"He is not of my heart any longer," interrupted Mark. It was a faerie expression, "of my heart," the closest they might come to saying "girlfriend" or "boyfriend."
"Kieran Hunter has been found guilty of the murder of Iarlath," said Gwyn. "He stood trial at the Court of the Unseelie, though it was a short affair."
Mark flushed, tensing all over. "And the sentence?"
"Death," said Gwyn. "He will die at the moon's rise, tomorrow night, if there is no intervention."
Mark didn't move. Emma wondered if she should do something--move closer to Mark, offer comfort, a gentling hand? But the expression on his face was unreadable--if it was grief, she didn't recognize it. If it was anger, then it was unlike any anger he had shown before.
"That is sad news," Mark said finally.
It was Julian who moved then, stepping to his brother's side. Julian put a hand on Mark's shoulder; Emma felt relief flood through her.
"Is that all?" Gwyn said. "Have you nothing else to say?"
Mark shook his head. He looked fragile, Emma thought worriedly. As if you could see through his skin to the bones underneath. "Kieran betrayed me," he said. "He is nothing to me now."
Gwyn looked at Mark in disbelief. "He loved you and he lost you and he tried to get you back," he said. "He wanted you to ride with the Hunt again. So did I. You were one of our best. Is that so terrible?"
"You saw what happened." Mark did sound angry now, and Emma herself could not help but remember: the twisted quickbeam tree she had leaned against while Iarlath whipped Julian and then her, and Kieran and Mark and Gwyn watched. The pain and the blood, the lashes like fire against her skin, though nothing had hurt as much as watching Julian be hurt. "Iarlath whipped my family, my friend. Because of Kieran. He whipped Emma and Julian."
"And now you have given up the Hunt for them," said Gwyn, his two-colored eyes flicking toward Emma, "and so, there is your vengeance, if you wanted it. But where is your compassion?"
"What do you want of my brother?" Julian demanded, his hand still on Mark's shoulder. "Do you want him to grieve visibly for your amusement? Is that why you came?"
"Mortals," Gwyn said. "You think you know so much, yet you know so little." His large hand tightened on his helmet. "I do not want you to grieve for Kieran. I want you to rescue him, Mark Hunter."
*
Thunder rumbled in the distance, but in front of the Institute, there was only silence, profound as a shout.
Even Diana seemed struck speechless. In the quiet, Emma could hear the sounds of Livvy and the others up in the training room, their voices and laughter.
Jules's expression was flat. Calculating. His hand on Mark's shoulder was a tight grip now. I want you to rescue him, Mark Hunter.
Anger swelled quickly inside Emma; unlike Jules, she didn't bite it back. "Mark is not of the Wild Hunt any longer," she said hotly. "Don't call him 'Hunter.' He isn't one."
"He is a Shadowhunter, isn't he?" asked Gwyn. Now that he had made his bizarre request, he seemed more relaxed. "Once a hunter, always a hunter of some sort."
"And now you wish me to hunt for Kieran?" Mark spoke in a strange, halting tone, as if he were having difficulty getting the words out past his anger. "Why me, Gwyn? Why not you? Why not any of you?"
"Did you not hear me?" said Gwyn. "He is held captive by his father. The Unseelie King himself, in the depths of the Court."
"And is Mark indestructible, then? You think he can take on the Unseelie Court where the Wild Hunt can't?" It was Diana; she had moved down a step, and her dark hair blew in the desert wind. "Yours is a famous name, Gwyn ap Nudd. You have ridden with the Wild Hunt for hundreds of mortal years. There are many stories about you. Yet never had I heard that the leader of the Wild Hunt had succumbed to madness."
"The Wild Hunt is not subject to the rule of the Courts," said Gwyn. "But we fear them. It would be madness not to. When they came to take Kieran, I, and all my Hunters, were forced to swear a life oath that we would not challenge the trial or its outcome. To attempt to rescue Kieran now would mean death for us."
"That's why you've come to me. Because I didn't swear. Because even if I did, I can lie. A lying thief, that's what you want," Mark said.
"What I wanted was one I could trust," said Gwyn. "One who has not sworn, one who would dare the Court."
"We want no trouble with you." It was Julian, keeping his voice level with an effort that Emma suspected only she could sense. "But you must see that Mark cannot do what you're asking. It is too dangerous."
