فصل 23

23

THAT WINDS MAY BE

Diego was starting to be seriously worried about Jaime.

It was hard to tell how many days the brothers had been in the Gard’s prisons. They could hear only murmurs from the other cells: The thick stone walls muffled noise deliberately to prevent communication among the prisoners. They hadn’t seen Zara again either. The only people who came to their cell were the guards who brought occasional meals.

Sometimes Diego would beg the guards—dressed in the dark blue and gold of Gard Watchmen—to bring him a stele or medicine for his brother, but they always ignored him. He thought bitterly that it was exactly Dearborn’s kind of clever to make sure the Watchmen who worked in the Gard were suborned to the Cohort’s cause.

Jaime moved restlessly on the pile of clothes and straw Diego had managed to cobble together as a bed. He’d donated his own sweater and sat shivering in his light undershirt. Still, he wished there was more he could do. Jaime was flushed, his skin tight-looking and shiny with fever.

“I swear I saw her last night,” he murmured.

“Who?” said Diego. He sat with his back to the cold stone wall, close enough to touch his brother if Jaime needed him. “Zara?” Jaime’s eyes were closed. “The Consul. She was wearing her robes. She looked at me and she shook her head. Like she thought I shouldn’t be in here.” You shouldn’t. You’re barely seventeen. Diego had done what he could to clean Jaime up after Zara had dumped him in the cell. Most of his wounds were shallow cuts, and he had two broken fingers—but there was one deep, dangerous wound in his shoulder. Over the past days, it had puffed up and turned red. Diego felt impotently rageful—Shadowhunters didn’t die of infections. They were healed by iratzes or they died in battle, in a blaze of glory. Not like this, of fever, on a bed of rags and straw.

Jaime smiled his crooked smile. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said. “You got the worse end of the deal. I got to run all over the world with the Eternidad. You had to romance Zara.” “Jaime—”

Jaime wheezed a cough. “I hope you pulled out one of your famous Diego Rosales moves, like winning her a big stuffed animal at a carnival.” “Jaime, we must be serious.”

Jaime’s wide dark eyes opened. “My dying wish is that we not be serious.”

Diego sat up angrily. “You are not dying! And we need to talk about Cristina.”

That got Jaime’s attention. He struggled into a sitting position. “I have been thinking about Cristina. Zara doesn’t know that she has the Eternidad—the heirloom—and there is no reason for her ever to know.” “We could try to figure out a way to warn Cristina. Tell her to abandon the heirloom somewhere—give it to someone else—it would give her a head start—” “No.” Jaime’s eyes glimmered with fever. “Absolutely not. If we told Zara that Cristina had it, she’d torture Cristina to get the information just like she tortured me. Even if it had been thrown into the depths of the ocean, Zara wouldn’t care—she would torture Cristina regardless. Zara can’t know who has it.” “What if we told Cristina to give it to Zara?” Diego said slowly.

“We can’t. Would you really want the Cohort to get their hands on it? We don’t even understand everything it does.” He reached out and took Diego’s hand in his fever-hot one. His fingers felt as thin as they had when he was ten. “I will be okay,” he said. “Please. Do not do any of these things for me.” There was a clang as Zara appeared in the corridor, followed by the hunched figure of Anush Joshi. Cortana glimmered at her hip. The sight annoyed Diego: A blade like Cortana should be worn strapped to the back. Zara cared more about showing off the sword than she did about having such a special weapon.

Anush carried a tray with two bowls of the usual glop on it. Kneeling, he slid it through the low gap in the bottom of the cell door.

How can someone as wonderful as Divya have such a terrible cousin? Diego thought.

“That’s right, Anush,” Zara said, prowling around her companion. “This is your punishment for deserting us in the forest—bringing slop to our worst, smelliest prisoners.” She sneered at Diego. “Your brother doesn’t look too good. Feverish, I think. Changed your mind yet?” “Nobody’s changed their mind, Zara,” Jaime said.

Zara ignored him, looking at Diego. He could tell her what she wanted to know and trade Jaime’s safety for the heirloom. The part of him that was a big brother, that had always protected Jaime, entreated him to do it.

But strangely, in the moment, he remembered Kieran saying: You decide you will find a solution when the time comes, but when the worst happens, you find yourself unprepared.

