“Yes,” said Jaime. “I am aware of that.”
“You’re out here,” Dru pointed out.
“I was up a tree,” Ty said, as if that made it better somehow. Before Dru could get into a really enjoyable sibling argument about it, Helen had come rushing up, her pale blond curls fluttering. Aline was just on her heels.
“Dru! Tavvy!” Helen darted tearfully toward the two of them, reaching to pick Tavvy up; Dru noticed that he held his arms out to her automatically, something he only really had ever done for Julian before. Helen lifted him up and squeezed him, hard. “What are you two doing here? Dru, did you use the Familias rune on purpose?”
“Of course I did!” Dru said. “We have to get out there on the field. We have to stop Emma and Jules. We have to get them back—back to themselves.”
“We’ve been trying,” Helen said as she set Tavvy down. “Don’t you think we’ve been trying?”
Dru wanted to grind her teeth together. Why didn’t Helen listen? She’d thought things were better, but she needed her sister to hear her so badly she could feel it like a lump in her throat.
She knew what they had to do. It seemed so clear. How could she make the rest of them see it?
She felt a twinge in her arm, where the rune was, and then Mark was there, racing up with Cristina at his side. “Dru! You called us—” He saw Ty and smiled delightedly. “I was watching you with your slingshot,” he said. “Your aim is true, little brother.”
“Don’t encourage him, Mark,” said Helen. “He was supposed to stay back at camp.”
“Look,” Dru said. “I know it doesn’t make much sense. But if we all go up to Emma and Jules together, if we go right up to them and talk to them, we can get through. We have to try. If we can’t do it, no one can, and then everyone is in danger.”
Helen shook her head. “But why is this happening?”
Cristina and Mark exchanged a glance that Dru couldn’t decipher. “I think it is because of the parabatai bond,” Cristina said.
“Because Emma almost died?” Aline said, bewildered.
“I do not know,” Cristina said. “I can only guess. But there is heavenly fire burning inside them. And no mortal being can survive that for very long.”
“It’s too dangerous for us to approach them,” Mark said. “We have to trust Emma and Julian. Trust that they can end this on their own.”
There was a long pause. Jaime watched impassively as the Blackthorns and their extended family stood in the stillness of an intense silence.
“No,” Helen said finally, and Dru’s heart sank. Helen raised her eyes, blazing Blackthorn blue in her grime-streaked face. “Dru is right. We have to go.” She looked at Dru. “You’re right, my love.”
“I will walk with you to the field,” Jaime said to Dru.
She was glad for his company as they all set out, Blackthorns together. But it wasn’t Jaime she was thinking about as they turned to walk toward the heart of the battle. It was her sister. Helen believed me. Helen understood.
In the midst of the darkness of battle, her heart felt a tiny bit lighter.
Jaime suddenly jerked upright. “Diego,” he said, and then a torrent of Spanish. Dru and Helen whipped around, and Dru sucked in her breath.
Not far away, a redcap was dragging Diego’s limp body across the field. At least, Dru guessed it was Diego: His clothes were familiar, and his mop of dark hair. But his face was obscured entirely by blood.
Helen touched Jaime’s shoulder. “Go to your brother,” she said. “Quickly. We’ll be fine.”
Jaime took off running.
* * *
Jace was awake. He had been blinking and starting to sit up when Clary reached him, and she’d been torn between throwing herself into his arms and smacking him for terrifying her.
She was drawing an iratze on his arm. It seemed to be doing its work—the long bloody scratch along the side of his face had already healed. He was half-sitting up, leaning against her to catch his breath, when Alec came running up and knelt down beside them.
“Are you all right, parabatai?” Alec said, looking anxiously into Jace’s face.
“Please promise you’ll never do that again,” Clary said.
“I promise that I will never stand between Zara Dearborn and a marauding giant again,” said Jace. “Alec, what’s happening? You’ve been out on the field—”
“Julian and Emma just tossed Vanessa Ashdown about twenty feet,” said Alec. “I think they’re angry that she stabbed Cameron, though why, I couldn’t tell you.”
