فصل 18

18

HELL RISING

As Julian and Emma followed Cameron through the Bradbury lobby, they passed several other groups of Livvy’s rebels. That was what Julian was calling them in his mind, anyway. These were Livvy’s people; she was clearly important here. He felt proud of her at the same time that he felt a thousand other emotions tearing through him—joy, despair, horror, fear, grief, and love and hope. They battered at him like the sea at high tide.

And yearning, too. A yearning for Emma that felt like knives in his blood. When she spoke, he couldn’t stop staring at her mouth, the way her top lip curved like a perfectly made bow. Was this why he’d begged Magnus to turn his feelings for her off? He couldn’t remember if it had been like this before, or if now was worse. He was drowning.

“Look,” Emma whispered, touching his arm, and his skin burned where she touched him and, Stop, he told himself fiercely. Stop. “It’s Maia Roberts and Bat Velasquez.” Thankful for the distraction, Julian glanced over to see the girl who was the werewolf representative to the Council in his reality. Her hair was in two thick braids, and she was descending a set of stairs next to a handsome, scarred boy who Julian recognized as her boyfriend. Like Livvy, their clothes looked like they’d been scrounged from an army-navy store. Military jackets, camo, boots, and bullet belts.

There were a lot of bullets in this world. The front doors of the building had been boarded up, the boards glopped with cement to hold them in place. Rows of nails next to the doors held guns of all shapes and sizes; boxes of ammo were stacked on the floor. On the wall nearby someone had written ANGELS AND MINISTERS OF GRACE DEFEND US in red paint.

They followed Cameron up another set of wood-and-iron stairs. The inside of the building had probably been breathtakingly beautiful once, when light had streamed in through the windows and the glass roof overhead. Even now it was striking, though the windows and roof were boarded over, the terra-cotta walls cracked. Electric lights burned sodium yellow, and the web of stairs and catwalks angled blackly through the twilight gloom as they passed rebel guards armed with pistols.

“Lot of guns,” said Emma, a little dubiously, as they reached the top floor.

“Bullets don’t work on demons, but they’ll still take down a bad vamp or an Endarkened,” said Cameron. They were passing along a walkway. Beyond the iron balustrade on the left side was the yawning darkness of the atrium; the right wall was lined with doors. “There used to be a branch of the LAPD in this building, you know, back when there were police. Demons took them out in minutes, but they left behind plenty of Glocks.” He paused. “Here we are.” He pushed open a plain wooden door and flicked on the light. Julian followed Emma into the room: It had clearly once been an office, repurposed into a bedroom. Newbie rooms, Livvy had said. There was a desk and an open wardrobe where a motley collection of clothes hung. The walls were pale stucco and warm old wood, and through a doorway Julian could glimpse a small tiled bathroom. Someone seemed to have taken the time to try to make the place look a little nice—a sheet of metal covered the single window, but it had been painted a dark blue dotted with small yellow stars, and there was a colorful blanket on the bed.

“Sorry the bed’s not bigger,” said Cameron. “We don’t get too many couples. There are condoms in the nightstand drawer, too.” He said it matter-of-factly. Emma blushed. Julian tried to stay expressionless.

“Someone will bring you some food,” Cameron added. “There are energy bars and Gatorade in the wardrobe if you can’t wait. Don’t try to leave the room—there are guards all over.” He hesitated in the doorway. “And, uh, welcome,” he added, a little awkwardly, and left.

Emma wasted no time in raiding the wardrobe for energy bars, and turned up a small bag of potato chips as a bonus. “You want half?” she asked, tossing Julian a bar and holding up the chips.

“No.” He knew he should be ravenous. He could barely remember the last time they’d eaten. But he actually felt a little sick. He was alone with Emma now, and it was overwhelming.

“If Ash is here, where’s Annabel?” she said. “They came through the Portal together.”

“She could be anywhere in Thule,” Julian said. “Even if she figured out a way to return to our world, I doubt she’d leave Ash.” Emma sighed. “Speaking of which, I guess we should talk about how we try to get home. It can’t be impossible. If we could get into Faerie somehow—there might be someone there, someone who can do magic—” “Didn’t Livvy say the entrances to Faerie were walled off?”

“We’ve made it through walls before,” Emma said quietly, and he knew she was thinking, as he was, of the thorns around the Unseelie Tower.

“I know.” Julian couldn’t stop staring at her. They were both filthy, both bloody and hungry and exhausted. But against the darkness and chaos of this world, his Emma burned brighter than ever.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said. She tossed the empty chip bag into a metal wastebasket. “Eat your energy bar, Julian.” He peeled the wrapper off, clearing his throat. “I should probably sleep on the floor.”

