Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

24

L

EGION

The crest of Chapel Cliff was a tower in a maelstrom: slick rock rising toward the sky, surrounded on three sides by the boiling cauldron of the ocean.

The sky above was gray, streaked with black, hanging heavy as a rock over the small town and the sea beyond. The water was high in the harbor, raising the fishing boats to the level of the windows of the dockside houses. The small craft tossed and turned on the crests of the waves.

More waves crashed up against the cliff, spraying whitecaps into the air. Emma stood within a whirlwind of swirling water, the smell of the sea all around, the sky exploding above her, lightning forking through the clouds.

She spread her arms out wide. She felt as if the lightning were exploding down through her, into the rocks at her feet, into the water that slammed up in gray-green sheets, almost vertical against the sky. All around her the granite spires that gave Chapel Cliff its name rose like a stone forest, like the points of a crown. The rock under her feet was slippery with wet moss.

All her life, she had loved storms—loved the explosions tearing through the sky, loved the soul-baring ferocity of them. She hadn’t thought when she’d burst out of the cottage, at least not logically; she’d been desperate to get away before she told Julian everything he could never know. Let him think she’d never loved him, that she’d broken Mark’s heart, that she had no feelings. Let him hate her, if that meant he would live and be all right.

And maybe the storm could wash her clean, could wash what felt like both their hearts’ blood off her hands.

She moved down the side of the cliff. The rock grew slipperier, and she paused to apply a new Balance rune. The stele slid on her wet skin. From the lower point, she could see where the caves and tide pools were covered by curling white water. Lightning cracked against the horizon; she lifted her face to taste the salt rain and heard the distant, winding sound of a horn.

Her head jerked up. She’d heard a sound like that before, once, when the convoy of the Wild Hunt had come to the Institute. It was no human horn. It sounded again, deep and cold and lonely, and she started to her feet, scrambling back up the path toward the top of the cliff.

She saw clouds like massive gray boulders colliding in the sky; where they parted, weak golden light shafted down, illuminating the churning surface of the ocean. There were black dots out over the harbor—birds? No, they were too big to be seabirds, and none would be out in this weather anyway.

The black dots were coming toward her. They were closer now, resolving, no longer dots. She could see them for what they were: riders. Four riders, cloaked in glimmering bronze. They hurtled through the sky like comets.

They were not the Wild Hunt. Emma knew that immediately, without knowing how she knew it. There were too few of them, and they were too silent. The Wild Hunt rode with a fierce clamor. The bronze riders glided silently toward Emma, as if they had been formed out of the clouds.

She could run back toward the cottage, she thought. But that would draw them toward Julian, and besides, they had angled themselves to cut her off from the path back toward Malcolm’s house. They were moving with incredible speed. In seconds, they would be on the cliff.

Her right hand closed on the hilt of Cortana. She drew it almost without conscious thought. The feel of it in her hand grounded her, slowed her heartbeat.

They soared overhead, circling. For a moment Emma was struck by their odd beauty—up close, the horses seemed barely real, as transparent as glass, formed out of wisps of cloud and moisture. They spun in the air and dove like gulls after their prey. As their hooves struck the solid earth of the cliff, they exploded into ocean whitecaps, each horse a spray of vanishing water, leaving the four riders behind.

And between Emma and the path. She was cut off, from everything but the sea and the small piece of cliff behind her.

The four Riders faced her. She braced her feet. The very top of the ridge was so narrow that her boots sank in on either side of the cliff’s spine. She raised Cortana. It flashed in the storm light, rain sliding off its blade. “Who’s there?” she called.

The four figures moved as one, reaching to push back the hoods of their bronze cloaks. Beneath was more shining stuff—they were three tall men and a woman, each of them wearing bronze half masks, with hair that looked like metallic thread wound into thick braids that hung halfway down their backs.

Their armor was metal: breastplates and gauntlets etched all over with the designs of waves and the sea. The eyes they fixed on her were gray and piercing.

“Emma Cordelia Carstairs,” said one of them. He spoke as if Emma’s name were in a foreign language, one his tongue had a hard time wrapping itself around. “Well met.”

“In your opinion,” Emma muttered. She kept a tight grip on Cortana—each of the faeries (for she knew they were faeries) that she was facing was armed with a longsword, hilts visible over their shoulders. She raised her voice. “What does a convoy from the Faerie Courts want from me?”

The faerie raised an eyebrow. “Tell her, Fal,” said one of the others, in the same accented voice. Something about the accent raised the hairs on Emma’s arms, though she couldn’t have said what it was.

“We are the Riders of Mannan,” said Fal. “You will have heard of us.”

It wasn’t a question. Emma desperately wished Cristina were with her. Cristina was the one with vast knowledge of faerie culture. If the words “Riders of Mannan” were supposed to mean something to Shadowhunters, Cristina would know it.

