Julian floored the car on the way home, Emma keeping her hands clasped around her knees as the speedometer crept up past eighty. They careened into the parking lot behind the Institute and slammed on the brakes. Julian threw himself out of the car and Emma raced after him.
They reached the second floor to find the younger Blackthorns seated on the floor outside Mark's door. Dru was curled up with Tavvy against Livvy's side; Ty sat alone, his long hands dangling between his knees. They were all staring; the door was cracked partway open and through it Emma could hear Mark's voice, raised and angry, and then another voice, lower and more soothing--Cristina.
"Sorry I texted," said Livvy in a small voice. "It's just that he was screaming and screaming. He finally stopped, but--Cristina's in there with him. If any of the rest of us go in, he howls and yells."
"Oh my God." Emma moved toward the door, but Julian caught her, swinging her around to face him. She looked over and saw that Ty had begun to rock back and forth, his eyes closed. It was something he did when things were too much: too loud, too harsh or hard or fast or painful.
The world was extra intense for Ty, Julian had always said. It was as if his ears could hear more clearly, his eyes see more, and sometimes it was too much for him. He needed to cover noise, to feel something in his hand to distract him. He needed to rock back and forth to soothe himself. Everyone processed stress in a different way, Julian said. This was Ty's, and it hurt nobody.
"Em," Julian said. His face was taut. "I need to go in alone."
She nodded. He let go of her almost reluctantly. "Guys," he said, looking at his siblings--at Dru's round, worried face, Tavvy's uncomprehending one, Livvy's unhappy eyes, and Ty's hunched shoulders. "It's going to be hard for Mark. We can't expect him to be okay all at once. He's been away a long time. He has to get used to being here."
"But we're his family," said Livvy. "Why would you have to get used to your own family?"
"You might," Julian said, in that patient soft voice that amazed Emma sometimes, "if you'd been away from them a long time and you'd been somewhere where your mind plays tricks on you."
"Like Faerie," said Ty. He had stopped rocking and was leaning back against the wall, dark hair damp and in his face.
"Right," Julian said. "So we're going to have to give him time. Maybe leave him alone a little." He looked over at Emma.
She pasted a smile onto her face--God, she was so much worse at this than Jules--and said, "Malcolm's working on the investigation. The murders. I thought we could head to the library and look into ley lines."
"Me too?" Drusilla piped up.
Emma said, "You can help us plot a map. Okay?"
Dru nodded. "Okay." She rose to her feet and the others followed. As Emma led them away down the hall, a quietly subdued group, she looked back only once. Julian was standing by the door to Mark's room, watching them go. His eyes met hers for a split second before he looked away, as if he hadn't seen her glance at all.
If only Emma was with him, Julian thought as he pushed open the door, this would be easier. It would have to be easier. When Emma was with him it was like he was breathing twice as much oxygen, had twice as much blood, had two hearts to drive the motion of his body. He put it down to the doubling magic of parabatai: She made him twice what he would be otherwise.
But he'd had to send her away with the kids; he didn't trust anyone else with them, and definitely not Arthur. Arthur, he thought bitterly, who was hiding in his attic while one of his nephews desperately tried to hold his family together and another one--
"Mark?" Julian said.
The bedroom was dim, the curtains closed. He could just see that Cristina was sitting on the floor, her back to the wall. She had one hand pressed to the pendant at her throat, and the other at her hip, where something gleamed between her fingers.
Mark was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, his hair hanging in his face. You could see how painfully thin he was; there was sinewy muscle on him, but it was the kind you got from starving sometimes and driving yourself anyway. His head jerked up when Julian said his name.
Their eyes met and for a brief moment Julian saw a flicker of recognition in his brother's eyes.
"Mark," he said again, and moved forward, his hand out. "It's me. It's Jules."
"Don't--" Cristina started up, but it was too late. Mark had bared his teeth in an angry hiss.
"Lies," he snarled. "Hallucinations--I know you--Gwyn sent you to trick me--"
"I'm your brother," Julian said again. The look on Mark's face was wild.