She stopped pacing. “If you want,” she said. “I guess in this world we were always a couple. Not parabatai. I mean, that makes sense. If the Dark War hadn’t turned out like it did, we never would have . . .” “How long were we even together here, before we were Endarkened?” Julian said.

“Maybe Livvy will tell us. I mean, I know she’s not really Livvy. Not our Livvy. She’s Livvy that could have been.” “She’s alive,” Julian said. He stared down at his energy bar. The thought of eating it made him nauseous. “And she’s been through hell. And I wasn’t here to protect her.” Emma’s brown eyes were dark and direct. “Do you care?”

He met her gaze, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he could feel what she was feeling, as he’d been able to for so long. He felt her wariness, her bone-deep hurt, and he knew he’d been the one to hurt her. He’d rejected her over and over, pushed her away, told her he felt nothing.

“Emma.” His voice was scratchy. “The spell—it’s broken.”

“What?”

“When Livvy and Cameron said there was no magic here, they meant it. The spell Magnus put on me, it’s not working here. I can feel things again.” Emma just stared. “You mean about me?”

“Yeah.” When she didn’t move, Julian took a step forward and put his arms around her. She stood as stiffly as a wooden carving, her arms at her sides. It was like hugging a statue. “I feel everything,” he said desperately. “I feel like I did before.” She pulled away from him. “Well, maybe I don’t.”

“Emma—” He didn’t move toward her. She deserved her space. She deserved whatever she wanted. She must have dammed up so many words while he’d been under the spell, words it would have been completely pointless to say to his emotionless self. He could only imagine the control it must have taken. “What do you mean?” “You hurt me,” Emma said. “You hurt me a lot.” She took a shuddering breath. “I know you did it because of a spell, but you had that spell cast on yourself without thinking about how it would affect me or your family or your role as a Shadowhunter. And I hate to tell you all this now, because we’re in this terrible place and you just found out your sister is alive, sort of, and she looks kind of like Mad Max, which is cool actually, but this is the only place I can tell you, because when we get home—if we ever get home—you won’t care.” She paused, breathing as if she’d been running. “Okay. Fine. I’m going to take a shower. If you even think about following me into the bathroom to talk, I’ll shoot you.” “You don’t have a gun,” Julian pointed out. It wasn’t a helpful thing to say—Emma stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. A moment later, there was the sound of running water.

Julian sank down onto the bed. After having his soul wrapped in cotton wool for so long, the new rawness of emotion felt like razor wire cutting into his heart every time it expanded with a breath.

But it wasn’t just pain. There was the bright current of joy that was seeing Livvy, hearing her voice. Of pride in watching Emma burn like fire in the Arctic, like the northern lights.

A voice seemed to ring in his head, clear as a bell; it was the Seelie Queen’s voice.

Have you ever wondered how we lure mortals to live amongst faeries and serve us, son of thorns? We choose those who have lost something and promise them that which humans desire most of all, a cessation to their grief and suffering. Little do they know that once they enter our Lands, they are in the cage and will never again feel happiness.

You are in that cage, boy.

The Queen was deceitful, but sometimes right. Grief could be like a wolf tearing your insides, and you would do anything to make it stop. He remembered his despair as he looked in the mirror in Alicante and knew that he had lost Livvy and would soon lose Emma, too. He had gone to Magnus like a shipwrecked man struggling onto a lonely rock, knowing he might die the next day of heat or thirst, but desperate to escape the tempest.

And then the tempest had been gone. He had been in the eye of the hurricane, the storm around him, but he had been untouched. It had felt like a cessation to suffering. Only now did he recognize what he couldn’t see before: that he had been going through life with a black hole at the center of him, a space like the emptiness between Portals.

Even at the moments when an emotion was so strong it seemed to pierce the veil, he had felt it at a sort of colorless, glassy remove—Ty atop Livvy’s pyre, Emma as the thorns of the hedge tore at her. He could see her now, all black and white, the only spots of color where the blood had been drawn.

There was a knock on the door. Julian’s throat was too tight for him to speak, but it didn’t seem to matter: Cameron Ashdown barged in anyway, carrying a pile of clothes. He dumped them into the wardrobe, went back to the hallway, and returned with a box of canned food, toothpaste, soap, and other basics. Dropping it on the desk, he rolled his shoulders back with an exaggerated sigh. “Jeans and turtlenecks, gloves and boots. If you go back outside, cover up as much as you can to hide your runes. There’s concealer, too, if you want to get fancy. Need anything else?” Julian gave him a long look. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Actually, I do.”