He could save Jaime in the moment, but he understood Zara well enough to know that that wouldn’t mean Jaime and Diego would walk free.

If the Cohort got their way, no one would ever walk free again.

“Jaime is correct,” Diego said. “No one has changed their mind.”

Zara rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll see you later.”

She stalked away, Anush hurrying like a dispirited shadow in her wake.

Emma sat beside Cristina on the office desk and drank in the view. The walls were glass, and through them she could see the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. It felt as if the colors of the world had been restored to her, after the darkness of Thule. The sea seemed to sing blues and silvers, golds and greens. The desert, too, glowed with green bright and dull, rich terra-cotta sand and dirt, and deep purple shadows between the hills.

Cristina took a small vial out of her pocket, made of thick blue glass. She unstoppered it and held it up to the light.

Nothing happened. Emma looked at Cristina sideways.

“It always takes a bit of time,” Cristina said reassuringly.

“I heard you in the Unseelie Court,” Emma said. “You said that it wasn’t the ley lines—that it was the blight. You figured it out, didn’t you? What was causing the warlocks’ sickness?” Cristina turned the vial around. “I suspected it, but I wasn’t totally sure. I knew the blight in Brocelind was the same as the blight in Faerie, but when I realized the King was causing them both—that he wanted to poison our world—I realized it might be what was hurting the warlocks.” “And Catarina knows?”

“I told her when we got back. She said she’d look into it—”

Smoke began to stream out of the vial, gray-white and opaque. It slowly shaped itself into a slightly distorted scene, wavering at the edges: They were looking at Tessa in a loose blue dress, a stone wall visible behind her.

“Tessa?” Emma said.

“Tessa!” Cristina said. “Is Catarina there as well?”

Tessa tried to smile, but it wavered. “Last night Catarina fell into a sleep that we haven’t been able to wake her from. She is—very ill.” Cristina murmured in sympathy. Emma couldn’t stop staring at Tessa. She looked so different—not older or younger, but more alive. She had not realized how much Thule Tessa’s emotions had seemed deadened, as if she had long ago given up on having them.

And this Tessa, Emma remembered, was pregnant. It wasn’t visible yet, though Tessa did rest one hand with light protectiveness on her belly as she spoke.

“Before Catarina fell into unconsciousness,” Tessa said, “she told me that she thought Cristina was right about the blight. We have some samples of it here, and we’ve been studying them, but I fear we will be too late to save Magnus and Catarina—and so many others.” Her eyes were bright with tears.

Emma sprang to reassure her. “We think we might have the answer,” she said, and scrambled to tell her story again, ending it on her meeting with Tessa in the cave. There seemed no reason to tell her now what had come after that.

“I told you this?” Tessa seemed astonished. “A me that you encountered in another world?” “I know it sounds hard to believe. You were living in that cave, the big one up by Staircase Beach. You had Church with you.” “That does sound right.” Tessa seemed dazed. “What’s the plan? I can help you, though there are few other warlocks well enough to join me—” “No, it’s all right,” Cristina said. “Jace and Clary are going.”

Tessa frowned. “That seems dangerous.”

“Aline found a time tomorrow when she thinks there won’t be guards at Lake Lyn,” said Cristina. “They’re going to leave at dawn.” “I suppose danger can never be avoided for Nephilim,” said Tessa. She glanced at Cristina. “Could Emma and I speak for a moment alone, please?” Cristina blinked in surprise, then hopped down from the desk. “Of course.” She bumped Emma’s shoulder companionably as she headed out the door, and then Emma was alone in the office with a wavering but determined-looking Tessa.

“Emma,” Tessa said as soon as the door had shut behind Cristina. “I wanted to talk to you about Kit Herondale.” * * *

Kit picked his way across the sand, his sneakers already wet where the incoming tide had caught him unawares.

It was the first time he’d been down to the beach near the Institute without Ty. He felt almost guilty, though when he’d told Ty he was taking a walk, Ty had just nodded and said he’d see him later—Kit knew Ty wanted to talk to Julian, and he didn’t want to interrupt anyway.

There was something restful about this space, where the sea met the shore. Kit had learned long ago in the Shadow Market that there were “in-between” spaces in the world where it was easier to do certain kinds of magic: the middle of bridges, caves between the earth and the underworld, borderlands between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. And the Shadow Market itself, between Downworld and the mundane.

