Lady Midnight (16 page)

“It was a rogue necromancer,” said Malcolm. “Diana said she took care of him.”

“God, I hate rogue necromancers,” said Magnus. “Why can’t they just follow the rules?”

“Probably because the biggest rule is ‘no necromancy’?” Emma suggested.

Magnus grinned at her, sideways. “Anyway. It was no big deal for me to stop by here on my way to Buenos Aires.”

“What’s in Buenos Aires?” said Julian.

“Alec,” Magnus said. Alexander Lightwood was Magnus’s boyfriend of half a decade. They could have gotten married under the new laws that allowed Shadowhunters to marry Downworlders (other than faeries), but they hadn’t. Emma didn’t know why. “Routine check on a vampire-worshipping cult, but he ran into some trouble there.”

“Nothing serious?” said Julian. He’d known Alec Lightwood longer than Emma had; the Blackthorns and the Lightwoods had been friends for years.

“Complicated, but not serious,” said Magnus, just as Malcolm pushed himself away from the wall.

“I’m going to go call Diana. Be right back,” he said, and vanished down the hallway.

“So.” Magnus sat down on the couch, in the place Malcolm had
just vacated. “What brings you to the High Warlock of the City of Angels?”

Emma exchanged a worried look with Julian, but short of diving across the table and whacking Magnus over the head—inadvisable for so many reasons—she couldn’t think of anything to do.

“Something you’re not supposed to tell me, I take it.” Magnus templed his hands under his chin. “About the killings?” At their surprised looks, he added, “I have friends at the Scholomance. Catarina Loss, for one. Anything about rogue magic or the Fair Folk interests me. Is Malcolm helping out?”

Julian shook his head, a minute gesture.

“Some of the bodies were fey,” said Emma. “We’re not meant to get involved. The Cold Peace—”

“The Cold Peace is despicable,” Magnus said, and the humor had gone out of his voice. “Punishing a whole species for the actions of a few. Denying them rights. Exiling your sister,” he added, looking at Julian. “I’ve spoken to her. She helped make the map I spoke of; any magic that global involves the wards. How often do you talk to her?”

“Every week,” said Jules.

“She said you always told her that everything was fine,” said Magnus. “I think she was worried you weren’t telling her the truth.”

Julian said nothing. It was true that he talked to Helen every week; they all did, passing the phone or computer back and forth. And it was also true that Julian never told her anything except that everything was fine, they were all fine, there was no need for her to worry.

“I remember her wedding,” Magnus said, and there was gentleness in his eyes. “How young you both were. Though it wasn’t the last wedding I saw you at, was it?”

Emma and Julian exchanged puzzled glances. “I’m pretty sure it was,” said Julian. “What other wedding would it have been?”

“Hm,” said Magnus. “Perhaps my memory is going in my old
age.” He didn’t sound as if he thought that was likely, though. He leaned back instead, sliding his long legs under the coffee table. “As for Helen, I’m sure it’s just an older sibling’s anxiety. Certainly Alec worries about Isabelle, whether it’s warranted or not.”

“What do you think about ley lines?” Emma asked abruptly.

Magnus’s eyebrows flew up. “What about them? Spells done at ley lines are amplified.”

“Does it matter what kind of magic? Dark magic, warlock magic, faerie magic?”

Magnus frowned. “It depends. But it’s unusual to use a ley line to amplify dark magic. Usually they’re used to move power. Like a delivery system for magic—”

“Well, how about that.” Malcolm, returning to the living room, darted an amused look at Emma. “Diana corroborates your story. Color me astonished.” His gaze moved to Magnus. “What’s going on?”

A light flashed in his eyes, whether amusement or something else, Emma couldn’t quite tell. Sometimes Malcolm seemed completely childlike, going on about trains and shrimp crackers and eagle movies. At other times he seemed as sharp and focused as anyone she knew.

Magnus stretched his arms along the back of the sofa. “We were talking about ley lines. I was saying they amplify magic, but only certain kinds of magic. Magic that has to do with energy transferrals. Didn’t you and Catarina Loss run into some kind of trouble with ley lines back when you lived in Cornwall, Malcolm?”

