“Is it poison?” Julian sounded curious as he fastened the chain around his throat. The vial fell against his chest.

“No—it will make you invisible to Unseelie faeries, at least for a time. I don’t know how long the magic lasts. I have never had cause to use it.”

A squawking goblin with a piece of parchment and a massive quill pen was running along the side of the procession, marking off names. He cast a quick glance at Emma and Julian. “Lady Nene, Lord Fergus,” he said. “We are about to depart.”

“We?” said Julian in a bored voice. Emma blinked, astonished by how much he sounded like a faerie. “Are you accompanying us, goblin? Would you enjoy a holiday in the Court of Unseelie?”

The goblin squinted. “Are you well, Lord Fergus? You sound different.”

“Perhaps because I pine for goblin heads to decorate my bower,” said Julian. “Off with you.” He aimed a kick at the goblin, who made a hissing sound of fright and skittered away from them, hurrying down the line.

“Be careful what masks you wear, child,” Nene said, “lest you lose your true face forever.”

“False or true, it is all the same,” said Julian, and picked up the reins as the procession began to move forward into the night.

*

Before Kit could answer Ty, a commotion in the library drew them out from behind the shelves.

Dru had returned to the library and was hanging back by the door, looking shy but smiling. A good-looking dark-eyed boy who resembled a narrower version of Diego Rocio Rosales was hugging Cristina. Mark and Kieran were both looking at him with uneasy expressions. As soon as Cristina let him go, Helen strode over to shake his hand. “Welcome to the Los Angeles Institute, Jaime,” she said. “Thanks so much for coming on such short notice.”

“Jaime Rocio Rosales,” said Ty to Kit, under his breath.

“I found him on the beach and brought him straight up,” Dru said proudly.

Helen looked puzzled. “But how did you recognize him?”

Dru exchanged a look with Jaime, part panic and part resignation.

“He stayed with me for a few days when we were at the London Institute,” Dru said.

Everyone looked astonished, though Kit wasn’t exactly sure why. The relationships between different Shadowhunter families were endlessly confusing: some, like Emma, Jace, and Clary, were treated almost like Blackthorn family; some weren’t. He had to hand it to Dru, though, for managing to conceal the fact she had someone in her room in London from everyone else. It indicated a talent for deception. Along with her lock-picking skills, she definitely had a criminal bent he admired.

“You mean he was in your room?” Mark demanded incredulously. He turned to Jaime, who had backed up against one of the long tables. “She’s only thirteen!”

Jaime looked incredulous. “I thought she had to be at least sixteen—”

Helen sucked in her breath. Mark handed his pack to Kieran, who took it, looking baffled. “Stay where you are, Jaime Rosales.”

“Why?” said Jaime suspiciously.

Mark advanced. “So I can rain blows down upon you.”

Like an acrobat, Jaime flipped himself backward, landing squarely atop the table. He glared down at Mark. “I don’t know what you think happened, but nothing did. Dru is my friend, whatever her age. That is all.”

Ty turned to whisper in Kit’s ear. “I don’t get it—why is Mark angry?”

Kit thought about it. It was one of the great things about Ty, actually—he made you consider the threads of subconscious logic that wove beneath the surface of ordinary conversations. The suppositions and assumptions people made without ever considering why, the implications of certain words and gestures. Kit didn’t think he’d take those things for granted again. “You know how knights in stories defend a lady’s honor?” he whispered. “Mark thinks he has to defend Drusilla’s honor.”

“That table is going to break,” Ty said.

He was right. The legs of the table Jaime was standing on were wobbling dangerously.

Dru leaped in between Mark and Jaime, arms spread wide. “Stop,” she said fiercely. “I didn’t tell Jaime how old I was because he was my friend. He listened to me and he watched horror movies with me and he acted like what I said was important and I didn’t want him to treat me like a little kid.”

“But you are only a child,” Mark said. “He should not treat you as an adult.”

“He treated me like a friend,” said Dru. “I might be young, but I’m not a liar.”

