You have no idea because you have no feelings. Because you turned off all your emotions, not just about me, but about everything”—about Livvy, even about Livvy—“and that’s going to come back and bite you in the end.” “I don’t,” he said.

“You don’t what?”

He slid his hand across the bed so that his fingertips touched hers, just barely. Emma’s heart kicked into a faster beat. “I don’t have no feelings at all.” He sounded lost and a little baffled. “I just don’t entirely understand what it is that I do feel. Except that—I need you not to be angry, Emma.” She froze. His fingers curved around to stroke the inside of her wrist. Emma felt as if every nerve ending in her body was concentrated there, where his fingers touched. He was touching her pulse. Her heart.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Her heart leaped. With a low cry, she reached out for him; on their knees, they wrapped their arms around each other. He dipped his head to kiss her, and all her breath left her body.

He tasted the way she imagined faerie fruit would taste, sweeter than any sugar on earth. She was dizzy with the memory of the first time she’d kissed him, wet from seawater, hungry and desperate. This was languorous, hot with a slow desire: He explored her mouth thoroughly with his own, stroking his fingertips over her cheekbones, cupping her jaw to tilt her head back.

He pulled her closer. His body still works the same, she thought. Feelings or no feelings.

There was a terrible satisfaction in it. He felt something for her, even if it was only a physical something.

But he had said he was sorry. Surely that meant something. Perhaps that the spell was wearing off. Maybe it wasn’t permanent. Maybe— He kissed the corner of her mouth, the pulse at her neck. His lips were soft against her throat; his hands caught the hem of her nightgown, working it up her thighs.

Let it happen, her body said. Get whatever you can of him, because there might never be anything else.

His hands were under her gown. He knew where she liked to be touched. Knew what would make her shiver and kiss him harder.

No one knew her like Julian did.

Her eyes fluttered open, her vision hazy with desire. She started—Julian was looking at her, his own eyes open, and the expression in them was cool and thoughtful. It was like a bucket of cold water dashed in her face; she almost gasped.

I need you not to be angry, he’d said.

His hands were still curved around the backs of her thighs, holding her against him. Against his mouth, she whispered, “You’re not really sorry, are you?” His eyes shuttered: She knew that look. He was thinking of the right thing to say. Not the true thing, but the best thing: the most clever and efficacious thing. The thing that would get him what he wanted and needed.

She had always been proud of him for his cleverness; adored and understood the necessity of it. It was David’s slingshot; it was Julian’s only small defense against a massive world arrayed against him and his family. It was the only way he knew of protecting what he loved.

But without love as the driving force behind everything he did, what would he be capable of? A Julian without feelings was a Julian who could and would manipulate anyone.

Even her.

He sank back on his heels, his hands falling to his sides, his expression still indecipherable. Before he could speak, the sound of someone entering the room echoed from downstairs.

They scrambled off the bed in alarm. A few seconds later they were standing, in some disarray, on the steps leading down to the main room.

Nene was there, a key in her hand, looking up at them. She wore the uniform of a Seelie Court page. When she caught sight of them, her pale eyebrows raised. “What is it humans say? Is this a bad time?” “It’s fine,” said Julian. His expression had gone back to normal, as if nothing much had happened. Emma didn’t know what her own face looked like, but she knew how she felt: as if a gaping hole had been punched through the center of her.

“I am glad to hear that,” Nene said, stalking to the center of the room and turning to face them. “Because we must speak now. Quickly, come downstairs. The Queen has betrayed you, and there is little time to act.” * * *

Tavvy was finally asleep, clutching a book, his face still stained with recent tears. Mark was kneeling, tousling his soft hair. Helen felt her heart aching—with love for Tavvy, with worry, with missing Julian, who would have been able to calm Tavvy’s fears in minutes, not the hours it was taking Helen.

As Mark drew a blanket over his smallest brother, Helen got up to open the windows and let some fresh air into the room. She hadn’t heard from Julian or Emma since they’d left them behind in Alicante, though Jia swore up and down to Aline that they were all right.

