فصل 32

32

HEAVEN COME DOWN

It was all happening again.

Annabel was in front of him and she was looking at him with a sneering contempt. In her eyes he could see the reflection of himself on the dais in the Council Hall, soaked in Livvy’s blood. He saw her in Thule, screaming for Ash. He remembered the swing of his sword, her blood spreading all around her body.

None of it mattered. She would kill Emma if she could. She would kill Mark and Helen; she would cut Ty’s throat, and Dru’s, and Tavvy’s. She was the ghost of every fear he had ever had that his family would be taken from him. She was the nightmare he had wakened and not been able to destroy.

He reached her without slowing and plunged his longsword into her body. It slid in as if there was no resistance—no bones, no muscle. Like a knife through air or paper. It sank to the hilt and he found himself staring into her bloodshot scarlet eyes, barely an inch away.

Her lips drew back from her teeth in a hiss. But her eyes aren’t red. They’re Blackthorn blue.

He jerked back, dragging the sword with him. The hilt was dark with blackish ichor. The stench of demon was everywhere. Somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Emma calling to him, shouting that something was wrong.

“You’re not Annabel,” he said. You’re a demon.

Annabel began to change. Her features seemed to melt, to drip like candle wax. Beneath her pale skin and dark hair Julian could see the outlines of an unformed Eidolon demon—greasy and white, like a bar of dirty soap, pocked all over with gray craters. The glittering vial made of etched glass still dangled around its neck.

“You knew my brother,” the demon hissed. “Sabnock. Of Thule.”

Julian remembered blood. A church in Cornwall. Emma.

He reached for a seraph blade on his belt and named it quickly, “Sariel.”

The demon was grinning. It lunged at Julian, and he plunged the seraph blade into it.

Nothing happened.

This can’t be. Seraph blades slew demons. They always, always worked. The demon yanked the blade from its side as Julian stared in disbelief. It lunged for him, Sariel outstretched. Unprepared for the attack, Julian raised an arm to ward off the blow— A dark shape slid between them. A kelpie, all razor-sharp, pawing hooves and fanged, glassy teeth. The faerie horse reared into the air between Julian and the Eidolon, and Julian recognized the kelpie: It was the one he had saved from Dane Larkspear.

It slammed a hoof into the Eidolon’s chest, and the demon flew backward, the seraph blade skidding from its hand. The kelpie glanced over its shoulder at Julian and winked, then gave chase as the Eidolon got to its feet and began to run.

Julian began to follow. He had gone only a few steps when pain went through him, sudden, searing.

He doubled over. The pain was all through him. His back, his chest. There was no reason for it except— Emma.

He turned around.

It was all happening again.

Emma was on the ground, somehow, the front of her gear wet with blood. Zara knelt over her—it seemed as if they were struggling. Julian was already running, pushing past the pain, every stride a mile, every breath an hour. All that mattered was getting to Emma.

As he got closer, he saw that Zara was crouched beside Emma, trying to wrest Cortana from her red-streaked hand, but Emma’s grip was too fierce. Her throat, her hair, were wet with blood, but her fingers on Cortana’s hilt were unyielding.

Zara glanced up and saw Julian. He must have looked like death in human form, because she scrambled to her feet and ran, vanishing into the crowd.

No one else seemed to have noticed what had happened yet. A howl was building in Julian’s chest. He skidded to his knees beside Emma and lifted her into his arms.

She was limp in his grasp, heavy the way Livvy had been heavy. The way people felt weighted when they had stopped holding themselves up. He curled Emma in toward him and her head fell against his chest.

The grass all around them was wet. There was so much blood.

It was all happening again.

“Livvy, Livvy, my Livvy,” he whispered, cradling her, feverishly stroking her blood-wet hair away from her face. There was so much blood. He was covered in it in seconds; it had soaked through Livvy’s clothes, even her shoes were drenched in it. “Livia.” His hands shook; he fumbled out his stele, put it to her arm.

His sword had fallen. His stele was in his hand; the iratze was a muscle memory, his body acting even without his mind’s ability to comprehend what was happening.

Emma’s eyes opened. Julian’s heart lurched. Was it working? Maybe it was working. Livvy had never even looked at him. She’d been dead when he lifted her from the dais.

Emma’s gaze fixed on his. Her dark brown eyes held his gaze like a caress. “It’s all right,” she whispered.

He reached to draw another iratze. The first had vanished without a trace. “Help me,” he rasped. “Emma, we need to use it. The parabatai bond. We can heal you—” “No,” she said. She reached up to touch his cheek. He felt her blood against his skin. She was still warm, still breathing in his arms. “I’d rather die like this than be separated from you forever.” “Please don’t leave me, Emma,” Julian said. His voice broke. “Please don’t leave me in this world without you.” She managed to smile at him. “You were the best part of my life,” she said.

Her hand fell slack into her lap, her eyes slipping closed.

Through the crowd now Julian could see people running toward them. They seemed to be moving slowly, as if in a dream. Helen, calling his name; Mark, running desperately; Cristina beside him, crying out to Emma—but none of them would reach him in time, and besides, there was nothing they could do.

He seized Emma’s hand and clutched it tightly, so tightly he could feel the small bones grind under his grip. Emma. Emma, come back. Emma, we can do this. We’ve melted stone. You saved my life. We can do anything.