Clary looked over at Emma and Julian. They stood very still, looking down at the Cohort, as if choosing what to do with them. Every once in a while a Cohort member would break free and run, and Emma or Julian would move to pen them back in again.
It was almost like a game, but angels did not play. Clary couldn’t help but remember the sight of Raziel, rising from Lake Lyn. Not many people had looked at an angel. Not many people had stared into the cold eyes of Heaven, with its indifference to petty mortal concerns. Did Emma and Julian feel a fraction of that indifference, that unconcern that was not cruelty but something stranger and altogether bigger—something not human at all?
Emma suddenly lurched and went down on one knee. Clary stared in shock as the Cohort howled and fled, but Emma made no movement toward them.
Julian, beside her, reached down a shining hand to lift her back up.
“They’re dying,” Jace said quietly.
Alec looked puzzled. “What?”
“They are Nephilim—true Nephilim,” said Jace. “The monsters of old who once strode the earth. They have heavenly fire inside them, powering everything they do. But it’s too much. Their mortal bodies will burn away. They’re probably in agony.”
He got to his feet.
“We have to stop them. If they get too maddened with pain, who knows what they’ll do.”
Emma began to move toward the city. Clary could see Isabelle and Simon running toward the blockade of Shadowhunters standing between Emma and Julian and the city of Alicante.
“Stop them how?” Alec said.
Grimly, Jace unsheathed the Mortal Sword. Before he could move, Clary put a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait,” she said. “Look.”
Not far away now, a small group was walking steadily toward the shining, monstrous figures of Emma and Julian. Helen Blackthorn, with all her siblings beside her—Mark and Tiberius, Drusilla and Octavian. They moved together in a strong and steady line.
“What are they doing?” Alec asked.
“The only thing they can do,” said Clary.
Slowly, Jace lowered the Mortal Sword. “By the Angel,” he said, drawing in his breath. “Those kids . . .”
* * *
“Diego. Wake up, my brother. Please wake up.”
There had been only darkness, interspersed with bright sparks of pain. Now there was Jaime’s voice. Diego wanted to stay in the darkness and the quiet. To rest where the pain was held at arm’s length, here in the silent world.
But his brother’s voice was insistent, and from childhood Diego had been trained to respond to it. To rise from bed when his brother cried, to run to help him up when he fell down.
He peeled his eyes open. They felt sticky. His face burned. Above him was roiling dark sky and Jaime, his expression starkly distraught. He was on his knees, his bow at his side; a distance away, a redcap lay dead with an arrow protruding from its chest.
Jaime was clutching a stele in his hand. He reached out and pushed back Diego’s hair; when he drew his hand back, it was red with blood. “Stay still,” he said. “I have given you several iratzes.”
“I must get up,” Diego whispered. “I must fight.”
Jaime’s dark eyes flashed. “Your face is sliced open, Diego. You have lost blood. You cannot get up. I will not allow it.”
“Jaime . . .”
“In the past, you have always healed me,” said Jaime. “Let me be the one who heals you.”
Diego coughed. His mouth and throat were thick with blood. “How bad—how bad will the scars be?”
Jaime took his hand, and that was when Diego knew it was bad indeed. He begged Jaime silently not to lie to him or to pity him.
Jaime’s smile was slow and crooked. “I think I will be the pretty one in the family now,” he said. “But at least you are still very muscular.”
Diego choked on a laugh, on the taste of blood, on the strangeness of it all. He wound his fingers into his brother’s, and held on tight.
* * *
The walk across the field was surreal.
As the siblings came closer to Emma and Julian, other Shadowhunters drew nearer to the Blackthorns, sometimes looking puzzled, sometimes almost ashamed. Dru knew they felt that the group was walking toward certain death. Some called out that they should leave Tavvy behind, but he only pressed closer to his brothers and sisters, shaking his head.
Emma and Julian were clearly making their way toward the city. They moved like shining shadows, closing the distance between themselves and the barricade of Shadowhunters who stood between them and Alicante.