The tide line was a place like that, and because of that it felt like home. It reminded him of an old song he remembered someone singing to him. It must have been his father, though he always remembered it in a woman’s voice.

Tell him to buy me an acre of land,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Between the salt water and the sea sand,

Then he shall be a true love of mine.

“That’s a very, very old song,” said a voice. Kit almost tumbled off the rock he’d been clambering over. The sky was deep blue, studded with white clouds, and standing above him on a heap of rocks was Shade. He wore a ragged navy suit with a stitched collar and cuffs, his green skin a stark contrast. “How do you know it?” Kit, who hadn’t even realized he’d been humming the tune, shrugged. Shade had left off his usual hood. His green face was lined and good-humored, his hair curly and white. Small horns protruded from his temples, curling inward like seashells. Something about him struck Kit as a little odd. “Heard it in the Market.” “What are you doing out and about without your shadow?”

“Ty’s not my shadow,” said Kit crossly.

“My apologies. I suppose you’re his.” Shade’s eyes were solemn. “Have you come to tell me of the progress you’ve made in your foolish plan to raise his sister from the dead?” It wasn’t why Kit had come down here, but he found himself telling Shade anyway, about Emma and Julian’s return (though he made no mention of Thule) and the visits they’d made to the Shadow Market in the ensuing chaos, no one noticing they were gone. Julian, usually the most eagle-eyed older brother in the world, had been unconscious, and even today he’d seemed unfocused and groggy.

“You’ve done better than I thought you would,” Shade said grudgingly, looking out to sea. “Still. You’ve mostly gotten the easy stuff. There’s still some objects that ought to trip you up.” “You sound like you want us to fail,” said Kit.

“Of course I do!” Shade barked. “You shouldn’t be messing around with necromancy! It never does anyone any good!” Kit backed up until his heels hit the surf. “Then why are you helping us?”

“Look, there’s a reason I’m here,” said Shade. “Yeah, Hypatia passed on Tiberius’s message to me, but I was headed to the cave anyway to keep an eye on you.” “On me?”

“Yes, you. Did you really think I was sticking around and helping you with your dumb necromancy just as a favor to Hypatia? We’re not that close. Jem’s the one who asked me to look out for you. The whole Carstairs owe the Herondales business. You know.” It was weird to Kit, the idea that someone would be worried about protecting him just because of his last name. “Okay, but why are you helping us with the spell stuff?” “Because I said I would protect you, and I will. Your Ty is stubborn like the Blackthorns are all stubborn, and you’re even stubborner. If I didn’t help you two, some other warlock would, someone who didn’t care if you both got hurt. And no, I haven’t told anyone about it.” “A lot of the other warlocks are sick,” Kit said, realizing that this was what had seemed odd about Shade. He didn’t look even a little bit ill.

“And I might get sick too, eventually, but there will always be unscrupulous magic-users—what are you looking all cross-eyed about, boy?” “I guess I was thinking that you didn’t know they found a cure for the warlock plague,” said Kit. “Up at the Institute.” It was the first time he had ever seen the warlock look genuinely surprised. “The Nephilim? Found a cure for the warlock illness?” Kit thought back on the way he’d been introduced to the idea of Shadowhunters. Not as people but as a vicious, holier-than-thou army of true believers. As if they were all like Horace Dearborn, and none were like Julian Blackthorn or Cristina Rosales. Or like Alec Lightwood, patiently holding a glass of water with a straw in it so his sick warlock boyfriend could drink.

“Yes,” he said. “Jace and Clary are going to retrieve it. I’ll make sure you get some.” Shade’s face twisted, and he turned so Kit couldn’t see his expression. “If you insist,” he said gruffly. “But make sure Catarina Loss gets it first, and Magnus Bane. I’ve got some protections. I’ll be fine for a good long while.” “Magnus will be the first to get it, don’t worry,” said Kit. “He’s at the Institute now.” At that Shade spun back around. “Magnus is here?” He glanced up at the Institute where it gleamed like a legendary castle on a hill. “When he’s well, tell him I’m in the Staircase Beach cave,” he said. “Tell him Ragnor says hello.” Ragnor Shade? Whatever force blessed people with good names had passed this poor guy over, Kit thought.