A vague expression passed over Malcolm’s face. “I can’t remember precisely. Magnus, stop bothering Emma and Julian,” he said, and there was a tinge of something like annoyance in his voice. Professional jealousy, Emma guessed. “This is
my
domain. You’ve got your own hopeless humans in New York.”

“One of those hopeless humans is the father of my child,” Magnus pointed out.

Magnus had not ever been pregnant, though that would have been interesting, Emma thought. He and Alec Lightwood had an adopted warlock child, named Max, who was a scintillating shade of navy blue.

“And,” Magnus added, “the rest of them have all saved the world, at least once.”

Malcolm gestured toward Julian and Emma. “I have high hopes for these.”

Magnus’s face broke into a grin. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “Anyway, I should go. Long trip ahead of me and Alec doesn’t like me to be late.”

There was a flurry of good-byes. Magnus clapped Malcolm on the arm and paused to hug Julian, and then Emma. His shoulder bumped her forehead as he bent his head, and she heard his voice in her ear, whispering. She looked at him in surprise, but he only let her go and marched toward the door, whistling. Halfway to the door there was the familiar shimmer and burned-sugar smell of Portal magic, and Magnus disappeared.

“Did you tell him about the investigation?” Malcolm looked anxious. “He mentioned ley lines.”

“I asked him about them,” Emma admitted. “But I didn’t say why I wanted to know. And I didn’t mention anything about translating the markings.”

Malcolm circled around to look at the paper again. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who untangled the first line?
Fire to water.
It would help to know what it means.”

“We can’t,” Julian said. “But I don’t think the translator knew what it meant either. You can use it, though, right? To get the rest of the spell or message or whatever it is?”

“Probably, though it would help if I knew the language.”

“It’s a very old language,” Emma said carefully. “Older than Nephilim.”

Malcolm sighed. “You’re not giving me much. Okay, old demony language, very ancient. I’ll check with the Spiral Labyrinth.”

“Be careful what you tell them,” Julian said. “Like we said—the Clave can’t know we’re investigating this.”

“Which means faerie involvement,” said Malcolm, amusement flickering across his face as he saw their horrified expressions. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell. I don’t like the Cold Peace any more than any other Downworlder does.”

Julian was expressionless. He ought to take up a career playing poker, Emma thought. “How long do you think you’ll need?” he asked. “To translate?”

“Give me a few days.”

A few days. Emma tried to conceal her disappointment.

“Sorry I can’t do it any faster.” Malcolm sounded genuinely sorry. “Come on. I’ll walk you outside. I need some air.”

The sun had come out from behind the clouds and was blazing down on Malcolm’s front garden. The desert flowers shivered, silver-edged, in the wind from the canyons. A lizard darted out from behind a piece of shrubbery and stared at them. Emma stuck her tongue out at it.

“I’m worried,” Malcolm said abruptly. “I don’t like this. Necromantic magic, demon languages, a series of killings no one understands. Working without the Clave’s knowledge. It seems, dare I say it, dangerous.”

Julian stared off toward the distant hills, silent. It was Emma who answered.

“Malcolm, last year we fought off a battalion of Forneus demons with tentacles and no faces,” Emma said. “Don’t try to freak us out about this.”

“I’m just saying. Danger. You know, that thing most people avoid.”

“Not us,” Emma said cheerfully. “Tentacles, Malcolm. No
faces.
”

“Stubborn.” Malcolm sighed. “Just promise to call me if you need me or if you find out anything else.”

“Definitely,” said Julian. Emma wondered if the cold knot of guilt that she felt at hiding things from Malcolm also sat in his chest. The wind off the ocean had picked up. It caught the dust in the garden and blew it into swirls. Julian pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Thanks for helping,” he added. “We know we can depend on you.” He headed down the path, toward the steps to the bridge, which shimmered alive as he approached it.

Malcolm’s face had turned somber, despite the bright noon light reflecting off the ocean. “Don’t depend on me too much,” he said, so softly she wondered if he knew she would hear him.

“Why not?” She turned her face up to him in the sunlight, blinking. His eyes were the color of jacaranda blossoms.