“We need to get to them,” she muttered, but the crowd in front of them was forming another sort of barricade. She saw Shadowhunters she recognized among them—Anush and Divya Joshi, Luana Carvalho, Kadir Safar, and even some Downworlders—Bat Velasquez and Kwasi Bediako among them—who were calling out to them not to approach Julian and Emma, that it wasn’t safe.
She glanced at the others in panic. “What do we do?”
“I cannot shoot them with elf-bolts,” Mark said. “They mean well.”
“Of course not!” Helen looked horrified. “Please!” she called out. “Let us pass!”
But her voice was lost in the roar of the crowd, which was jostling them back, away from the city, away from Emma and Jules. Dru had begun to panic when they heard the thunder of hooves.
Shadowhunters moved reluctantly back as Windspear, Kieran on his back, parted the crowd. His flanks were lathered with sweat; he had clearly raced across the field. Kieran’s panicked eyes flew across the group until he found Mark, and then Cristina.
The three of them exchanged a swift and speaking look. Mark flung his hand up, as if he were reaching out to the new Unseelie King. “Kieran!” he shouted. “Help us! We need to get to Emma and Julian!”
Dru waited for Kieran to say that it was dangerous. Impossible. Instead he bent low over Windspear’s neck; he seemed to be whispering to the horse.
A moment later, the sky darkened with flying shapes. The Wild Hunt had come. Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike scattered as the Hunt swooped low. Suddenly the Blackthorns could move forward again, and they did, moving as fast as they could toward Emma and Julian, who had nearly closed the gap between themselves and the line of Shadowhunters guarding the city.
As they passed, Dru reached up to wave at Diana and Gwyn, who had detached themselves from the Wild Hunt and were preparing to land alongside the Blackthorns. Diana smiled at her and pressed her hand over her heart.
Dru fixed her eyes on the goal ahead. They were nearly there. Kieran had joined them. The crown of Unseelie gleamed on his brow, but his attention was fixed on protecting the Blackthorns. With Windspear rearing, he was keeping the crowd at bay on one side, while Gwyn and Diana did the same on the other.
The field leveled out. They were close now, close enough that Emma and Julian were shining blurs. It was like looking at trees in the forest whose tops you couldn’t see.
Dru took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Just us now. Just Blackthorns.”
Everyone went still.
Mark pressed his forehead to Cristina’s, his eyes shut, before helping her up onto Windspear, beside Kieran. Kieran squeezed Mark’s hand tightly and wrapped his arms around Cristina as if to say to Mark that he would keep her safe. Aline kissed Helen softly and went to stand by her mother among the crowd. They watched, a small and worried group, as the Blackthorns set off to close the distance between themselves and Emma and Jules.
They stopped a few feet from the giant figures of Julian and Emma. For a moment, the certainty that had carried Dru this far faltered. She had thought only of getting here. Not of what she would do or say when they arrived.
It was Tavvy who stepped forward first. “Jules!” he shouted. “Emma! We’re here!”
And at last Emma and Julian reacted.
They turned away from the city and looked down at the Blackthorns. Dru craned her head back. She could see their expressions. They were completely blank. No recognition lived in their glowing eyes.
“We can’t just tell them to stop,” said Mark. “Everyone’s already tried that.”
Tavvy moved a little bit farther forward. The eyes of the giants followed him like massive lamps, glowing and inhuman.
Dru wanted to reach out and snatch him back.
“Jules?” he said, and his voice was small and low and stabbed into Drusilla’s heart. She took a deep breath. If Tavvy could approach them, so could she. She moved to stand behind her younger brother and tilted her shoulders back until she was looking directly up at Emma and Julian. It was like gazing into the sun; her eyes prickled, but she held them open.
“Emma!” she called. “Julian! It’s Dru—Drusilla. Look, everyone is telling you to stop because the battle is won, but I’m not here to say that. I’m here to tell you to stop because we love you. We need you. Come back to us.”
Neither Emma nor Julian moved or changed expression. Dru plowed on, her cheeks burning.
“Don’t leave us,” she said. “Who will watch bad horror movies with me, Julian, if you’re gone? Who will train with me, Emma, and show me everything I’m doing wrong, and how to be better?”