Cameron had only just gone off muttering when Julian heard the water in the bathroom switch off. A moment later Emma appeared, wrapped in a towel, cheeks pink and glowing. Had she always looked like that? Such intense colors, the gold of her hair, black Marks against pale skin, the soft brown of her eyes— “I’m sorry,” he said as she reached for the clothes on the bed. She froze. “I’m only just starting to understand how sorry I am.” She went into the bathroom and came out a moment later dressed in black cargo pants and a green tank top. The permanent Marks twining her arms looked stark and startling, a reminder that no one else here had them. “Whoever was eyeballing our sizes has way overestimated my attributes,” she said, buckling her belt. “The bra they gave me is huge. I could wear it as a hat.” Cameron barged back in without knocking again. “Got what you asked for,” he said, and dumped a pile of pencils and a Canson sketch pad into Julian’s lap. “Have to admit, it’s a first. Most newbies ask for chocolate.” “Do you have chocolate?” Emma said.

“No,” said Cameron, and stomped back out of the room. Emma watched him go with a bemused expression.

“I really like this new Cameron,” she said. “Who knew he had it in him to be such a badass? He was such a nice guy, but . . .” “He always had kind of a secret side,” Julian said. He wondered if there was something about suddenly getting his emotions back that meant he didn’t feel like covering things up. Maybe he’d regret it later. “A while ago, he approached Diana, because he was pretty sure Anselm Nightshade was murdering werewolf children. He couldn’t prove it, but he had some good reasons for thinking it. His family kept telling him to drop it, that Nightshade had powerful friends. So he brought it to us—to the Institute.” “That’s why you had Nightshade arrested,” said Emma, realizing. “You wanted the Clave to be able to search his house.” “Diana told me they found a basement full of bones,” said Julian. “Werewolf children, just like Cameron said. They tested the stuff in the restaurant and there was death magic all over the place. Cameron was right, and he stood up to his family, in his own way. And he did it for Downworlders that he didn’t know.” “You never said anything,” Emma said. “Not about Cameron, or about you—why you really got Anselm arrested. There are people who still blame you.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Sometimes you have to let people blame you. When the only other option is letting bad things happen, it doesn’t matter what people think.” She didn’t reply. When he glanced over at her, she looked as if she’d forgotten all about Cameron and Nightshade. Her eyes were wide and luminous as she reached out to touch a few of the Prismacolors that had rolled onto the bed.

“You asked for art supplies?” she whispered.

Julian looked down at his hands. “All this time, since the spell, I’ve been walking around missing the whole center of myself, but the thing is—I didn’t even notice. Not consciously. But I felt it. I was living in black and white and now the color is back.” He exhaled. “I’m saying it all wrong.” “No,” Emma said, “I think I get it. You mean that the part of you that feels is also the part of you that creates things.” “They always say faeries steal human children because they can’t make art or music of their own. Neither can warlocks or vampires. It requires mortality to make art. The knowledge of death, of things limited. There is fire inside us, Emma, and as it blazes, it burns us, and the burning causes pain—but without its light, I cannot see to draw.” “Then draw now,” she said, her voice husky. She pressed several pencils into his open hand and began to turn away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t burden you.”

“You’re not burdening me,” she said, still facing away. “You’re reminding me why I love you.”

The words caught at his heart, sharp with a painful joy.

“You’re not off the hook, though,” she added, and went over to the wardrobe. He left her alone to rifle through the pairs of socks and shoes, looking for something that might fit. He wanted to talk to her—talk to her forever, about everything—but that had to be at her discretion. Not his.

Instead he put pencil to paper and let his imagination go, let the images that rose up inside him and captured his brain flow out in Alicante silver and Seelie green, in Unseelie black and blood red. He drew the King on his throne, pale and powerful and unhappy. He drew Annabel holding Ash’s hand. He drew Emma with Cortana, surrounded by thorns. He drew Drusilla, all in black, a murder of crows circling behind her.

He was conscious that Emma had come to lie down beside him and was watching him with quiet curiosity, her head propped on her arm. She was half-asleep, lips parted, when the door banged open again. Julian threw the sketchbook down. “Look, Cameron—” But it wasn’t Cameron. It was Livvy.

She had taken off her Sam Browne ammo belt, but otherwise looked much the same. In the brighter light of the bedroom, Julian could see the shadows smudged under her eyes. “Cameron said you asked for a sketch pad and pencils,” she said in a near whisper.

Julian didn’t move. He half felt as if any movement would spook her, as if he were trying to lure a nervous forest creature closer. “Do you want to see?” Julian held out the sketch pad; she took it and flipped through it, slowly and then faster. Emma was sitting up now, clutching one of the pillows.

Livvy thrust the sketch pad back at Julian. She was looking down; he couldn’t see her face, only twin fringes of dark lashes. He felt a twinge of disappointment. She doesn’t believe me; the pictures meant nothing to her. I’m nothing to her.