“Are you part of the Wild Hunt?” she asked.

Consternation. A low mutter vibrated among the four of them, and Fal leaned to the side and spat. A faerie with a sharply chiseled jaw and an expression of disdain replied for him.

“I am Airmed, son of Mannan,” he said. “We are the children of a god, you see. We are much older than the Wild Hunt, and much more powerful.”

Emma realized then what it was that she’d heard in their accents. It wasn’t distance or foreignness; it was age, a terrifying age that stretched back to the beginning of the world.

“We seek,” said Fal. “And we find. We are the searchers. We have been under the waves to search and above them. We have been in Faerie, and in the realms of the damned, and on battlefields and in the dark of night and the bright of day. In all our lives there has only been one thing we have sought and not found.”

“A sense of humor?” Emma suggested.

“She should shut her mouth,” said the female Rider. “You should shut it for her, Fal.”

“Not yet, Ethna,” said Fal. “We need her words. We need to know the location of what we seek.”

Emma’s hand felt hot and slippery on the hilt of Cortana. “What do you seek?”

“The Black Volume,” said Airmed. “We seek the same object you and your parabatai seek. The one taken by Annabel Blackthorn.”

Emma took an involuntary step back. “You’re looking for Annabel?”

“For the book,” said the fourth Rider, his voice harsh and deep. “Tell us where it is and we will leave you be.”

“I don’t have it,” Emma said. “Neither does Julian.”

“She is a liar, Delan,” said the woman, Ethna.

His lip curled. “They are all liars, Nephilim. Do not treat us as fools, Shadowhunter, or we will string your innards from the nearest tree.”

“Try it,” said Emma. “I’ll ram the tree down your throat until branches start poking out of your—”

“Ears?” It was Julian. He must have applied a Soundless rune, because even Emma hadn’t heard him approach. He was perched on a wet boulder by the side of the path toward the cottage as if he’d simply appeared there, summoned out of the rain and clouds. He was in gear, his hair wet, an unlit seraph blade in his hand. “I’m sure you were going to say ears.”

“Definitely.” Emma grinned at him; she couldn’t help it. Despite the fight they’d had, he was here, having her back, being her parabatai. And now they had the Riders hemmed in, pinned between the two of them.

Things were looking up.

“Julian Blackthorn,” drawled Fal, barely glancing at him. “The famous parabatai. I hear the two of you gave a most impressive performance at the Unseelie Court.”

“I’m sure the King couldn’t stop singing our praises,” Julian said. “Look, what makes you think we know where Annabel or the Black Volume are?”

“Spies are in every Court,” said Ethna. “We know the Queen sent you to find the book. The King must have it before the Queen possesses it.”

“But we have promised the Queen,” said Julian, “and a promise like that cannot be broken.”

Delan growled, his hand suddenly at the hilt of his sword. He had moved so fast it was a blur. “You are humans and liars,” he said. “You can break any promise you make, and will, when your necks are on the line. As they are now.” He jerked his chin toward the cottage. “We have come for the warlock’s books and papers. If you will not tell us anything, then give them to us and we will be gone.”

“Give them to you?” Julian looked puzzled. “Why didn’t you just . . .” His eyes met Emma’s. She knew what he was thinking: Why didn’t you break in and take them? “You can’t get in, can you?”

“The wards,” Emma confirmed.

The faeries said nothing, but she could tell by the angry set of their jaws that she was right.

“What will the Unseelie King give us in return for the book?” said Julian.

“Jules,” Emma hissed. How could he be scheming at a time like this?

Fal laughed. Emma noted for the first time that the clothes and armor of the faeries were dry, as if the rain didn’t fall on them. His glance toward Julian was full of contempt. “You have no advantage here, son of thorns. Give us what we have come for, or when we find the rest of your family, we shall put red-hot pokers through their eyes down to even the smallest child.”

Tavvy. The words went through Emma like an arrow. She felt the impact, felt her body jerk, and the cold came down over her, the cold ice of battle. She lunged for Fal, bringing Cortana down in a vicious overhand swipe.

Ethna screamed, and Fal moved faster than a current on the ocean, ducking Emma’s blow. Cortana whistled through the air. There was a clamor as the other faeries reached for their swords.

And a glow as Julian’s seraph blade burst into light, illuminating the rain. It wove around Emma like bright strings as she twirled, fending off a blow from Ethna, Cortana slamming into the faerie sword with enough force to send Ethna stumbling back.

Fal’s face twisted with surprise. Emma gasped, wet, inhaling rain but not feeling the cold. The world was a spinning gray top; she ran toward one of the stone spires and clambered up it.

“Coward!” Airmed cried. “How dare you run away?”

Emma heard Julian laugh as she reached the top of the spire and leaped from it. The descent gave her speed, and she slammed into Airmed with enough force to knock him to the ground. He tried to roll away, but froze when she smashed the hilt of Cortana into his temple. He choked with pain.