"We of the Folk of the Air do not fear danger, nor death," said Gwyn.
"If you don't fear death," said Julian, "then let Kieran meet it."
Gwyn recoiled at the coldness in Julian's voice. "Kieran is not yet twenty."
"Neither is Mark," said Julian. "If you think we're afraid of you, you're right. We'd be fools not to be. I know who you are, Gwyn--I know you once made a man eat his own father's heart. I know you took the Hunt from Herne in a battle over Cadair Idris. I know things that would surprise you. But I am Mark's brother. And I will not let him risk himself in Faerie again."
"The Wild Hunt is a brotherhood as well," Gwyn said. "If you cannot bring yourself to help Kieran out of love, Mark, do it out of friendship."
"Enough," Diana snapped. "We respect you here, Gwyn the Hunter, but this discussion is at an end. Mark will not be taken from us."
Gwyn's voice was a bass rumble. "What if he chooses to go?"
They all looked at Mark. Even Julian turned, dropping his hand slowly from Mark's shoulder. Emma saw the fear in his eyes. She imagined it was echoed in her own. If Mark still loved Kieran--even a little bit--
"I do not choose it," said Mark. "I do not choose it, Gwyn."
Gwyn's face tightened. "You have no honor."
Light speared through gaps in the clouds overhead. The storm was moving toward the mountains. The gray illumination cast a film across Mark's eyes, rendering them unreadable. "I thought you were my friend," he said, and then he turned and stumbled back into the Institute, the door slamming shut behind him.
Gwyn began to dismount, but Diana raised her hand, palm out. "You know you cannot enter the Institute," she said.
Gwyn subsided. For a moment, as he gazed at Diana, his face looked lined and old, though Emma knew he was ageless. "Kieran is not yet twenty," he said again. "Only a boy."
Diana's face softened, but before she could speak, Gwyn's horse reared up. Something flew from Gwyn's hand and landed on the step below Diana's feet. Gwyn leaned forward, and his horse exploded into motion, its mane and tail blurring into a single white flame. The flame shot toward the sky and vanished, disappearing into the night's fretwork of clouds.
*
Julian shouldered the door of the Institute open. "Mark? Mark!"
The empty foyer swung around him as he turned. Fear for his brother was like pressure on his skin, tightening his veins, slowing his blood. It wasn't a fear he could put a name to--Gwyn was gone; Mark was safe. It had been a request, not a kidnapping.
"Jules?" Mark appeared from the closet beneath the staircase, clearly having just hung up his jacket. His blond hair was tousled, his expression puzzled. "Did he leave?"
"He's gone." It was Emma, who had come in behind Julian. Diana, a step after her, was closing the front door. Mark went straight across the room to Emma without a pause and put his arms around her.
The jealousy that flared through Julian took his breath away.
He thought he had gotten used to seeing Emma and Mark like this. They weren't a particularly demonstrative couple. They didn't kiss or cuddle in front of other people. Emma wouldn't, Julian thought. She wasn't like that. She was determined, and she was matter-of-fact, and she would do what needed to be done. But she wasn't cruel.
It was Mark who reached for her, usually--for the small, quiet things, the hand on the shoulder, the brushing away of a stray eyelash, a quick embrace. There was an exquisite pain in watching that, more than there would have been in
seeing them passionately embracing. After all, when you were dying of thirst, it was the sip of water you dreamed about, not the whole reservoir.
But now--the feel of holding Emma was so close, the taste of her still on his mouth, her rose-water scent on his clothes. He would play back the scene of their kiss over and over in his head, he knew, until it faded and fragmented and came apart like a photograph folded and unfolded too many times.
But it was too close now, like a just-delivered wound. And seeing Emma in Mark's arms was a sharp splash of acid on raw skin, a brutal reminder: He couldn't afford to be sentimental, or to think of her as possibly his, even in an imaginary someday. To consider possibilities was to open yourself up to pain. Reality had to be his focus--reality and his responsibilities to his family. Otherwise he would go insane.
"Do you think he'll come back?" Emma drew back from Mark. Julian thought she cast him an anxious sideways glance, but he wasn't sure. And there was no point wondering. He crushed his curiosity down, brutally.
"Gwyn?" said Mark. "No. I refused him. He won't beg and he won't return."