"You know the wishes of my heart," said Mark. "And you turn them against me, like knives."
Julian looked across the room at Cristina. She was rising to her feet slowly, as if preparing to throw herself between the two brothers if needed.
Mark whirled on Jules. His eyes were blind, unseeing. "You bring the twins in front of me and you kill them over and over. My Ty, he doesn't understand why I can't save him. You bring me Dru and when she laughs and asks to see the fairy-tale castle, all ringed round with hedges, you throw her against the thorns until they pierce her small body. And you bid me wash in Octavian's blood, for the blood of an innocent child is magic under the hill."
Julian came no closer. He was remembering what Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild had told him and his sister, their meeting with Mark years ago under the faerie hills, his broken eyes and the whip marks on his body.
Mark was strong, he had told himself in the dead darkness of the thousand nights afterward. He could endure it. Julian had thought about only torture of the body. He had not thought about torture of the mind.
"And Julian," Mark said. "He is too strong to break. You try to break him on the wheel, and tear him with thorns and blades, but even then he won't give up. So you bring to him Emma, for the wishes of our hearts are knives to you."
That was too much for Julian. He lurched forward, grabbing hold of one of the posts of the bed to steady himself.
"Mark," he said. "Mark Antony Blackthorn. Please. It's not a dream. You're really here. You're home."
He reached for Mark's hand. Mark whipped it back, away from him. "You are lying smoke."
"I'm your brother."
"I have no brothers and sisters, no family. I am alone. I ride with the Wild Hunt. I am loyal to Gwyn the Hunter." Mark recited the words as if by rote.
"I'm not Gwyn," said Julian. "I'm a Blackthorn. I have Blackthorn blood in me, just like you."
"You are a phantom and a shadow. You are the cruelty of hope." Mark turned his face away. "Why do you punish me? I have done nothing to displease the Hunt."
"There's no punishment here." Julian took a step closer to Mark. Mark didn't move, but his body trembled. "This is home. I can prove it to you."
He glanced back over his shoulder. Cristina was standing very still against the wall, and he could see that the gleam in her hand was a knife. Clearly she was waiting to see if Mark would attack him. Julian wondered why she had been willing to stay in the room with Mark alone; hadn't she been afraid?
"There is no proof," Mark whispered. "Not when you can weave any illusion before my eyes."
"I'm your brother," Julian repeated. "And to prove it to you, I'll tell you something only your brother would know."
At that Mark raised his eyes. Something flickered in them, like a light shining on distant water.
"I remember the day you were taken," Julian said.
Mark recoiled. "Any of the Folk would know about that--"
"We were up in the training room. We heard noises, and you went downstairs. But before you went you said something to me. Do you remember?"
Mark stood very still.
"You said, 'Stay with Emma,'" Julian said. "You said to stay with her, and I have. We're parabatai now. I've looked after her for years and I always will, because you asked me to, because it was the last thing you ever said to me, because--"
He remembered, then, that Cristina was there, and cut himself off abruptly. M
ark was staring at him, silent. Julian felt despair well up inside him. Maybe this was a trick of the faeries; maybe they had given Mark back, but so broken and hollowed out that he wasn't Mark anymore. Maybe--
Mark nearly fell forward, and threw his arms around Julian.
Julian barely managed to catch himself before almost falling over. Mark was whipcord thin, but strong, his hands fisting in Julian's shirt. Julian could feel Mark's heart hammering, feel the sharp bones under his skin. He smelled like earth and mildew and grass and nighttime air.
"Julian," Mark said, muffled, his body shaking. "Julian, my brother, my brother."
Somewhere in the distance, Julian heard the click of the bedroom door as it shut; Cristina had left them alone together.
Julian sighed. He wanted to relax into his older brother, let Mark hold him up the way he once had. But Mark was slighter than he was, fragile under his hands. He would be holding Mark up from now on. It was not what he had imagined, dreamed of, but it was the reality. It was his brother. He tightened his hands on Mark and adjusted his heart to bear the new burden.