He reached deep into his memories: Emma on the beach, looking back over her shoulder at him, laughing. Emma clinging to the iron bar of the Ferris wheel at Pacific Park. Emma handing him a bunch of limp wildflowers she’d picked on the day of his mother’s funeral. His arms around Emma as they rode a motorcycle through Thule. Emma in her pale dress at the Midnight Theater. Emma lying in front of the fire in Malcolm’s cottage.

Emma.

Her eyes flew open. They were full of flame, golden and bronze and copper. Her lips moved. “I remember,” she said.

Her voice sounded distant, almost inhuman, like the ringing of a bell. Something deep inside Julian went cold with fear and exultation.

“Should I stop?” he said.

“No.” Emma had begun to smile. Her eyes were all fire now. “Let us burn.”

He put his arms around her, the parabatai connection burning between them, shimmering gold and white. The ends of her hair had begun to burn, and the tips of his fingers. There was no heat and no pain. Only the fire. It rose up to consume them in a fiery cascade.

Diego flung Zara into the Malachi Configuration. There were quite a few other Cohort members in there and she staggered, nearly tripping in her effort to avoid bumping into them. Most of them were looking at her with deep dislike. Diego didn’t imagine that Horace’s daughter would be very popular right now.

She whipped around to glare at him. There was no need for him to slam a prison door—the Configuration held whoever was inside, door or no door—but he wished he could.

“I would regard this an announcement that our engagement is over,” he said.

Her face screwed up in rage. Before she could reply, a pillar of white fire rose from the east, hurtling up toward the sky. Screams echoed across the battlefield.

Diego whirled to take off running. A redcap loomed up in front of him, steel-tipped pike a shining arc across the sky. Agonizing pain exploded in his head before he tumbled into darkness.

Mark caught Cristina’s wrist and pulled her back just as white flame exploded like a tower from the place where Julian and Emma had been moments before.

She knew she screamed Emma’s name. Mark was pulling her back against himself; she could feel him gasping for breath. Julian, she thought. Oh God, no, not Julian.

And then: This must be the curse. To burn them alive . . . it’s too cruel. . . .

Mark breathed, “Look.”

Shining figures were emerging from the fire. Not Julian and Emma, or at least, not Julian and Emma as they had been.

The flames had risen at least thirty feet in the air, and the figures that emerged from them were at least that tall. It was as if Julian and Emma had been carved from shining light. . . . The details of them were there, their features and expressions, even Cortana at Emma’s side, a blade of heavenly fire the size of a tree.

“They’re giants,” Cristina heard someone say. It was Aline, staring upward, awestruck. Helen had her hand over her mouth.

“Not giants,” said Cristina. “Nephilim.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when angels came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. She took a shuddering breath. “They were—the first.” More people were crowding forward, from both sides of the battle. As the flames subsided around Emma and Julian, the sky above roiled and snapped—it was as if the heavenly fire had burned away the darkness Magnus had brought down. The shadowy clouds began to break apart and disintegrate.

Terrified, the vampires began to flee the field, racing toward the forest. They ran past Magnus, who was on his knees, Ragnor beside him, blue sparks ringing his hands as if they were torn electrical wires. Cristina saw Alec running across the field; he reached Magnus just as the warlock slumped back, exhausted, into his arms.

Emma—or what Emma had become, a great, shining creature—took a hesitant step forward. Cristina could hardly breathe. She had never seen an angel, but she imagined this was what it might be like to be near one. They were meant to be beautiful, terrible and awful as Heaven was awful: a light too bright for mortal eyes.

No one could survive this, she thought. Not even Emma.

Julian was alongside Emma; they seemed to be gaining confidence as they moved. They didn’t stomp as giants might: They seemed to drift, their gestures trailed by sweeps of light.

Cristina could hear the Cohort screaming as Julian bent down and picked up Horace, like a giant child plucking up a doll. Horace, who had escaped the whole battle by hiding behind his followers, was kicking and struggling, his voice a thin wail. Cristina had only a second to feel almost sorry for him before Julian caught Horace in both hands and snapped his spine in half.

He tossed him aside like a broken plaything. The silence that had gripped the field was broken as people began to scream.

Horace Dearborn’s body hit the ground with a sickening thud, only a few feet from Manuel.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. Manuel, already on the ground, began to scramble backward. The Cohort who were trapped in the Malachi Configuration were screaming. He wished they would shut up. He desperately needed to think.

Religious training from his childhood, ruthlessly quashed before now, stirred inside him. What shone above him was the power of angels—not fluffy white-winged angels, but the blood-dark angels of vengeance who had given their power to make the Shadowhunters.

And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.

But it made no sense. What was happening was impossible. People did not turn into enormous shining giants and stride around battlefields dispatching their enemies. This could not possibly have been a plan that the Blackthorns and their allies had. No mortal human had access to power like that.

The great shining thing that had been Emma Carstairs reached down one of its hands. Manuel shrank against the ground, but she was not looking for him. She seized hold of the crouching Eidolon demon that had been Horace’s great trick and clamped her fist around it.

The Eidolon demon cried out, a howl that seemed to come from the abyss between worlds. The touch of Emma’s shining hand acted on it like acid. Its skin began to burn and melt; it shrieked and dissolved and slid away between her fingers like thin soup.

And when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.

Terrified, Manuel crawled toward Horace’s body, still dripping with blood, and dragged it over himself. Horace had failed to protect anyone while he was alive. Perhaps things would be different now that he was dead.

But how can they possibly live through this?

Mark still held Cristina; neither of them seemed able to move. Aline and Helen were nearby; many other Shadowhunters were still on the field. Mark couldn’t tear his eyes away from Julian and Emma.

