“That water is eldritch magic,” Kieran said. He was leaning heavily against Diego’s side as they made their way as quickly as possible down the corridors of the Scholomance. Divya and Rayan had remained behind at the doors of the Hollow Place, to keep the Cohort from chasing after Kieran and Diego. “I heard them laugh about it, as they dragged me down the halls, blindfolded.” There was a haughty bitterness in his voice, still the tones of a prince. Beneath it was a layer of rage and shame. “I did not believe they knew of what they spoke, but they did.”

“I am sorry,” Diego said. He put a hand on the faerie prince’s shoulder, tentatively. It seemed as if he could feel Kieran’s heartbeat thrumming even through bone and muscle. “I was meant to protect you. I failed.”

“You did not fail,” Kieran said. “If it were not for you, I would have died.” He sounded uncomfortable. Faeries weren’t fond of apologies or debts. “We cannot go back to your room,” Kieran added as they turned another corner. “They will look for us there.”

“We have to hide,” said Diego. “Somewhere we can get you bandaged up. There are dozens of empty rooms—”

Kieran pulled away. He was walking like a drunk, unsteadily. “Bandages are for those who deserve to heal,” he said.

Diego looked at him, worried. “Is the pain bad?”

“It is not my pain,” said Kieran.

A scream echoed down the halls. A tortured female scream, abruptly cut off.

“The girl who fell in the waters,” said Kieran. “I tried to reach her sooner—”

Samantha. Diego might not have liked her, but no one deserved pain that would make you scream like that.

“Maybe we should get out of the Scholomance,” said Diego. The main entrance was through the side of the mountain but was always guarded. There were other ways out, though—even a glass corridor that snaked through the waters of the lake to the other side.

Kieran raised his chin. “Someone is coming.”

Diego reached for Kieran with one hand and his dagger with the other, then froze as he recognized the figure in front of him. Black hair, set jaw, scowling eyebrows, eyes fixed on Kieran.

Martin Gladstone.

“You won’t be leaving the Scholomance,” Gladstone said. “Not any time soon.”

“You don’t understand,” said Diego. “The others—Zara’s group—they tried to kill Kieran—”

Gladstone raked contemptuous eyes over Diego and his companion. “So you really had the gall to bring him here,” he said, clearly meaning Kieran. “The faerie is a member of an enemy army. A high-ranking one at that.”

“He was going to testify against the Unseelie King!” said Diego. “He was going to risk himself—risk the King’s anger—to help Shadowhunters!”

“He never quite got that chance, did he,” sneered Gladstone. “So we don’t know what he would have done.”

“I would have testified,” said Kieran, leaning against the wall. “I bear my father no love.”

“Faeries can’t lie,” said Diego. “Can you not listen?”

“They can trick and deceive and manipulate. How did he get you to aid him, Diego Rocio Rosales?”

“He did not ‘get’ me to do anything,” said Diego. “I know who I trust. And if you kill Kieran, or let those bastards hurt him, you will be breaking the Accords.”

“Interesting escalation,” said Gladstone. “I have no intention of killing or harming Kingson. Instead you will be sequestered in the library until the Inquisitor can arrive and deal with you both.”

*

Emma and Julian had been walking for some hours when Emma realized that they were being followed.

It had actually been a fairly pleasant walk along a tramped path in the woods. Julian was easy enough to talk to when Emma tried not to think about the spell, or how he felt about her, or about how he felt, period. They avoided the topics of Livvy and the parabatai curse, and talked instead about the Clave and what its next plans might be, and how Zara might figure into them. Julian walked ahead, holding the map, consulting it when enough light rayed down through the trees to make the map readable.

“We could reach the Unseelie Court by tomorrow morning,” he said, pausing in the middle of a clearing. Blue and green flowers nodded in patches on the forest floor, and the sunlight turned the leaves to green veils. “Depending on how much we’re willing to travel at night—”

Emma stopped in her tracks. “We’re being followed,” she said.

Julian stopped as well and turned to her, folding the map into his pocket. “You’re sure?”

His voice was quiet. Emma strained to hear what she’d heard before: the tiny breakage of branches behind them, the thump of a footfall. “I’m sure.”

There was no doubt in Julian’s eyes; Emma felt a faint gratification that even in his current enchanted state, he trusted her skills implicitly. “We can’t run,” he said—he was right; the trail was too rocky and the undergrowth too thick for them to be sure they’d outrun a pursuer.

