“These flames, this burning,” said Mark, who had appeared at Julian’s side. “In the Wild Hunt we practiced sky burial.”

Julian glanced at him. Mark was flushed, his pale curls disordered. His mourning runes had been applied with care and precision, though, which meant he hadn’t done them himself. They were beautiful and delicately done—Cristina’s work.

“We would leave bodies at the tops of glaciers or high trees, for the birds to pick clean,” Mark said.

“How about you not suggest that to anyone else at this funeral,” said Julian.

Mark winced. “I’m sorry, I don’t always know the right thing to say.”

“When in doubt, don’t say anything,” Julian said. “Literally, it’s better if you don’t talk at all.”

Mark gave him the same look Helen had before—half hurt and half surprise—but before he could say anything, Jia Penhallow, in ceremonial robes of dazzling snow white, began to speak.

“Fellow Shadowhunters,” she said, her rich voice carrying across the Imperishable Fields. “A great tragedy has come to us. One of our most faithful servants of the Clave, Robert Lightwood, was slain in the Council Hall, where our Law has always prevailed.”

“Good job not mentioning he was a traitor,” muttered someone in the crowd.

It was Zara. A hissing spurt of giggles erupted around her, like a teapot exploding. Her friends, Manuel Villalobos, Samantha Larkspear, and Jessica Beausejours, stood around her in a tight circle.

“I can’t believe they’re here.” It was Emma. Somehow she had come up beside Julian. He didn’t remember it happening, but reality seemed to be flickering in and out like a camera shutter opening and closing. She looked slightly taken aback when Julian didn’t reply, but she stalked off into the crowd, stiff-arming Gladstone out of the way.

“Also one of our youngest and most promising Shadowhunters was murdered, her blood spilled in front of us all,” said Jia as Emma reached Zara and her friends. Zara jumped back slightly, then tried to hide her loss of poise with a glare.

Emma wouldn’t care one way or another, Julian thought, about Zara’s poise. She was gesturing at Zara, and then at the Blackthorns and Ty, as Jia’s voice rang out over the meadow:

“We will not let these deaths go unpunished. We will not forget who was responsible. We are warriors, and we will fight, and fight back.”

Zara and her friends were looking mulish—all but Manuel, who was smiling a sideways smile that under other circumstances would have given Julian the creeps. Emma turned and walked away from them. Her expression was grim.

Still, Zara had stopped talking, which was something.

“They are gone,” said Jia. “The Nephilim have lost two great souls. Let Raziel bless them. Let Jonathan Shadowhunter honor them. Let David the Silent remember them. And let us commend their bodies to the necropolis, where they will serve forever.”

The Consul’s voice had softened. Everyone was looking toward her, even the children like Tavvy, Rafe, and Max, so everyone saw her expression change and darken. She spoke the next words as if they tasted bitter in her mouth.

“And now, our new Inquisitor wants to say a few words.”

Horace Dearborn stepped forward; Julian hadn’t noticed him until that moment. He wore a white mourning robe and a suitably grave expression, though there seemed to be a sneer behind it, like a shadow behind glass.

Zara was grinning openly, and more of her friends from the Scholomance had gathered near her. She gave her father a little wave, still grinning, and Manuel’s smirk spread until it covered most of his face.

Julian saw the nausea in Isabelle’s and Simon’s expressions, the horror on Emma’s face, the anger on Magnus’s and Alec’s.

He strained to feel what they felt, but he couldn’t. He felt nothing at all.

*

Horace Dearborn took a long moment to survey the crowd. Kit had gleaned enough from the others to know that Zara’s father was an even worse bigot than she was and that he’d been named the new Inquisitor by a majority of the Council, all of whom seemed more scared of the Unseelie Court and the threat of Downworlders than they were of investing a clearly evil man with power.

Not that Kit found any of this surprising. Just depressing.