“No one draws like my brother,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She lifted her head and looked directly at Julian with a sort of bewilderment that was half hurt, half hope. “But you do.” “You remember when I tried to teach you to draw, when you were nine?” said Julian. “And you snapped all my pencils?” Something almost like a smile touched the edge of Livvy’s mouth. For a moment, she was familiar Livvy, despite the scars and black leather. A second later it was as if a mask had passed across her face, and she was a different Livia, a rebel leader, a scarred warrior. “You don’t need to try to convince me anymore,” she said. She turned away, her movements precise and military. “Finish getting cleaned up. I’ll meet you two in the main office in an hour.” * * *

“Did we ever date in this world?” Emma said. “You know, you and me.”

Cameron nearly fell down several metal steps. They were in the maze of stairs and catwalks that crisscrossed the inside of the Bradbury Building. “Of course not!” Emma felt mildly stung. She knew it wasn’t a big deal, considering, but sometimes you wanted to focus on something trivial to take your mind off the apocalypse. Cameron in her world had been almost embarrassingly devoted, always coming back after they broke up, sending love notes and flowers and sad llama pictures.

“You were always with Julian,” Cameron added. “Aren’t you together in your world?”

“I’m right here,” Julian said in the deceptively mild tone that meant he was annoyed.

“I mean, yes,” Emma said. “At least, we’re on and off. Sometimes very on, sometimes very off. You and I dated briefly, is all.” “We don’t really have time for that kind of personal drama here,” Cameron said. “It’s hard to focus on your love life when giant spiders are chasing you.” Cameron was pretty funny here, Emma thought. If he’d been this amusing at home, their relationship might have lasted longer.

“When you say ‘giant,’ how giant exactly?” she said. “Bigger than Dumpsters?”

“Not the babies,” Cameron said, and gave them a horrible smile. “We’re here—go on in, and don’t tell Livvy we dated in your world, because it’s weird.” They found Livvy in another repurposed office—this one had clearly once been more of a loft, big and airy and probably full of light before the windows had been covered. Strips of brick alternated with polished wood on the walls, and dozens of vintage fruit labels advertising California apples, pears, and oranges hung between the boarded-up windows. A group of four sleek, modern couches formed a square around a glass coffee table. Livvy was lounging on one of the couches, drinking a glass of something dark brown.

“That’s not alcohol, is it?” Julian sounded appalled. “You shouldn’t be drinking.”

“You’ll be drinking tomorrow,” Livvy said, and pointed at a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the glass table. “Just saying.” She waved a hand. “Sit down.” They settled themselves on the couch opposite her. There was a fireplace in the room too, but the grate had been plugged with metal some time ago. Someone with a sense of humor had painted flames on the metal. It was too bad. Emma would have liked a fire. It would have felt like something natural.

Livvy turned her glass around in her scarred hands. “So I believe you,” she said. “You are who you say you are. Which means I know what you want to ask me.” “Yeah,” Julian said. He cleared his throat. “Mark?” he said. “Ty? Helen, and Dru—”

“But you also probably want to get out of here,” Livvy interrupted. “Since you ended up here by accident and your world sounds like a much better place.” “We have to leave,” Emma said. “There are people at home who could be hurt or even killed if we don’t come back—” “But we want to take you with us,” Julian said. Emma had known he was going to say it; they hadn’t discussed it, but it had never been a question. Of course Julian would want Livvy to come back with them.

Livvy gave a long, slow nod. “Right,” she said. “Do you have a reason to think that there’s any way you can get back at all? Interdimensional travel isn’t exactly easy.” “We’d only just started to discuss it,” Emma said. “But we’ll think of something.” She spoke with more confidence than she felt.

Livvy held up a hand. “If there’s any chance you can get away, are you really sure that you want to know what happened to—to everyone? Because I wish every single day that I didn’t.” Without taking his eyes off Livvy, Julian said, “What I wish is that I could’ve been here for you.”

Livvy’s gaze was distant. “You were, I guess. Both of you.” She pulled her knees up under her. “You saved our lives when you sacrificed yourselves to get us out of Manhattan the day it fell.” Emma shivered. “New York? Why were we in New York?”

“The Battle of the Burren was when everything went wrong,” said Livvy. “Clary was there, Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, Magnus Bane—and Helen and Aline, of course. They were winning. Jace was under Sebastian’s thrall, but Clary was wielding Glorious, the sword of the Angel of Paradise. She was about to break him free when Lilith appeared. She cast the sword into Hell and cut Clary down. Helen and the others were lucky to escape with their lives.

“That was Sebastian’s great victory. After that he joined forces with the Fair Folk. They stormed Alicante while we hid in the Hall of Accords. The Shadowhunters fought—our father fought—but Sebastian was too powerful. As Alicante fell to his forces, a group of warlocks opened up a Portal for the children. Just people under fifteen. We had to leave Helen and Mark behind. Dru was screaming as they ripped her out of Helen’s arms and drove us through the Portal to Manhattan.