The library in the Los Angeles Institute was small--nothing like the famous libraries of New York and London, but well-known regardless for its surprisingly large collection of books in Greek and Latin. They had more books on the magic and occultism of the classical period than the Institute in Vatican City.
Once the library had been terra-cotta tile and Mission windows; now it was a starkly modern room. The old library had been destroyed in Sebastian Morgenstern's attack on the Institute, the books scattered among bricks and desert. Rebuilt, it was glass and steel. The floor was polished mountain ash, smooth and shining with applications of protective spells.
A spiral ramp began at the north side of the first floor and climbed the walls; the outer side of the ramp was lined with books and windows, while the inner, facing the library's interior, was a shoulder-high railing. At the very top was an oculus--a skylight held closed with a large copper lock, made of foot-thick glass decorated all over with protective runes.
Maps were kept in a massive chest decorated with the crest of the Blackthorn family--a ring of thorns--with their family motto beneath it: Lex malla, lex nulla.
A bad law is no law.
Emma suspected that the Blackthorns hadn't exactly always gotten along with the Council.
Drusilla was rummaging around in the map chest. Livvy and Ty were at the table with more maps, and Tavvy was playing under it with a set of plastic soldiers.
"Can you tell if Julian's all right?" Livvy asked, propping her chin on her hand to look at Emma anxiously. "You know, how he's feeling . . ."
Emma shook her head. "Parabatai stuff isn't really like that. I mean, I can feel if he's hurt, physically, but not his emotions so much."
Livvy sighed. "It would be so great to have a parabatai."
"I don't really see why," Ty said.
"Someone who always has your back," said Livvy. "Someone who will always protect you."
"I would do that for you anyway," Ty said, pulling a map toward himself. This was an argument they'd had before; Emma had heard some variation of it half a dozen times.
"Not everyone's cut out to have one," she said. She wished for a moment that she had the words to explain it properly: how loving someone more than you loved yourself gave you strength and courage; how seeing yourself in your parabatai's eyes meant seeing the best version of yourself; how, at its best, fighting alongside your parabatai was like playing instruments in harmony with one another, each piece of the music improving the other.
"Having someone who's sworn to shield you from danger," said Livvy, her eyes shining. "Someone who would put their hands in a fire for you."
Briefly Emma remembered that Jem had once told her that his parabatai, Will, had thrust his hands into a fire to retrieve a packet of medicine that would save Jem's life. Maybe she shouldn't have repeated the story to Livvy.
"In the movies Watson throws himself in front of Sherlock when there's gunfire," Ty said, looking thoughtful. "That's like parabatai."
Livvy looked mildly outfoxed, and Emma felt for her. If Livvy said it wasn't like parabatai, Ty would argue. If she agreed it was, he would point out you didn't need to be parabatai to jump in front of someone when there was danger. He wasn't wrong, but she sympathized with Livvy's desire to be parabatai with Ty. To make sure her brother was always by her side.
"Got it!" Drusilla announced suddenly. She stood up from rummaging around in the map chest with a long piece of parchment in her hands. Livvy, abandoning the parabatai discussion, hurried over to help her carry it to the table.
In a clear bowl on the table's center was a heap of sea glass the Blackthorns had collected over the years--lumps of milky blue, green, copper, and red. Emma and Ty used the blue glass to weigh down the edges of the ley line map.
Tavvy, now sitting on the edge of the table, had begun sorting the rest of the sea glass into piles by color. Emma let him; she didn't know how else to keep him distracted just now.
"Ley lines," Emma said, running her index finger over the long black lines on the map. It was a map of Los Angeles that probably dated back to the forties. Landmarks were visible under the ley lines: the Crossroads of the World in Hollywood, the Bullocks building on Wilshire, the Angels Flight railroad in Bunker Hill, the Santa Monica Pier, the never-changing curve of the coast and the ocean. "All the bodies were left under the span of a ley line. But what Magnus said is that there are places where all the ley lines converge."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Livvy asked, practical as always.
"I don't know, but I don't think he would have said it if it didn't matter. I imagine the place of convergence has some pretty powerful magic."