He turned to head back up the path from the beach to the highway. The sand stretched out before him in a shimmering crescent, the tide line touched with silver.

“Christopher,” said Shade, and Kit paused, surprised at the sound of the name hardly anyone ever called him. “Your father,” Shade began, and hesitated. “Your father wasn’t a Herondale.” Kit froze. In that moment, he had a sudden terror that it had all been a mistake: He wasn’t a Shadowhunter, he didn’t belong here, he would be taken away from all of it, from Ty, from everyone— “Your mother,” said Shade. “She was the Herondale. And an unusual one. You want to look into your mother.” Relief punched through Kit like a blow. A few weeks ago he would have been delighted to have been told he wasn’t Nephilim. Now it seemed like the worst fate he could imagine. “What was her name?” he said. “Shade! What was my mother’s name?” But the warlock had jumped down from his rock and was walking away; the sound of the waves and tide swallowed up Kit’s words, and Shade didn’t turn around.

Killer dolls, sinister woodsmen, eyeless ghouls, and graveyards full of mist. Dru would have listed those as her top favorite things about Asylum: Frozen Fear, but they didn’t seem to interest Kieran much. He sprawled on the other side of the couch, gazing moodily into space even when people on screen started screaming.

“This is my favorite part,” said Dru, part of her mind on nibbling popcorn, the other part on whether or not Kieran was imagining himself in a different, peaceful place, maybe a beach. She didn’t quite know how she’d inherited him after the meeting, just that they seemed to be the two people who hadn’t been given a task to do. She’d escaped to the den, and a few moments later Kieran had appeared, flopped down on the sofa, and picked up a calendar of fluffy cats that someone—okay, her—had left around. “The bit where he steps on the voodoo doll and it explodes into blood and—” “This manner of marking the passage of time is a marvel,” said Kieran. “When you are done with one kitten, then there is another kitten. By the next winter solstice, you will have seen twelve full kittens! One of them is in a glass!” “In December there are three kittens in a basket,” Dru said. “But you should really watch the movie—” Kieran set the calendar down and gazed at the screen in some puzzlement. Then he sighed. “I just don’t understand,” he said. “I love them both, but it seems as if they cannot understand that. As if it is a torment or an insult.” Dru hit the mute button and put down the remote. Finally, she thought, someone was talking to her like an adult. Admittedly, Kieran wasn’t making a lot of sense, but still.

“Shadowhunters are slow to love,” she said, “but once we love, we love forever.”

It was something she remembered Helen having said to her once, maybe at her wedding.

Kieran blinked and focused in on her, as if she’d said something clever. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that is true. I must trust in Mark’s love. But Cristina—she has never said she loves me. And they both feel so far away just now.” “Everyone feels far away just now,” Dru said, thinking of how lonely the past few days had been. “But that’s because they’re worried. When they get worried, they pull inside themselves and sometimes they forget that you’re there.” She glanced down at her popcorn. “But it doesn’t mean they don’t care.” Kieran leaned an elbow on his knee. “So what do I do, Drusilla?”

“Um,” Drusilla said. “Don’t remain silent about what you want, or you may never get it.” “You are very wise,” Kieran said gravely.

“Well,” said Dru. “I actually saw that on a mug.”

“Mugs in this world are very wise.” Dru wasn’t entirely sure if Kieran was smiling or not, but by the way he sat back and crossed his arms, she sensed he was done with questions. She turned the TV volume back on.

Emma pulled out the pushpins, carefully taking down the different-colored string, the old newspaper clippings, the photos curling at the edges. Each one representing a clue, or what she’d thought was a clue, to the secret of her parents’ deaths: Who had killed them? Why had they died as they had?

Now Emma knew the answers. She had asked Julian some time ago what she should do with all the evidence she’d collected, but he’d indicated that it was her decision. He’d always called it her Wall of Crazy, but in a lot of ways Emma thought of it as a wall of sanity, because creating it had kept her sane during a time where she’d felt helpless, overwhelmed with missing her parents and the sure support of their love.

This was for you, Mom and Dad, she thought, dumping the last of the photos into shoe boxes. I know what happened to you now, and the person who killed you is dead. Maybe that makes a difference. Maybe not. I know it doesn’t mean I miss you any less.