Something shifted behind Dru. Helen had come to stand beside her. She reached her hands out as if she could touch the shining figures before her. “Julian,” she said. “You raised our brothers and sisters when I could not. You sacrificed your childhood to keep our family together. And Emma. You guarded this family when I could not. If you both leave me now, how will I ever get the chance to make it up to you?”
Julian and Emma were still expressionless, but Emma tilted her head slightly, almost as if she was listening.
Mark came forward, laying his slim hand on Dru’s shoulder. He craned his head back. “Julian,” he called. “You showed me how to be part of a family again. Emma, you showed me how to be a friend when I had forgotten friendship. You gave me hope when I was lost.” He stood straight as an elf-bolt, gazing into the sky. “Come back to us.”
Julian shifted. It was a minute movement, but Dru felt her heart leap. Maybe—maybe—
Ty stepped forward, his gear dusty and ripped where bark had torn it. His black hair fell in dark strands across his face. He pushed it away and said, “We lost Livvy. We—we lost her.”
Tears stung the backs of Dru’s eyes. There was something about the tone of Ty’s voice that made it sound as if this were the first time he had realized the finality and irrevocability of Livvy’s death.
Ty’s eyelashes shimmered with tears as he raised his gaze. “We can’t lose you, too. We will be—we will wind up broken. Julian, you taught me what every word I didn’t understand meant—and Emma, you chased off anybody who was ever mean to me. Who will teach me and protect me if you don’t go back to being yourselves?”
There was a great and thundering crash. Julian had fallen to his knees. Dru covered a gasp—he seemed smaller than he had, though still enormous. She could see the black fissures in his glowing skin where red sparks of fire leaked out like blood.
There is heavenly fire burning inside them. And no mortal being can survive that for very long.
“Emma,” Dru whispered. “Julian.”
They weren’t expressionless anymore. Dru had seen statues of mourning angels, of angels thrust through with fiery swords, weeping tears of agony. It was not easy to wield a sword for God.
She could see those statues
again in the looks on their faces.
“Emma!” The cry burst from Cristina; she had broken away from the others and come running toward the Blackthorns. “Emma! Who will be my best friend if you’re not my best friend, Emma?” She was crying, tears mixing with the blood and dirt on her face. “Who will take care of my best friend when I cannot, Julian, if you are not there?”
Emma fell to her knees beside Julian. They were both weeping—tears of fire, red and gold. Dru hoped desperately that it meant that they felt something, and not that they were dying, coming apart in twin blazes of fire.
“Who will drive me crazy with questions in the classroom if not you?” called Diana. She was coming toward them as well, and so were Kieran and Aline, leaving Gwyn holding Windspear’s bridle, his face reflecting awe and wonder.
Aline cleared her throat. “Emma and Julian,” she said. “I don’t know you that well, and this giant thing is admittedly a huge surprise. That wasn’t a pun. I was being literal.” She glanced sideways at Helen. “But being around you makes my wife really happy, and that’s because she loves you both.” She paused. “I also like you, and we’re going to be a family, dammit, so come down here and be in this family!”
Helen patted Aline’s shoulder. “That was good, honey.”
“Julian,” Kieran said. “I could speak of the way Mark loves you, and Emma, I could speak of the friendship Cristina bears you. But the truth is that I have to be King of the Unseelie Court, and without your brilliance, Julian, and your bravery, Emma, I fear my reign will be brief.”
In the distance, Dru could see Isabelle and Simon approaching. Alec was with them, his arm around Magnus, and Clary and Jace walked beside them, hand in hand.
Tavvy reached up his arms. “Jules,” he said, his small voice clear and ringing. “Carry me. I’m tired. I want to go home.”
Slowly—as slowly as the passing of eons—Julian reached out with his bright hands, fissured with darkness from which heavenly fire poured like blood. He reached out toward Tavvy.
There was a burst of light that seared Dru’s eyes. When she had blinked it away, she saw that Julian and Emma were no longer there—no, they had slumped to the ground; they were dark figures within an aura of light, growing ever smaller, surrounded by a pool of illumination the color of bloody gold.
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