“Catarina Loss and Magnus Bane had set up a temporary shelter there. The war raged on in Idris. We got a message from Helen. Mark had been taken by the Fair Folk. She didn’t know what they would do to him. I still don’t know. I hope he’s in Faerie and it’s green and bright and he’s forgotten all of us.” “He hasn’t,” Julian said in a low voice. “Mark doesn’t forget.”

Livvy just blinked, fast, as if her eyes stung. “Helen and Aline hung on, fighting. Sometimes we got a fire-message from them. We heard that strange gray patches started to appear in Brocelind Forest. They called them the ‘blight.’ They turned out to be doorways for demons.” “Doorways for demons?” Emma demanded, sitting up straight, but Livvy was caught up in her story, turning her glass over and over in her hands so fast Emma was surprised it hadn’t started sparking.

“Demons flooded into Idris. The Fair Folk and Endarkened drove the Shadowhunters out of Alicante, and the demons finished them off. We were in New York when we learned Idris had fallen. Everyone wanted to know the names of the dead, but there was no information. We couldn’t find out what had happened to Helen and Aline, if they’d lived or been Endarkened—we didn’t know.

“We did know we wouldn’t be safe for long. Sebastian didn’t care about keeping secrets from the human world. He wanted to burn it all down. Demons began to appear everywhere, running rampant, slaughtering humans in the streets. The blight spread, appearing all over the world. It poisoned everything it touched and the warlocks started to sicken.

“After two months the shelter was destroyed. The streets were full of monsters, and the warlocks were getting sicker and sicker. The more powerful they were, the more magic they’d used, the quicker they got sick and the more likely they were to turn into demons. Catarina fled so she wouldn’t hurt anyone. You heard what happened to Alec and Magnus. The shelter collapsed and the kids spilled into the streets.” She looked at Julian. “It was winter. We had nowhere to go. But you kept us together. You said, at all costs, we stay together. We live because we’re together. We never leave each other.” Julian cleared his throat. “That sounds right.”

Livvy’s eyes bored into him. “Before she left, Catarina Loss arranged for a bunch of trains to take Shadowhunter and Downworlder kids across the country. The demons were spreading east to west, and the rumor was that California was pretty clear. We left from White Plains station—we walked all night, and you carried Tavvy. He was so hungry. We were all hungry. You kept trying to give us your food, especially Ty. We got to the station and the last train was leaving. That’s when we saw them. The Endarkened. They came for us in their red gear, like a rain of blood. They were going to kill us all before we got on that train.

“You didn’t even kiss us good-bye,” Livvy said, her voice remote. “You just shoved us toward the trains. You shouted at us to get on, told me to look after the younger ones. And you went for the Endarkened with your swords out. We could see you fighting them as the train pulled out—just the two of you and fifty Endarkened, in the snow.” At least we went down protecting them, Emma thought. It was cold comfort.

“And then there were four,” Livvy said, and reached for the whiskey bottle. “Me and Ty, Dru and Tavvy. I did what you said. I looked after them. The trains inched through the winter. We met Cameron somewhere around Chicago—we’d all started going from train to train by then, trading food for matches, that sort of thing. Cameron said we should go to L.A., that his sister was there and she said things were okay.

“Of course when we hit Union Station, it turned out Paige Ashdown had joined the Legion of the Star. That’s what they were calling themselves. Traitors, we called them. She was standing there grinning bloody murder with a dozen Endarkened around her. Cameron gave me a shove, and Ty and I ran. We were dragging Dru and Tavvy with us. They were crying and screaming. They’d thought they were coming home.

“I don’t think we realized until then how bad things had gotten. Demons hunted unsworn humans through the streets, and there was nothing we could do. Our Marks were fading. We were getting weaker every day. Runes and seraph blades didn’t work. We had nothing to fight demons with, so we hid. Like cowards.” “By the Angel, Livvy, you can’t have been expected to do anything else. You were ten,” Emma said.

“No one says ‘By the Angel’ anymore.” Livvy poured out a measure of Jack Daniel’s and recapped the bottle. “At least it wasn’t cold. I remembered what you’d said, Jules, to take care of the younger ones. Ty isn’t—he wasn’t—really younger than me, but he was shattered. His whole heart was broken when we lost you. He loved you so much, Jules.” Julian didn’t speak. He was pale as the snow in Livvy’s story. Emma slid her hand across the couch, touched her fingers to his. They were icy. This world was the pure distilled essence of his nightmares, Emma thought. A place where his siblings had been ripped from him, where he couldn’t protect them as the world fell down around them in darkness and flame.