He was terrified. Not of them. He was terrified for them. They were great and shining and magnificent, and they were blank-eyed as statues. Emma straightened up from destroying the Eidolon, and Mark could see a great fissure running along her arm, where once her scar from Cortana had been. Flames leaped inside it, as if she were full of fire.

Emma raised her head. Her hair flew around her like golden lightning. “RIDERS OF MANNAN!” she called, and her voice wasn’t a human voice at all. It was the sound of trumpets, of thunderclaps echoing through empty valleys. “RIDERS OF MANNAN! COME AND FACE US!” “They can talk,” Cristina whispered.

Good. Maybe they can listen to reason.

Maybe.

“Emma!” Mark called. “Julian! We’re here! Listen to us, we’re here!”

Emma didn’t seem to hear him. Julian glanced down, entirely without recognition. Like a mundane gazing at an anthill. Though there was nothing mundane about them.

Mark wondered if this was what raising an angel had been like for Clary, for Simon.

There was a stir in the crowd. The Riders, striding across the field. Their blaze of bronze shone around them, and Mark remembered Kieran whispering to him stories of the Riders who slept beneath a hill until the Unseelie King called them out to hunt.

The crowd parted to let them by. The battle had ended, in any real sense: The field was full of onlookers now, staring in silence as the Riders stopped to look up at Emma and Julian.

Ethna craned her head back, her bronze hair spilling over her shoulders. “We are the Riders of Mannan!” she cried. “We have slain the Firbolg! We have no fear of giants!” She launched herself into the air, and Delan followed. They sailed like bronze birds through the sky, their swords outstretched.

Emma reached out almost lazily and plucked Ethna from the air. She tore her apart like tissue paper, shredding her bronze armor, snapping her sword. Julian caught Delan and hurled him back to earth with a force that tore a furrow into the dirt: Delan skidded across the ground and was still.

The other Riders did not run. It wasn’t in them to run, Mark knew. They did not retreat. They were without the ability to do so. Each tried to fight, and each was caught up and crushed or torn, hurled back to the ground in pieces. The earth was slick with their blood.

Julian turned away from them first. He put out a blazing hand toward the Malachi Configuration and scattered it, sending the bars of light flying.

The screams of the Cohort pierced the air. Cristina tore herself away from Mark and ran toward Emma and Julian. “Don’t!” she cried. “Emma! Jules! They’re prisoners! They can’t hurt us!” Helen ran forward, her hands outstretched. “The battle is over!” she cried. “We’ve won—you can stop now! You killed the Riders! You can stop!” Neither Julian nor Emma seemed to hear. With a graceful hand, Emma lifted a Cohort member from the screaming throng and tossed him aside. He shrieked as he sailed through the air, his howls cut off suddenly when he hit the ground with a crushing thud.

Mark had stopped worrying only whether Emma and Julian would survive this. He had begun to worry whether any of them would.

Dru stood just inside the gates and gazed out onto the Imperishable Fields.

She’d never seen a battle like this before. She’d been in the Accords Hall during the Dark War and seen death and blood, but the scale of this fight—the chaos that was hard to follow, the blinding speed of the fighting—was almost impossible to look at. It didn’t help that she was too far away to make out details: She saw the bronze Riders come and felt terror; she saw them tumble into the fighting crowd, but not what had happened to them afterward. Occasionally she would see the blurry figure of a man or woman fall on the field and wonder: Was it Mark? Was it Emma? The sickness of fear had taken up residence in her stomach and wouldn’t budge.

For the past hour, the wounded had been coming through the gates, sometimes walking, sometimes carried. Silent Brothers moved forward in swirls of bone-colored robes to carry Cohort members and ordinary Shadowhunters alike to the Basilias for healing. At one point, Jem Carstairs had come in through the gates, carrying Kit’s unconscious body.

She had started to run to them, and paused when she saw Tessa Gray racing through the crowd of Silent Brothers, Catarina Loss with her. Both already had blood on their clothes and had clearly been treating the wounded.

She wanted to go to Kit. He was her friend, and he mattered so much to Ty. But she hung back, afraid that adults like Jem and Tessa would want her to go back to Amatis’s house and she would be taken away from the gates, her only window to her family. She hung back in the shadows as Tessa helped Catarina load Kit onto a stretcher.

Jem and Catarina took hold of the ends of the stretcher. Before they began to move up the hill toward the Basilias, Tessa bent and kissed Kit gently on the forehead. It eased the knot of tightness in Dru’s chest—though Kit had been hurt, at least he’d be taken care of by those who cared about him.

More wounded came in then, the injuries worsening as the battle raged on. Beatriz Mendoza was carried through the gates, sobbing brokenly. She wasn’t visibly injured, but Dru knew that her parabatai, Julie, had been the first Shadowhunter slain in the battle. Dru wanted to turn Tavvy’s face away from all of it. It wasn’t the Shadowhunter way to shield children from the results of battle, but she couldn’t help thinking of his nightmares, the years of listening to him scream in the darkness.

“Tavs,” she said finally. “Don’t look.”

He took her hand, but he didn’t turn his face away. He was staring at the battlefield, his expression intent but not fearful.

He was the one who saw the giants first, and pointed.

Dru’s first instinct was to wonder if this was a plan of Julian’s. She saw white fire blaze up and then great shining figures striding across the field. They filled her with a feeling of amazement, a shock at their beauty, the way she’d felt when she was small, looking up at illustrations of Raziel.