“Because I’ll let you down. Everyone does,” Malcolm said, and went back inside his house.

7

T
HE
S
OUNDING
S
EA

Cristina sat on the floor
outside Mark Blackthorn’s bedroom.

There had been no sound from inside for what felt like hours. The door was cracked open and she could see him, curled into a ball in a corner of the room like a trapped wild animal.

Faeries had been her area of study at home. She had always been fascinated by tales of the
hadas
, from the noble warriors of the Courts to the
duendes
who teased and bothered mundanes. She had not been in Idris for the declaration of the Cold Peace, but her father had, and the story sent a shiver through her. She had always wanted to meet Mark and Helen Blackthorn, to tell them—

Tiberius appeared in the hall, carrying a cardboard box. His twin sister was beside him, a patchwork quilt in her hand. “My mother made this for Mark when he was left with us,” she said, catching Cristina eyeing it. “I thought he might remember.”

“We couldn’t get into the storeroom, so we brought Mark some gifts. So he’d know we want him here,” said Ty. His gaze moved restlessly around the hall. “Can we go in?”

Cristina glanced into the bedroom. Mark was unmoving. “I don’t see why not. Just try to be quiet and not wake him.”

Livvy went in first, laying the quilt on the bed. Ty set the cardboard
box on the floor, then wandered over to where Mark was lying. He picked up the quilt that Livvy had set down and knelt beside his brother. A little awkwardly, he laid the quilt on top of Mark.

Mark jerked upright. His blue-gold eyes flew open and he caught hold of Ty, who gave a sharp frightened cry like the cry of a seabird. Mark moved with incredible speed, flinging Ty to the ground. Livvy screamed and darted from the room, just as Cristina hurtled inside.

Mark was kneeling over Tiberius, pinning him to the ground with his knees. “Who are you?” Mark was saying. “What were you doing?”

“I’m your brother! I’m Tiberius!” Ty was wriggling madly, his headphones sliding off to hit the floor. “I was giving you a blanket!”

“Liar!” Mark was breathing hard. “My brother Ty is a little boy! He’s a child, my baby brother, my—”

The door rattled behind Cristina. Livvy burst back into the room, her brown hair flying. “Let him go!” A seraph blade appeared in her hand, already beginning to glow. She spoke to Mark through gritted teeth, as if she’d never met him. As if she hadn’t been carrying a patchwork quilt for him through the Institute only moments before. “If you hurt Tiberius, I’ll kill you. I don’t care if you’re Mark, I’ll kill you.”

Mark stilled. Ty was still writhing and twisting, but Mark had stopped moving entirely. Slowly, he turned his head toward his sister. “Livia?”

Livvy gasped and began to sob. Julian would be proud, though, Cristina thought: She was weeping without moving, the blade still steady in her hand.

Ty took advantage of Mark’s distraction to hit at him, connecting solidly with Mark’s shoulder. Mark winced and rolled away without striking back. Ty leaped to his feet and darted across the room to join Livvy; they stood shoulder to shoulder staring at their brother with wide eyes.

“Both of you, go,” Cristina said to them. She could feel the panic and worry rolling off them in waves; Mark could clearly feel it too. He was wincing, opening and closing his hands as if in pain. She bent down to whisper to the twins. “He’s frightened. He didn’t mean it.”

Livvy nodded and sheathed her blade. She took Ty’s hand and said something to him in the quiet, private language they had. He followed her out of the room, pausing only briefly to look back at Mark, his expression hurt and bewildered.

Mark was sitting up, panting, his body bent over his knees. He was bleeding from the reopened cut on his shoulder, staining his shirt. Cristina began to back slowly out of the bedroom.

Mark’s body tensed. “Please don’t go,” he said.

Cristina stared. As far as she knew, this was the first coherent thing he’d said since arriving at the Institute.

He lifted his chin, and for a brief moment she saw beneath the dirt, the bruises, and the scratches, the Mark Blackthorn she had seen pictures of, the Mark Blackthorn who could be related to Livvy and Julian and Ty. “I’m thirsty,” he said. There was something rusty, almost disused, about his voice, like an old motor starting up again. “Is there water?”

