Lady Midnight

by Cassandra Clare

  "But Iarlath hasn't got the power to authorize a faerie convoy to do something on this scale," said Mark. "He's just a courtier, not someone who can order Gwyn around. Who gave the permission for this to happen?"

  Kieran shook his dark head. "I don't know. Iarlath did not say. It could have been the King, my father, or it could have been Gwyn--"

  "Gwyn would not do that," said Mark. "Gwyn has honor, and he is not cruel."

  "What about Malcolm?" Livvy demanded. "I thought he had honor. I thought he was our friend! He loves Tavvy--he's played with him for hours, brought him toys. He couldn't kill him. He couldn't."

  "He's responsible for the killing of a dozen people, Livvy," said Julian. "Maybe more."

  "People are more than one thing," said Mark, and his eyes brushed over Kieran as he spoke. "Warlocks too."

  Emma stood with her hands still on the seraph blades. Julian could feel what she felt, as he always had, as if his own heart mirrored hers--the hot curl of anger rising over a choking sense of despair and loss. More than anything he wanted to reach out to her, but he didn't trust himself to do it in front of everyone else.

  They'd be able to see right through him the moment he touched her, see his real feelings. And there was no way he could risk that now, not when his heart was being eaten alive with fear over his little brother, fear he couldn't show in case it demoralized the rest of his siblings.

  "Everyone is more than one thing," said Kieran. "We are more than single actions we undertake, whether they be good or evil." His eyes gleamed, silver and black, as he looked at Mark. Even in this room full of Shadowhunter things, the wildness of the Hunt and Faerie clung to Kieran like the scent of rain or leaves. It was the wildness that Julian sometimes sensed in Mark, that had faded since he'd come back to them, but showed itself still in brief flares like gunfire seen from a distance. For a moment they seemed to him two feral things, incongruous in their surroundings.

  "The poem that was written on the bodies," Cristina said. "The one that mentioned the black book. The story said it was given to Malcolm in the Unseelie Court."

  "So goes the faerie story as well," said Kieran. "At first Malcolm was told that his love had become an Iron Sister. Later he found out that she had been murdered by her family. Walled up alive in a tomb. The knowledge drove him to seek out the King of the Unseelie Court and ask him if there was a way to raise the dead. The King gave him that rhyme. It was instructions--it is only that it took him almost a century to learn how to follow them, and to find the black book."

  "That's why the library was destroyed in the attack," said Emma. "So no one would notice the book was missing, if they ever looked for it. So many books were lost."

  "But why did Iarlath tell Malcolm that the Followers could kill faeries as well as humans?" said Emma. "If he was really in league with Malcolm--"

  "That was something Iarlath wanted. He has many enemies in the Seelie Court. It was an expedient way for him to rid himself of some of them--Malcolm had his Followers slay them, and the murders could not be traced back to Iarlath. For a faerie to kill another of the gentry, that is a dark crime indeed."

  "Where is Annabel's body?" asked Livvy. "Wouldn't she be buried in Cornwall? Wouldn't she have been walled up there--in a 'tomb by the sounding sea'?"

  "Convergences are places out of space and time," said Kieran. "The convergence itself is neither here nor in Cornwall nor in any real space. It is a between place, like Faerie itself."

  "It can probably be entered through Cornwall as well--that would be why those plants grow outside the entrance," said Mark.

  "And what is the connection to the poem 'Annabel Lee'?" asked Ty. "The name Annabel, the similarities of the stories--it seems more than coincidence."

  The dark-haired faerie prince only shook his head. "I only know what Iarlath told me, and what is part of faerie lore. I did not even know the name Annabel or the mundane poem."

  Mark whirled on Kieran. "Where is Iarlath now?"

  Kieran's eyes seemed to shimmer when he looked back. "We are wasting time here. We should be getting to the convergence."

