Lady Midnight

Julian’s art, his father’s interest in the classics: all had been regarded with deep suspicion. Shadowhunters weren’t meant to have outside interests. Shadowhunters weren’t artists. They were warriors, born and bred, like Spartans. And individuality was not something they valued.

Ty’s thoughts, his beautiful, curious mind, were not like everyone else’s. Julian had heard stories—whispers, really—of other Shadowhunter children who thought or felt differently. Who had trouble focusing. Who claimed letters rearranged themselves on the page when they tried to read them. Who fell prey to dark sadnesses that seemed to have no reason, or fits of energy they couldn’t control.

Whispers were all there were, though, because the Clave hated to admit that Nephilim like that existed. They were disappeared into the “dregs” portion of the Academy, trained to stay out of the way of other Shadowhunters. Sent to far corners of the globe like shameful secrets to be hidden. There were no words to describe Shadowhunters whose minds were shaped differently, no real words to describe differences at all.

Because if there were words, Julian thought, there would have to be acknowledgment. And there were things the Clave refused to acknowledge.

“They’ll make him feel like there’s something wrong with him,” Julian said. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“I know that.” Diana sounded sorrowful. Tired. Julian wondered where she had gone the day before, when they’d been at Malcolm’s. Who had helped her ward the convergence.

“They’ll try to force him into their mold of what a Shadowhunter ought to be like. He doesn’t know what they’ll do—”

“Because you haven’t told him,” Diana said. “If he has a rosy picture in his mind of what the Scholomance is like, it’s because you’ve never corrected him. Yeah, it’s harsh there. It’s brutal. Tell him so.”

“You want me to tell him he’s different,” Julian said coldly. “He’s not stupid, Diana. He knows that.”

“No,” said Diana, standing up. “I want you to tell him how the Clave feels about people who are different. Shadowhunters who are different. Because how can he make up his mind if he doesn’t have all the information?”

“He’s my little brother,” Julian snapped. The day outside was hazy; parts of the windows seemed mirrored, and he could see bits of himself—an edge of cheekbone, a set jaw, tangled hair. The look in his own eyes frightened him. “He’s three years from graduation—”

Diana’s brown eyes were fierce. “I know you’ve basically brought him up since he was ten, Julian. I know you feel like all of them are your children. And they are yours, but Livvy and Ty at least aren’t children anymore. You’re going to have to let go—”

“You’re telling me to be more forthcoming?” Julian demanded. “Really?”

Her jaw tightened. “You’re walking the edge of a razor blade, Julian, with everything you hide. Believe me. I’ve walked that razor blade half my life. You get used to it, so used to it sometimes you forget that you’re bleeding.”

“I don’t suppose you want to be any more specific about that?”

“You have your secrets. I have mine.”

“I can’t believe this.” Julian wanted to yell, punch a wall. “Keeping secrets is all you ever do. Remember when I asked you if you wanted to run the Institute? Remember when you said no and told me not to ask why?”

Diana sighed and ran one finger along the back of her chair. “Being angry at me won’t help anything, Jules.”

“You might be right,” he said. “But that’s the one thing you could have done that would probably really have helped me. And you didn’t. So forgive me if I feel like I’m in this totally alone. I love Ty, God, believe me, I want him to have what he wants. But say I told Ty how harsh the Scholomance was, and he wanted to go anyway. Could you promise me that he’d be fine there? Could you swear he and Livvy would be all right separated when they’ve never spent a day apart in their whole lives? Can you guarantee it?”

She shook her head. She looked defeated, and Julian felt no sense of triumph. “I could tell you there are no guarantees in life, Julian Blackthorn, but I can already see you don’t want to hear anything I say about Ty,” she said. “So I’ll tell you something else instead. You may be the most determined person I’ve ever known. For five years, you have kept everything and everyone in this house together in a way I wouldn’t have thought was possible.” She looked directly at him. “But this situation can’t hold. It’s like a fault line in the earth. It will break apart under pressure, and then what? What will you lose—what will we lose—when that happens?”

“What is this?” Mark asked, picking up Tavvy’s stuffed lemur, Mr. Limpet, and holding it gingerly by one foot. Mark was sitting on the floor of the computer room with Emma, Tavvy, and Dru. Dru had a book called Danse Macabre in one hand and was ignoring them. Tavvy was trying to get Mark, wet-haired and barefoot, to play with him.

Cristina hadn’t yet returned from changing out of training clothes. Ty and Livvy, meanwhile, were manning the desk—Ty was typing, and Livvy was sitting on the desk beside the keyboard, issuing orders and suggestions. Stanley Wells had turned out to have an unlisted address, and Emma strongly suspected that whatever they were doing to try to track it down was probably illegal.