She wondered if she should say more. That revenge wasn’t the panacea she had hoped for. That in fact she was a little frightened of it now: She knew how powerful it was, how it drove you. In Thule she had seen how the vengefulness of an abandoned, angry boy had burned down the world. But it hadn’t made Sebastian happy. Revenge had only made Sebastian in Thule miserable, though he had conquered all he saw.

There was a knock on the door. Emma shoved the boxes into her closet and went to answer it. To her surprise, it was Julian. She would have thought he would have been downstairs with the others. They’d had a big dinner in the library—delivery Thai food—and everyone was there, reminiscing and joking, Magnus dozing gently in Alec’s arms while they both sprawled on the couch. It was almost as if Jace and Clary didn’t have to leave on a dangerous mission at dawn, but that was the Shadowhunter way. There were always missions. There was always a dangerous dawn.

Emma had wanted to be with them, but to be around Julian and other people when he was like this hurt. It hurt to look at him, and to conceal what she knew, and to wonder if others noticed, and if so, what they thought.

Julian went to lean against the windowsill. The stars were just coming out, pinpointing the sky with scraps of light.

“I think I messed things up with Ty,” he said. “He wanted to talk to me, and I don’t think I responded the right way.” Emma brushed off her knees. She was wearing a pale green vintage nightgown that doubled as a dress. “What did he want to talk to you about?” A few loose curls of dark chocolate hair tumbled over Julian’s forehead. He was still beautiful, Emma thought. It didn’t make any difference what she knew; she ached at the sight of his painter’s hands, strong and articulate, the soft darkness of his hair, the cupid’s bow of his lip, the color of his eyes. The way he moved, his artist’s grace, the things about him that whispered Julian to her. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t understand it. I would have understood it—I know I would have—if it weren’t for the spell.” “You went up on that pyre for him,” she said.

“I know—I told you, it was like a survival instinct, something I had no control over. But this isn’t a matter of living and dying. It’s emotions. And so my mind won’t process them.” Emotions can be matters of living and dying. Emma pointed to her closet. “Do you know why I took all that down?” Julian’s brow furrowed. “You’re done with it,” he said. “You found out who killed your parents. You don’t need that stuff anymore.” “Yes and no, I guess.”

“If everything goes well, hopefully Magnus can take the spell off me tomorrow, or the day after,” said Julian. “It depends how fast the cure works.” “You could have talked to him about it already,” Emma said, moving to lean against the sill beside Julian. It reminded her of past, better times, when they’d both sit on the sill and read, or Julian would draw, silent and content for hours at a time. “Why wait?” “I can’t tell him all of it,” Julian said. “I can’t show him what I wrote on my arm—he’d want to take the spell off right away, and he’s not strong enough. It could kill him.” Emma turned to him in surprise. “That’s empathy, Julian. That’s you understanding what Magnus might feel. That’s good, right?” “Maybe,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been doing when I’m not sure about how to handle something emotional. I try to imagine what you would do. What you would take into account. The conversation with Ty went too fast for me to do it, but it does help.” “What I would do?”

“It all breaks apart when I’m with you, of course,” he said. “I can’t think of what you would want me to do about you, or around you. I can’t see you through your own eyes. I can’t even see me through your eyes.” He touched her bare arm lightly, where her parabatai rune was, tracing its edges.

She could see his reflection in the window: another Julian with the same sharp profile, the same shadowed lashes. “You have a talent, Emma,” he said. “A goodness that makes people happy. You assume people are not just capable of their best but that they want to be their best. You assume the same about me.” Emma tried to breathe normally. The feeling of his fingers on her rune was making her body tremble. “You believe in me more than I believe in myself.” His fingers traced a path down her bare arm, to her wrist, and back up. They were light and clever fingers; he touched her as if he were sketching her body, tracing the lines of her collarbones. Grazing the notch at the base of her throat. Gliding down to run along the neckline of her dress, just grazing the upper curve of her breasts.

Emma shivered. She could lose herself in this sensation, she knew, could drown in it and forget, shield herself behind it. “If you’re going to do that,” she said, “you should kiss me.” He folded her into his arms. His mouth on hers was warm and soft, a gentle kiss deepening into heat. Her hands moved over his body, the feel of it now familiar to her: the smooth muscles under his T-shirt, the roughness of scars, the delicacy of shoulder blades, the curving hollow of his spine. He murmured that she was beautiful, that he wanted her, that he always had.