And yet Helen had rarely felt so far from her family. Even on Wrangel Island, where she had felt cut off from the world, she had trusted that Julian was taking care of them—that they were as happy as they could be—and the images of them, happy, in her mind had sustained her.

The reality of them here was a shock. Without Julian, they were looking to her, and she had no idea for what. Tavvy cried when she touched him. Dru glared at her. Ty barely seemed to know she was there. And Mark . . .

“I should never have let them separate us,” Helen said. “In Idris. When they wanted to keep Jules and Emma behind, I shouldn’t have let them do it.” “The Clave forced it,” said Mark, rising to his feet. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“We always have choices,” said Helen.

“You can’t blame yourself. It’s very hard to fight Julian when he’s being stubborn. He has a very strong will. And he wanted to stay.” “Do you really think so?”

“I think he didn’t want to come back with us. He was acting strangely before we left Idris, don’t you think?” “It’s hard to say.” Helen shut the window. “Julian has always been able to make sacrifices that were difficult and hide the pain it caused him.” “Yes,” Mark said, “but even when he was hiding things, he was loving, not cold. Before we left he was cold.” He spoke simply, without any doubt. He glanced at Tavvy again and rose to his feet. “I have to get back to Kieran. He is hurt, and Tavvy is settled.” Helen nodded. “I will go with you.”

The corridors of the Institute were dark and quiet. Somewhere down the hall, Aline was sleeping. Helen let herself think for a moment of how much she wanted to crawl back into bed with her wife, curl up to Aline’s warmth and forget everything else.

“Perhaps we could try a Familias rune,” said Helen. “Something that would lead us to Julian.” Mark looked puzzled. “You know that will not work over the border with Faerie. And Julian would need to be wearing one too.” “Of course.” Helen felt as she had years ago, when Eleanor Blackthorn had died, as if she had frozen inside and it was difficult to think. “I—I know that.” Mark gave her a worried look as they entered the spare bedroom where they had put Kieran. The room was dim, and Cristina was sitting in a chair beside the bed, holding Kieran’s hand; Kieran was very still under the blanket, though his chest rose and fell with the swift, regular breathing normal in faeries.

Helen had known only a little about Kieran, just what Mark had told her in the few quick conversations they’d had since he’d returned from Faerie, until she’d reached Idris; she and Mark had stayed up talking in the canal house after retrieving Tavvy, and she’d heard the whole story then. She knew how complicated Mark’s feelings for Kieran were, though in the moment, as Mark gazed at the other boy worriedly, she might have guessed they were simpler.

But nothing ever was simpler, was it? Helen caught Mark’s quick glance at her between his lashes as he sat down beside Cristina: worry, concern—for Kieran, for Emma and Julian, for all of them. There was plenty of worry to go around.

“I know you’re going to want to go after Julian,” said Helen. “To Faerie. Please don’t do anything foolish, Mark.” Mark’s eyes burned in the darkness. Blue and gold, sea and sunlight. “I will do what I need to do to rescue Julian and Emma. I will rejoin the Hunt if I must.” “Mark!” Helen was appalled. “You would never!”

“I would do what I needed to do,” he said again, and in his voice she heard not the smaller brother she had raised but the boy who had come back from the Wild Hunt an adult.

“I know you lived with the Hunt for years and know things that I don’t,” said Helen. “But I have been in touch with our aunt Nene, and I know things you don’t. I know how you and Julian and the others are thought of in Faerie—not as children but as fearsome enemies. You fought the Riders of Mannan. You shamed the Unseelie King in his own Court, and Emma slew Fal, who is almost like a god to the fey folk. Though you will find some friends in Faerie, you will find many, many foes.” “That’s always been true,” Mark said.