“Shut up,” Emma hissed. “Don’t you dare touch the Blackthorns, don’t you even talk about them—”

“Let him be!” Ethna called, and Delan leaped toward them, only to be stopped by Julian and the sweep of his seraph blade. The cliff exploded with light, the rain seeming to hang still in the air, as the blade swung down and slammed against the faerie warrior’s breastplate.

And shattered. It broke as if it had been made out of ice, and Julian was thrown back by the recoiling force of it, lifted off his feet and slammed down among the rocks and wet earth.

Delan laughed, striding toward Julian. Emma abandoned Airmed where he lay and leaped after the faerie warrior as he raised his sword over Jules, and brought it down—

Julian rolled fast to the right, swung around, and drove a dagger into the unguarded skin of Delan’s calf. Delan yelled with pain and anger, spinning to drive the tip of the sword down toward Julian’s body. But Jules had flung himself upward; he was on his feet, dagger in hand.

Light shafted down suddenly through the clouds, and Emma saw the shadows on the ground before her shift; there was someone behind her. She spun away just as a blade came down, barely missing her shoulder. She spun around to find Ethna behind her: Fal was leaning over Airmed on the ground, helping haul him to his feet. For a moment it was just Emma and the faerie woman, and Emma grabbed the hilt of Cortana with both hands and swung.

Ethna darted back, but she was laughing. “You Nephilim,” she sneered. “You call yourselves warriors, ringed round with your protective runes, your angel blades! Without them you would be nothing—and you will be without them soon enough! You will be nothing, and we will take everything from you! Everything you have! Everything!”

“Did you want to say that again?” Emma asked, evading a slice of Ethna’s sword with a twist of her body. She leaped up onto a boulder, looking down. “The everything part? I don’t think I got it the first time.”

Ethna snarled and leaped for her. And for a long series of moments it was only the battle, the glowing vapor of the rain, the sea crashing and thundering in the pools below the cliff, and everything slowing down as Emma knocked Ethna to the side and leaped for Airmed and Fal, her sword clanging against theirs.

They were good: better than good, fast and blindingly strong. But Cortana was like a live thing in Emma’s hands. Rage powered her, an electric current that shot through her veins, driving the sword in her hand, hammering the blade against those raised against hers, the clang of metal drowning out the sea. She tasted salt in her mouth, blood or ocean spray, she didn’t know. Her wet hair whipped around her as she spun, Cortana meeting the other swords of the faeries, blow after blow.

An ugly laugh cut through the violent dream that gripped her. She looked up to see that Fal had Julian backed up to the edge of the cliff. It fell away sheer behind him; he stood framed against the gray sky, his hair plastered darkly to his head.

Panic blasted through her. She pushed off from the side of a granite facing with a kick that connected solidly against Airmed’s body. The faerie fell back with a grunt, and Emma was racing, seeing Julian in her mind’s eye run through with a sword or toppled from the cliff’s edge to shatter on the rocks or drown in the maelstrom below.

Fal was still laughing. He had his sword out. Julian took another step backward—and ducked down, swift and nimble, to catch up a crossbow from where it had been hidden behind a tumble of rocks. He lifted it to his shoulder just as Emma collided with Fal, her sword out; she didn’t slow, didn’t pause, just slammed Cortana point-first between Fal’s shoulder blades.

It pierced his armor and slid home. She felt the point burst out of the other side of his body, slicing through the metal breastplate.

There was a shriek from behind Emma. It was Ethna. She had her head thrown back, her hands clawing at her hair. She was wailing in a language Emma didn’t know, but she could hear that Ethna was shrieking her brother’s name. Fal, Fal.

Ethna began to sink to her knees. Delan reach to catch her, his own face bone-white and shocked. With a roar, Airmed lifted his sword and lunged toward Emma, who was struggling to free Cortana from Fal’s limp body. She tensed and pulled; the sword came free in a gout of blood, but she had no time to turn—

Julian released the bolt from his crossbow. It whistled through the air, a softer sound than the rain, and struck the sword in Airmed’s hand, knocking it out of his grip. Airmed howled. His hand was scarlet.

Emma turned, planted her feet, raised her sword. Blood and rain ran down Cortana’s blade. “Who wants to try me?” she shouted, her words half-torn out of her mouth by wind and water. “Who wants to be next?”

“Let me kill her!” Ethna struggled in Delan’s grip. “She slew Fal! Let me cut her throat!”

But Delan was shaking his head, he was saying something, something about Cortana. Emma took a step forward—if they wouldn’t come to her to be killed, she would be happy enough to go to them.

Airmed raised his hand; she saw light flicker from his fingers, pale green in the gray air. His face was twisted into a sneer of concentration.