“Of course.” Cristina fumbled a glass off the dresser and went into the small attached bathroom. When she emerged and handed the full glass to Mark, he was sitting up, his back against the footboard of the bed. He looked at the glass wryly. “Water from taps,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten.” He took a long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Mark,” she said. “Mark Blackthorn.”

There was a long pause before he nodded, almost imperceptibly. “No one has called me that in a long time.”

“It’s still your name.”

“Who are you?” he said. “I should remember, probably, but—”

“I’m Cristina Mendoza Rosales,” she said. “There is no reason you should remember me, since we have never met before.”

“That’s a relief.”

Cristina was surprised. “Is it?”

“If you don’t know me and I don’t know you, then you won’t have any—expectations.” He looked suddenly exhausted. “Of who I am or what I’m like. I could be anyone to you.”

“Earlier,” Cristina said. “On the bed. Were you sleeping or pretending?”

“Does it matter?” he said, and Cristina couldn’t help thinking that it was a most faerielike reply, a reply that didn’t actually answer her question. He shifted against the footboard. “Why are you in the Institute?”

Cristina knelt down, putting her head on a level with Mark’s. She smoothed her skirt over her knees—even when she didn’t want them to, her mother’s words about how an off-duty Shadowhunter must always be neat and presentable echoed in her head.

“I am eighteen,” she said. “I was assigned to study the ways of the Los Angeles Institute as part of my travel year. How old are you?”

This time Mark’s hesitation went on for so long, Cristina wondered if he was going to speak at all. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I was gone—I thought I was gone—a long time. Julian was twelve. The others were babies. Ten and eight and two. Tavvy was two.”

“For them it has been five years,” Cristina said. “Five years without you.”

“Helen,” Mark said. “Julian. Tiberius. Livia. Drusilla. Octavian. Every night I counted out their names among the stars, so I would not forget. Are they all living?”

“Yes, all of them, though Helen is not here—she is married and lives with her wife.”

“Then they are living, and happy together? I am glad. I had heard the news of her wedding in Faerie, though it seems long ago now.”

“Yes.” Cristina studied Mark’s face. Angles, planes, sharpness, that curve at the top of his ear that spoke of faerie blood. “You have missed a great deal.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Heat boiled up in his voice, mixed with bewilderment. “I don’t know how old I am. I don’t recognize my own sisters and brothers. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“You do,” said Cristina. “You were there when the faerie convoy was speaking to Arthur in the Sanctuary.”

He tilted his face toward hers. There was a scar across the side of his neck, not the mark of a vanished rune, but a raised welt. His hair was untidy and looked as if it had been uncut for months, years even. The curling white tips touched his shoulders. “Do you trust them? The faeries?”

Cristina shook her head.

“Good.” He looked away from her. “You shouldn’t.” He reached for the cardboard box that Ty had left on the floor and pulled it toward him. “What is this?”

“Things they thought you might want,” Cristina said. “Your brothers and sisters.”

“Gifts of welcome,” said Mark in a puzzled tone, and knelt down by the box, removing a hodgepodge of odd items—some T-shirts and jeans that were probably Julian’s, a microscope, bread and butter, a handful of desert wildflowers from the garden behind the Institute.

Mark raised his head to look at Cristina. His eyes glittered with unshed tears. His shirt was thin and ragged; she could see through the material, see other welts and scars on his skin. “What do I say to them?”

“To who?”

“My family. My brothers and sisters. My uncle.” He shook his head. “I remember them, and yet I don’t. I feel as if I have lived here all my life, and yet I have also always been with the Wild Hunt. I
hear the roar of it in my ears, the call of the horns, the sound of the wind. It overpowers their voices. How do I explain that?”

“Don’t explain it,” said Cristina softly. “Just say you love them and you missed them every day. Tell them you hated the Wild Hunt. Tell them you’re glad to be back.”

“But why would I do that? Won’t they know I’m lying?”

“Didn’t you miss them? Aren’t you glad to be back?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I cannot hear my heart or what it tells me. I can only hear the wind.”

Before Cristina could reply, a sharp tap came at the window. It rattled again, a pattern of taps that sounded almost like a code.