She scanned the field anxiously—the white light of the fire was piercing the sky. The clouds were breaking up and shattering. She could hear cries, and the dark figures of vampires began to flee across the field toward Brocelind’s shadows.

Most of them made it. But as the clouds rolled back and the gray sunlight pierced down like a knife, Dru saw one vampire, slower than the rest, just at the border of the woods, stumble into a patch of sunlight. There was a cry and a conflagration.

She pulled her gaze away from the flames. This can’t be Julian’s plan.

Tavvy tugged on her hand. “We have to go,” he said. “We have to go to Emma and Jules.” She gripped him tightly. “It’s a battle—we can’t go out there.”

“We have to.” There was urgency in his tone. “It’s Jules and Emma. They need us.” “Dru!” A cry made her look up. Two people were coming through the gates. One was Jaime. The sight of him made her heart leap: He was still alive. Dusty and scratched, his gear filthy, but alive and bright-eyed and flushed with effort. He was half-carrying Cameron Ashdown, who had an arm slung over his shoulder. Cameron appeared to be bleeding from a wound in his side.

“Cameron!” Dru hurried toward them, pulling Tavvy with her. “Are you okay?”

Cameron gave Dru a half wave. “Vanessa stabbed me. Some kind of demon stuff on the blade.” He winced.

“Your cousin stabbed you?” Dru said. She’d known the Ashdowns were split politically, but family was family in her view.

“Holiday dinners will be very awkward from now on,” said Jaime. He gave the other boy a pat on the back as a Silent Brother swooped down on Cameron and bore him away to the Basilias.

Jaime wiped a dirty hand across his forehead. “You two should get farther away from the battle,” he said. “Has no one told you not to stand in the gates?” “If we don’t stand in the gates, we can’t see anything,” Dru pointed out. “Is that—on the field—is that really Jules and Emma?” Jaime nodded. Dru’s heart sank. Some part of her had been hoping it was a terrible illusion.

“I don’t understand what’s happening?” Her voice rose. “Is this a plan of Julian’s? Do you know about it?” “I do not think it is a plan,” Jaime said. “They seem entirely out of control.” “Can they be stopped?”

Jaime spoke reluctantly. “They killed the Riders of Mannan. Now soldiers are trying to form a wall of bodies to protect the city from them. All the children are here.” He indicated Alicante. Dru thought of Max and Rafe with Maryse. Her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t know what will happen.” Jaime looked from her to Tavvy. “Come with me,” he said abruptly. “I can get you into the woods.” Dru hesitated.

“We can’t go away from them. We have to go to Jules and Emma,” Tavvy said firmly.

“It’s dangerous—” Jaime began.

“Tavvy’s right. We have to go.” Dru looked down at the incomplete rune that sprawled across her forearm. She remembered Julian putting it there yesterday; it felt forever ago. “You don’t have to help.” Jaime sighed and drew his crossbow from the holder on his back. “I’ll cover you.” Dru was about to follow Jaime out of the gates when Tavvy poked her in the side. She turned to see he was holding out her stele. “Don’t forget,” he said.

She exhaled—she nearly had forgotten. Dru put the tip of the stele to her arm and began to complete the Familias rune.

Kieran was surrounded by the Unseelie army, thirty faeries deep. This was bad enough, because he could see neither Mark nor Cristina over the churning mass of his people, but he could barely control Windspear, who was rearing and whinnying beneath him. Windspear liked neither crowds nor giants, and at the moment both were far too close.

Winter was at Kieran’s side. He had stuck to him like glue through the battle, which Kieran found both admirable and startling. He was not used to such loyalty.

“The people have come to you, liege lord,” said Winter. “What are your orders for them?” Orders for them? Kieran thought frantically. He had no idea what they should do. This was why he had wanted Adaon to be King, but Adaon was prisoner in the Seelie Court. What would Adaon say about an army of faeries trapped on a field with rampaging part-angel giants?

“Why aren’t they all running for the forest?” Kieran demanded. The forest was a place Fair Folk felt at home, full of natural things, water and trees. There had long been faeries in Brocelind Forest.

“Sadly, the woods are full of vampires,” said Winter glumly.

“The vampires are our allies!” shouted Kieran, grasping Windspear’s mane as the horse reared.

“No one really believes that,” said Winter.

By all the Gods of Dark and Light. Kieran wanted to yell and break something. Windspear reared again, and this time, Kieran caught sight of a familiar figure. Mark. He would know him anywhere—and Cristina beside him. He said a silent thanks. What would they tell me to do? He thought of Mark’s generosity, Cristina’s kindness. They would think of the Unseelie soldiers first.

“We need to get our people off this field,” said Kieran. “They cannot battle angels. No one can. How did you all arrive here?” “Oban made a door,” said Winter. “You can do the same, liege. Open a door to Faerie. As King you can do it. Reach out to your Land and it will reach back to you.” If bloody drunk Oban did it, I can do it, Kieran thought. But that wasn’t all that helpful. He had to reach out to his Land, a place he had long cursed, and hope it would reach back to him.

He slid from Windspear’s back as the horse stilled beneath him. He remembered Mark saying: I will not forget the beauty of Faerie and neither will you. But it will not come to that.

And he thought of what he himself had said, had remembered, when he had thought Faerie was threatened.

The way the water tumbles blue as ice over Branwen’s Falls. The taste of music and the sound of wine. The honey hair of mermaids in the streams, the glittering of will-o’-the-wisps in the shadows of the deep forests.