“Emma!” Jules caught her from behind before she could take another step, hauling her back and against him just as the rain exploded into the shapes of three horses, swirling creatures of wind and spray, snorting and pawing at the air between Emma and the rest of the Riders. Fal lay with his blood soaking into the Cornwall dirt as his brothers and sister vaulted onto the bare backs of their steeds.

Emma began to shiver violently. Only one of the Riders paused long enough to look back at her before their horses shot forward into the sky, losing themselves among the clouds and rain. It was Ethna. Her eyes were murderous, disbelieving.

You have slain an ancient and primitive thing, her gaze seemed to say. Be prepared for a vengeance just as ancient. Just as primitive.

* * *

“Run,” Livvy said.

It was the last thing Kit had expected. Shadowhunters didn’t run. That was what he’d always been told. But Livvy took off like a bullet out of a gun, flashing past the Rider on the path in front of her, and Ty followed.

Kit ran after them. They tore past the faeries and into the throng of pedestrians on the Thames Path. Kit pulled alongside Livvy and Ty, though he was breathing hard and they weren’t.

He could hear thunder behind him. Hoofbeats. We can’t outrun them, he thought, but he didn’t have the breath to say it. The leaden gray air felt heavy as he pulled it into his lungs. Livvy’s dark hair streamed on the wind as she flung herself over a gate set into the railing separating the path from the river.

For a moment she seemed to hang suspended in the air, her arms upraised, her coat flapping—and then she soared straight down, vanishing out of sight. And Ty followed her, vaulting sideways over the gate, disappearing as he fell.

Into the river? Kit thought hazily, but he didn’t pause; his muscles were already beginning the now-familiar burning, his mind tightening and focusing. He grabbed hold of the top of the gate and pushed himself up and over it.

He fell only a few feet to land in a crouch on a cement platform that stretched out into the Thames, surrounded by a low iron railing that was broken in several places. Ty and Livvy were already there, jackets yanked off to free their arms, seraph blades in hand. Livvy tossed a shortsword toward Kit as he straightened up, realizing why she’d run—not to get away, but to clear them some space to fight.

And hopefully to contact the Institute. Ty had his phone out in his hand, was thumbing at the keypad even as he raised his seraph blade, its light bursting dully against the clouds.

Kit turned just as the three Riders sailed over the gate to join them, flashing bronze and gold as they landed. Their swords whipped free with blinding speed.

“Stop him!” snarled Karn, and his two brothers launched themselves at Ty.

Livvy and Kit moved as one to throw themselves in front of Tiberius. The cold, hard blur of fighting was on Kit, but the Riders were faster than demons, and stronger, too. Kit whipped his shortsword toward Eochaid, but the faerie was no longer there: He’d leaped all the way to the far side of the platform. He laughed at the expression on Kit’s face, even as Etarlam slashed out with a blow that knocked the phone out of Ty’s hand. It skittered across the concrete and splashed into the river.

A shadow fell over Kit. He responded instantaneously, driving upward with his shortsword. He heard a gasp, and Karn fell back, dark drops of blood spattering on the ground at his feet. Kit flung himself up and forward, lunging for Eochaid, but Livvy and Ty were ahead of him, blurs of light as their seraph blades cut the air around the Riders.

But only the air. Kit couldn’t help but notice that the angel blades didn’t seem to be cutting through the Riders’ armor, or even slicing their skin as he’d managed to do with his shortsword. There was puzzlement on Ty’s face, rage on Livvy’s as she stabbed at Eochaid’s heart with her seraph blade.

The weapon snapped off at the hilt, the force of the rebound sending her staggering back almost into the river. Ty whipped around as he looked after her—Eochaid raised his sword and brought it down in a sweeping arc toward Ty—and Kit lunged across the platform, knocking Tiberius flat.

Ty’s blade went flying, splashing down into the Thames, sending up a flurry of fiery droplets. Kit had landed half across Ty, banging his head hard on a jutting piece of wood; he felt Ty try to shove him off, and rolled over to see Eochaid standing over them both.

Livvy had engaged the other two Riders, was fighting them desperately, a whirl of flashing weaponry. But she was on the other side of the platform. Kit fought to get his breath back, raised his sword—

Eochaid stood arrested, his eyes glittering behind the holes of his mask. The irises, too, were bronze-colored. “I know you,” he said. “I know your face.”

Kit gaped at him. A second later, Eochaid was raising his sword, mouth twisting into a grin—and a shadow fell over them all. The Rider looked up, astonishment crossing his face as a burly arm reached down from above and seized hold of him. A second later he was flying up into the air, yelling. Kit heard a splash; the Rider had been tossed into the river.

Kit struggled to sit up, Ty beside him. Livvy had turned to face them, her mouth open; both the Riders were similarly agape, their swords dangling by their sides as a thunderous, whirling mass landed in the center of the platform.

It was a horse, and on the horse’s back was Gwyn, massive in his helmet and bark-like armor. It was his gauntleted arm that had flung Eochaid into the river—but now the Rider had swum back to the platform and was climbing onto it, his movements slowed by his heavy armor.

