“I prefer to wait as long as I can before dawn to test myself,” said Raphael.
Lily sighed. “He’s Catholic. So very, very Catholic.”
Her hand moved restlessly by her side, as if she wanted to reach out and pull Raphael along with her. Instead, she used it to give Zachariah another little wave, the same one she had given when they first met.
“Brother Sixpackariah,” she said. “It’s been a pleasure.”
And for me, said Brother Zachariah, and listened to her skip lightly down the stairs.
She had, at least, given him the woman’s name. Brother Zachariah could take her back to her family and the City of Bones, where she could rest and he could not.
He knelt down by the dead woman’s side and closed her staring eyes.
Ave atque vale, Catherine Ashdown, he murmured.
He rose to find Raphael still by his side, though not looking at him or the dead woman. Raphael’s eyes rested on the black sea touched with moonlight, the black sky edged with the faintest line of silver.
I am glad to have met you both, Zachariah added.
“I can’t imagine why,” said Raphael. “Those names Lily came up with were very bad.”
People do not joke with the Silent Brothers often.
The prospect of not being joked around with made Raphael look wistful. “It must be nice to be a Silent Brother. Aside from the fact that Shadowhunters are annoying and pathetic. And I don’t know that she was joking. I’d watch yourself next time you’re in New York.”
Of course she was joking, said Brother Zachariah. She is in love with you.
Raphael’s face twisted. “Why do Shadowhunters always want to talk about feelings? Why can nobody ever be a professional? For your information, I do not have any interest in romance of any kind and never will. Now can you drop this revolting subject?”
I can, said Brother Zachariah. Perhaps you would like to talk about the gang of boys you claim to have killed?
“I’ve killed many people,” said Raphael distantly.
A group of children? said Zachariah. In your city? Did this happen in the 1950s?
Maryse Lightwood might have been fooled. Brother Zachariah was familiar with what it looked like when someone blamed and hated themselves for what had happened to those they loved.
“There was a vampire hunting children on the streets where my brothers played,” Raphael said, his voice still distant. “I led my gang to his lair to stop him. None of us survived.”
Brother Zachariah tried to be gentle.
When a vampire is newborn, they cannot control themselves.
“I was the leader,” said Raphael, his steely voice brooking no argument. “I was responsible. Well. We did stop the vampire, and my family lived to grow up.”
All but one, Brother Zachariah thought.
“I generally do accomplish what I set my mind on,” said Raphael.
That is extremely clear, said Brother Zachariah.
He listened to the sound of the waves hitting the side of the boat, carrying them to the city. On the night of the Market he had been detached from the city and everyone in it, and certainly he had felt nothing for a vampire determined to feel nothing himself.
But then had come a laugh, and the sound had woken things inside him that he had feared dead. Once woken to the world, Zachariah did not want to be blind to any of it.
You saved people today. The Shadowhunters saved people, even though they did not save you when you were a child trying to fight monsters.
Raphael twitched as if this implication of why he disliked Shadowhunters was a fly landing on him.
“Few are saved,” said Raphael. “Nobody is spared. Somebody tried to save me once, and I will pay him back one day. I don’t choose to owe another debt, or for anyone to owe me. We all got what we wanted. The Shadowhunters and I are done.”
There might always be another time for help or cooperation, said Brother Zachariah. The Lightwoods are trying. Consider letting the other Downworlders know you survived dealing with them.
Raphael made a noncommittal sound.
There are more kinds of love than stars, said Brother Zachariah. If you do not feel one, there are many others. You know what it is to care for family and friends. What we keep sacred keeps us safe. Consider that by trying to cut yourself off from the possibility of being hurt, you shut the door on love and live in darkness.
Raphael staggered over to the rail and pretended to vomit. Then he straightened up.
“Oh wait, I’m a vampire and we don’t get seasick,” he said. “I got nauseous for a second. Can’t think why. I heard Silent Brothers were withdrawn. I was looking forward to withdrawn!”