"Are you sure?" Julian said.
Mark gave him a wry look. "Do not let Gwyn fool you," he said. "If I do not help him, he will find someone else to do it, or he will do it himself. Kieran will come to no harm."
Emma made a relieved noise. Julian said nothing--he was wondering about Kieran himself. He remembered how the faerie boy had gotten Emma whipped bloody, and broken Mark's heart. He remembered also how Kieran had helped them defeat Malcolm. Without him they would have had no chance.
And he remembered what Kieran had said to him before the battle with Malcolm. You are not gentle. You have a ruthless heart.
If he could have saved Kieran by risking his own safety, he would have. But he would not risk his brother. If that made him ruthless, so be it. If Mark was right, Kieran would be fine anyway.
"Diana," said Emma. Their tutor was leaning against the closed front door, looking down at her palm. "What did Gwyn throw at you?"
Diana held out her hand; glimmering on her brown skin was a small golden acorn.
Mark looked surprised. "That is a fair gift," he said. "Should you crack open that acorn, Gwyn would be summoned to aid you."
"Why would he give Diana something like that?" asked Emma.
The ghost of a smile touched Mark's mouth as he began to mount the stairs. "He admired her," he said. "It is rare I have seen Gwyn admire a woman before. I had thought perhaps his heart was closed to that sort of thing."
"Gwyn has a crush on Diana?" Emma inquired, her dark eyes brightening. "I mean, not that you're not very attractive, Diana, it just seems sudden."
"Faeries are like that," said Julian. He almost felt for Diana--he had never seen her look so rattled. She was worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, and Julian remembered that Diana really wasn't very old--only twenty-eight or so. Not that much older than Jace and Clary.
"It doesn't mean anything," she said. "And besides, we have more important things to think about!"
She dropped the acorn into Mark's hand just as the front door flew open and the Centurions poured in. They looked wind-tossed and soaking wet, every one of them drenched. Diana, seeming relieved to no longer be talking about her love life, went off to find blankets and towels (drying runes notoriously worked well to dry your skin, but didn't do much for your clothes).
"Did you find anything?" Emma asked.
"I think we've located the likely spot where the body sank," said Manuel. "But the sea was too rough for us to dive for it. We'll have to try again tomorrow."
"Manuel," Zara said warningly, as if he'd revealed the secret passcode that would open the gates to Hell under their feet.
Manuel and Rayan rolled their eyes. "It's not like they don't know what we're looking for, Zara."
"The Scholomance's methods are secret." Zara thrust her damp jacket into Diego's arms and turned back to Emma and Julian. "Right," she said. "What's for dinner?"
*
"I can't tell any of them apart," said Kit. "It's the uniforms. It makes them all look the same to me. Like ants."
"Ants don't all look the same," said Ty.
They were sitting at the edge of the second-floor gallery overlooking the main Institute entryway below. Wet Centurions scurried to and fro; Kit saw Julian and Emma, along with Diana, trying to make conversation with the ones who hadn't wandered off to the dining room, and the fireplace there, to get warm.
"Who is everyone again?" said Kit. "And where are they from?'
"Dane and Samantha Larkspear," said Livvy, indicating two dark-haired Centurions. "Atlanta."
"Twins," said Ty.
"How dare they," said Livvy, with a grin. Kit had been worried she wouldn't be thrilled with Ty's plan to absorb Kit into his detecting plans, but she'd just given a wry smile when they'd come over to her in the training room and said, "Welcome to the club."
Livvy pointed. "Manuel Casales Villalobos. From Madrid. Rayan Maduabuchi, Lagos Institute. Divya Joshi, Mumbai Institute. Not everyone's connected with an Institute, though. Diego's not, Zara isn't, or her friend Jessica, who's French, I think. And there's Jon Cartwright and Gen Whitelaw, and Thomas Aldertree, all Academy graduates." She tilted her head. "And not one of them has the sense to come in out of the rain."
"Tell me again why you think they're up to something?" said Kit.
"All right," said Ty. Kit had noticed already that Ty responded directly to what you said to him, and much less so to tone or intonation. Not that he couldn't use a refresher on why they were halfway up a building, staring at a bunch of jerks. "I was sitting in front of your room this morning when I saw Zara go into Diana's office. When I followed her, I saw that she was going through papers there."