Her heart was beating its way out of her chest; every one of her cells was telling her that this was Julian, her Julian, that he felt, tasted, breathed the same and that she loved him.

“This is perfect,” he whispered against her mouth. “This is how we can be together and not hurt anyone.” Her body screamed at her not to react, just to go along with it. But her mind betrayed her. “What do you mean, exactly?” He looked at her with his dark hair half in his face. She wanted to pull him to her and cover his mouth with more kisses; she wanted to close her eyes and forget anything was wrong.

But she had never had to close her eyes with Julian before.

“It’s the emotions that matter, not the act,” he said. “If I’m not in love with you, we can do this, be together physically, and it won’t matter to the curse.” If I’m not in love with you.

She stepped away from him. It felt as if she were tearing her own skin open, as if she would look down and see blood seeping from the wounds where she had ripped herself away from him.

“I can’t,” she said. “When you get your feelings back, we’ll both regret that we did this when you didn’t care.” He looked puzzled. “I want you just as much as I ever did. That hasn’t changed.”

She felt suddenly weary. “I believe you. You just told me you wanted me. That I was beautiful. But you didn’t say you loved me. You’ve always said that before.” There was a brief flicker in his eyes. “I’m not the same person. I can’t say I feel things I don’t understand.” “Well, I want the same person,” she said. “I want Julian Blackthorn. My Julian Blackthorn.” He reached to touch her face. She stepped back, away from him—not because she disliked his touch, but because she liked it too much. Her body didn’t know the difference between this Julian and the one she needed.

“So who am I to you, then?” he asked, dropping his hand.

“You are the person I have to protect until my Julian comes back to live inside you again,” she said. “I don’t want this. I want the Julian I love. You might be in the cage, Jules, but as long as you are like this, I am in the cage with you.” * * *

Morning came as it always did, with sunshine and the annoying chirping of birds. Emma staggered out of her bedroom with her head pounding and discovered Cristina lurking in the hallway outside her door. She was holding a mug of coffee and wearing a pretty peach sweater with pearls around the collar.

Emma had slept only about three hours after Julian had left her room, and they’d been a bad three hours at that. When she slammed the bedroom door behind her, Cristina jumped nervously into the air.

“How much coffee have you had?” Emma asked. She pulled her hair up and secured it with a yellow daisy-printed cloth band.

“This is my third. I feel like a hummingbird.” Cristina waved the mug and fell into step beside Emma as they headed to the kitchen. “I need to talk to you, Emma.” “Why?” Emma said warily.

“My love life is a disaster,” said Cristina. “Qué lío.”

“Oh good,” Emma said. “I was afraid it was going to be something about politics.”

Cristina looked tragic. “I kissed Kieran.”

“What? Where?” Emma demanded, almost falling down the steps.

“In Faerie,” Cristina wailed.

“Actually, I meant, like, on the cheek or what?”

“No,” Cristina said. “A real kiss. With mouths.”

“How was it?” Emma was fascinated. She couldn’t picture kissing Kieran. He always seemed so cold and so removed. He was certainly beautiful, but the way a statue was beautiful, not a person.

Cristina blushed all over her face and neck. “It was lovely,” she said in a small voice. “Gentle and as if he cared very much for me.” That was even stranger. However, Emma felt, the point was to strive to be supportive of Cristina. She would rather Cristina was with Mark, of course, but Mark had been mucking about rather, and there was that binding spell. . . . “Well,” said Emma. “What happens in Faerie stays in Faerie, I guess?” “If you mean I shouldn’t tell Mark, he knows,” said Cristina. “And if you are going to ask if I want to be with Mark alone, I cannot answer that, either. I do not know what I want.” “What about how Mark and Kieran feel about each other?” said Emma. “Is it still romantic?” “I think they love each other in a way I cannot touch,” said Cristina, and there was a sadness in her voice that made Emma want to stop dead in the middle of the hallway and put her arms around her friend. But they’d already reached the kitchen. It was crowded with people—Emma could smell coffee but not food cooking. The table was bare, the kitchen range cold. Julian and Helen, along with Mark and Kieran, were crowded around the table, where Clary and Jace sat, all of them looking with disbelief down at a piece of official-looking paper.

