You have slain an ancient and primitive thing, her gaze seemed to say. Be prepared for a vengeance just as ancient. Just as primitive.
*
"Run," Livvy said.
It was the last thing Kit had expected. Shadowhunters didn't run. That was what he'd always been told. But Livvy took off like a bullet out of a gun, flashing past the Rider on the path in front of her, and Ty followed.
Kit ran after them. They tore past the faeries and into the throng of pedestrians on the Thames Path. Kit pulled alongside Livvy and Ty, though he was breathing hard and they weren't.
He could hear thunder behind him. Hoofbeats. We can't outrun them, he thought, but he didn't have the breath to say it. The leaden gray air felt heavy as he pulled it into his lungs. Livvy's dark hair streamed on the wind as she flung herself over a gate set into the railing separating the path from the river.
For a moment she seemed to hang suspended in the air, her arms upraised, her coat flapping--and then she soared straight down, vanishing out of sight. And Ty followed her, vaulting sideways over the gate, disappearing as he fell.
Into the river? Kit thought hazily, but he didn't pause; his muscles were already beginning the now-familiar burning, his mind tightening and focusing. He grabbed hold of the top of the gate and pushed himself up and over it.
He fell only a few feet to land in a crouch on a cement platform that stretched out into the Thames, surrounded by a low iron railing that was broken in several places. Ty and Livvy were already there, jackets yanked off to free their arms, seraph blades in hand. Livvy tossed a shortsword toward Kit as he straightened up, realizing why she'd run--not to get away, but to clear them some space to fight.
And hopefully to contact the Institute. Ty had his phone out in his hand, was thumbing at the keypad even as he raised his seraph blade, its light bursting dully against the clouds.
Kit turned just as the three Riders sailed over the gate to join them, flashing bronze and gold as they landed. Their swords whipped free with blinding speed.
"Stop him!" snarled Karn, and his two brothers launched themselves at Ty.
Livvy and Kit moved as one to throw themselves in front of Tiberius. The cold, hard blur of fighting was on Kit, but the Riders were faster than demons, and stronger, too. Kit whipped his shortsword toward Eochaid, but the faerie was no longer there: He'd leaped all the way to the far side of the platform. He laughed at the expression on Kit's face, even as Etarlam slashed out with a blow that knocked the phone out of Ty's hand. It skittered across the concrete and splashed into the river.
A shadow fell over Kit. He responded instantaneously, driving upward with his shortsword. He heard a gasp, and Karn fell back, dark drops of blood spattering on the ground at his feet. Kit flung himself up and forward, lunging for Eochaid, but Livvy and Ty were ahead of him, blurs of light as their seraph blades cut the air around the Riders.
But only the air. Kit couldn't help but notice that the angel blades didn't seem to be cutting through the Riders' armor, or even slicing their skin as he'd managed to do with his shortsword. There was puzzlement on Ty's face, rage on Livvy's as she stabbed at Eochaid's heart with her seraph blade.
The weapon snapped off at the hilt, the force of the rebound sending her staggering back almost into the river. Ty whipped around as he looked after her--Eochaid raised his sword and brought it down in a sweeping arc toward Ty--and Kit lunged across the platform, knocking Tiberius flat.
Ty's blade went flying, splashing down into the Thames, sending up a flurry of fiery droplets. Kit had landed half across Ty, banging his head hard on a jutting piece of wood; he felt Ty try to shove him off, and rolled over to see Eochaid standing over them both.
Livvy had engaged the other two Riders, was fighting them desperately, a whirl of flashing weaponry. But she was on the other side of the platform. Kit fought to get his breath back, raised his sword--
Eochaid stood arrested, his eyes glittering behind the holes of his mask. The irises, too, were bronze-colored. "I know you," he said. "I know your face."
Kit gaped at him. A second later, Eochaid was raising his sword, mouth twisting into a grin--and a shadow fell over them all. The Rider looked up, astonishment crossing his face as a burly arm reached down from above and seized hold of him. A second later he was flying up into the air, yelling. Kit heard a splash; the Rider had been tossed into the river.
Kit struggled to sit up, Ty beside him. Livvy had turned to face them, her mouth open; both the Riders were similarly agape, their swords dangling by their sides as a thunderous, whirling mass landed in the center of the platform.