Clinging to the man’s waist was Diana, her dark hair a mass of curls pulling free of their restraints, her eyes wide.

Ty got to his feet. Kit scrambled up after him. There was some blood staining the collar of Ty’s hoodie; Kit realized he didn’t know if it was Ty’s or his own.

“Riders!” Gwyn said, in a thunderous voice. There was a wide cut across his arm where Eochaid must have gotten in a blow. “Stop.”

Diana slid from the horse’s back and stalked across the concrete platform to where Eochaid was clambering out of the water. She unhitched her sword from its scabbard, spun it, and pointed it directly at his chest. “Don’t move,” she said.

The Rider subsided, teeth bared in a silent snarl.

“This is none of your concern, Gwyn,” said Karn. “This is Unseelie business.”

“The Wild Hunt bends to no law,” said Gwyn. “Our will is the wind’s will. And my will now is to send you away from these children. They are under my protection.”

“They are Nephilim,” spat Etarlam. “The architects of the Cold Peace, vicious and cruel.”

“You are no better,” said Gwyn. “You are the King’s hunting dogs, and never have you shown any mercy.”

Karn and Etarlam stared at Gwyn. Eochaid, kneeling, dripped on the concrete. The moment stretched out like rubber, seemingly extending forever.

Eochaid shot suddenly to his feet with a gasp, seemingly heedless of Diana’s sword, tracking him unerringly as he moved. “Fal,” he said. “He is dead.”

“That is impossible,” said Karn. “Impossible. A Rider cannot die.”

But Etarlam let out a loud, keening cry, his sword falling to the ground as his hand flew to cover his heart. “He is gone,” he wailed. “I feel it. Our brother is gone.”

“A Rider has passed into the Shadow Lands,” said Gwyn. “Would you like me to sound the horn for him?”

Though Gwyn had sounded sincere enough to Kit, Eochaid snarled and made as if to lunge for the Hunter, but Diana’s sword kissed his throat as he moved, drawing blood. Thick, dark drops ran down her blade.

“Enough!” said Karn. “Gwyn, you will pay for this treachery. Etar, Eochaid, to my side. We go to our brothers and sister.”

Diana lowered her sword as Eochaid shouldered past her, joining the other two Riders. They leaped from the platform into the air, long soaring leaps that took them high above, where they caught the manes of their gleaming bronze horses and swung themselves up to ride.

As they hurtled past above the water, Eochaid’s voice echoed in Kit’s ringing ears.

I know you. I know your face.

* * *

Emma was shaking by the time they got back into the cottage. A combination of cold and reaction had set in. Her hair and clothes were plastered to her, and she suspected she looked like a drowned rat.

She propped Cortana against the wall and began wearily to shuck off her drenched jacket and shoes. She was aware of Julian locking the door behind them, aware of the sounds of him moving around the room. Warmth, too. He must have built up the fire earlier.

A moment later something soft was being pressed into her hands. Julian stood in front of her, his expression unreadable, offering a slightly worn bath towel. She took it and began to dry off her hair.

Jules was still wearing his damp clothes, though he was barefoot and he’d thrown on a dry sweater. Water gleamed at the edges of his hair, the tips of his eyelashes.

She thought of the clang of swords on swords, the beauty of the turmoil of the battle, the sea and sky. She wondered if that was how Mark had felt in the Wild Hunt. When there was nothing between you and the elements, it was easy to forget what weighed you down.

She thought of the blood on Cortana, the blood ribboning out from under Fal’s body, mixing with the rainwater. They’d rolled his corpse under an overhang of stones, not wanting to leave him there, exposed to the weather, even though he was long past caring.

“I killed one of the Riders,” she said now, in a near whisper.

“You had to.” Julian’s hand was strong on her shoulder, fingers digging in. “Emma, it was a fight to the death.”

“The Clave—”

“The Clave will understand.”

“The Fair Folk won’t. The Unseelie King won’t.”

The faintest ghost of a smile passed over Julian’s face. “I don’t think he likes us anyway.”

Emma took a tense breath. “Fal had you backed up against the edge of the cliff,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

Julian’s smile faded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d hidden the crossbow there earlier—”

“I didn’t know,” Emma said. “It’s my job to sense what’s going on with you in battle, to understand it, to anticipate you, but I didn’t know.” She threw the bath towel; it landed on the kitchen floor. The mug Julian had broken earlier was gone. He must have cleaned it up.

Despair bubbled up inside her. Nothing she’d done had worked. They were in exactly the same place they’d been before, only Julian didn’t know it. That was all that had changed.

“I tried so hard,” she whispered.

His face crinkled in confusion. “In the battle? Emma, you did everything you could—”

“Not in the battle. To make you not love me,” she said. “I tried.”