Ty, beside him, didn’t seem to be looking at Horace at all. He was staring up at Livvy, or the little of her they could see—she was a scrap of white at the top of a tall pile of kindling wood. As he looked at his sister, he drew his right index finger across the back of his left hand, over and over; otherwise he was motionless.

“Today,” Horace said finally, “as the Consul says, may indeed be a day for grief.”

“Nice of him to acknowledge,” murmured Diana.

“However!” Horace’s voice rose, and he stabbed a finger out into the crowd, as if accusing them all of a terrible crime. “These deaths did not come from nowhere. There is no question who was responsible for these murders—though foolish Shadowhunters may have allowed them to occur, the hand of the Unseelie King and all faeries, and all Downworlders by connection, were behind this act!”

Why would that be? Kit thought. Horace reminded him of politicians shouting on TV, red-faced men who always seemed angry and always wanted you to know there was something you needed to be afraid of.

The idea that if the Unseelie King was responsible for Livvy’s and Robert’s deaths, all Downworlders were guilty, made no sense to Kit, but if he was hoping for a protest from the crowd, he was disappointed. The gathering was strangely quiet, but Kit didn’t get the sense that they were against Horace. Rather they seemed as if they felt it would be impolite to cheer. Magnus looked on with no expression at all, as if it had been wiped from his face with an eraser.

“Death serves as a reminder,” said Horace, and Kit glanced over at Julian, whose dark brown hair was blowing in the rising wind. Kit doubted this was a reminder Julian had needed. “A reminder that we have only one life and we must live it as warriors. A reminder that we have only one chance to make the correct choices. A reminder that the time is coming soon when all Shadowhunters will have to decide where they stand. Do they stand with traitors and Downworlder-lovers? Do they stand with those who would destroy our way of life and our very culture? Do they—young man, what are you doing? Get down from there!”

“Oh, by the Angel,” Diana whispered.

Ty was climbing up the side of his sister’s pyre. It didn’t look easy—the wood had been piled up for maximum-efficiency burning, not for clambering, but he was finding handholds and footholds anyway. He was already high enough off the ground that Kit felt a bolt of fear go through him at the thought of what would happen if one of the logs of wood came free and he fell.

Kit started after him without thinking, only to feel a hand close on his collar. He was jerked back by Diana. “No,” she said. “Not you.” Her face was set in grim lines.

Not you. Kit saw what she meant in a moment: Julian Blackthorn was already running, shoving past the Inquisitor—who squawked indignantly—and leaping for the pyre. He began to climb after his brother.

*

“Julian!” Emma called, but she doubted he could hear her. Everyone was shouting now—the Council guards, the mourners, the Consul and Inquisitor. Zara and her friends were hooting with laughter, pointing at Ty. He had nearly reached the top of the pyre and didn’t seem to hear anyone or anything around him: He was climbing with a dogged intensity. Julian, below him, climbing more carefully, couldn’t match his speed.

Only the Blackthorns were utterly silent. Emma tried to push forward, but Cristina held on to her wrist, shaking her head. “Don’t—it’s not safe, better not to distract Julian—”

Ty had reached the platform atop the pyre. He sat down there, perched beside his sister’s body.

Helen gave a little whimper in her throat. “Ty.”

There was no protection from the wind at the top of the pyre. Ty’s hair whipped around his face as he bent over Livvy. It looked as if he were touching her folded hands. Emma felt a wave of empathic sorrow like a punch to the gut, followed by another wave of anxiety.

Julian reached the platform beside Ty and Livvy. He knelt beside his brother. They looked like two pale chess pieces, only the color of their hair—Ty’s a little darker—differentiating them in color.

Emma felt her heartbeat in her throat. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, not to run to the pyre and climb it. Everything else but Julian and Ty seemed distant and far off, even when she heard Zara and her friends giggle that the Silent Brothers should light the pyre, should burn Ty and Julian along with Livvy if they wanted to be with her so badly.