She wasn't sure whether it was Mark or Kieran who caught her as she fell.
*
Rain clouds had replaced blue sky over London. Ty, Kit, and Livvy had decided to walk back from Hypatia's after picking up Magnus's ingredients, rather than wait in the fussy, damp line for the riverboat.
Kit was enjoying himself kicking his way through puddles on the Thames Path, which wound like a granite snake along the side of the river. They'd passed the Tower of London again, and Ty had pointed out Traitor's Gate, where condemned criminals had once entered the tower to have their heads chopped off.
Livvy had sighed. "I wish Dru was with us. She would have liked that. She's hardly come out of her room lately."
"I think she's afraid someone will make her babysit if she does," said Kit. He wasn't sure he had a clear impression of Dru yet--more a blurred sense of a round face, flushed cheeks, and a lot of black clothes. She had the Blackthorn eyes, but they were usually focused on something else.
"I think she's keeping a secret," Livvy said. They'd passed Millennium Bridge, a long iron line stretching across the river, and were nearing an older-looking bridge, painted a dented red and gray.
Ty was humming to himself, lost in thought. The river was the same color as his eyes today, a sort of steely-gray, touched with bits of silver. The white band of his headphones was around his neck, trapping his unruly black hair under it. He looked puzzled. "Why would she do that?"
"It's just a feeling I have," said Livvy. "I can't prove it . . . ." Her voice trailed off. She was squinting into the distance, her hand up to shield her face from the gray afternoon light. "What's that?"
Kit followed her glance and felt a coldness pass through him. Shapes were moving through the sky, a line of racing figures, silhouetted against the clouds. Three horses, clear as paper outlines, with three riders on their backs.
He looked around wildly. Mundanes were all around, paying little to no attention to the three teenagers in jeans and hooded raincoats hurrying along with their bags full of magic powders.
"The Wild Hunt?" Kit said. "But why--?"
"I don't think it's the Wild Hunt," said Livvy. "They ride at night. It's broad daylight." She put her hand to her side, where her seraph blades hung.
"I don't like this." Ty sounded breathless. The figures were incredibly close now, skimming the top of the bridge, angling downward. "They're coming toward us."
They turned, but it was too late. Kit felt a breeze ruffle his hair as the horses and their riders passed overhead. A moment later there was a clatter as the three landed in a neat pattern around Kit, Livvy, and Ty, cutting off their retreat.
The horses were a glimmering bronze in color, and their riders were bronze-skinned and bronze-haired, wearing half masks of gleaming metal. They were beautiful, bizarre and unearthly, entirely out of place in the shadows of the bridge as the water taxis skated by and the road above hummed with traffic.
They were clearly faeries, but nothing like the ones Kit had seen before in the Shadow Market. They were taller and bigger, and they were armed, despite the edicts of the Cold Peace. Each wore a massive sword at his waist.
"Nephilim," said one, in a voice that sounded like glaciers breaking apart. "I am Eochaid of the Seven Riders, and these are my brothers Etarlam and Karn. Where is the Black Volume?"
"The Black Volume?" Livvy echoed. The three of them had squeezed tighter against the wall of the path. Kit noticed people giving them odd glances as they passed by, and he knew they looked as if they were staring at nothing.
"Yes," said Etarlam. "Our King seeks it. You will give it up."
"We don't have it," said Ty. "And we don't know where it is."
Karn laughed. "You are but children, so we are inclined to be lenient," he said. "But understand this. The Riders of Mannan have done the bidding of the Unseelie King for a thousand years. In that time many have fallen to our blades, and we have spared none for any reason, not for age or weakness or infirmity of body. We will not spare you now." He leaned over the mane of his horse, and Kit saw for the first time that the horse had a shark's eyes, inky and flat and deadly. "Either you know where the Black Volume is, or you will make useful prisoners to tempt those who do. Which will it be, Shadowhunters?"
23
SKIES OF FIRE
"I win again." Jaime threw down his cards: all hearts. He grinned triumphantly at Dru. "Don't feel bad. Cristina used to say I had the devil's luck."