She felt him recoil, not so much outwardly as inwardly, as if his soul had flinched. “Is it that awful? Having me love you?”

She had started trembling again, though not from the cold. “It was the best thing in the world,” she said. “And then it was the worst. And I didn’t even have a chance—”

She broke off. He was shaking his head, scattering water droplets. “You’re going to have to learn to live with it,” he said. “Even if it horrifies you. Even if it makes you sick. Just like I’m going to have to live with whatever other boyfriends you have, because we are forever no matter how, Emma, no matter what you want to call what we have, we will always be us.”

“There won’t be any other boyfriends,” she said.

He looked at her in surprise.

“What you said before, about thinking and obsessing and wanting only one thing,” she said. “That’s how I feel about you.”

He looked stunned. She put her hands up to gently cup his face, brushing her fingers over his damp skin. She could see the pulse hammering in his throat. There was a scratch on his face, a long one that went from his temple to his chin. Emma wondered if he’d just gotten it in the fight outside, or if he’d had it before and she hadn’t noticed because she’d been trying so hard not to look at him. She wondered if he was ever going to speak again.

“Jules,” she said. “Say something, please—”

His hands tightened convulsively on her shoulders. She gasped as his body moved against hers, walking her backward until her back hit the wall. His eyes gazed down into hers, shockingly bright, radiant as sea glass. “Julian,” he said. “I want you to call me Julian. Only ever that.”

“Julian,” she said, and then his mouth came down over hers, dry and burning hot, and her heart seemed to stop and start again, an engine revved into an impossibly high gear.

She clutched him back with the same desperation, clinging on as he drank the rain from her mouth, her lips parting to taste him: cloves and tea. She reached to yank his sweater off over his head. Under it was a T-shirt, the thin wet cloth not much of a barrier when he pressed her back against the wall. His jeans were wet too, molded to his body. She felt how much he wanted her, and wanted him just as much.

The world was gone: There was only Julian; the heat of his skin, the need to be closer to him, to fit herself against him. Every movement of his body against hers sent lightning through her nerves.

“Emma. God, Emma.” He buried his face against her, kissing her cheek, her throat as he slid his thumbs under the waistband of her jeans and pushed down. She kicked the wet heap of denim away. “I love you so much.”

It felt as if it had been a thousand years since that night on the beach. Her hands rediscovered his body, the hard planes of it, his scars rough under her palms. He had once been so skinny—she could still see him as he had been even two years ago, awkward and gangly. She had loved him then even if she hadn’t known it, loved him from the center of his bones to the surface of his skin.

Now those bones were clothed and covered in smooth muscle, hard and unyielding. She ran her hands up under his shirt, relearning him, tracing him, embedding the feel and the texture of him in her memory.

“Julian,” she said. “I—”

I love you, she was about to say. It wasn’t ever Cameron, or Mark, it was always you, it will always be you, the marrow of my bones is made up of you, like cells make up our blood. But he cut her off with a hard kiss. “Don’t,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hear anything reasonable, not now. I don’t want logic. I want this.”

“But you need to know—”

He shook his head. “I don’t.” He reached down, grabbed the hem of his shirt, dragged it off. His wet hair showered droplets on them both. “I’ve been broken for weeks,” he said unsteadily, and she knew what that cost him, that admission of lack of control. “I need to be whole again. Even if it doesn’t last.”

“It can’t last,” she said, staring at him, because how could it, when they could never keep what they had? “It’ll break our hearts.”

He caught her by the wrist, brought her hand to his bare chest. Splayed her fingers over his heart. It beat against her palm, like a fist punching its way through his sternum. “Break my heart,” he said. “Break it in pieces. I give you permission.”

The blue of his eyes had almost disappeared behind the expanding rims of his pupils.

She hadn’t known, before, on the beach, what was going to happen. What it would be like between them. Now she did. There were things in life you couldn’t refuse. No one had that much willpower.

No one.

She was nodding her head, without even knowing she was going to do it. “Julian, yes,” she said. “Yes.”

She heard him make an almost anguished sound. Then his hands were on her hips; he was lifting her so she was pinned between his body and the wall. It felt desperate, world-ending, and she wondered if there would ever be a time when it wouldn’t, when it could be soft and slow and quietly loving.

He kissed her fiercely and she forgot gentleness or any desire for it. There was only this, his whispering her name as they pushed aside the clothes that needed to be pushed aside. He was gasping, a faint sheen of sweat on his skin, damp hair plastered to his forehead; he lifted her higher, pressed toward her so fast his body collided with hers. She heard the ragged moan dragged out of his throat. When he lifted his face, eyes black with desire, she stared at him, wide-eyed.

“You’re all right?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Don’t stop.”