It was a horse, and on the horse's back was Gwyn, massive in his helmet and bark-like armor. It was his gauntleted arm that had flung Eochaid into the river--but now the Rider had swum back to the platform and was climbing onto it, his movements slowed by his heavy armor.
Clinging to the man's waist was Diana, her dark hair a mass of curls pulling free of their restraints, her eyes wide.
Ty got to his feet. Kit scrambled up after him. There was some blood staining the collar of Ty's hoodie; Kit realized he didn't know if it was Ty's or his own.
"Riders!" Gwyn said, in a thunderous voice. There was a wide cut across his arm where Eochaid must have gotten in a blow. "Stop."
Diana slid from the horse's back and stalked across the concrete platform to where Eochaid was clambering out of the water. She unhitched her sword from its scabbard, spun it, and pointed it directly at his chest. "Don't move," she said.
The Rider subsided, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
"This is none of your concern, Gwyn," said Karn. "This is Unseelie business."
"The Wild Hunt bends to no law," said Gwyn. "Our will is the wind's will. And my will now is to send you away from these children. They are under my protection."
"They are Nephilim," spat Etarlam. "The architects of the Cold Peace, vicious and cruel."
"You are no better," said Gwyn. "You are the King's hunting dogs, and never have you shown any mercy."
Karn and Etarlam stared at Gwyn. Eochaid, kneeling, dripped on the concrete. The moment stretched out like rubber, seemingly extending forever.
Eochaid shot suddenly to his feet with a gasp, seemingly heedless of Diana's sword, tracking him unerringly as he moved. "Fal," he said. "He is dead."
"That is impossible," said Karn. "Impossible. A Rider cannot die."
But Etarlam let out a loud, keening cry, his sword falling to the ground as his hand flew to cover his heart. "He is gone," he wailed. "I feel it. Our brother is gone."
"A Rider has passed into the Shadow Lands," said Gwyn. "Would you like me to sound the horn for him?"
Though Gwyn had sounded sincere enough to Kit, Eochaid snarled and made as if to lunge for the Hunter, but Diana's sword kissed his throat as he moved, drawing blood. Thick, dark drops ran down her blade.
"Enough!" said Karn. "Gwyn, you will pay for this treachery. Etar, Eochaid, to my side. We go to our brothers and sister."
Diana lowered her sword as Eochaid shouldered past her, joining the other two Riders. They leaped from the platform into the air, long soaring leaps that took them high above, where they caught the manes of their gleaming bronze horses and swung themselves up to ride.
As they hurtled past above the water, Eochaid's voice echoed in Kit's ringing ears.
I know you. I know your face.
*
Emma was shaking by the time they got back into the cottage. A combination of cold and reaction had set in. Her hair and clothes were plastered to her, and she suspected she looked like a drowned rat.
She propped Cortana against the wall and began wearily to shuck off her drenched jacket and shoes. She was aware of Julian locking the door behind them, aware of the sounds of him moving around the room. Warmth, too. He must have built up the fire earlier.
A moment later something soft was being pressed into her hands. Julian stood in front of her, his expression unreadable, offering a slightly worn bath
towel. She took it and began to dry off her hair.
Jules was still wearing his damp clothes, though he was barefoot and he'd thrown on a dry sweater. Water gleamed at the edges of his hair, the tips of his eyelashes.
She thought of the clang of swords on swords, the beauty of the turmoil of the battle, the sea and sky. She wondered if that was how Mark had felt in the Wild Hunt. When there was nothing between you and the elements, it was easy to forget what weighed you down.
She thought of the blood on Cortana, the blood ribboning out from under Fal's body, mixing with the rainwater. They'd rolled his corpse under an overhang of stones, not wanting to leave him there, exposed to the weather, even though he was long past caring.
"I killed one of the Riders," she said now, in a near whisper.
"You had to." Julian's hand was strong on her shoulder, fingers digging in. "Emma, it was a fight to the death."
"The Clave--"
"The Clave will understand."
"The Fair Folk won't. The Unseelie King won't."
The faintest ghost of a smile passed over Julian's face. "I don't think he likes us anyway."
Emma took a tense breath. "Fal had you backed up against the edge of the cliff," she said. "I thought he was going to kill you."