Kieran took a deep breath. Let me through, he thought. Let me through, my Land, for I belong to you: I will give unto you as the Kings of Faerie long have, and you will flourish when I flourish. I will bring no blight to your shores, nor blood to wither your flowers in the fields, but only peace and a kind road that rises to green hills.

“My liege,” said Winter.

Kieran opened his eyes and saw that the low hillock before him had begun to split apart. Through the gap he could see the great tower of Unseelie rising in the distance and the peaceful fields before it.

Several of the closer fey sent up a cheer. They began to run through the gap even as it widened. Kieran could see them emerging on the other side, some even falling on their knees with gratitude and relief.

“Winter,” he said in an unsteady voice. “Winter, get everyone through the door. Get them to safety.” “All the fey?” said Winter.

“Everyone,” said Kieran, looking at his first in command sternly. “Shadowhunters. Warlocks. Everyone who seeks sanctuary.” “And you, my liege?” said Winter.

“I must go to Mark and Cristina.”

For the first time, Winter looked mutinous. “You must leave your mortal friends, lord.” Winter was a redcap, sworn in blood to protect the King and the royal line. Kieran could not be angry with him, and yet he must make him understand. He searched for the right words. “You are my loyal guard, Winter. But as you guard me, so must you guard what I love best, and Mark Blackthorn and Cristina Rosales are what I love best in this world and all others.” “But your life,” said Winter.

“Winter,” Kieran said flatly. “I know they cannot be my consorts. But I die without them.” More and more faeries were flooding through the door to the Undying Lands. There were others with them now—a few warlocks, even a band of lycanthropes.

Winter set his jaw. “Then I will guard your back.”

Helen felt as if she were caught in the middle of a river going two ways at once.

Faeries were running in one direction, toward a hilly rise at the eastern end of the field. Shadowhunters were racing in the other, toward the city of Alicante, presumably to hide behind its walls. Aline had darted off to investigate, promising to be back momentarily.

Some still milled around the center of the field—the Cohort seemed to be shrieking and running in circles, willing to join neither the exodus of faeries nor fellow Shadowhunters. Helen had stayed near to where the others she knew had gathered—Kadir and Jia were helping wounded from the field, Simon and Isabelle were in conference with Hypatia Vex and Kwasi Bediako, and Jace and Clary had gone with a group of others, including Rayan and Divya, to put themselves between Emma and Julian and the Cohort prisoners.

“Helen!” Aline was jogging toward her across the grass. “They’re not running away.” “What do you mean?” Helen said.

“The Shadowhunters. They’re going to protect the city, in case the giants—in case Emma and Julian make a move toward it. It’s full of kids and old people. And besides,” she added, “Shadowhunters protect Alicante. It’s what we do.” Spoken like the daughter of the Consul. “But Emma and Julian would never—they wouldn’t—” Helen protested.

“We don’t know what they’d do,” Aline said gently, just as Hypatia Vex and Kwasi Bediako rushed past them. They raced toward the trampled grass where Emma and Julian stood, and Kwasi flung out his hands as Hypatia placed her palms on his shoulders. A shimmering golden net burst into the air over Emma and Jules: It settled on them like a fine spiderweb, but Helen sensed it was made of something much stronger.

Emma put up a great, shining hand to push against the net. It held fast. Kwasi was breathing fast, but Hypatia steadied him.

A cry broke from Martin Gladstone. “Do it now! Round up the Blackthorns! Show those monsters what will happen to their families if they don’t stop!” The Cohort sent up a cheer. Helen could hear Zara screaming that they should do it, that they had a right to protect themselves.

Aline stepped in front of Helen. “That bastard!” She glowered.

Julian hooked his fingers into the material of the shining net and tore it apart. It fell away, and Julian reached down to seize Gladstone.

With a flick of his fingers, he snapped Gladstone’s neck.

Julian and Emma moved toward the other Cohort members, who began to scatter. Emma reached for Zara— And Jace slid between them, between Emma’s shimmering hand and Zara’s fleeing figure. The Mortal Sword was sheathed on his back; he was weaponless. He tossed back his golden head and called out, “Stop! Emma and Julian! The battle is over! Stop!” Expressionless as a statue of an avenging angel, Emma reached down and swept Jace out of the way. He was thrown several yards and hit the ground with an ugly thud. Clary screamed and went flying across the grass, racing toward Jace with her red hair trailing behind her like fire.

Get up, get up, Helen thought. Get up, Jace.

But he didn’t.

Dru had never used the Familias rune before, and the experience was a strange one.

She felt herself tugged toward her siblings in a way she couldn’t define. It felt like something was tied around the inside of her spine—which was gross but interesting—and was pulling her toward a destination. She’d heard the way Tracking runes felt described to her, and she suspected this wasn’t dissimilar.

She let the tugging pull her, running along after it with her hand clasped firmly around Tavvy’s wrist. They kept to the edges of the battlefield, Jaime beside them with his crossbow trained on anyone who might approach.

They left the shelter of the city walls and struck out for the edge of the forest, still following the pull of the rune. She tried not to look over at the field, at Emma and Julian. It was like looking at pillars of fire one moment, at terrible monsters the next.

There was a rustling overhead, and Ty dropped down out of an oak tree. Dru gave a little gasp of surprise, and then another one as Ty walked straight toward her and hugged her tightly.

He let her go and frowned. “Why are you on the field? You should be in the city. Tavvy, too.” He turned to Jaime. “It’s dangerous.” “Yes,” said Jaime. “I am aware of that.”