"Wouldn't the devil have bad luck?" Dru didn't mind losing to Jaime. He always seemed pleased, and she didn't care one way or the other.
He'd slept on the floor at the side of her bed the night before, and when she'd woken up, she'd rolled over and looked down at him, her chest full of happiness. Asleep, Jaime looked vulnerable, and more like his brother, though she thought now that he was better-looking than Diego.
Jaime was a secret, her secret. Something important she was doing, whether the others knew it or not. She knew he was on an important mission, something he couldn't talk much about; it was like having a spy in her room, or a superhero.
"I will miss you," he said frankly, linking his fingers together and stretching out his arms like a cat stretching in the sun. "This is the most fun, and the most rest, I have had in a long time."
"We can stay friends after this, right?" she said. "I mean, when you're done with your mission."
"I don't know when I'll be done." A shadow crossed his face. Jaime was much quicker of mood than his brother: He could be happy, then sad, then thoughtful, then laughing in a five-minute period. "It could be a long time." He looked at her sideways. "You may come to resent me. I've made you keep secrets from your family."
"They keep secrets from me," she said. "They think I'm too young to know anything."
Jaime frowned. Dru felt a little pinch of worry--they'd never discussed how old she was; why would they have? Usually, though, people thought she was at least seventeen. Her curves were bigger than other girls' her age, and Dru was used to boys staring at them.
So far Jaime hadn't stared, at least not the way other boys did, as if they had a right to her body. As if she ought to be grateful for the attention. And she'd discovered she desperately didn't want him to know she was only thirteen.
"Well, Julian does," she went on. "And Julian's pretty much in charge of everything. The thing is, when we were all younger, we were all just 'the kids.' But after my parents died, and Julian basically brought us all up, we split into groups. I got labeled 'younger' and Julian was suddenly older, like a parent."
"I know what that is like," he said. "Diego and I used to play like puppies when we were children. Then he grew up and decided he had to save the world and started ordering me around."
"Exactly," she said. "That's exactly right."
He reached down to pull his duffel bag onto the bed. "I can't stay much longer," he said. "But before I go--I have something for you."
He pulled a laptop computer out of the bag. Dru stared at him--he wasn't going to give her a laptop, was he? He flipped it open, a grin spreading across his face. It was a Peter Pan sort of grin, one that said that he would never be done with mischief. "I downloaded The House That Dripped Blood," he said. "I thought we could watch it together."
Dru clapped her hands together and scrambled up onto the mattress beside him. He scooted over, giving her plenty of room. She watched him as he tilted the screen toward them so they could both see. She could read the words that curled up his arm, though she didn't know what they meant. La sangre sin fuego hierve.
"And yes," he said, as the first images began to unroll across the screen. "I hope we will in the future be friends."
*
"Jules," Emma said, leaning against the wall of the church. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Doesn't there seem something kind of sacrilegious about burning down a church?"
"It's abandoned. Unhallowed." Julian pushed his jacket sleeves up. He was marking himself with a Strength rune, neatly and precisely, on the insid
e of his forearm. Behind him Emma could see the curve of the bay, the water dashing itself in blue curls against the shore.
"Still--we respect all religions. Every religion tithes to Shadowhunters. That's how we live. This seems--"
"Disrespectful?" Julian smiled with little humor. "Emma, you didn't see what I saw. What Malcolm did. He ripped apart the fabric of what made this church a hallowed place. He spilled blood, and then his blood was spilled. And when a church becomes a slaughterhouse like that, it's worse than if it was some other kind of building." He raked a hand through his hair. "Remember what Valentine did with the Mortal Sword? When he took it from the Silent City?"
Emma nodded. Everyone knew the story. It was part of Shadowhunter history. "He changed its alliance from seraphic to infernal. Changed it from good to evil."