“We slept in alleys, in the abandoned houses of murdered humans,” Livvy said. “We scrounged for food in supermarkets. We never stayed in the same place for more than two nights. Tavvy screamed himself to sleep in my arms every night, but we were careful. I thought we were careful. We slept inside rings of salt and iron. I tried, but . . .” She took a swallow of whiskey. Emma would have choked; Livvy seemed used to it. “One night we were sleeping on the street. In the ruins of the Grove. There were still stores with food and clothes there. I’d surrounded us with salt, but a Shinagami demon came from above—it was a fast blur with wings and talons like knives. It snatched Tavvy away from me—we were both screaming.” She took a ragged breath. “There was this stupid ornamental fountain. Ty jumped up onto the side and attacked the Shinagami with a throwing knife. I think he hit it, but without runes, there’s just—you can’t hurt them. It was still holding Tavvy. It just turned around and slashed out with a talon and cut Ty-Ty’s throat.” She didn’t seem to notice or care that she’d called him by his baby name. She was gripping her glass tightly, her eyes blank and haunted. “My Ty, he fell into the fountain and it was all water and blood. The Shinagami was gone. Tavvy was gone. I hauled Ty out, but he was dead in my arms.” Dead in my arms. Emma tightened her grip on Julian’s hand, seeing him on the Council Hall dais, holding Livvy as the life and the blood went out of her.

“I kissed him. I told him I loved him. And I went and got a jug of gasoline and burned his body so the demons wouldn’t find it.” Livvy’s mouth twisted. “And then it was just me and Dru.” “Livia . . .” Julian leaned forward, but his sister held up a hand as if to ward off whatever he was going to say next.

“Let me finish,” she said. “I’ve gotten this far.” She took another drink and closed her eyes. “After that, Dru stopped talking. I told her we were going to go to the Institute and get help. She didn’t say anything. I knew there wasn’t any help there. But I thought maybe we could join the Legion of the Star—I didn’t care anymore. We were walking along the highway when a car pulled up. It was Cameron.

“He could see we were bloody and starving. And that there were only two of us. He didn’t ask questions. He told us about this place, the Bradbury Building. He was tapped into the resistance. It was tiny then, but there were two ex-Shadowhunters who had once hunted a demon here. They said it was an old, strong building full of salt and iron, easy to lock down. Plus because of the LAPD leasing space, there was a stockpile of weapons here.

“We joined up with the others and helped them break in. Even Dru helped, though she still wasn’t talking. We started to reinforce the building and spread the word that those resisting Sebastian were welcome here. People came from New York, from Canada and Mexico, from all over. We slowly built up the population, made a haven for refugees.” “So Dru is still—?” Emma began eagerly, but Livvy went on.

“Two years ago she went out with a scouting party. Never came back. It happens all the time.”

“Did you look for her?” Julian said.

Livvy turned a flat gaze on him. “We don’t go after people here,” she said. “We don’t do rescue missions. They get more people killed. If I disappeared, I wouldn’t expect anyone to come after me. I’d hope they wouldn’t be that stupid.” She set her glass down. “Anyway, now you know. That’s the story.” They stared at each other, the three of them, for a long moment. Then Julian stood up. He went around the table and lifted Livvy up and hugged her, so tightly that Emma saw her gasp in surprise.

Don’t push him away, she thought, please, don’t.

Livvy didn’t. She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed onto Julian. They stood hugging each other for a long moment like two drowning people clinging to the same life raft. Livvy pressed her face against Julian’s shoulder and gave a single, dry sob.

Emma stumbled to her feet and over to them, not inserting herself into the hug but gently stroking Livvy’s hair. Livvy raised her head from Julian’s shoulder and offered her a tiny smile.

“We’re going to get back to our world,” Julian said. “Ty is alive there. Everyone’s alive there. We’ll take you with us. You belong there, not here.” Emma waited for Livvy to ask about her own fate in their world, but she didn’t. Instead she pulled a little away from Julian and shook her head—not angrily, but with immense sadness. “There are things I have to do here,” she said. “It’s not like we’re just walled up here waiting to die. We’re fighting, Jules.” “Jesus, Livs,” he said in a half-broken voice. “It’s so dangerous—”

“I know,” she said, and patted his face lightly, the way she had sometimes when she was a very little girl, as if the familiar shape of his features was reassuring. Then she stepped away, breaking the hug. She smoothed her hair back and said, “I didn’t tell you about the Silent Brothers.” “The Silent Brothers?” Emma was puzzled.

“When Idris fell, the Silent Brothers were killed, but before they died they sealed the Silent City, with the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword inside it. No one could get in. Not even Sebastian. And he wants to, desperately.” “Why does he want the Mortal Instruments?” said Julian.

“He has a version of the Cup that controls the Endarkened,” said Livvy. “But he wants to master us. He thinks if he can get the Mortal Instruments together, he can control what remains of the Nephilim—turn us from rebels into slaves.” “Sebastian said something on the beach,” Emma recalled, “about the Mortal Instruments.”