His mouth found hers, unsteady, his hands shaking where they held her. She could tell he was fighting for every second of control. She wanted to tell him it was fine, it was all right, but coherence had deserted her. She could hear the waves outside, smashing brutally against the rocks; she closed her eyes and heard him say that he loved her, and then her arms were around him, holding him as his knees gave way and they sank to the floor, clutching each other like the survivors of a ship that had run aground on some distant, legendary shore.

* * *

Tavvy, Rafe, and Max were easy enough to locate. They’d been in the care of Bridget, who was amusing them by letting them annoy Jessamine so that she knocked things off high shelves, thus sparking a “Do not tease ghosts” lecture from Magnus.

Dru, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t in her bedroom any longer, or hiding in the library or the parlor, and the kids hadn’t seen her. Possibly Jessamine could have helped them more, but Bridget had reported that she had flounced off after the children were done bothering her, and besides, she only liked talking to Kit.

“Dru wouldn’t have left the Institute, would she?” Mark said. He was stalking down the corridor, shoving doors open left and right. “Why would she do something like that?”

“Mark.” Kieran took the other boy by his shoulders and turned him so that they faced each other. Cristina felt a throb in her wrist, as if Mark’s distress were communicating itself to her through the binding.

Of course, Mark and Kieran shared another kind of binding. The binding of shared experience and emotion. Kieran was holding Mark by the shoulders, concentrating on nothing but him in that way that faeries had. And Mark was relaxing slowly, some of the tension leaving his body.

“Your sister is here,” said Kieran. “And we will find her.”

“We’ll split up and look,” said Alec. “Magnus—”

Magnus swung Max up into his arms and headed down the hallway, the other two kids trailing behind him. The rest of them agreed to meet back in the library in twenty minutes. Each of them got a quadrant of the Institute to search. Cristina wound up with west, which took her downstairs to the ballroom.

She wished it hadn’t—the memories of dancing there with Mark and then with Kieran were confusing and distracting. And she didn’t need to be distracted now; she needed to find Dru.

She headed down the stairs—and froze. There, on the landing, was Drusilla, all in black, her brown braids tied with black ribbon. She turned a pale, anxious face to Cristina.

“I was waiting for you,” she said.

“Everyone’s looking for you!” Cristina said. “Ty and Livvy—”

“I know. I heard. I was listening,” said Dru.

“But you weren’t in the library—”

“Please,” Dru said. “You have to come with me. There’s not a lot of time.”

She turned and hurried up the stairs. After a moment, Cristina followed her.

“Dru, Mark’s worried. The Riders are terribly dangerous. He needs to know you’re all right.”

“I’ll go and tell him I’m fine in a second,” Dru said. “But I need you to come with me.”

“Dru—” They’d made it to the hallway where most of the spare bedrooms were.

“Look,” said Dru. “I just need you to do this, okay? If you try yelling for Mark, I promise you there are places in this Institute I can hide where you won’t find me for days.”

Cristina couldn’t help being curious. “How do you know the Institute so well?”

“You would too if every time you showed your face, someone tried to make you babysit,” said Dru. They’d reached her bedroom. She stood hesitating, with her hand on the knob of her door.

“But we looked in your bedroom,” Cristina protested.

“I’m telling you,” said Dru. “Hiding places.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. You go in here. And don’t freak out.”

Dru’s small face was set and determined, as if she were nerving herself to do something unpleasant.

“Is everything all right?” Cristina said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk to Mark than me?”

“It isn’t me who wants to talk to you,” Dru said, and pushed her bedroom door open. Cristina stepped inside, feeling more puzzled than ever.

She only saw a shadow first, a figure in front of the windowsill. Then he stood up and her heart caught in her throat.

Brown skin, tangled black hair, sharp features, long lashes. The faint slouch to the shoulders she remembered, that she used to tell him always made him look as if he was walking into a high wind.

“Jaime,” she breathed.

He reached out his arms, and a moment later she was hugging him tightly. Jaime had always been skinny, but now he felt positively prickly with pointed collarbones and sharp elbows. He hugged her back, tightly, and Cristina heard the bedroom door close quietly, the lock clicking.

She pulled back and looked up into Jaime’s face. He looked like he always did—bright-eyed, edged with mischief. “So,” he said. “You really missed me.”

All the nights she’d stayed up sobbing because of him—because he was missing, because she hated him, because he’d been her best friend and she hated hating him—burst. Her left palm cracked across his cheek, and then she was hitting him on the shoulders, the chest, wherever she could reach.

“Ow!” He writhed away. “That hurts!”

“¡Me vale madre!” She hit him again. “How dare you disappear like that! Everyone was worried! I thought maybe you were dead. And now you turn up hiding in Drusilla Blackthorn’s bedroom, which by the way if her brothers find out they will kill you dead—”

“It wasn’t like that!” Jaime windmilled his arms as if to fend off her blows. “I was looking for you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “After all this time avoiding me, suddenly you’re looking for me?”