"And this church has been changed too." He craned his head back to look up at the tower. "As sacrosanct a place as it once was, it's that unholy now. And demons will keep being attracted to it, and keep coming through, and they won't stay put here--they'll come to the village. They'll be a danger to the mundanes who live there. And to us."
"Tell me this isn't just you wanting to burn down a church because you want to make a statement."
Julian smiled at her blandly--the sort of smile that made everyone love him and trust him, that made him seem harmless. Forgettable even. But Emma saw through it to the razor blades beneath. "I don't think anyone wants to hear any statements I have to make."
Emma sighed. "It's a stone building. You can't just draw a Fire rune on it and expect it to go up like matches."
He looked at her levelly. "I remember what happened in the car," he said. "When you healed me. I know what a rune that's made when we draw on each other's energy can do."
"You want my help for this?"
Julian turned so he was facing the wall of the church, a gray sheet of granite, punctuated by boarded-up windows. Grass grew out of control around their feet, starred with dandelions. In the far distance Emma could hear the cries of children on the beach.
He reached out with his stele and drew on the stone of the wall. The rune flickered, tiny flames lapping at its edge. Fire. But the flames died down quickly, absorbed into the stone.
"Put your hands on me," Julian said.
"What?" Emma wasn't sure she'd heard him right.
"It would help if we were touching," he said in a matter-of-fact manner. "Put your hands on my back, maybe, or my shoulders."
Emma moved up behind him. He was taller than her; lifting her hands to his shoulders would mean stretching her body into an awkward position. This close to him, she could feel the expansion of his rib cage when he breathed, see the tiny freckles on the back of his neck where the wind had blown his hair sideways. The arc of broad shoulders into narrower waist and hips, the length of his legs.
She placed her hands on his waist, as if she were riding behind him on a motorcycle, under his jacket but on top of his T-shirt. His skin was warm through the cotton.
"All right," she said. Her breath moved his hair; a shiver went over his skin. She could feel it. She swallowed. "Go ahead."
She half-closed her eyes as the stele scratched against the wall. He smelled like cut grass, which wasn't surprising, considering he'd been rolling in it with the struggling piskie.
"Why wouldn't anyone want to hear them?" she asked.
"Hear what?" Julian reached up. His T-shirt rose, and Emma found her hands on bare skin, taut over oblique muscles. Her breath caught.
"Any statements you had to make about, you know, anything," Emma said, as his feet settled back onto the ground. Her hands were tangled in the fabric of his shirt now. She looked up to see a second Fire rune: This one was deeper, darker, and the flames at its edges shone brightly. The stone around it began to crack--
And the fire went out.
"It might not work," Emma said. Her heart was pounding. She wanted this to work, and at the same time she didn't. Their runes ought to be more powerful when created together; that was the case for all parabatai. But there was a limit to that power. Unless two parabatai were in love with each other. Jem had made it sound as if their power, then, could be almost infinite--that it might grow until it destroyed them.
Julian no longer loved her; she'd seen it in the way he'd kissed that faerie girl. Still, it would be hard to have to watch the proof.
But maybe it would be the best thing for her. She'd have to face reality sooner rather than later.
She slid her arms around Julian, clasping them together across his stomach. The act pressed her body up against his, her chest flush against his back. She felt him tense in surprise.
"Try one more time," she said. "Go slowly."
She heard his breathing quicken. His arm went up, and the stele began to scratch out another rune against the stone.
Instinctively, her hands moved up his chest. She heard the stele hitch and skip. Her palm settled over his heart. It was hammering, slamming against the inside of his rib cage.
Julian's heartbeat. The hundred thousand other times she had heard or felt it crashed into her like an express train. Six years old, she had fallen off a wall she was balanced on and Julian had caught her; they had fallen together, and she had heard his heartbeat. She remembered the pulse in his throat as he held the Mortal Sword in the Council Hall. Racing each other up the beach, putting her fingers to his wrist and counting the beats per minute of his heart afterward. The syncopated rhythm as their heartbeats matched during the parabatai ceremony. The sound of the roar of his blood when he carried her out of the ocean. The steady beat of his heart as she'd laid her head on his chest that night.
