“I hate her,” Julian said, before he could stop himself. He saw Livvy’s eyes widen and forced himself to go on more calmly. “But I trust her feelings for Ash are real. He has a certain influence over people.”

“That’s interesting.” Livvy’s gaze was slightly unfocused. “Dru saw him a couple years ago. At an execution, like the one you saw on the beach. She kept talking about him afterward, about how he didn’t seem like he really wanted to be there.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Did you—if you go through the Portal, do you still want me to come with you?”

“Of course I do,” Julian said. “It’s part of the reason I didn’t turn Annabel down. I want to get you out of here.”

Livvy bit her lip. “What about the me that exists in your world? Won’t that get confusing?”

Julian said nothing; he had expected this, and yet he still had no answer. He watched her face change, settling into lines of certainty and resignation, and felt a piece of his heart wither.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Livvy’s voice was steady. “I’m dead in your world. I can tell by the way you look at me.”

“Yeah.” Julian was shivering as if he were cold, though the air was hot and still. “It was my fault, Livs. You—”

“Don’t.” She stood up and crossed the room to him, placing her hands flat against his chest as if she meant to push him. “You didn’t do anything to hurt me, Jules. I know you too well for you to convince me of that. You forget, in this world, you sacrificed yourself for me.” Her Blackthorn eyes were wide and shimmering and tearless. “I’m sorry we lost each other in your world. I’d like to think somewhere we’re intact. All of us together.” She took a step back from him. “Let me show you something.”

His throat was too raw for him to speak. He watched as she turned around, her back to him, and pulled off her sweatshirt. Under it she wore a white tank top. It did nothing to hide the massive tattoo that stretched across her back like wings: a mourning rune, spreading from the base of her neck to the middle of her spine, its edges touching her shoulders.

His voice cracked. “For Ty.”

She bent down and retrieved her sweatshirt, pulling it back on to hide the rune. When she turned back to look at him, her eyes were glittering. “For all of you,” she said.

“Come back home with me,” Julian whispered. “Livvy—”

She sighed. “I can tell you want my permission to make this deal with the necromancer, Jules. I can tell you think it would make this an easier and better choice. But I can’t do that.” She shook her head. “In Thule, terrible choices are all we have. This one is yours to make.”

*

At the weapons supply closet, Emma waded in happily; she’d never been that interested in guns—they didn’t work on demons, so Shadowhunters didn’t use them—but there were plenty of other items of localized destruction. She thrust a handful of throwing knives through her belt and headed for a table of daggers.

Diana leaned against the wall and watched her with weary amusement. “In your world,” she said, “you were parabatai?”

Emma paused, a blade in her hand. “We were.”

“I wouldn’t mention that too much if I were you,” said Diana. “People here don’t really like to think about parabatai.”

“Why not?”

Diana sighed. “As Sebastian gained control of the world, and it became darker and more desperate, parabatai changed. It happened overnight, unlike the change of the warlocks. One day the world awoke to find that those who were parabatai had become monsters.”

Emma almost dropped the knife. “They became evil?”

“Monsters,” repeated Diana. “Their runes began to burn like fire, as if they had fire in their veins instead of blood. People said that the blades of those who fought them shattered in their hands. Black lines spread over their bodies and they became monstrous—physically monstrous. I never saw it happen, mind you—I heard this all thirdhand. Stories about ruthless, massive shining creatures, tearing cities apart. Sebastian had to release thousands of demons to take them down. A lot of mundanes and Shadowhunters died.”

“But why would that happen?” Emma whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

“Probably the same reason the warlocks turned into demons. The world turning twisted and demonic. No one knows, really.”

“Are you worried that’ll happen to us?” Emma asked. She was blindly picking up more weapons, not really looking at what she was taking anymore. “That we could change here?”

“No chance of that,” Diana said. “Once the angelic magic had stopped working completely, the few parabatai who’d survived were fine. Their bonds broke and they didn’t change.”

Emma nodded. “I can feel that my bond with Julian is broken here.”

“Yeah. There are no more Shadowhunters, so there are no more parabatai. Still, like I said, I wouldn’t mention it to people. Your runes will end up fading soon enough. You know. If you stay here.”

“If we stay here,” Emma echoed, a little faintly. Her head was spinning. “Right. I think I should go back now. Julian might be wondering where I am.”

*

“I see you’ve been decorating,” Julian said when he came into the bedroom. He looked tired but alert, his chocolate-brown hair still tousled from the bike ride.

Emma glanced around—she’d liberated a startling number of weapons from the supply closet downstairs. There was a pile of daggers and throwing knives in one corner, one of swords in another, and another of LAPD-issue guns: Glocks and Berettas, mostly. “Thanks,” she said. “The theme is Stuff That Can Kill You.”

Julian laughed and went into the bathroom; she heard the sink water running as he brushed his teeth. She’d borrowed one of the men’s button-down shirts they’d given Julian and was wearing it like a nightshirt over her underwear: not, she thought, the sexiest of all pajama options, but it was comfortable.

Emma curled her legs up under her and resisted the urge to ask Julian if he was all right. After she’d gotten back from her expedition with Diana, she’d waited for Julian with growing anxiety. This was a world that could hurt them in a lot of ways. They could be slaughtered by demons or hunted down by Endarkened. And if they’d arrived earlier, apparently, they could have turned into monsters and destroyed a city.

There is a corruption at the heart of the bond of parabatai. A poison. A darkness in it that mirrors its goodness. There is a reason parabatai cannot fall in love, and it is monstrous beyond all you could imagine.

She shook her head. She wouldn’t listen to the lying words of the Queen. Everything in Thule was twisted and monstrous—of course the parabatai bond would not have been spared.

More real and dangerous was the shadow of heartbreak around every corner. She knew how badly Julian wanted this Livvy to come back to their world with them, but she had seen Livvy’s expression when he’d asked, and she wondered.

When he came back to the bedroom, his hair and T-shirt were damp, and he looked slightly more awake. She guessed he’d splashed water on his face. “Did they have crossbows?” he asked, examining the pile of swords. He picked one up and examined it, the blade refracting light as he turned it this way and that.

Butterflies fluttered in Emma’s stomach. Only a few, but there was something about watching Julian be a Shadowhunter, be the warrior she had watched him grow into. The muscles moved smoothly in his arm and shoulder as he manipulated the blade and set it back down again, a considering look on his face.

Emma hoped her cheeks weren’t pink. “I got you one. It’s in the wardrobe.”

He went to check. “If we make it to the Silent City without any Endarkened or demons noticing, we might not have to use any of these.”

“Diana always said the best weapons were kept in great shape for use but never needed to be used,” said Emma. “Of course I never really knew what she was talking about.”

“Obviously.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Emma, I need to tell you something.”

She pushed herself upright against the headboard of the bed. Her heart skipped a beat, but she tried to keep her expression calm and welcoming. Julian wasn’t great at opening up even when he had emotions; still, she’d missed their sharing of each other’s secrets and burdens more than anything else when he’d been under the spell.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t tell Livvy about Tessa asking us to kill Sebastian,” he said.

“Sure,” Emma said. “If we can’t get into the Silent City and get the Mortal Instruments, it’ll never matter anyway. Why freak her out early?”

“But I did tell her that if we got the Sword and the Cup, we’d bring them back with us. To protect them.”

Emma waited. She wasn’t sure where Julian was going with this.

“When we were in the Seelie Court,” Julian said, “just this last time—when I talked to the Queen—she told me how it would be possible to break all parabatai bonds at once.”