  "He isn't wrong." Diego was completely kitted out: gear, several swords, an ax, throwing knives at his belt. He wore a black cloak over his gear, pinned at the shoulder with the pin of the Centurions--it bore the pattern of a leafless stick, and the words Primi Ordines. He made Julian feel underdressed. "We must get to the ley line convergence and stop Fade--"

  Julian looked around the room, at Emma and Mark, and then at Ty and Livvy, and lastly at Dru. "I know that we have known Malcolm all our lives. But he is a murderer and liar. Warlocks are immortal, but not invulnerable. When you see him, put your blade in his heart."

  There was a silence. Emma broke it. "He killed my parents," she said. "I'll be the one to cut out his heart."

  Kieran's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

  "Jules." It was Mark, having moved to stand at Julian's shoulder. His hair, that Cristina had cut, was tangled; there were shadows under his eyes. But there was strength in the hand he laid on Julian's shoulder. "Would you place a rune upon me, brother? For I fear that without them, I will be at a disadvantage in the battle."

  Julian's hand went automatically to his stele. Then he paused. "Are you sure?"

  Mark nodded. "It is time to let the nightmares go." He pulled the neck of his shirt aside and down, baring his shoulder. "Courage," he said, naming a rune. "And Agility."

  The others were discussing the fastest way to get to the convergence, but Julian was aware of both Emma's and Kieran's eyes on him as he put one hand on Mark's back and used the other to draw two careful runes. At the first bite of the stele, Mark tensed, but relaxed immediately, letting out his breath in a soft exhale.

  When Julian was done, he lowered his hands. Mark straightened up and turned to him. Though he had shed no tears, his two-colored eyes were brilliant. For a moment there was no one in the world but Julian and his brother.

  "Why?" Julian said.

  "For Tavvy," Mark said, and suddenly, in the set of his mouth, in the curve of the determined line of his jaw, Julian could see his own self. "And," Mark added, "because I am a Shadowhunter." He looked toward Kieran, who was gazing at them as if the stele had seared his own skin. Love and hate had their own secret languages, Julian thought, and Mark and Kieran were speaking in them now. "Because I am a Shadowhunter," he said again, his eyes full of a private challenge. "Because I am a Shadowhunter."

  Kieran pushed himself away from the table almost violently. "I have told you everything I know," he said. "There are no other secrets."

  "So I suppose you're leaving," Mark said. "Thank you for your aid, Kieran. If you are returning to the Hunt, tell Gwyn that I will not be coming back. Not ever, no matter what rules they decree. I swear that I--"

  "Don't swear it," Kieran said. "You do not know how things will change."

  "Enough." Mark began to turn away.

  "I have brought my steed with me," said Kieran. He was speaking to Mark, but everyone else was listening. "A faerie steed of the Hunt can take to the air. Roads do not slow our travel. I will ride ahead and delay what is happening at the convergence until the rest of you arrive."

  "I'll go with him," Mark said sharply.

  Everyone looked at him in surprise. "Um," said Emma. "You can't knife him on the way, Mark. We may need him."

  "Pleasant as that sounds, I wasn't planning to," said Mark. "Two warriors are better than one."

  "Good thinking," said Cristina. She slid her two butterfly knives into her belt. Emma had finished fastening on the last of her seraph blades.

  Julian felt the familiar chill of battle's expectation rising in his veins. "Let's go."

  As they headed downstairs, Julian found himself beside Kieran. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Kieran felt like strangeness, wild magic, the murderous abandonment of the Hunt. He couldn't imagine what Mark had found to love about him.

  "Your brother was wrong about you," Kieran said as they
descended the steps to the entryway.

  Julian glanced around, but no one seemed to be listening to them. Emma was beside Cristina, the twins were together, and Dru was talking shyly to Diego.

  "What do you mean?" he asked guardedly. He had learned well in the past to be wary of the Fair Folk, their verbal entrapments and their false implications.

  "He said you were gentle," said Kieran. "The most gentle person he knew." He smiled, and there was a cold beauty to his face when he smiled, like the crystalline surface of frost. "You are not gentle. You have a ruthless heart."

  For several long moments Julian was silent, hearing only the sounds of their steps on the stairs. At the last step he turned.