“You’re out here,” Dru pointed out.

“I was up a tree,” Ty said, as if that made it better somehow. Before Dru could get into a really enjoyable sibling argument about it, Helen had come rushing up, her pale blond curls fluttering. Aline was just on her heels.

“Dru! Tavvy!” Helen darted tearfully toward the two of them, reaching to pick Tavvy up; Dru noticed that he held his arms out to her automatically, something he only really had ever done for Julian before. Helen lifted him up and squeezed him, hard. “What are you two doing here? Dru, did you use the Familias rune on purpose?” “Of course I did!” Dru said. “We have to get out there on the field. We have to stop Emma and Jules. We have to get them back—back to themselves.” “We’ve been trying,” Helen said as she set Tavvy down. “Don’t you think we’ve been trying?” Dru wanted to grind her teeth together. Why didn’t Helen listen? She’d thought things were better, but she needed her sister to hear her so badly she could feel it like a lump in her throat.

She knew what they had to do. It seemed so clear. How could she make the rest of them see it?

She felt a twinge in her arm, where the rune was, and then Mark was there, racing up with Cristina at his side. “Dru! You called us—” He saw Ty and smiled delightedly. “I was watching you with your slingshot,” he said. “Your aim is true, little brother.” “Don’t encourage him, Mark,” said Helen. “He was supposed to stay back at camp.” “Look,” Dru said. “I know it doesn’t make much sense. But if we all go up to Emma and Jules together, if we go right up to them and talk to them, we can get through. We have to try. If we can’t do it, no one can, and then everyone is in danger.” Helen shook her head. “But why is this happening?”

Cristina and Mark exchanged a glance that Dru couldn’t decipher. “I think it is because of the parabatai bond,” Cristina said.

“Because Emma almost died?” Aline said, bewildered.

“I do not know,” Cristina said. “I can only guess. But there is heavenly fire burning inside them. And no mortal being can survive that for very long.” “It’s too dangerous for us to approach them,” Mark said. “We have to trust Emma and Julian. Trust that they can end this on their own.” There was a long pause. Jaime watched impassively as the Blackthorns and their extended family stood in the stillness of an intense silence.

“No,” Helen said finally, and Dru’s heart sank. Helen raised her eyes, blazing Blackthorn blue in her grime-streaked face. “Dru is right. We have to go.” She looked at Dru. “You’re right, my love.” “I will walk with you to the field,” Jaime said to Dru.

She was glad for his company as they all set out, Blackthorns together. But it wasn’t Jaime she was thinking about as they turned to walk toward the heart of the battle. It was her sister. Helen believed me. Helen understood.

In the midst of the darkness of battle, her heart felt a tiny bit lighter.

Jaime suddenly jerked upright. “Diego,” he said, and then a torrent of Spanish. Dru and Helen whipped around, and Dru sucked in her breath.

Not far away, a redcap was dragging Diego’s limp body across the field. At least, Dru guessed it was Diego: His clothes were familiar, and his mop of dark hair. But his face was obscured entirely by blood.

Helen touched Jaime’s shoulder. “Go to your brother,” she said. “Quickly. We’ll be fine.” Jaime took off running.

Jace was awake. He had been blinking and starting to sit up when Clary reached him, and she’d been torn between throwing herself into his arms and smacking him for terrifying her.

She was drawing an iratze on his arm. It seemed to be doing its work—the long bloody scratch along the side of his face had already healed. He was half-sitting up, leaning against her to catch his breath, when Alec came running up and knelt down beside them.

“Are you all right, parabatai?” Alec said, looking anxiously into Jace’s face.

“Please promise you’ll never do that again,” Clary said.

“I promise that I will never stand between Zara Dearborn and a marauding giant again,” said Jace. “Alec, what’s happening? You’ve been out on the field—” “Julian and Emma just tossed Vanessa Ashdown about twenty feet,” said Alec. “I think they’re angry that she stabbed Cameron, though why, I couldn’t tell you.” Clary looked over at Emma and Julian. They stood very still, looking down at the Cohort, as if choosing what to do with them. Every once in a while a Cohort member would break free and run, and Emma or Julian would move to pen them back in again.

It was almost like a game, but angels did not play. Clary couldn’t help but remember the sight of Raziel, rising from Lake Lyn. Not many people had looked at an angel. Not many people had stared into the cold eyes of Heaven, with its indifference to petty mortal concerns. Did Emma and Julian feel a fraction of that indifference, that unconcern that was not cruelty but something stranger and altogether bigger—something not human at all?

Emma suddenly lurched and went down on one knee. Clary stared in shock as the Cohort howled and fled, but Emma made no movement toward them.

Julian, beside her, reached down a shining hand to lift her back up.

“They’re dying,” Jace said quietly.

Alec looked puzzled. “What?”

“They are Nephilim—true Nephilim,” said Jace. “The monsters of old who once strode the earth. They have heavenly fire inside them, powering everything they do. But it’s too much. Their mortal bodies will burn away. They’re probably in agony.” He got to his feet.

“We have to stop them. If they get too maddened with pain, who knows what they’ll do.” Emma began to move toward the city. Clary could see Isabelle and Simon running toward the blockade of Shadowhunters standing between Emma and Julian and the city of Alicante.

“Stop them how?” Alec said.

Grimly, Jace unsheathed the Mortal Sword. Before he could move, Clary put a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait,” she said. “Look.”