As Ty applied himself to the map with renewed vigor, Cristina came into the library and gestured for Emma to come talk to her. Emma slid off the table and followed Cristina to the coffeemaker by the window. It was witchlight powered, which meant there was always coffee, although the coffee wasn't always very good.
"Is Julian all right?" Emma asked. "And Mark?"
"They were talking when I left." Cristina filled two cups with black coffee and dumped in sugar from a small enamel pot on the windowsill. "Julian calmed him down."
"Julian could calm anyone down." Emma picked up the second cup of coffee, enjoying the warmth against her skin, though she didn't really like coffee and didn't tend to drink it. Besides, her stomach was tied in so many knots she didn't think she could force anything down.
She walked back toward the table where the Blackthorns were arguing about the ley line map. "Well, I can't help it if it doesn't make sense," Ty was saying peevishly. "That's where it says the convergence is."
"Where?" Emma asked, coming up behind him.
"Here." Dru pointed at a circle Ty had sketched on the map in pencil. It was over the ocean, farther out from Los Angeles than Catalina Island. "So much for anyone doing magic there."
"Guess Magnus was just making conversation," said Livvy.
"He probably didn't know--" Emma began, and broke off as the library door opened.
It was Julian. He stepped into the room and then moved to the side, diffidently, like a conjuror presenting the result of a trick.
Mark moved into the doorway after him. Julian must have gotten Mark's old things out of the storeroom. He was wearing jeans that were slightly short on him--probably a pair of his old ones--and one of Julian's T-shirts, heather gray and washed to a soft fadedness. In contrast, his hair looked very blond, almost silvery. It hit his shoulders, looking slightly less tangled, as if he'd brushed the twigs out of it at least.
"Hello," he said.
His siblings looked at him in silent, wide-eyed astonishment.
"Mark wanted to see you," Julian said. He reached around to ruffle the hair on the back of his neck, looking bemused, as if he had no idea what to do next.
"Thank you," Mark said. "For the gifts of welcome you gave me."
&nbs
p; The Blackthorns continued to stare. Nobody moved except Tavvy, who slowly laid his sea glass down on the table.
"The box," Mark clarified. "In my room."
Emma felt the coffee cup she was holding plucked out of her hand. She made an indignant noise, but Cristina was already holding it, crossing the room, past the table, and walking up to Mark, her back straight. She held out the mug.
"Do you want some?" she said.
Looking relieved, he took it. He lifted it to his mouth and swallowed, his whole family watching him in amazed fascination as if he were doing something no one had ever done before.
He grimaced. Moving away from Cristina, he coughed and spit. "What is that?"
"Coffee." Cristina looked startled.
"It tastes of the most bitter poison," Mark said indignantly.
Livvy suddenly giggled. The sound cut through the stillness of the rest of the room, the frozen tableau of the others.
"You used to love coffee," she said. "I remember that about you!"
"I can't imagine why I would have. I've never tasted something so disgusting." Mark made a face.
Ty's eyes flicked between Julian and Livvy; he looked eager and excited, his long fingers tapping at the table in front of him. "He isn't used to coffee anymore," he said to Cristina. "They don't have it in Faerie."
"Here." Livvy stood up, scooping an apple from the table. "Have this instead." She went forward and held out the apple to her brother. Emma thought she looked like a latter-day Snow White, with her long dark hair and the apple in her pale hand. "You don't mind apples, do you?"
"My thanks, gracious sister." Mark bowed and took the apple, while Livvy looked at him with her mouth partly open.
"You never call me 'gracious sister,'" she said, turning to Julian with an accusing look.
He grinned. "I know you too well, runt."
Mark reached up and drew the chain from around his throat. Dangling from the end of it was what looked like the head of an arrow. It was clear, as if made of glass, and Emma recalled having seen something like it in pictures Diana had showed them.
Mark began to use the edge of it to peel his apple, matter-of-factly. Tavvy, who had crawled under the table again and was looking out, made an interested noise. Mark glanced at him and winked. Tavvy ducked back under the table, but Emma could see that he was smiling.
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