I am not a typical Silent Brother, observed Brother Zachariah.
“Just my luck I got the touchy-feely Silent Brother. Can I request a different one in the future?”
So you think there might be a time when your path crosses with Shadowhunters again?
Raphael made a disgusted noise and turned away from the sea. His face was pallid as moonlight, ice white as the cheek of a child long dead.
“I am going belowdecks. Unless, of course, you have any other brilliant suggestions?”
Brother Zachariah nodded. The shadow of his hood fell across the scar of a cross on the vampire’s throat.
Have faith, Raphael. I know you remember how.
* * *
With the vampires safely hidden below and Robert Lightwood steering the ship toward Manhattan, Brother Zachariah took on the task of cleaning up the deck, moving the bodies out of sight. He’d call on his Brothers to help him attend to them, and to the survivors, who were currently secured in one of the cabins. Enoch and the others might not approve of his decision to help Raphael, but they would still fulfill their mandate to keep the Shadow World hidden and safe.
Once Brother Zachariah had finished, all there was to do was wait for the ship to carry them to the city. Then he would have to return to his own city. He took a seat and waited, enjoying the sensation of the light of a new day on his face.
It had been a long time since he felt the light, and longer since he could truly enjoy the simple pleasure of it.
He sat near the bridge, where he could see Robert and young Jonathan Wayland in the morning light.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Robert said.
“Yes,” said Jonathan.
“You don’t look much like Michael,” Robert added awkwardly.
“No,” said Jonathan. “I always wished I did.”
Zachariah could see the boy’s thin back. He seemed braced to be a disappointment.
Robert said, “I am sure you’re a good boy.”
Jonathan did not look sure. Robert saved himself from awkwardness by conspicuously examining the controls.
The boy left the bridge, graceful despite the lurch of the boat and how weary he must be. Zachariah was startled when young Jonathan advanced across the deck to where Zachariah himself sat.
Brother Zachariah pulled his hood close around his face. Some Shadowhunters were disquieted by a Silent Brother who did not appear exactly as the rest did, though the Silent Brothers looked fearsome enough. He did not want to distress the boy, either way.
Jonathan carried Brother Zachariah’s staff back to him, balanced flat as a tightrope along his palms, and laid the staff with a respectful bow on Zachariah’s knees. The boy moved with military discipline unusual in one so young, even among Shadowhunters. Brother Zachariah had not known Michael Wayland, but he guessed he must have been a harsh man.
“Brother Enoch?” the boy guessed.
No, said Brother Zachariah. He knew Enoch’s memories as his own. Enoch had given the boy his first Mark, though his memories were gray with lack of interest. Brother Zachariah briefly wished he could have been the Silent Brother who oversaw the rite of passage for this child.
“No,” the boy repeated slowly. “I should’ve known. You moved differently. I just thought it might be, since you rolled your staff
to me.”
He bowed his head. It struck Zachariah as a sorry thing, that the child would not have expected even the smallest mercy from a stranger.
“Thank you for letting me use it,” Jonathan added.
I am glad it was useful, returned Brother Zachariah.
The boy’s glance up at his face was shocking, the flare of twin suns in what was still almost night. They were not the eyes of a soldier but a warrior. Brother Zachariah had known both, and he knew the difference.
The boy took a step back, nervous and agile, but stopped with his chin high. Apparently he had a question.
Zachariah was not expecting the one he asked.
“What do the initials mean? On your staff. Do all Silent Brothers have them?”
They looked together at the staff. The letters were worn by time and Zachariah’s own flesh, but they had been struck deep into the wood in the precise places where Zachariah would put his hands on them when he fought. So, in a way, they would always be fighting together.
The letters were W and H.
No, said Brother Zachariah. I am the only one. I carved them into the staff on my first night in the City of Bones.