"She could have had a reason," said Kit.
"To be sneaking through Diana's papers? What reason?" said Livvy, so firmly that Kit had to admit that if it looked scurrilous, it probably was scurrilous.
"I texted Simon Lewis about Cartwright, Whitelaw, and Aldertree," said Livvy, resting her chin on the lower crossbar of the railing. "He says Gen and Thomas are solid, and Cartwright is kind of a lunk, but basically harmless."
"They might not all be involved," said Ty. "We have to figure out which of them are, and what they want."
"What's a lunk?" said Kit.
"Sort of a combination of hunk and lump, I think. As in, large but not that smart." Livvy grinned her quick grin as a shadow rose up over them--Cristina, her hands on her hips, her eyebrows quirked.
"What are you three doing?" she asked. Kit had a healthy respect for Cristina Rosales. Sweet as she looked, he'd seen her throw a balisong fifty feet and hit her target exactly.
"Nothing," said Kit.
"Making rude comments about the Centurions," said Livvy.
For a moment, Kit thought Cristina was going to scold them. Instead she sat down next to Livvy, her mouth curling up into a smile. "Count me in," she said.
Ty was resting his forearms on the crossbar. He flicked his storm-cloud-gray eyes in Kit's direction. "Tomorrow," he said quietly, "we follow them to see where they go."
Kit was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.
*
It was an uncomfortable evening--the Centurions, even after drying off, were exhausted and reluctant to talk about what they'd done that day. Instead they descended on the dining room and the food laid out there like ravenous wolves.
Kit, Ty, and Livvy were nowhere to be seen. Emma didn't blame them. Meals with the Centurions were an increasingly uncomfortable affair. Though Divya, Rayan, and Jon Cartwright tried their best to hold up a friendly conversation about where everyone planned to spend their travel year, Zara soon interrupted them with a long description of what she'd been doing in Hungary before she'd arrived at the Institute.
"Bunch of Shadowhunters complaining that their steles and seraph blades stopped working during a fight with some faeries," she said, rolling her eyes. "We told them it was just an
illusion--faeries fight dirty, and they should be teaching that at the Academy."
"Faeries don't fight dirty, actually," said Mark. "They fight remarkably cleanly. They have a strict code of honor."
"Honor?" Samantha and Dane laughed at the same time. "I doubt you know what that means, ha--"
They paused. It had been Dane who was speaking, but it was Samantha who flushed. The word unspoken hung in the air. Half-breed.
Mark shoved his chair back and walked out of the room.
"Sorry," Zara said into the silence that followed his departure. "But he shouldn't be sensitive. He's going to hear a lot worse if he goes to Alicante, especially at a Council meeting."
Emma stared at her incredulously. "That doesn't make it all right," she said. "Just because he's going to hear something ugly from the bigots on the Council doesn't mean he should hear it first at home."
"Or ever at home," said Cristina, whose cheeks had turned dark red.
"Stop trying to make us feel guilty," Samantha snapped. "We're the ones who've been out all day trying to clean up the mess you made, trusting Malcolm Fade, like you could trust a Downworlder. Didn't you people learn anything from the Dark War? The faeries stabbed us in the back. That's what Downworlders do, and Mark and Helen will do it to you, too, if you're not careful."
"You don't know anything about my brother or my sister," said Julian. "Please refrain from saying their names."
Diego had been sitting beside Zara in stony silence. He spoke finally, his lips barely moving. "Such blind hatred does no credit to the office or the uniform of Centurions," he said.
Zara lifted her glass, her fingers curled tightly around the slender stem. "I don't hate Downworlders," she said, and there was cool conviction in her voice. It was more chilling, somehow, than passion would have been. "The Accords haven't worked. The Cold Peace doesn't work. Downworlders don't follow our rules, or any rules that aren't in their interest to follow. They break the Cold Peace when they feel like it. We are warriors. Demons should fear us. And Downworlders should fear us. Once we were great: We were feared, and we ruled. We're a shadow now of what we were then. All I'm saying is that when the systems aren't working, when they've brought us down to the level we're at now, then we need a new system. A better one."
Zara smiled, tucked a stray bit of hair back into her immaculate bun, and took a sip of water. They finished dinner in silence.
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