Not far away now, a small group was walking steadily toward the shining, monstrous figures of Emma and Julian. Helen Blackthorn, with all her siblings beside her—Mark and Tiberius, Drusilla and Octavian. They moved together in a strong and steady line.

“What are they doing?” Alec asked.

“The only thing they can do,” said Clary.

Slowly, Jace lowered the Mortal Sword. “By the Angel,” he said, drawing in his breath. “Those kids . . .” * * *

“Diego. Wake up, my brother. Please wake up.”

There had been only darkness, interspersed with bright sparks of pain. Now there was Jaime’s voice. Diego wanted to stay in the darkness and the quiet. To rest where the pain was held at arm’s length, here in the silent world.

But his brother’s voice was insistent, and from childhood Diego had been trained to respond to it. To rise from bed when his brother cried, to run to help him up when he fell down.

He peeled his eyes open. They felt sticky. His face burned. Above him was roiling dark sky and Jaime, his expression starkly distraught. He was on his knees, his bow at his side; a distance away, a redcap lay dead with an arrow protruding from its chest.

Jaime was clutching a stele in his hand. He reached out and pushed back Diego’s hair; when he drew his hand back, it was red with blood. “Stay still,” he said. “I have given you several iratzes.” “I must get up,” Diego whispered. “I must fight.”

Jaime’s dark eyes flashed. “Your face is sliced open, Diego. You have lost blood. You cannot get up. I will not allow it.” “Jaime . . .”

“In the past, you have always healed me,” said Jaime. “Let me be the one who heals you.” Diego coughed. His mouth and throat were thick with blood. “How bad—how bad will the scars be?” Jaime took his hand, and that was when Diego knew it was bad indeed. He begged Jaime silently not to lie to him or to pity him.

Jaime’s smile was slow and crooked. “I think I will be the pretty one in the family now,” he said. “But at least you are still very muscular.” Diego choked on a laugh, on the taste of blood, on the strangeness of it all. He wound his fingers into his brother’s, and held on tight.

The walk across the field was surreal.

As the siblings came closer to Emma and Julian, other Shadowhunters drew nearer to the Blackthorns, sometimes looking puzzled, sometimes almost ashamed. Dru knew they felt that the group was walking toward certain death. Some called out that they should leave Tavvy behind, but he only pressed closer to his brothers and sisters, shaking his head.

Emma and Julian were clearly making their way toward the city. They moved like shining shadows, closing the distance between themselves and the barricade of Shadowhunters who stood between them and Alicante.

“We need to get to them,” she muttered, but the crowd in front of them was forming another sort of barricade. She saw Shadowhunters she recognized among them—Anush and Divya Joshi, Luana Carvalho, Kadir Safar, and even some Downworlders—Bat Velasquez and Kwasi Bediako among them—who were calling out to them not to approach Julian and Emma, that it wasn’t safe.

She glanced at the others in panic. “What do we do?”

“I cannot shoot them with elf-bolts,” Mark said. “They mean well.”

“Of course not!” Helen looked horrified. “Please!” she called out. “Let us pass!” But her voice was lost in the roar of the crowd, which was jostling them back, away from the city, away from Emma and Jules. Dru had begun to panic when they heard the thunder of hooves.

Shadowhunters moved reluctantly back as Windspear, Kieran on his back, parted the crowd. His flanks were lathered with sweat; he had clearly raced across the field. Kieran’s panicked eyes flew across the group until he found Mark, and then Cristina.

The three of them exchanged a swift and speaking look. Mark flung his hand up, as if he were reaching out to the new Unseelie King. “Kieran!” he shouted. “Help us! We need to get to Emma and Julian!” Dru waited for Kieran to say that it was dangerous. Impossible. Instead he bent low over Windspear’s neck; he seemed to be whispering to the horse.

A moment later, the sky darkened with flying shapes. The Wild Hunt had come. Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike scattered as the Hunt swooped low. Suddenly the Blackthorns could move forward again, and they did, moving as fast as they could toward Emma and Julian, who had nearly closed the gap between themselves and the line of Shadowhunters guarding the city.

As they passed, Dru reached up to wave at Diana and Gwyn, who had detached themselves from the Wild Hunt and were preparing to land alongside the Blackthorns. Diana smiled at her and pressed her hand over her heart.

Dru fixed her eyes on the goal ahead. They were nearly there. Kieran had joined them. The crown of Unseelie gleamed on his brow, but his attention was fixed on protecting the Blackthorns. With Windspear rearing, he was keeping the crowd at bay on one side, while Gwyn and Diana did the same on the other.

The field leveled out. They were close now, close enough that Emma and Julian were shining blurs. It was like looking at trees in the forest whose tops you couldn’t see.

Dru took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Just us now. Just Blackthorns.”

Everyone went still.

Mark pressed his forehead to Cristina’s, his eyes shut, before helping her up onto Windspear, beside Kieran. Kieran squeezed Mark’s hand tightly and wrapped his arms around Cristina as if to say to Mark that he would keep her safe. Aline kissed Helen softly and went to stand by her mother among the crowd. They watched, a small and worried group, as the Blackthorns set off to close the distance between themselves and Emma and Jules.

They stopped a few feet from the giant figures of Julian and Emma. For a moment, the certainty that had carried Dru this far faltered. She had thought only of getting here. Not of what she would do or say when they arrived.

It was Tavvy who stepped forward first. “Jules!” he shouted. “Emma! We’re here!” And at last Emma and Julian reacted.