“Come on.” Emma grabbed Julian’s hand; a moment later they were skinning up the trunk of the tallest of the oak trees surrounding the clearing. Emma found the fork of a branch and settled into it; a second later, Julian swung up onto a branch across from hers. They clung to the tree trunk and looked down.

The footfalls were getting closer. Hoofbeats, Emma realized, and then a kelpie—dark green, with a mane of shimmering seaweed—strode into the clearing, a rider on its back.

Emma sucked in her breath. The rider was a man, wearing Shadowhunter gear.

She leaned down, eager to see more. Not a man, she realized, a boy—whippet thin and narrow-faced, with a shock of black hair.

“Dane Larkspear on a kelpie,” Julian muttered. “What is this?”

“If I see Zara come up riding the Loch Ness monster, we’re going home,” Emma hissed back.

The kelpie had stopped dead in the middle of the clearing. It was rolling its eyes—deep black with no whites. Closer up, it looked less like a horse, even though it had a mane and tail and four legs, and more like a frightening creature, something that had never been meant to be out of the water.

“Hurry up.” Dane jerked on the kelpie’s bridle and a memory flickered in the back of Emma’s mind—something about how bridling a kelpie forced it to obey you. She wondered how Dane had managed it. “We need to find Blackthorn and Carstairs’s trail before nightfall or we’ll lose them.”

The kelpie spoke. Emma jolted. Its voice sounded like the grinding of waves against rock. “I do not know these creatures, Master. I do not know what they look like.”

“It doesn’t matter! Pick up their trail!” Dane smacked the kelpie across the shoulder and sat back, glowering. “Okay, I’ll describe them for you. Julian’s the kind of guy who would have a girl as a parabatai. Get it?”

“No,” said the kelpie.

“Spends all his time chasing little kids around. Has like a million children and he acts like he’s their dad. It’s creepy. Now, Emma, she’s the kind of girl who’d be hot if she ever shut up.”

“I’ll kill him,” Emma muttered. “I’ll kill him while talking the whole time.”

“I don’t understand human attitudes toward beauty,” said the kelpie. “I like a fine sheen of seaweed on a woman.”

“Shut up.” Dane jerked the bridle and the kelpie exposed needlelike teeth in a hiss. “We need to find them before the sun goes down.” His smile was ugly. “Once I get back with the Black Volume, Horace will give me anything I want. Maybe Julian Blackthorn’s last sister to play with. Dru whatsit. Best tits in the family.”

Emma was out of the tree so fast that the world was a blur of green leaves and red rage. She landed on Dane Larkspear and knocked him clear of his saddle, forcing a gasp of pain from him when they hit the ground together. She punched him hard in the stomach and he doubled up while she sprang to her feet. She grabbed for her sword; for a moment she had been worried Julian wouldn’t have followed her but he was already on the ground, yanking off the kelpie’s bridle.

“My lord!” The kelpie bowed its forelegs to Julian. Dane was coughing and gagging, rolling on the ground in pain. “Thank you for freeing me.”

“Don’t mention it.” Julian tossed the bridle aside, and the kelpie dashed into the forest.

Emma was still standing over Dane with her sword pointed at his throat, where something gold flashed. Lying flat on the ground, he glared at her.

“What are you doing here, Larkspear?” she demanded. “We were sent to get the Black Volume, not you.”

“Get away from me.” Dane turned his head and spit blood. He wiped his mouth, leaving a red smear on his hand. “If you hurt me at all, the Dearborns will have your Marks stripped.”

“So what?” Emma said. “We don’t even have the Black Volume. So you just wasted your time following us, Dane. Which, by the way, you suck at. You sounded like an elephant. A sexist elephant. You’re a terrible Shadowhunter.”

“I know you don’t have it,” Dane said in disgust. “But you will. You’ll find it. And when you do—”

Dane broke off.

“What?” Emma’s voice dripped scorn. “Am I talking too much?”

Emma suddenly realized Dane wasn’t staring at her but behind her; Julian had come up and was standing with his longsword in his hand, gazing at Dane with a frightening coldness. “You do know,” he said quietly, “that if you ever touched Dru, I would kill you?”

Dane pushed himself up on his elbows. “You think you’re so special,” he hissed in a thin, whining voice. “You think you’re so great—you think your sister’s too good for me—”