  "Remember it," he said, and walked away.

  Because I am a Shadowhunter.

  Mark stood beside Kieran on the sweep of grass that led down to the bluff and then the sea. The Institute rose behind them, dark and lightless, though from here, at least, the hole in the roof was invisible.

  Kieran put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, a sound achingly familiar to Mark. The sight of Kieran was still enough to make his heart ache, from the way he held himself, every line of his body speaking of his early Court training, to the way that his hair had grown too long since Mark had not been there to cut it, and the blue-dark strands fell into his eyes and tangled with his long eyelashes. Mark remembered being enchanted by the curve and sweep of those lashes. He remembered how they felt against his skin.

  "Why?" Kieran said. He was standing facing a little away from Mark, his posture rigid, as if he expected to be slapped. "Why come with me?"

  "Because you require watching," said Mark. "I could trust you once. I cannot trust you now."

  "That is not the truth," said Kieran. "I know you, Mark. I know when you lie."

  Mark spun on him. He had always felt a little afraid of Kieran, he realized: of the power of his rank, of his unassailable surety in himself. That fear was gone now, and he couldn't say if it was because of the Courage rune on his shoulder or because he no longer desperately needed Kieran to live. Wanted him, loved him--those were different questions. But he could survive, either way. He was a Shadowhunter.

  "Fine," Mark said, and he knew he should have said "very well," but the language wasn't in him anymore, it didn't beat in his blood, the high speech of Faerie. "I'll tell you why I wanted to come with you--"

  There was a flash of white. Windspear cleared a small rise and bounded up to them, answering the call of her master. She whinnied when she saw Mark and nosed at his shoulder.

  He stroked her neck. A hundred times she had carried him and Kieran in the Hunt, a hundred times they had shared a single mount, and ridden together, and fought together, and as Kieran climbed up onto the horse's back the familiarity was like fishhooks under Mark's skin.

  Kieran looked down at him, every inch the prince despite his bloodstained clothes. His eyes were half-lidded crescents of silver and black. "So tell me," he said.

  Mark felt the Agility rune burn on his back as he swung himself up behind Kieran. His arms went around Kieran automatically, hands settling themselves where they had always settled, at Kieran's belt. He felt Kieran inhale sharply.

  He wanted to drop his head to Kieran's shoulder. He wanted to put his hands over Kieran's and lace their fingers together. He wanted to feel what he had felt living among the Hunt, that with Kieran he was safe, with Kieran he had someone who would never leave him.

  But there were worse things than being left.

  "Because," Mark said, "I wished to ride with you in the Hunt one last time." He felt Kieran flinch. Then the faerie boy leaned forward, and Mark heard him say a few words to Windspear in the Fair Speech. As the horse began to run, Mark reached back to touch the place where Julian had put the runes. He had felt a rush of panic when the stele touched his skin, and then a calm that had flowed through him, surprising him.

  Maybe the runes of Heaven truly did belong on his skin. Maybe he'd been born to them after all.

  He held tight to Kieran as Windspear lifted up into the sky, hooves tearing the air, and the Institute spun away below them.

  When Emma and the others reached the convergence, Mark and Kieran were already there. They cantered out of the shadows on the back of a gorgeous white stallion that made Emma think of all the times in her childhood that she had wanted a horse.

  The Toyota came to a stop. The sky was bare of clouds, and the moonlight was sharp and silver as a knife. It outlined Mark and Kieran, turned them into the brilliantly illuminated outlines of faerie knights. Neither of them looked human.

  The field that reached to the bluff lay deceptively peaceful under the moonlight. The wide space of sea grass and sage bushes moved with soft rustles. The granite hill rose above it all, the dark space in the wall seeming to beckon them closer.

  "We killed many Mantids," said Mark. His eyes met Emma's. "Cleared the way."

  Kieran sat glowering, his face half-hidden by dark hair. Mark had his hands on Kieran's belt, steadying himself. As if suddenly recollecting this, Mark let go and slid to the ground.