“You don’t understand,” said Helen in a harsh whisper. “Outside of Idris, every entrance to Faerie is guarded now, and has been since the disaster in the Council Hall. The Fair Folk know that the Nephilim hold them to blame. Even if you took the moon’s road, the phouka who guards it would report your entry immediately, and you would be greeted with swords on the other side.” “What do you propose, then?” Mark demanded. “Leaving our brother and Emma in Faerie to die and rot? I have been abandoned in Faerie, I know how it feels. I will never let that happen to Emma and Julian!” “No. I propose that I go after them. I am not an enemy in Faerie. I will go straight to Nene. She will help me.” Mark sprang to his feet. “You cannot go. The children need you here. Someone needs to take care of them.” “Aline can take care of them. She’s already doing a better job than I am. The children don’t even like me, Mark.” “They may not like you but they love you,” Mark said furiously, “and I love you, and I will not lose another sibling to Faerie!” Helen straightened up—though she was nowhere near as tall as her brother, which unnerved her now—and glared at Mark. “Neither will I.” “I might have a solution,” Cristina said. “There is an heirloom of the Rosales family. We call it the Eternidad, to mean a time that has no beginning or end, like time in Faerie. It will allow us to enter Faerie undetected.” “Will you let me take it?” said Mark.

“I do not have it quite yet—and only a Rosales may properly use it, so I will go.”

“Then I will go with you,” said Kieran, who had propped himself up on his elbows. His hair was mussed and there were shadows under his eyes.

“You’re awake?” said Mark.

“I’ve been awake for a while,” Kieran admitted. “But I pretended to be asleep because it was awkward.” “Hmm,” said Helen. “I think this is what Aline means by radical honesty.”

“Cristina cannot journey into Faerie alone,” said Kieran stubbornly. “It is too dangerous.” “I agree,” said Mark. He turned to Helen. “I will go with Cristina and Kieran. We work best as a team, the three of us.” Helen hesitated. How could she let them go, into such danger? And yet that was what Shadowhunters did, wasn’t it? Rush into danger? She wished desperately she could talk to her own mother. Perhaps the better question was, how could she stop them, when Mark and Kieran would be better at navigating Faerie than anyone else? To send Cristina alone would be like sending her into destruction; to send them all meant she might lose Mark as well as Julian. But not to let them go meant to abandon Julian in Faerie.

“Please, Helen,” Mark said. “My brother went to Faerie to save me. I must be able to do the same for him. I have been a prisoner before. Do not make me a prisoner again.” Helen felt her muscles sag. He was right. She sat down on the bed before she could start crying. “When would you be leaving?” “As soon as Jaime gets here with the heirloom,” said Cristina. “It’s been nearly an hour since I summoned him with a fire-message, but I don’t know how long it will take him to arrive.” “Jaime Rosales?” said Mark and Kieran at the same time.

Helen glanced between them. They both looked surprised and a little watchful, as if jealous. She dismissed the thought. She was losing her mind, probably because of the strain.

“Oh, Mark,” she said. In times of strain, the cadence of her voice, like his, slipped into an ancestral faerie formality. “I cannot bear to let you go, but I suppose I must.” Mark’s eyes softened. “Helen. I am sorry. I promise to come back to you safely, and to bring Julian and Emma back safely as well.” Before Helen pointed out that this wasn’t a promise he could truly make, Kieran cleared his throat. The sound was very ordinary and human and nearly made Helen smile despite herself.

“I would that I had ever had a sibling who loved me as much as you love each other,” he said, sounding very much like a prince of Faerie. The semblance was quickly dispelled, though, when he cleared his throat again and said, “In the meantime, Helen, I must ask you to remove yourself from my leg. You are sitting on it and it is becoming quite painful.” * * *

“Some monsters are human,” said Gwyn. They were in Diana’s rooms on Flintlock Street. She lay crosswise on her bed, her head in Gwyn’s lap as he stroked her hair. “Horace Dearborn is one of them.” Diana brushed her hand along the wool of Gwyn’s tunic. She liked seeing him like this—without his helmet or mail, just a man in a worn tunic and scuffed boots. A man with pointed ears and two-colored eyes, but Diana had stopped seeing those as odd. They were just part of Gwyn.

