Lady Midnight

“Let it go, Emma,” Cristina said, and so Emma did, and the rest of the way back to the Institute they talked about their dresses and how best to conceal weapons in items of clothing that were not meant to hide an armory. But Emma had noticed the way Cristina had flinched when she’d said Diego’s name. Maybe not now, maybe not today, she thought, but she would find out what had happened.

Julian flew downstairs at the loud, repetitive pounding on the front door of the Institute. He was still barefoot; he hadn’t had a chance to put shoes on yet. Once he’d finished cleaning up after breakfast, he’d spent an hour trying to convince Uncle Arthur that no one had stolen his bust of Hermes (it was under his desk), found out that Drusilla had locked herself in Tavvy’s playhouse in a sulk because she hadn’t been invited to the diner the night before. Tavvy discovered Ty had been hiding a skunk in his room and started screaming. Livvy was busy convincing Ty to release the skunk back into the wild; Ty thought that the fact that he and Livvy had translated the Poe lines meant he’d earned the right to keep the skunk.

Mark, the only sibling who hadn’t given Julian any trouble that day, was hiding somewhere.

Julian swung the door open. Malcolm Fade stood on the other side, wearing jeans and the kind of sweatshirt you could tell was expensive because it appeared to be filthy and torn, but artfully so. Someone had spent time and money ripping that sweatshirt.

“You know, it’s not a good idea to whack on the door like that,” said Julian. “We keep a lot of weapons down here in case someone tries to break in.”

“Huh,” said Malcolm. “I’m not sure what that first statement has to do with the second statement.”

“Don’t you? I thought it was obvious.”

Malcolm’s eyes were a brilliant purple, which usually meant he was in a peculiar mood. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“No,” Julian said. His mind was whirling with thoughts of Mark. Mark was upstairs, and Malcolm couldn’t see Mark. Mark’s return was too much of a secret to ask him to keep—and too much of a clue as to the reason for their investigation.

Julian schooled his features into a look of pleasant blandness, but didn’t move from his place blocking the door. “Ty brought a skunk inside,” he said. “Believe me, you don’t want to come in.”

Malcolm looked alarmed. “A skunk?”

“A skunk,” Julian said. Julian believed that all the best lies were based on truth. “Did you translate any of the markings?”

“Not yet,” Malcolm said. He moved his hand—not much, a small gesture, but the copies of the partially translated markings they’d given him appeared, held delicately between his fingers. Sometimes, Julian thought, it was easy to forget that Malcolm was a powerful user of magic. “But I did discover their origins.”

“Really?” Julian tried to look shocked. They already knew the language was an ancient one of Faerie, though they hadn’t been able to tell Malcolm that.

On the other hand, this was a chance to check and see if the Fair Folk had been telling them the truth. Julian eyed Malcolm with renewed interest.

“Wait, maybe this isn’t the markings.” Malcolm eyed the papers. “It seems to be a recipe for orange cake.”

Julian crossed his arms over his chest. “No, it isn’t.”

Malcolm frowned. “I definitely remember looking at a recipe for orange cake recently.”

Julian rolled his eyes silently. Sometimes with Malcolm you just had to be patient.

“Never mind,” Malcolm said. “That was in a copy of O magazine. This—” He tapped the paper. “An ancient language of Faerie—you were right; it predates Shadowhunters. Anyway, that’s the language origin. I can probably get more done in the next few days. But that’s not why I came by.”

Julian brightened.

“I did some examining of the poison on that fabric you sent me last night. I checked it against different toxins. It was a cataplasm—a concentrate of a rare type of the belladonna plant with demon poisons. It should have killed you.”

“But Emma healed me,” said Julian. “With an iratze. So are you saying we should be looking for—”

“I wasn’t saying anything about looking,” Malcolm interrupted. “I’m just telling you. No iratze should have been able to fix you. Even accounting for the strength of parabatai runes, you absolutely shouldn’t have survived.” His odd violet eyes fixed on Julian. “I don’t know if it’s something you did, or something Emma did, but whatever it was—was impossible. You shouldn’t be breathing right now.”

Julian trailed up the stairs slowly. He could hear yelling from above him, but not the sort that sounded as if anyone was in actual trouble. Telling the difference between play yelling and actual yelling was an absolute necessity when you were in charge of four kids.

His mind was still on what Malcolm had told him, about the cataplasm. It was unnerving to be told that you should be dead. There was always the possibility that Malcolm was wrong, but somehow Julian doubted it. Hadn’t Emma said something about finding belladonna plants near the convergence?

Thoughts of poison and convergences vanished from his mind as he turned down the corridor from the stairs. The room they kept Tiberius’s computer in was filled with light and noise. Julian moved into the doorway and stared.