“Were they your initials?” the boy asked, his voice low and a little timid. “Back when you were a Shadowhunter, like me?”
Brother Zachariah still considered himself a Shadowhunter, but Jonathan clearly did not mean any offense.
No, said Jem, because he was always James Carstairs when he spoke of what was dearest to him. Not mine. My parabatai’s.
W and H. William Herondale. Will.
The boy looked struck yet wary at the same time. There was a certain guardedness about him, as if he was suspicious of whatever Jem might say before he even had the chance to say it.
“My father says—said—a parabatai can be a great weakness.”
Jonathan said the word “weakness” with horror. Jem wondered what a man who had drilled a boy to fight like that might have considered weakness.
Jem did not choose to insult an orphan boy’s dead father, so he arranged his thoughts carefully. This boy was so alone. He remembered how precious that new link could be, especially when you had no other. It could be the last bridge that connected you to a lost life.
He remembered traveling across the sea, having lost his family, not knowing that he was going to his best friend.
I suppose they can be a weakness, he answered. It depends on who your parabatai is. I carved his initials here because I always fought best with him.
Jonathan Wayland, the child who fought like a warrior angel, looked intrigued.
“I think—my father was sorry he had a parabatai,” he said. “Now I have to go and live with the man my father was sorry about. I don’t want to be weak, and I don’t want to be sorry. I want to be the best.”
If you pretend to feel nothing, the pretense may become true, said Jem. That would be a pity.
His parabatai had tried to feel nothing, for a time. Except what he felt for Jem. It had almost destroyed Will. And every day, Jem pretended to feel something, to be kind, to fix what was broken, to remember names and voices almost forgotten, and hoped that would become truth.
The boy frowned. “Why would it be a pity?”
We battle hardest when that which is dearer to us than our own lives is at stake, said Jem. A parabatai is both blade and shield. You belong together and to each other not because you are the same but because your different shapes fit together to be a greater whole, a greater warrior for a higher purpose. I always believed we were not merely at our best together but beyond the best either of us could be apart.
A slow smile broke across the boy’s face, like sunrise bursting as a bright surprise upon the water.
“I’d like that,” said Jonathan Wayland, adding quickly, “To be a great warrior.”
He flung his head back in a sudden, hasty assumption of arrogance, as if he and Jem might both have imagined he meant that he would like to belong to someone.
This boy, hell-bent on fighting rather than finding a family. The Lightwoods guarding against a vampire, when they could have extended some trust. The vampire, holding every friend at bay. All of them had their wounds, but Jem could not help resenting them, for even the privilege of feeling hurt.
All these people were struggling not to feel, trying to freeze their hearts inside their chests until the cold fractured and broke them. While Jem would have given every cold tomorrow he had for one more day with a warm heart, to love them as he once had.
Except Jonathan was a child, still trying to make a distant father proud even when death had made the distance between them impossible. Jem should be kind.
He thought of the boy’s speed, his fearless strike with an unfamiliar weapon on a strange and bloody night.
I’m sure you will be a great warrior, said Jem.
Jonathan Wayland ducked his shaggy golden head to hide the faint color in his cheeks.
The boy’s forlornness made Jem recall too vividly the night he had carved those initials into his staff, a long, cold night with all the icy strangeness of the Silent Brothers new in his head. He had not wanted to die, but he would have chosen death rather than the awful severing from love and warmth. If only he could have had a death in Tessa’s arms, holding Will’s hand. He had been robbed of his death.
It seemed impossible to stay anything like human, in among the bones and endless dark.
When the alien cacophony of the Silent Brothers threatened to engulf all that he had been, Jem held fast to his lifelines. There had been none stronger than that one, and only one other so strong. His parabatai’s name had been a shout into the abyss, a cry that always received an answer. Even in the Silent City, even with the silent howl insisting that Jem’s life was no longer his own but a shared life. No longer my thoughts, but our thoughts. No longer my will, but our will.