“I believe there are good people in the Council,” Diana said. “They are frightened. Of Horace as well as his dire predictions. He has seized a great deal of power in a short time.” “He has made Idris unsafe,” said Gwyn. “I wish you to leave Alicante, Diana.”

She sat up in surprise. “Leave Alicante?”

“I have seen a great deal of history,” said Gwyn. “Terrible laws are usually passed before they are repealed after much suffering. Small-mindedness and fear have a way of winning out. You have told me Horace and his daughter do not like you.” “No,” said Diana. “Though I don’t know why—”

“They fear your influence,” said Gwyn. “They know others listen to you. You are very persuasive, Diana, and startlingly wise.” She made a face at him. “Flatterer.”

“I am not flattering you.” He stood up. “I am afraid for you. Horace Dearborn may not be a dictator yet, but he yearns to be one. His first move will to be to eliminate all who stand against him. He will move to extinguish the brightest lights first, those who illuminate the pathway for others.” Diana shivered. She could hear the hooves of his horse pacing back and forth across her roof. “You are bitter, Gwyn.” “It is possible I do not always see the best in people,” he said, “as I hunt down the souls of slain warriors on the battlefield.” She raised her eyebrows. “Are you making a joke?”

“No.” He looked puzzled. “I meant what I said. Diana, let me take you from here. We would be safe in Faerie. At night the stars are a thousand colors and during the day the fields are full of roses.” “I cannot, Gwyn. I cannot abandon this fight.”

He sat back down on the bed, hanging his shaggy head in weariness. “Diana . . .”

It was strange after so long to feel the desire to be close to someone, physically as well as emotionally. “Did you not tell me that the first time you saw me, you cared for me because I was so brave? You would now like me to be a coward?” He looked at her, emotion naked on his lined face. “It is different now.”

“Why would it be different?”

He curved his big hands around her waist. “Because I know that I love you.”

Her heart gave a strong flutter inside her chest. She had not expected such words from anyone, had considered it a price she would pay for being transgender and Nephilim. She had certainly never expected to hear it from someone like Gwyn: who knew all there was to know about her, who could not lie, a prince of wild magic.

“Gwyn,” she said, and cupped his face in her hands, bending to kiss him. He leaned back, gently drawing her with him until they lay upon the bed, her heart beating fast against the roughness of his tunic. He curved over her, his bulk casting a shadow across her body, and in that shadow she closed her eyes and moved with the movements of his gentle kisses and touches as they turned sweeter and sharper, until they reached together a place where fear was gone, where there was only the gentle alliance of souls who had left loneliness behind.

Helen had gone to tell Aline what was going on; Mark couldn’t guess how late it was, but he could no longer see moonlight through the window. He was sitting on the mattress next to Kieran, and Cristina had curled herself into the chair beside the bed.

He avoided meeting her eyes. He knew he had done nothing wrong by kissing her, or she by kissing him. He remembered the last time he had spoken to Kieran alone, in the London Sanctuary. How Kieran had touched the elf-bolt that hung around Mark’s neck. It had become a symbol, of sorts, of the two of them. What Kieran had said next still rang in his ears: We will be done with each other.

He didn’t know if he could explain what he felt to Kieran, or even to Cristina. He knew only that he did not feel done: not with Kieran, nor with Cristina should Kieran choose to return to him.

“Do you feel any better, Kieran?” he said softly.

“Yes—Cristina is a very good nurse.”

Cristina rolled her eyes. “I put on a bandage. Don’t exaggerate my talents.”

Kieran gazed sadly down at his bandaged arm. “I do feel a bit odd with my sleeve missing.” Mark couldn’t help smiling. “It’s very stylish. Big with mundanes, the one-sleeve look.”

Kieran’s eyes widened. “Is it?”

Both Mark and Cristina giggled. Kieran frowned. “You should not mock me.”

“Everyone gets mocked,” Cristina said teasingly. “That’s what friends do.”

