Lady Midnight

Mark was gripping his knife; his hand was steady, but his face was anguished. “Why are you here?” he said again. “Why would you come to this place where you know that you’re hated? Why do you want to make me kill you?”

“Mark,” Kieran said. He reached up, clenched his hand in Mark’s sleeve. His face was full of yearning; the hair that fell over his forehead was streaked with dark blue. “Mark, please.”

Mark shook his arm out of Kieran’s grip. “I could forgive you if it was me you whipped,” he said. “But you touched the ones I love; that I cannot forgive. You should bleed as Emma bled.”

“Don’t—Mark—” Emma was alarmed, not for Kieran—some part of her would have liked to see him bleed—but for Mark. For what hurting, even killing, Kieran would do to him.

“I came to help you,” Kieran said.

Mark gave a hollow laugh. “Your help is not wanted here.”

“I know about Malcolm Fade,” Kieran gasped. “I know he took your brother.”

Julian made a guttural noise. Mark’s hand, on the knife, went bloodless. “Let him go, Mark,” Julian said. “If he knows anything about Tavvy—we have to find out what it is. Let him go.”

Mark hesitated.

“Mark,” Cristina said softly, and with a violent gesture, Mark flung himself off Kieran and stood up, backing away until he was nearly beside Julian. Julian, whose grip on his own knife looked agonizingly tight.

Slowly, painfully, Kieran rose to his feet and faced the room.

He was a far cry from the arrogant gentry warrior Emma had first seen in the Sanctuary. His shirt and loose trousers were bloodstained and torn, his face bruised. He did not cower or look frightened, but that seemed less an act of bravery than almost one of hopelessness: Everything about him, from the way he was dressed to the way he stood to the way he looked at Mark, said that here was someone who did not care what became of him.

The door of the library burst open and Ty and Livvy spilled in. “Everything’s knocked out,” Livvy exclaimed. “All the phones, the computer, even the radios—”

She broke off, staring, as she took in the scene in front of her: Kieran facing the other occupants of the room.

Kieran gave a tiny bow. “I am Kieran of the Wild Hunt.”

“One of the faerie convoy?” Livvy looked from Mark to Julian. “One of the ones who whipped Emma?”

Julian nodded.

Ty looked at Mark, and then the others. His face was pale and cold. “Why is he still alive?”

“He knows about Tavvy,” said Drusilla. “Julian, make him tell us—”

Julian flung his dagger. It flew past Kieran’s head, close enough to graze his hair, and embedded itself in the frame of the window behind him. “You will tell us now,” he said in a deadly quiet voice, “everything you know about where Octavian is, what’s going on, and how we can get him back. Or I will spill your blood on the floor of this library. I’ve spilled faerie blood before. Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

Kieran didn’t drop his eyes. “There is no need to threaten me,” he said, “though if it pleases you, do it; it makes no difference to me. I came to tell you what you want to know. That is why I am here. The black light you just saw was faerie magic. It was meant to knock out all communication, so that you could not call for help from the Clave or Conclave. So that you could not seek help or save your brother.”

“We could try to find a pay phone,” Livvy said uncertainly, “or a restaurant phone, down on the highway—”

“You will discover that phone lines have been knocked out for several miles,” said Kieran. There was urgency in his voice. “I beg you not to waste time. Fade has taken your brother, already, to the ley line convergence. It is the place where he performs his sacrifices. The place he plans to kill him. If you wish to rescue the boy, you must take up your weapons and go after him now.”

Julian threw open the door of the weapons room. “Everyone, arm yourselves. If you’re not in gear, get in gear. Diego, Cristina, there’s gear hanging on the east wall. Take it, it’ll be faster than going back to your rooms. Use any weapons you want. Kieran, you stay right there.” He pointed toward the table in the middle of the room. “Where I can see you. Don’t move or the next blade I throw at you won’t miss.”

Kieran gave him a look. A little of his visible despair seemed to have ebbed, and there was arrogance in his quick glance. “I believe it,” he said, and moved toward the table as everyone scurried around arming themselves and buckling gear on over their clothes. Not patrol gear, which was lighter, but the heavy dark gear you wore when you thought you were going to fight.

When you knew you were going to fight.

There had been some discussion of whether all of them were going to go to the convergence, or whether Dru at least should stay back at the Institute. Dru had protested vociferously, and Julian hadn’t fought it—the Institute didn’t feel safe at the moment, with the oculus smashed open. Kieran had gotten in, and who knew what else could? He wanted his family where he could see them. And there wasn’t much he could say to Dru about her age: He and Emma had fought and killed during the Dark War, and they’d been younger than she was now.

He had taken Ty aside, separately, and told him that if he wanted to stay behind from the fight because he was wounded, there was nothing shameful about that. He could lock himself in the car while they went into the convergence.