“We have people on the inside, like Cameron,” said Livvy. “The rumor is that Sebastian is getting closer to figuring out a way into the City.” She hesitated. “That would be the end of us. All we can do is hope he doesn’t make it, or that the progress is slow. We can’t stop him.” Emma and Julian stared at each other. “What if we could find a warlock?” Emma suggested. “Someone who could help you get into the Silent City first?” Livvy hesitated. “I like your enthusiasm,” she said. “But the warlocks are all dead or demons.”

“Hear me out,” Emma said. She was thinking of Cristina, in the Unseelie Court: It’s not the ley lines. It’s the blight. “You were talking about how the demons came into Idris through patches of blight. We have those in our world too, though demons aren’t coming through yet. And our warlocks are also getting sick—the oldest and most powerful first. They’re not turning into demons—not yet, anyway—but the illness is the same.” “And?” Julian said. He was looking at her with thoughtful respect. Emma had always been praised for her fighting skills, but only Julian had been there to reassure her she was smart and capable, too. She realized suddenly how much she’d missed that.

“In our world, there’s one warlock who is immune to the sickness,” said Emma. “Tessa Gray. If she’s immune here, too, she might be able to help us.” Livvy was staring. “There are rumors of the Last Warlock, but I’ve never seen Tessa here in Los Angeles. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.” “I have a way to contact her.” Emma held up her hand. “This ring. Maybe it will work here. It’s worth a shot.” Livvy looked from the ring to Emma. She spoke slowly. “I remember that ring. You used to wear it. Brother Zachariah gave it to you while we were in Manhattan, but it was lost when you—when Emma was lost.” A spark of hope flared in Emma’s heart. “He gave it to me in my world too,” she said. “It could work here if Tessa still has the other one.” Livvy didn’t say anything. Emma had a feeling she’d long ago given up believing things were worth a shot.

“Let me just try,” Emma said, and swung her left hand hard against one of the concrete pillars. The glass bauble in the ring smashed, and the metal of the ring darkened, suddenly splotched with markings like rust or blood. The prongs that had held the glass disappeared—the ring was now just a metal band.

Livvy exhaled. “Real magic,” she said. “I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

“Seems like a good sign,” said Julian. “If Tessa is still here, she might have powers that still work.” It seemed like a spiderweb-thin string to hang hope on, Emma thought. But what else did they have?

Livvy went over to one of the desks and returned with Emma’s phone. “Here you go,” she said a little reluctantly.

“Keep it if you want it,” Emma said; she knew Julian was looking at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Really—” “The battery’s dying anyway,” Livvy said, but there was something else in her voice, something that said it hurt to look at the pictures of a life that had been taken from her. “Ty grew up so handsome,” she added. “The girls must be all over him. Or the boys,” she added with a sideways smile that faded quickly. “Anyway. You take it.” Emma put the phone into her pocket. As Livvy turned away, Emma thought she caught sight of the edge of a black Mark just under the collar of Livvy’s T-shirt. She blinked—weren’t there no Marks here?

It looked like the curlicue of a mourning rune.

Livvy flopped back down on the couch. “Well, there’s no point waiting here,” she said. “It’ll just make us tense. You guys go and get some sleep. If nothing happens by tomorrow afternoon, we can regroup.” Emma and Julian made for the exit. At the door, Julian hesitated. “I was wondering,” he said. “Is this place any better by daylight?” Livvy had been studying her hands, with their patterns of scars. She raised her eyes and for a moment they blazed, familiar Blackthorn blue.

“Just you wait,” she said.

Pajamas didn’t seem to be a thing in Thule. After showering, Julian sat on the bed in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, staring at the painted metal window with its false silver stars. He was thinking of Mark. When Mark had been a captive of the Wild Hunt, every night he had counted out his brothers’ and sisters’ names on the points of light wheeling above.

In Thule you couldn’t see the stars. What had Livvy done? How had she remembered them all? Or had it been less painful to try to forget? Mark had thought his siblings were alive and happy without him. Livvy knew they were dead or in thrall. Which was worse?

“She didn’t ask,” he said as Emma came out of the bathroom in her tank top and a pair of boxer briefs. “Livvy—she didn’t ask about our world. Nothing at all.” Emma sank onto the bed beside him. She had pulled her hair back in a braid; he could feel the warmth of her and smell the soap on her skin. His insides tightened. “Can you blame her? Our world’s not perfect. But it isn’t this. It isn’t a whole world of birthdays she missed, and growing up she didn’t get to see, and comfort she never got.” “She’s alive here, though,” Julian said.

“Julian.” Emma touched his face lightly. He wanted to lean into the touch but held himself back with a body-tensing effort. “She’s surviving here.” “And there’s a difference?”