Emma stopped dead, Cristina wide-eyed beside her. “We thought—did you already go to Idris and come back? I thought you had to leave at dawn?” Emma said.

Jace glanced up. “We never left,” he said. Clary was still staring at the paper she held, her face white and stunned.

“Was a there a problem?” Emma asked anxiously.

“You might say that.” Jace’s tone was light, but his golden eyes were stormy. He tapped the paper. “It’s a message from the Clave. According to this, Clary and I are dead.” * * *

Zara always chose the same chair in the Inquisitor’s office. Manuel suspected it was because she liked to sit beneath the portrait of herself, so that people would be forced to gaze at two Zaras, and not just one.

“Reports have been coming in all day,” said Zara, twirling one of her braids. “Institutes are responding with outrage to the news of Jace and Clary’s death at Faerie hands.” “As we expected,” said Horace, shifting in his chair with a grunt of pain. It annoyed Manuel that Horace was still complaining about his arm, a mass of white bandages below the stump of his elbow. Surely the iratzes would have healed the cut, and Horace had only himself to blame for letting the Wrayburn bitch get the better of him.

Manuel detested Horace. But then, Manuel detested true believers in general. He couldn’t have given less of a damn whether there were Downworlders in Alicante or faeries in Brocelind Forest or werewolves in his bathtub. Prejudice against Downworlders struck him as boring and unnecessary. The only thing it was useful for was making people afraid.

When people were afraid, they would do anything you wanted if they thought it would make them safe again. When Horace spoke of reclaiming the past glory of the Nephilim, and the crowds cheered, Manuel knew what they were truly cheering for, and it was not glory. It was a cessation of fear. The fear they had felt since the Dark War had made them understand that they were not invincible.

Once, they believed, they had been invincible. They had stood with their boots on the necks of Downworlders and demons, and they had straddled the world. Now they recalled the burning bodies in Angel Square, and they were afraid.

And fear was useful. Fear could be manipulated into more power. And power was all Manuel cared about, in the end.

“Have we heard anything from the Los Angeles Institute?” Horace asked, lounging behind his large desk. “We know from Faerie that the Blackthorns and their companions returned home. But what do they know?” What do they know? Horace and Zara had wondered the same when Dane’s body had come back to them, nearly dismembered. Dane had been a fool, creeping away from Oban’s camp in the middle of the night to seek the glory of retrieving the Black Volume on his own. (And he’d taken their time slippage medallion with him, which had meant that Manuel had discovered he’d lost a day or two when he’d returned to Idris.) Manuel suspected there was a longsword wound under those kelpie bites, but he didn’t mention it to the Dearborns. They saw what they wanted to see, and if Emma and Julian knew that Horace had set an assassin on their trail, it wouldn’t matter for much longer.

“About Clary and Jace?” Manuel said. “I’m sure they know that they disappeared through the Portal into Thule. It would be impossible to get them back, though. Time has passed, the Portal has closed, and Oban assured me Thule is a deadly place. By now they will be bones bleaching in the sand of another world.” “The Blackthorns and that Emma wouldn’t dare say anything against us anyway,” said Zara. “We still hold their secret in the palms of our hands.” She touched Cortana’s hilt. “Besides, nothing of theirs will be theirs for much longer, not even the Institute. A few others may stand against us: Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Mumbai. But we will deal with them all.” Zara was also a true believer, Manuel thought with some distaste. She was a stick and a bore and he had never believed Diego Rocio Rosales actually saw anything in her; on balance, he seemed to have turned out to be right. He suspected Diego was languishing in jail as much for rejecting Zara as for helping some idiot faerie run away from the Scholomance.

Horace turned to Manuel. “What about your phase of the plan, Villalobos?”