They turned away from the city and looked down at the Blackthorns. Dru craned her head back. She could see their expressions. They were completely blank. No recognition lived in their glowing eyes.

“We can’t just tell them to stop,” said Mark. “Everyone’s already tried that.” Tavvy moved a little bit farther forward. The eyes of the giants followed him like massive lamps, glowing and inhuman.

Dru wanted to reach out and snatch him back.

“Jules?” he said, and his voice was small and low and stabbed into Drusilla’s heart. She took a deep breath. If Tavvy could approach them, so could she. She moved to stand behind her younger brother and tilted her shoulders back until she was looking directly up at Emma and Julian. It was like gazing into the sun; her eyes prickled, but she held them open.

“Emma!” she called. “Julian! It’s Dru—Drusilla. Look, everyone is telling you to stop because the battle is won, but I’m not here to say that. I’m here to tell you to stop because we love you. We need you. Come back to us.” Neither Emma nor Julian moved or changed expression. Dru plowed on, her cheeks burning.

“Don’t leave us,” she said. “Who will watch bad horror movies with me, Julian, if you’re gone? Who will train with me, Emma, and show me everything I’m doing wrong, and how to be better?” Something shifted behind Dru. Helen had come to stand beside her. She reached her hands out as if she could touch the shining figures before her. “Julian,” she said. “You raised our brothers and sisters when I could not. You sacrificed your childhood to keep our family together. And Emma. You guarded this family when I could not. If you both leave me now, how will I ever get the chance to make it up to you?” Julian and Emma were still expressionless, but Emma tilted her head slightly, almost as if she was listening.

Mark came forward, laying his slim hand on Dru’s shoulder. He craned his head back. “Julian,” he called. “You showed me how to be part of a family again. Emma, you showed me how to be a friend when I had forgotten friendship. You gave me hope when I was lost.” He stood straight as an elf-bolt, gazing into the sky. “Come back to us.” Julian shifted. It was a minute movement, but Dru felt her heart leap. Maybe—maybe— Ty stepped forward, his gear dusty and ripped where bark had torn it. His black hair fell in dark strands across his face. He pushed it away and said, “We lost Livvy. We—we lost her.” Tears stung the backs of Dru’s eyes. There was something about the tone of Ty’s voice that made it sound as if this were the first time he had realized the finality and irrevocability of Livvy’s death.

Ty’s eyelashes shimmered with tears as he raised his gaze. “We can’t lose you, too. We will be—we will wind up broken. Julian, you taught me what every word I didn’t understand meant—and Emma, you chased off anybody who was ever mean to me. Who will teach me and protect me if you don’t go back to being yourselves?” There was a great and thundering crash. Julian had fallen to his knees. Dru covered a gasp—he seemed smaller than he had, though still enormous. She could see the black fissures in his glowing skin where red sparks of fire leaked out like blood.

There is heavenly fire burning inside them. And no mortal being can survive that for very long.

“Emma,” Dru whispered. “Julian.”

They weren’t expressionless anymore. Dru had seen statues of mourning angels, of angels thrust through with fiery swords, weeping tears of agony. It was not easy to wield a sword for God.

She could see those statues again in the looks on their faces.

“Emma!” The cry burst from Cristina; she had broken away from the others and come running toward the Blackthorns. “Emma! Who will be my best friend if you’re not my best friend, Emma?” She was crying, tears mixing with the blood and dirt on her face. “Who will take care of my best friend when I cannot, Julian, if you are not there?” Emma fell to her knees beside Julian. They were both weeping—tears of fire, red and gold. Dru hoped desperately that it meant that they felt something, and not that they were dying, coming apart in twin blazes of fire.

“Who will drive me crazy with questions in the classroom if not you?” called Diana. She was coming toward them as well, and so were Kieran and Aline, leaving Gwyn holding Windspear’s bridle, his face reflecting awe and wonder.

Aline cleared her throat. “Emma and Julian,” she said. “I don’t know you that well, and this giant thing is admittedly a huge surprise. That wasn’t a pun. I was being literal.” She glanced sideways at Helen. “But being around you makes my wife really happy, and that’s because she loves you both.” She paused. “I also like you, and we’re going to be a family, dammit, so come down here and be in this family!” Helen patted Aline’s shoulder. “That was good, honey.”

“Julian,” Kieran said. “I could speak of the way Mark loves you, and Emma, I could speak of the friendship Cristina bears you. But the truth is that I have to be King of the Unseelie Court, and without your brilliance, Julian, and your bravery, Emma, I fear my reign will be brief.” In the distance, Dru could see Isabelle and Simon approaching. Alec was with them, his arm around Magnus, and Clary and Jace walked beside them, hand in hand.

Tavvy reached up his arms. “Jules,” he said, his small voice clear and ringing. “Carry me. I’m tired. I want to go home.” Slowly—as slowly as the passing of eons—Julian reached out with his bright hands, fissured with darkness from which heavenly fire poured like blood. He reached out toward Tavvy.

There was a burst of light that seared Dru’s eyes. When she had blinked it away, she saw that Julian and Emma were no longer there—no, they had slumped to the ground; they were dark figures within an aura of light, growing ever smaller, surrounded by a pool of illumination the color of bloody gold.

For a terrified moment Dru was sure they were dying. As the awful light faded, she saw Emma and Julian—human-size again—crumpled together on the ground. They lay with their hands clasped together, their eyes closed, like angels who had fallen from heaven and now slept peacefully upon the earth again.