Kieran’s face lit up at that, so much so that Mark felt the painful urge to hug him. Princes of Faerie didn’t have friends, he guessed; he and Kieran had never really talked about it. There was a time that the two of them had been friends, but love and pain had transmuted that in a way Mark now knew wasn’t inevitable. There were people who fell in love but stayed friends—Magnus and Alec, or Clary and Jace, or Helen and Aline.

Kieran’s smile had vanished. He moved restlessly under the covers. “There is something I need to tell you both. To explain.” Cristina looked worried. “Not if you don’t want to—”

“It is about the Scholomance,” Kieran said, and they both fell silent. They listened while Kieran told them of the Hollow Place. Mark tended to lose himself in other people’s stories. He had always been like that, since he was a child, and he remembered how much he had loved Kieran telling him stories when they were in the Hunt—how he had gone to sleep with Kieran’s fingers in his hair and Kieran’s voice in his ears, telling him tales of Bloduwedd, the princess made of flowers, and of the black cauldron that raised the dead, and of the battle between Gwyn ap Nudd and Herne the Hunter, that had shaken down the trees.

Cristina never lost herself in retellings in the same way, Mark thought; she was entirely present, her expression darkening and her eyes widening with horror as Kieran told them of the Cohort, the fight by the pool, the way Diego had saved him, and how he had escaped from the library.

“They are horrible,” Cristina said, almost before Kieran had finished speaking. “Horrible. That they would go that far—!” “We must check in on Diego and the others,” said Mark, though Diego Rocio Rosales was one of his least favorite people. “See if they’re all right.” “I will write to Diego,” Cristina said. “Kieran, I am so sorry. I thought you would be safe at the Scholomance.” “You could not have known,” said Kieran. “While I was at the Scholomance, I chided Diego for not planning for the future, but this is not a future anyone could imagine.” “Kieran’s right. It’s not your fault,” said Mark. “The Cohort is out of control. I’d guess it was one of them who followed Emma and Julian into Faerie.” Kieran shoved his blankets off with a harsh, sudden gesture. “I owe it to Emma and Julian to go after them. I understand that now. I regretted what I had done even before the water of the pool touched me. But I was never able to testify. I was never able to earn their forgiveness or make up for what I did.” “Emma has forgiven you,” Cristina said.

Kieran did not look convinced. When he spoke, it was haltingly. “I want to show you something.” When neither Mark nor Cristina moved, he turned around, kneeling on the bed, and pulled up his shirt, baring his back. Mark heard Cristina suck in her breath as Kieran’s skin was revealed.

It was covered in whip marks. They looked newly healed, as if a few weeks old, no longer bleeding but still scarlet. Mark dry-swallowed. He knew every mark and scar on Kieran’s skin. These were new.

“The Cohort whipped you?” he whispered.

“No,” said Kieran. He let his shirt fall, though he didn’t move from where he was, facing the wall behind the bed. “These marks appeared on my back when the water of the pool touched me. They are Emma’s. I bear them now as a reminder of the agony she would not have been caused if not for me. When the pool water touched me, I felt her fear and pain. How can she forgive me for that?” Cristina rose to her feet. Her brown eyes glimmered with distress; she touched her hand lightly to Kieran’s back. “Kieran,” she said. “As we all have an infinite capacity to make mistakes, we all have an infinite capacity for forgiveness. Emma bears these scars cheerfully because to her, they are a mark of valor. Let them be the same to you. You are a prince of Faerie. I have seen you be as brave as anyone I have known. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is confront our own failings.” “You are a prince of Faerie.” Kieran smiled a little, though it was crooked. “Someone else said that to me tonight.” “To realize that you have made mistakes and hope to correct them is all anyone can hope to do,” said Mark. “Sometimes we may have the best intentions—you were trying to save my life when you went to Gwyn and Iarlath—and the results are terrible. We all had the best intentions when we went to the Council meeting, and now Livvy is dead and Alicante is in the hands of the Cohort.” Wincing, Kieran turned to face them both. “I swear to you,” he said. “I will fight to my last breath to help you save the ones you love.” Cristina smiled, clearly touched. “Let’s just focus on Emma and Julian right now,” she said. “We will be grateful to have you with us in Faerie tomorrow.” Mark reached behind his neck and untied his elf-bolt necklace. “I want you to wear this, Kieran. You must never be defenseless again.” Kieran didn’t reach for the elf-bolt. “I gave it to you because I wished you to have it.”