“Everything is in order. The Unseelie forces are massing under King Oban. When they arrive at the walls of Alicante, we will ride out to show our willingness to parley with them on the Imperishable Fields. We will make sure all Shadowhunters in Alicante see us. After this charade, we will return to the Council and tell them that the fey have surrendered. The Cold Peace will be over, and in return for their willingness to help us, all entrances to Faerie will be sealed off with wards. It will be made off-limits to Shadowhunters.” “Very good,” said Horace. “But with the Portal to Thule closing, where does that leave us with the blight?” “Exactly where we want to be,” Manuel said. He was pleased—pretending they wished to destroy the blight with fire had been his idea. He’d known it wouldn’t work, and the failure would leave the Nephilim more frightened than before. “The poison has spread far enough for our purposes. The Clave all know of the blight now, and fear what it will do.” “And fear will make them agreeable,” said Horace. “Zara?”

“The warlocks are growing sicker,” Zara said with relish. “No reported transformations yet, but many Institutes have taken in warlocks in an effort to heal them. Once they turn into demons, you can imagine the bloody chaos that will ensue.” “Which should make it easy to enact martial law and rid ourselves of the rest of the warlocks,” said Horace.

The fact that the blight would serve not just to frighten Shadowhunters but also to harm warlocks had always been seen as a plus by Horace, though Manuel saw little point in an exercise that would seriously limit the Shadowhunters’ ability to do things like open Portals and heal unusual illnesses. That was the problem with true believers. They were never practical. Ah well. Some warlocks would probably survive, he reasoned. Once all the Cohort’s demands were met, they could afford to be generous and destroy the blight for good. It wasn’t as if Horace was fond of the blight, or its propensity to deaden angelic magic. It was simply a useful tool, as the Larkspears had been.

“Are you not worried that the transformed warlocks will get out of control and slaughter Shadowhunters? Even mundanes?” “I am not,” said Horace. “A properly trained Shadowhunter should be able to handle a warlock turned demon. If they cannot, then we have done our society a favor in culling them.” “My question is whether Oban can be trusted,” said Zara, curling her lip. “He is a faerie, after all.” “He can,” said Manuel. “He is far more malleable than his father was. He wants his kingdom, and we want ours. And if we bring him Prince Kieran’s head as promised, he will be very pleased indeed.” Horace sighed. “If only these arrangements did not have to be secret. The whole of the Clave should glory in the rightness of our plan.” “But they don’t like faeries, Papa,” said Zara, who was, as always, incredibly literal. “They wouldn’t like making deals with them or encouraging them to bring the blight into Idris, even if it was for a worthy cause. It is illegal to work with demonic magic—though I know it’s necessary,” she added hastily. “I wish Samantha and Dane were still around. Then we could talk to them.” Manuel thought with little interest of Dane, undone by his own stupidity, and of Samantha, currently raving her head off in the Basilias. He doubted either of them would have been much help even in their former states.

“It is a lonely burden, daughter, to be the ones tasked with doing the right thing,” said Horace pompously.

Zara got up from her chair and patted his shoulder. “Poor Papa. Do you want to look into the scrying mirror one more time? It always cheers you up.” Manuel sat up in his chair. The scrying mirror was one of the few things he didn’t find boring. Oban had magicked it to reflect the fields before the Unseelie Tower.

Zara held the mirror up so that the light from the demon towers sparked off its silver handle. She gave a little squeal as the glass turned clear, and through it they saw the green fields of Unseelie and the anthracite tower. Lined up in front of the tower were row upon row of Unseelie warriors, so many that the view of them filled the scene even as the rows diminished into the distance: an army without limit, without end. Their swords shone in the sunlight like a vast field planted with razor-sharp blades.

“What do you think?” said Horace with pride, as if he himself had put together the army. “Spectacular, isn’t it, Annabel?” The woman with the long dark-brown hair, sitting silently in the corner of the room, nodded calmly. She wore clothes that matched the ones she had worn that bloody day in the Council Hall; Zara had dredged up near-exact copies, but it was Manuel who had first thought of deploying them, as if they were themselves a weapon.

There were few things stronger than fear. Since the Council meeting, the Shadowhunters had been terrified of Annabel Blackthorn. If she appeared before them, they would cower behind Horace. His ability to protect them would be all they cared about.

And when it came to Julian Blackthorn and the rest of his irritating family, there would be more than just fear. There would be rage. Hatred. All emotions the Cohort could exploit.

Horace gave a nervous laugh and turned back to studying the mirror.

Hidden by the lengthening shadows, Manuel grinned savagely. Absolutely nobody was prepared for what was coming.

Just the way he liked it.