She gave him a long look before dropping her hand and settling back against the pillows. “You know there is.” She lay on her side, tendrils of pale hair escaping from her braid, gold against the white pillows. Her eyes were the color of polished wood, her body curved like a violin. Julian wanted to grab his sketch pad, to draw her, the way he always had when his feelings for her grew too intense. His heart exploding paint and colors because he could not speak the words.

“Do you want me to sleep on the floor?” he asked. His voice was husky. Nothing he could do about that.

She shook her head, still looking at him with those enormous eyes. “I was thinking,” she said. “If Shadowhunter magic is gone here . . . If seraph blades don’t work, or angelic magic . . .” “Then our parabatai bond is probably broken,” he finished. “I thought of that too.”

“But we can’t be sure,” she said. “I mean, I guess we could try to do something, to make something happen, the way we burned that church. . . .” “Probably not a good idea to experiment with arson.” Julian could feel his heart beating. Emma was leaning closer to him. He could see the smooth curve of her collarbone, the place where her tanned skin grew paler. He dragged his gaze away.

“We could try the other thing,” she said. “You know. Kissing.”

“Emma—”

“I feel it when we kiss.” Her pupils were enormous. “I know you do too. The bond.”

It was like having helium pumped into his blood. He felt light as air. “You’re sure? You absolutely want this?” “Yeah.” She settled back farther into the pillows. She was looking up at him now, her stubborn chin tilted up, her elbows on the bed. Her legs sprawled out, long and glorious. He slid closer to her. He could see her pulse beating in her throat. Her lips parted, her voice low: “I want this.” He moved over her, not touching her yet, his body a whisper from hers. He saw her eyes darken. She wriggled under him, her legs sliding against his.

“Emma,” he rasped. “What happened to that bra? You know, the enormous one?”

She grinned. “I went without.”

The air in the room felt suddenly superheated. Julian tried to breathe normally, despite knowing that if he slid his hands up under Emma’s tank top he would encounter only soft skin and bare curves.

But she hadn’t asked him to do that. She’d asked for a kiss. He propped himself over her, a hand on either side of her head. Slowly, he lowered himself: exquisitely slowly, until their mouths were an inch apart. He could feel her warm breath against his face. Still, their bodies were barely touching. She moved restlessly under him, her fingers digging into the coverlet.

“Kiss me,” she murmured, and he bent to brush his lips over hers—just a brush, the lightest of touches. She chased his lips with her own; he turned his face to the side, tracing the same warm, light touch along her jaw, her cheek. When he reached her mouth again she was gasping, her eyes half-closed. He drew her lower lip into his mouth, running his tongue along it, tracing the curve, the sensitive corners.

She gasped again, pressing her back deeper into the cushions, her body arching. He felt her breasts brush against his chest, sending a shot of heat directly to his groin. He dug his fingers into the mattress, willing himself to keep control. To give her only and exactly what she’d asked for.

A kiss.

He sucked and licked at her bottom lip, traced the bow shape of the upper. Licked along the seam of the two until her lips parted and he sealed his mouth to hers, all heat and wetness and the taste of her, mint and tea. She wrapped her hands around his biceps, arching up against him as they kissed on and on. Her body was soft and warm; she was moaning into his mouth, dragging her heels up the backs of his calves, her hands sliding to his shirt, fingers curling under— She broke away. She was breathing as if she’d been running a marathon, her lips damp and pink from kissing, her cheeks flaming. “Holy f—” she began, then coughed and blushed. “Have you been practicing?” “No,” Julian said. He was proud of himself for managing an entire syllable. He decided to try out a sentence. “I have not.” “Okay,” Emma breathed. “Okay. No one’s on fire, no parabatai weirdness in evidence. That’s about as much testing as I’m up for right now.” Julian rolled carefully onto his side. “But I can still sleep on the bed, right?”

Her lips curled into a smile. “I think you’ve earned that, yeah.”

“I can scooch all the way to the edge,” he offered.

“Don’t push it, Julian,” she said, and rolled against him, her body curling into his. He put his arms tentatively around her, and she burrowed closer, closing her eyes.

“Emma?” he said.

No answer.

He couldn’t believe it. She was asleep. Breathing softly and regularly, her small cold nose pressed into his collarbone. She was asleep, and he felt like his whole body was burning up. The shuddering waves of pleasure and desire that had rolled over him just from kissing her still stunned him.

That had felt good. Almost euphorically good. And not just because of what had bloomed inside his own cells, his own skin. It had been Emma, the noises she’d made, the way she’d touched him. It wasn’t the parabatai bond, but it was their bond. It was the pleasure he’d given her, mirrored back at him a thousandfold. It was everything he hadn’t been able to feel since the spell.

The Queen’s voice came, unwanted, silvery as a bell and flawed with malice:

You are in the cage, boy.

He shivered and drew Emma closer.