“She is telling you that you have to trust her, Mark,” said Kieran. He rarely said much around the Blackthorns; Kit was surprised, but couldn’t disagree.

Cristina stepped around Mark and moved to stand next to Dru. They couldn’t have looked more different—Cristina in her white dress, Dru in overalls and a black T-shirt—but they wore identical stubborn expressions.

“Mark,” said Cristina. “I understand you feel you have not been here to protect your family for so many years. But that does not mean mistrusting them now. Nor would Jaime hurt Dru.”

The door of the library opened; it was Aline. No one but Kit watched as she crossed the room and whispered in Helen’s ear. No one but Kit saw Helen’s expression change, her lips whiten.

“Dru is like a little sister to me,” said Jaime, and Dru winced almost imperceptibly.

Mark turned to Dru. “I’m sorry, sister. I should have listened to you.” He looked up at Jaime, and his eyes flashed. “I believe you, Jaime Rocio Rosales. But I can’t speak for what Julian will do when he finds out.”

“You guys are really incentivizing me to let you use the Eternidad to get to Faerie,” said Jaime.

“Stop bickering.” Helen’s voice rang out. “Earlier I sent word to my aunt Nene in the Seelie Court. She just returned my message. She said that Emma and Julian were there—but they’ve gone. They just set forth from the Seelie Court to the Unseelie Court.”

Kieran’s eyes darkened. Cristina said, “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “But it means that we have a specific location where we know they’ll be.”

Kieran touched the sword at his waist. “I know a place along the road that leads between Seelie and Unseelie where we can waylay them. But once they pass it, we may be too late. If we are going to go, we should go now.”

Jaime leaped down off the table with the lightness of a cat. “I’ll get the heirloom.” He began to rummage through his pack. “Cristina, only you can use it, because whoever uses it must have Rosales blood.”

Cristina and Jaime exchanged a significant look, indecipherable to Kit.

“You can use it to get to Faerie, and also back,” said Jaime. “Your passage in and out of the Lands will be undetectable. But it cannot protect you while you are there.” He handed something to Cristina; Kit could only catch a glimpse of it. It looked like smooth wood, twisted into an odd shape.

Kieran and Mark were strapping their packs on. Dru had gone over to Helen, who looked as if she’d like to put an arm around her younger sister, but Dru wasn’t standing close enough for that.

Something about the sight of them made Kit put his hand on Ty’s shoulder. He was aware of the warmth of the other boy’s skin through his T-shirt. Ty glanced at him sideways. “You better go say good-bye, or good trip,” Kit said awkwardly.

Ty hesitated a moment, and then went, Kit’s hand sliding off his shoulder as if Ty had never noticed it there. Kit hung back during the good-byes, the tearful hugs, the whispered promises, the ruffling of hair. Helen held fiercely to Mark as if she never wanted to let him go, while Aline went to get Tavvy, who was playing in his room.

Jaime hung back too, though he did watch Kit out of the corner of his eye, with a curious look, as if to say, Who is that guy?

When Aline came back, Tavvy dutifully hugged everyone who was leaving—even Kieran, who looked startled and touched. He dropped his hand to touch Tavvy’s hair lightly. “Worry not, little one.”

And then it was time for Ty and Mark to say farewell, and Mark touched Ty lightly on each cheek, once—a faerie good-bye.

“Don’t die,” Ty said.

Mark’s smile looked painful. “I won’t.”

Helen reached for Ty, and the small group of remaining Blackthorns gathered as Cristina held the Eternidad against her chest. It was definitely a piece of polished wood, Kit saw now, twisted somehow into the infinity symbol—no beginning and no end.

“Gather together, all of you who are going to Faerie,” said Jaime. “You must be touching each other.”

Mark and Kieran each put a hand on one of Cristina’s shoulders. She looked quite small between them. Mark rubbed the back of her neck with his thumb: a soothing, almost absent gesture; the intimacy of it startled Kit.

Jaime seemed to notice it as well; his gaze sharpened. But all he said was, “You must tell the artifact where to take you. You don’t want to let it choose.”

Kieran turned to Cristina. “We go to Bram’s Crossroads.”