  "We'd better go in," Mark said, tipping his face up to Kieran's. "You and Windspear stand guard."

  "But I--" Kieran began.

  "This is Blackthorn family business," said Mark in a tone that brooked no argument. Kieran looked toward Cristina and Diego, opened his mouth as if to voice a protest, and then closed it again.

  "Weapons check, everyone," Julian said. "Then we head in."

  Everyone, even Diego, obediently checked their belts and gear. Ty fished an extra seraph blade out of the car trunk. Mark looked over Dru's gear, reminded her again that her job was to stay behind them and to stick close to the others.

  Emma unbuckled her arm guard and rolled up her sleeve. She held her arm out to Julian. He looked at her bare arm and then up at her face and nodded. "Which one?"

  "Endurance," she said. She was already marked with runes for courage and accuracy, runes for precision and healing. The Angel had never really given the Shadowhunters runes for emotional pain, though--there were no runes to mend grief or a broken heart.

  The idea that her parents' death had been a failed experiment, a pointless throwaway, hurt more than Emma could have imagined. She had thought all these years they had died for some reason, but it was no reason at all. They had simply been the only Shadowhunters available.

  Julian took her arm gently, and she felt the familiar and welcome pressure of the stele against her skin. As the Mark emerged, it seemed to flow into her bloodstream, like a shaft of cool water.

  Endurance. She would have to endure this, this knowledge, fight past and through it. Do it for Tavvy, she thought. For Julian. For all of them. And maybe at the end of it, she would have her revenge.

  Julian lowered his hand. His eyes were wide. The Mark blazed against her skin, infused with a brightness she had never seen before, as if the edges of it were burning. She drew her sleeve down quickly, not wanting anyone else to notice.

  At the edge of the bluff, Kieran's white horse reared up against the moon. The sea crashed in the distance. Emma turned and marched toward the opening in the rock.

  Emma and Julian led the way into the cavern, and Mark brought up the rear, sandwiching the others between them. As before, the tunnel was narrow at first, the ground tumbled with uneven pebbles. The rocks were disturbed now, many of them kicked aside. Even in the dimness--Emma had not dared illuminate her witchlight--she could see where the moss growing along the cave wall had been clawed at by human fingers.

  "People came through here earlier," Emma murmured. "A lot of people."

  "Followers?" Julian's voice was low.

  Emma shook her head. She didn't know. She was cold, the good sort of cold, the battle cold that came from your stomach and spread outward. The cold that sharpened your eyes and seemed to slow time around you, so that you had infinite hours to correct the sweep of a seraph blade, the angle of a sword.

  She could feel Cortana between h
er shoulder blades, heavy and golden, whispering to her in her mother's voice. Steel and temper, daughter.

  They came out into the high-ceilinged cavern. Emma stopped dead, and the others crowded around her. No one said a word.

  The cavern was not as Emma remembered it. It was dim, giving the impression of immense space spreading away into darkness. The portholes were gone. Etched into the stone of the cave near her were the words of the poem that had become so familiar to them all. Emma could see sentences here and there, flashing out at her.

  I was a child and she was a child,

  In this kingdom by the sea,

  But we loved with a love that was more than love--

  I and my Annabel Lee--

  With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven

  Coveted her and me.

  The winged seraphs of Heaven.

  Shadowhunters.

  Julian's witchlight flared up in his hand, illuminating the space, and Emma gasped.

  In front of them was a stone table. It rose chest high, the surface rough and pitted. It looked as if it had been carved out of black lava. A wide circle of white chalk, sketched on the floor, surrounded the table.

  On it lay Tavvy. He seemed to be sleeping, his small face soft and slack, his eyes closed. His feet were bare, and his wrists and ankles were locked into chains that were attached by loops of iron to the table's stone legs.

  A metal bowl, splashed with ominous-looking stains, had been placed by his head. Beside it was a jagged-toothed copper knife.

  The witchlight cut into the shadows that seemed to hang in the room like a living thing. Emma wondered how big the cave really was, and how much of it was a shifting illusion.