Mark sprang to his feet. He crossed the room to the window and flung it open, leaning out. When he ducked back in, there was something in his hand.

An acorn. Cristina’s eyes widened. Acorns were one of the ways faeries sent messages to each other. Hidden in leaves, flowers, and other wild things.

“Already?” she said, unable to help it. They couldn’t leave him even for this long, alone with his family, in his home?

Looking pale and strained, Mark crushed the acorn in his fist. A twist of pale parchment fell out. He caught it and read the message silently.

His hand opened. He slid to the floor, pulling his knees up against his chest, dropping his head in his hands. His long pale hair fell forward as the parchment fluttered to the ground. A low sound issued from his throat, halfway between a groan and a wail of pain.

Cristina picked up the parchment. On it was written, in a delicate script,
Remember your promises. Remember that none of it is real.

*   *   *

“Fire to water,”
said Emma as they sped down the highway toward the Institute. “After all these years, I finally know what some of those markings mean.”

Julian was driving. Emma had her feet propped on the dashboard, her window down, the sea-softened air filling the car and lifting the light hair around her temples. This was how she’d always ridden in cars with Julian, with her feet up and the wind in her hair.

It was something Julian loved, Emma beside him in the car, driving with the blue sky overhead and the blue sea to the west. It was an image that felt full of infinite possibility, as if they could simply keep driving forever, the horizon their only destination.

It was a fantasy that played out sometimes when he was falling asleep. That he and Emma packed their things into the trunk of a car and left the Institute, in a world where he had no children and there was no Law and no Cameron Ashdown, where nothing held them back but the limits of their love and imagination.

And if there were two things he believed were limitless, it was love and imagination.

“It does sound like a spell,” Julian said, wrenching his mind back to the present moment. He revved the engine, the wind rushing in through Emma’s window as they gathered speed. Her hair lifted, pale corn silk spilling out from the neatness of her braids, making her look young and vulnerable.

“But why would the spell be recorded on the bodies?” Emma asked. The thought of anything hurting her made an ache form inside his chest.

And yet he was hurting her. He knew it. Knew it and hated it. He’d believed he’d had such a brilliant idea when he’d thought of taking the children to England for eight weeks. Knowing Cristina Rosales was coming, knowing Emma wouldn’t be alone or unhappy. It had seemed perfect.

He’d thought things would be different when he came back. That he would be different.

But he wasn’t.

“What did Magnus say to you?” he asked as she looked out the
window, her scarred fingers drumming an arrhythmic tattoo on her bent knee. “He whispered something.”

A furrow appeared between her brows. “He said that there are places where ley lines converge. I assume he means that since they bend and curve, there are locations where more than one of them meet. Maybe all of them.”

“And that’s important because . . . ?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. We do know all the bodies have been dumped at ley lines, and that’s a specific kind of magic. Maybe the convergences have some quality we need to understand. We should find a map of ley lines. I bet Arthur would know where to look in the library. If not, we can find it ourselves.”

“Good.”

“Good?” She sounded surprised.

“It’s going to take a few days for Malcolm to translate those papers, and I don’t want to spend those days sitting around the Institute, staring at Mark, waiting for him to—waiting. It’s better if we keep working, have something to do.” His voice sounded stretched thin to his own ears. He hated it, hated any visible or audible sign of weakness.

Though at least it was only with Emma, who he could show these things to. Emma, alone in his life, did not need his caretaking. Did not need him to be perfect or perfectly strong.

Before Julian could say anything else, Emma’s phone went off with a loud buzz. She pulled it out of her pocket.

Cameron Ashdown. She frowned at the llama on the screen. “Not now,” she told it, and shoved the phone back into her jeans.

“Are you going to tell him?” Julian asked, and heard the stiffness in his own voice, and hated it. “About all of this?”

“About Mark? I would never tell. Never.”

He kept his grip on the wheel tight, his jaw set.

“You’re my
parabatai
,” she said, and now there was anger in her voice. “You know I wouldn’t.”

Julian slammed on the brakes. The car lurched forward, the wheel slewing out of his hands. Emma yelped as they skidded off the road and bumped down into a ditch by the side of the highway, in between the road and the dunes over the sea.