“It wasn’t you I was avoiding,” he said. He took a crumpled envelope out of his pocket and held it out to her. With a pang, she recognized Diego’s handwriting.

“If Diego wants to write to me, he doesn’t need the message hand-delivered,” she said. “What does he think you are, a carrier pigeon?”

“He can’t write to you,” said Jaime. “Zara watches all his mail.”

“So you know about Zara,” Cristina said, taking the envelope. “How long?”

Jaime slouched back against a large oak desk, hands propped behind him. “How long have they been engaged? Since you two broke up the first time. But it’s not a real engagement, Cristina.”

She sat down on Dru’s bed. “It seemed real enough.”

Jaime ran a hand through his black hair. He looked only a little like Diego, maybe in the set of his mouth, the shape of his eyes. Jaime had always been playful where Diego was serious. Now, tired and skinny, he resembled the glum, style-conscious boys who hung around coffee shops in the Colonia Roma. “I know you probably hate me,” he said. “You’ve got every reason. You think I wanted our branch of the family to take over the Institute because I wanted power and didn’t care about you. But the fact is I had a good reason.”

“I don’t believe you,” Cristina said.

Jaime made an impatient noise. “I’m not self-sacrificing, Tina,” he said. “That’s Diego, not me. I wanted our family out of trouble.”

Cristina dug her hands into the bedspread. “What kind of trouble?”

“You know we’ve always had a connection with faeries,” said Jaime. “It’s where that necklace of yours comes from. But there’s always been more than that. Most of it didn’t matter, until the Cold Peace. Then the family was supposed to turn everything over to the Clave—all their information, anything the faeries had ever given them.”

“But they didn’t,” Cristina guessed.

“They didn’t,” Jaime said. “They decided the relationship with the hadas was more important than the Cold Peace.” He shrugged fluidly. “There’s an heirloom. It has power even I don’t understand. The Dearborns and the Cohort demanded it, and we told them only a Rosales could make the object work.”

Realization came to Cristina with a hard shock. “So the fake engagement,” she said. “So Zara could think she was becoming a Rosales.”

“Exactly,” said Jaime. “Diego ties himself to the Cohort. And I—I take the heirloom and run. So Diego can blame me—his bad little brother ran off with it. And the engagement drags on and they don’t find the heirloom.”

“Is that your only plan?” Cristina said. “Delay forever?”

Jaime frowned at her. “I don’t think you entirely appreciate that I’ve been very bravely on the run for months now,” he said. “Very bravely.”

“We are Nephilim, Jaime. It’s our job to be brave,” Cristina said.

“Some of us are better at it than others,” Jaime said. “Anyway. I would not say our whole plan is to delay, no. Diego works to find out what the Cohort’s weaknesses are. And I work to find out what the heirloom does exactly.”

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “I know it helps you enter Faerie undetected.”

“And the Cohort wants to be able to enter Faerie so they can start a war?” Cristina guessed.

“That would make sense,” said Jaime. “To them, anyway.”

Cristina sat on the bed in silence. Outside it had begun to rain. Water streaked the windowpanes. She thought of rain on the trees in the Bosque, and sitting there with Jaime, watching him eat bags of Dorilocos and lick the salt off his fingers. And talking—talking for hours, about literally everything, about what they would do when they were parabatai and could travel anywhere in the world.

“Where are you going to go?” she said finally, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I can’t tell you.” He pulled himself away from the desk. “I can’t tell anyone. I am a good escape artist, Cristina, but only if I never tell where I’m hiding.”

“You don’t know, do you,” she said. “You’re going to improvise.”

He smiled sideways. “No one knows me better than you.”

“And Diego?” Cristina’s voice shook. “Why didn’t he ever tell me any of this?”

“People do stupid things when they’re in love,” said Jaime, in the voice of someone who never had been. “And besides, I asked him not to.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Two things,” he said. “In Downworld, they say the Blackthorns are going up against the Cohort. If it comes to a fight, I want to be in it. Send me a fire-message. I will come.” His tone was earnest. “And secondly, to deliver Diego’s message. He said you might be too angry to read it. But I was hoping that now—you would not be.”

She looked down at the envelope in her hand. It had been bent and folded many times.

“I’ll read it,” she said quietly. “Won’t you stay? Eat a meal with us. You look starved.”

Jaime shook his head. “No one can know I was here, Tina. Promise me. On the fact that we were once going to be parabatai.”

“That isn’t fair,” she whispered. “Besides, Drusilla knows.”

“She won’t tell anyone—” Jaime began.

“Cristina!” It was Mark’s voice, echoing down the hallway. “Cristina, where are you?”

Jaime’s arms were around her suddenly, wiry-strong as he hugged her hard. When he let go, she touched his face lightly. There were a million things she wanted to say—ten cuidado more than anything: Be safe, be careful. But he was already turning away from her, toward the window. He threw it open and ducked outside like a shadow, vanishing into the rain-streaked night.