He would not accept that parting. My Will. Those words meant something different to Jem than to anyone else, meant: my defiance against encroaching dark. My rebellion. Mine, forever.
Jonathan scuffed his shoe against the deck and peered up at Jem, and Jem realized he was trying to see his face beneath the hood. Jem drew the hood, and the shadows, close. Even though he had been rebuffed, Jonathan Wayland offered him a small smile.
Jem had not looked for any kindness from this hurt child. It made Jem think that Jonathan Wayland might grow up to be more than a great warrior.
Maybe Jonathan would have a parabatai one day, to teach him the kind of man he wanted to be.
This is the link stronger than any magic, Jem had told himself that night, knife in hand, cutting deep. This is the bond I chose.
He had made his mark. He had taken the name Zachariah, which meant “remember.” Remember him, Jem had willed himself. Remember them. Remember why. Remember the only answer to the only question. Do not forget.
When he looked again, Jonathan Wayland was gone. He wished he could thank the child, for helping him remember.
* * *
Isabelle had never been to the New York Passenger Ship Terminal before. She was not very impressed. The terminal was like a glass-and-metal snake, and they had to sit in its belly and wait. The ships were like warehouses on the water, when Isabelle had been picturing a boat from Idris as like a pirate ship.
It had been dark when they woke, and it was barely dawn now, and freezing. Alec was huddled in his hoodie against the wind blowing off the blue water, and Max was fussing at their mother, cranky about being up so early. Basically both her brothers were cranky, and Isabelle did not know what to expect.
She saw her father walk down the gangway with a boy beside him. The dawn drew a line of thin gold over the water. The wind made little white capelets for every wave in the river and played with the gold locks of the boy’s hair. The boy’s back was straight and slim as a rapier. He was wearing dark, close clothes that looked almost like gear. And there was blood on them. He had actually been part of the fighting. Dad and Mom had not let her or Ale
c fight even one tiny demon yet!
Isabelle turned to Alec, confident he would share her sense of deep betrayal at this unfairness, and found him staring at the new arrival with wide eyes as though beholding a revelation with the morning.
“Wow,” Alec breathed.
“What about that vampire?” Isabelle demanded, outraged.
Alec said, “What vampire?”
Mom hushed them.
Jonathan Wayland had gold hair and gold eyes, and those eyes had no depths but only shiny reflective surface, showing as little as if they were metal doors slammed down on a temple. He did not even smile as he came to a stop in front of them.
Bring back that Silent Brother, was Isabelle’s feeling.
She looked to her mother, but Mom was staring at this new boy with an odd expression on her face.
The boy was looking back at her. “I’m Jonathan,” he told her intently.
“Hello, Jonathan,” said Isabelle’s mother. “I am Maryse. It’s nice to meet you.”
She reached out and touched the boy’s hair. Jonathan flinched but held himself still, and Maryse smoothed back the shining gold waves the wind had ruffled.
“I think we need to get you a haircut,” Mom said.
It was such a Mom thing to say, it made Isabelle smile at the same time as she rolled her eyes. Actually, the boy Jonathan did need a haircut. The ends of his hair were spilling over his collar, untidy as if whoever had cut it last—too long ago—had not cared enough to do a good job. He had the faint air of a stray animal, fur rough and one breath away from a snarl, though that did not make sense for a kid.
Mom winked. “Then you will be even more handsome.”
“Is that even possible?” Jonathan asked dryly.
Alec laughed. Jonathan looked surprised, as if he had not noticed Alec before then. Isabelle did not think he had paid attention to any of them except her mother.
“Say hello to Jonathan, kids,” said Isabelle’s dad.
Max stared up at Jonathan in awe. He dropped his stuffed rabbit on the cement floor, shuffled forward, and hugged Jonathan’s leg. Jonathan flinched again, though this time it was more of an instinctive rear back, until the genius figured out he was not being attacked by a two-year-old.
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