Her body shuddered with the force of memory, and she felt its strength pulse through her, and into Julian, driving the force of the rune like a whip up through his arm, his hand, the stele. Fire.
Julian drew in his breath sharply, dropping his stele; the tip was glowing red. He reeled back and Emma's hands fell away from him; she nearly stumbled, but he caught her, pulling her away from the building, into the churchyard. Both panting, they stared: The rune Julian had drawn on the wall of the church had seared its way straight through the stone. The boards over the windows cracked, and orange tongues of flame leaped out.
Julian looked at Emma. The fire sparkled and crackled in his eyes, more than a reflection. "We did that," he said, his voice rising. "We did that."
Emma stared back at him. She was clutching his arms, just above the elbows, muscle hard under her fingers. Jules seemed lit from within, burning with excitement. His skin was hot to the touch.
Their eyes met. And it was Julian, her Julian, no shutters down over his expression, nothing hidden, only the clear brilliance of his eyes and the heat in his gaze. Emma felt as if her heart was tearing apart her chest. She could hear the hard crackle of the flames all around them. Julian moved toward her, closer, splintering her awareness of the need to keep him distant, of anything else but him.
The sound of sirens echoed in Emma's ears, the howl of the fire brigade, hurtling toward the church. Julian drew away from her, only far enough to clasp her hand. They fled from the church just as the first of the fire engines arrived.
*
Mark didn't really know how they'd all gotten into the library. He vaguely remembered going to check on Tavvy--who was building an elaborate tower of blocks with Rafe and Max--and then to knock on Dru's door; she was in her room, and disinclined to come out, which seemed like a good situation. There was no reason to frighten her before it was necessary.
Still, Mark would have liked to see her. With Julian and Helen gone, and now Ty and Livvy somewhere in London, in danger, he felt like a house whose foundations had been ripped out from under it. He was desperately grateful that Dru and Tavvy were both safe, and also that at the moment, they didn't need him. He didn't know how Julian had done it all those years: how you were supposed to be strong for other people when you didn't know how to be strong for yourself. He knew it was faintly ridiculous for hi
m, an adult, to want the company of his thirteen-year-old sister to fortify his resolve, but there it was. And he was ashamed of it.
He was conscious of Cristina, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish to Magnus. Of Kieran, leaning on one of the tables, his head hanging down: His hair was a purple-black color, like the darkest part of water. Alec returning from the hallway with a pile of clothes in his hands. "These are Ty's, Livvy's, and Kit's," he said, handing them to Magnus. "I got them from their rooms."
Magnus looked over at Mark. "Still nothing on the phone?"
Mark tried to breathe deeply. He'd called Emma and Julian as well as sending texts, but there had been no reply. Cristina had said she'd heard from Emma while she was in the library, and they both seemed to be fine. Mark knew that Emma and Julian were smart and careful, and that there was no better warrior than Emma. Worry pinched at his heart just the same.
But he had to focus on Livvy and Ty and Kit. Kit had next to no training, and Livvy and Ty were so young. He knew he'd been the same age when he was taken by the Hunt, but they were children to him nonetheless.
"Nothing from Emma and Jules," he said. "I've tried Ty a dozen, two dozen times already. No answer." He swallowed back the dread. There were a million reasons Ty might not pick up his phone that didn't have to do with the Riders.
The Riders of Mannan. Even though he knew he was in the library of the London Institute, watching as Magnus Bane began passing his hands over the clothes, beginning the tracking spell, part of him was in Faerie, hearing the tales of the Riders, the murderous assassins of the Unseelie Court. They slept beneath a hill until they were wakened, usually in times of war. He'd heard them called the King's Hounds, for once they had a whiff of their prey, they could follow them across miles of sea, earth, and sky in order to take their lives.
The King must want the Black Volume very badly, to have brought his Riders into it. In old days, they had hunted giants and monsters. Now they were hunting the Blackthorns. Mark felt cold all over.
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