“And now I want you to have it,” said Mark. “There are many who seek to harm you, here and in Faerie. I want to be certain you will always have a weapon close to hand.” Kieran slowly reached out and caught the necklace from Mark’s hand. “I will wear it then, if it pleases you.” Cristina gave Mark an unreadable look as Kieran looped the necklace over his head. There was something approving in her expression, as though she were glad of Mark’s generosity.

Kieran ran his hands through his hair. It slipped through his fingers in ink-blue locks. “Exhaustion claims me,” he said. “I am sorry.” In the Hunt, Mark would have wrapped his arms around Kieran and held him. They would have been cushions for each other’s bodies against the hard ground. “Would you like us to make you a bed of blankets on the floor?” Mark offered.

Kieran looked up, his eyes like shining polished mirrors: one black, one silver. “I think I could sleep in the bed if you stayed with me.” Cristina turned bright red. “All right,” she said. “I’ll say good night then—”

“No,” Kieran said quickly. “I mean both of you. I want both of you to stay with me.”

Mark and Cristina exchanged a look. It was the first time, Mark thought, that he had really looked at Cristina since they’d come back from the Vasquez Rocks: He’d felt too awkward, too ashamed of his own confusion. Now he realized she looked just as flushed and puzzled as he did.

Kieran’s shoulders sagged slightly. “If you do not want to, I will understand.”

It was Cristina who kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed beside Kieran. She was still wearing her jeans and tank top, one strap torn by a Harpyia demon. Mark got into the bed on the other side of Kieran, pillowing his head on his hand.

They lay there for long moments in silence. The warmth from Kieran’s body was familiar—so familiar it was hard not to curl up against him. To pull the blankets up over them, to forget everything in the darkness.

But Cristina was there, and her presence seemed to change the makeup of the atoms in the air, the chemical balance between Kieran and Mark. It was no longer possible to fall into forgetting. This moment was now, and Mark was sharply aware of Kieran’s nearness in a way he had not been since they first met, as if the clock had been rewound on their relationship.

And he was aware of Cristina as well, no less sharply. Awkward, shy wanting anchored him in place. He glanced over at her; he could see the gleam of her dark hair against the pillow, one bare brown shoulder. Heat muddled Mark’s head, his thoughts.

“I shall dream of the Borderlands,” said Kieran. “Adaon had a cottage there, in lands neither Seelie nor Unseelie. A little stone place, with roses climbing the walls. In the Hunt, when I was hungry and cold, I would say to myself, none of this is real, and try to make the cottage real in my mind. I would pretend I was there, looking out the windows, and not where I truly was. It became more real to me than reality was.” Cristina touched his cheek lightly. “Ya duérmete,” she murmured. “Go to sleep, you silly person.” Mark couldn’t help smiling. “Has anyone else ever called you a silly person before, Prince Kieran?” he whispered as Cristina closed her eyes to sleep.

But Kieran was looking over at Cristina, his dark hair tangled, his eyes soft with weariness and something else.

“I think she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he said in a ruminative voice.

“I have always thought the same,” said Mark.

“You are different with each other now,” Kieran said. “It is clear to see. You were together while I was away.” It was not something Mark would have ever lied about. “That is true.”

Kieran reached out, touched Mark’s hair. A light touch, sending a shower of sparks down through Mark’s body. Kieran’s mouth was a sleepy, soft curve. “I hoped you would be,” he said. “The thought gave me comfort while I was in the Scholomance.” Kieran curled into the blankets and closed his eyes, but Mark remained awake for a long time, staring into the dark.