“No one guessed you weren’t Oskar?” said Zara.

“Obviously not.” Annabel was studying her hands as if they were unfamiliar to her. “Their plan is simple to the point of rudimentary. Which could be seen as an advantage—less to go wrong.”

Horace leaned forward, arms resting on his desk. “Are you saying we should be worried?”

“No,” Annabel said, touching the etched glass vial at her throat thoughtfully. Red liquid swirled within it. “The element of surprise was their only advantage. Foolish of them to assume they would not be betrayed.” She sat back in her chair. “Let us begin with the basics. Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild are still alive. . . .”

*

Emma stood at the doorway of the Institute. The last of the Downworlders had gone, and they would all be leaving for Brocelind soon. Brother Shadrach had assured Julian and the others that all the guards in Idris had been recalled to the city for the parley. The forest would be deserted.

The afternoon sun glimmered on the sea, and distantly she wondered if, after today, she would ever see the Pacific Ocean again. Long ago her father had told her that the lights that danced on the surface of seawater came from glowing jewels beneath, and that if you reached under the surface, you could catch a jewel in your hand.

She held her hand out in front of her now, palm up, and thought of Jem’s words, and then of Diana’s.

Their runes began to burn like fire, as if they had fire in their veins instead of blood. Black lines spread over their bodies and they became monstrous—physically monstrous.

Across the inside of her forearm, where the skin had been pale and smooth, was a dark webbing of black lines, like cracks in marble, nearly the size of the palm of her hand.

PART THREE

Lady Vengeance

Her strong enchantments failing, Her towers of fear in wreck, Her limbecks dried of poisons And the knife at her neck, The Queen of air and darkness Begins to shrill and cry, “O young man, O my slayer, Tomorrow you shall die.”

O Queen of air and darkness, I think ’tis truth you say, And I shall die tomorrow; But you will die today.

—A. E. Housman, “Her Strong Enchantments Failing”

28

AND SHADOWS THERE

It was cool in Brocelind Forest; encroaching autumn added a cold metal bite to the air that Emma could taste on her tongue.

Quiet had come suddenly after the rush of Portal travel, the setting up of tents in a cleared space among the ancient trees and green earth. They were far from the blighted areas, Diana promised them—in the distance, over the tops of the trees, Emma could see the glimmer of the demon towers of Alicante.

She stood on a rise overlooking where they’d made camp. There were about a dozen tents, set up in rows, each with two torches burning in front of its flap door. They were cozy inside, with thick rugs on the floor and even blankets. Alec had given Magnus a sharp sideways look when they’d appeared out of nowhere.

“I did not steal them,” Magnus had said, looking studiously at his fingernails. “I borrowed them.”

“So you’ll be returning them to the camping store?” said Alec, hands on his hips.

“I actually got them from a warehouse that provides props for movies,” said Magnus. “It’ll be ages before anyone notices they’re gone. Not,” he added hastily, “that I won’t be returning them, of course. Everyone, try not to set your tents on fire! They’re not our property!”

“Does one normally set them on fire?” said Kieran, who had his own tent—Mark and Julian were sharing one, and Emma was sharing another with Cristina. “Is that a tradition?”

Mark and Cristina both smiled at him. The oddness going on with the three of them was growing more intense, Emma thought, and resolved to ask Cristina about it.

The opportunity came sooner than she’d thought it would. She’d been restless inside the tent alone—Cristina was helping Aline and Julian, who’d put themselves in charge of cooking dinner. Everyone was muttering around maps and plans, except Jace, who’d fallen conspicuously asleep with his head in Clary’s lap.

Emma couldn’t concentrate. Her body and mind hummed with energy. All she wanted was to talk to Julian. She knew she couldn’t, but the need to tell him everything was painful. She’d never made such a life-altering decision without telling him before.

She’d ended up throwing on a sweater and taking a walk around the perimeter of the camp. The air smelled so different here than it did at home—pine, green woods, campfire smoke. Inland, no scent of salt or sea. She climbed the small rocky rise over the camp and gazed down.

Tomorrow they would ride out to challenge Horace Dearborn and his Cohort. Very likely there would be a confrontation. And her parabatai, the one who always fought by her side, would be lost to her. One way or another.

The sun was setting, sparking off the distant shimmer of the demon towers. Emma could hear the night birds chirping in the woods nearby and tried not to think about what else was in the forest. She felt herself shivering—no, she was shaking. She felt disoriented, almost dizzy, and her cognitive process felt strangely diffuse, as if her mind were racing too fast for her to concentrate.

“Emma!” Cristina was walking up the rise toward her, her dark eyes full of concern. “I looked for you in the tent but you weren’t there. Are you all right? Or are you on watch?”

Pull yourself together, Emma. “I just thought someone should try to keep an eye on things, you know, in case a party of Cohort members decides to take a closer look at Brocelind.”

“So you’re on watch,” said Cristina.

“Maybe,” Emma said. “What’s going on with you and Kieran and Mark?”

“Ay ay!” Cristina sat down on a rock, knocking her forehead gently against her hand. “Really? Now?”

Emma sat down next to her friend. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She pointed her index finger at Cristina. “If we both die in battle tomorrow, though, we’ll never get to talk about it ever, and you’ll never get the benefit of my enormous wisdom.”

“Look at this crazy girl,” Cristina said, gesturing to an invisible audience. “All right, all right. What makes you think anything new is happening, anyway?”

“I see the way you all look at each other. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Emma said.

Cristina sobered immediately, her hand going to the angel medallion at her throat as it often did when she was nervous. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I love both of them. I love Mark and I love Kieran. I love them both in different ways, but with no less intensity.”

Emma spoke carefully. “Are they asking you to choose between them?”

Cristina looked off toward the sunset, stripes of gold and red above the trees. “No. No, they’re not asking me to choose.”

“I see,” said Emma, who was not sure she did see. “Then . . .”

“We decided it was impossible,” Cristina said. “Kieran, Mark, and I—we are all afraid. If we were together, the way we want to be, we would bring misery on those we love.”

“Misery? Why?” Emma’s hands were shaking again; she shoved them between her knees so Cristina wouldn’t see.

“Kieran fears for Faerie,” Cristina said. “After so many terrible Kings, after so much cruelty, he wishes to go back and take up a place in the Court and see to the welfare of his people. He cannot turn away from that, and neither Mark nor I would want him to. But for us—we cannot know the future. Even if the Cohort is gone, it does not mean the end of the Cold Peace. Mark is afraid for Helen, for all the Blackthorns, that if he were involved with a prince of Faerie and everyone knew it, his family would be punished. I fear the same for my family. So it would never work. Do you understand?”

Emma twirled a piece of grass between her fingers. “I would never judge you,” she said. “First because it’s you, and second because I hardly have the right to judge anyone. But I think you’re letting your fear get in the way of what you really want because what you really want is what you’re afraid of.”

Cristina blinked. “What do you mean?”

“From the outside, here’s what I see,” said Emma. “When Mark and Kieran are alone together, they get pulled into their difficult past. It consumes them. When Mark and you are together, he worries that he isn’t good enough for you, no matter what you say. And when Kieran and you are together, sometimes you can’t bridge the gulf between Shadowhunter understanding and faerie understanding. Mark helps you bridge that gulf.” The sun was nearly down, the sky a deep blue, Cristina’s expression lost in shadow. “Does that seem wrong?”