Julian's smile faded. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'd hidden the crossbow there earlier--"
"I didn't know," Emma said. "It's my job to sense what's going on with you in battle, to understand it, to anticipate you, but I didn't know." She threw the bath towel; it landed on the kitchen floor. The mug Julian had broken earlier was gone. He must have cleaned it up.
Despair bubbled up inside her. Nothing she'd done had worked. They were in exactly the same place they'd been before, only Julian didn't know it. That was all that had changed.
"I tried so hard," she whispered.
His face crinkled in confusion. "In the battle? Emma, you did everything you could--"
"Not in the battle. To make you not love me," she said. "I tried."
She felt him recoil, not so much outwardly as inwardly, as if his soul had flinched. "Is it that awful? Having me love you?"
She had started trembling again, though not from the cold. "It was the best thing in the world," she said. "And then it was the worst. And I didn't even have a chance--"
She broke off. He was shaking his head, scattering water droplets. "You're going to have to learn to live with it," he said. "Even if it horrifies you. Even if it makes you sick. Just like I'm going to have to live with whatever other boyfriends you have, because we are forever no matter how, Emma, no matter what you want to call what we have, we will always be us."
"There won't be any other boyfriends," she said.
He looked at her in surprise.
"What you said before, about thinking and obsessing and wanting only one thing," she said. "That's how I feel about you."
He looked stunned. She put her hands up to gently cup his face, brushing her fingers over his damp skin. She could see the pulse hammering in his throat. There was a scratch on his face, a long one that went from his temple to his chin. Emma wondered if he'd just gotten it in the fight outside, or if he'd had it before and she hadn't noticed because she'd been trying so hard not to look at him. She wondered if he was ever going to speak again.
"Jules," she said. "Say something, please--"
His hands tightened convulsively on her shoulders. She gasped as his body moved against hers, walking her backward until her back hit the wall. His eyes gazed down into hers, shockingly bright, radiant as sea glass. "Julian," he said. "I want you to call me Julian. Only ever that."
"Julian," she said, and then his mouth came down over hers, dry and burning hot, and her heart seemed to stop and start again, an engine revved into an impossibly high gear.
She clutched him back with the same desperation, clinging on as he drank the rain from her mouth, her lips parting to taste him: cloves and tea. She reached to yank his sweater off over his head. Under it was a T-shirt, the thin wet cloth not much of a barrier when he pressed her back against the wall. His jeans were wet too, molded to his body. She felt how much he wanted her, and wanted him just as much.
The world was gone: There was only Julian; the heat of his skin, the need to be closer to him, to fit herself against him. Every movement of his body against hers sent lightning through her nerves.
"Emma. God, Emma." He buried his face against her, kissing her cheek, her throat as he slid his thumbs under the waistband of her jeans and pushed down. She kicked the wet heap of denim away. "I love you so much."
It felt as if it had been a thousand years since that night on the beach. Her hands rediscovered his body, the hard planes of it, his scars rough under her palms. He had once been so skinny--she could still see him as he had been even two years ago, awkward and gangly. She had loved him then even if she hadn't known it, loved him from the center of his bones to the surface of his skin.
Now those bones were clothed and covered in smooth muscle, hard and unyielding. She ran her hands up under his shirt, relearning him, tracing him, embedding the feel and the texture of him in her memory.
"Julian," she said. "I--"
I love you, she was about to say. It wasn't ever Cameron, or Mark, it was always you, it will always be you, the marrow of my bones is made up of you, like cells make up our blood. But he cut her off with a hard kiss. "Don't," he whispered. "I don't want to hear anything reasonable, not now. I don't want logic. I want this."
"But you need to know--"
He shook his head. "I don't." He reached down, grabbed the hem of his shirt, dragged it off. His wet hair showered droplets on them both. "I've been broken for weeks," he said unsteadily, and she knew what that cost him, that admission of lack of control. "I need to be whole again. Even if it doesn't last."
"It can't last," she said, staring at him, because how could it, when they could never keep what they had? "It'll break our hearts."
He caught her by the wrist, brought her hand to his bare chest. Splayed her fingers over his heart. It beat against her palm, like a fist punching its way through his sternum. "Break my heart," he said. "Break it in pieces. I give you permission."
The blue of his eyes had almost disappeared behind the expanding rims of his pupils.
She hadn't known, before, on the beach, what was going to happen. What it would be like between them. Now she did. There were things in life you couldn't refuse. No one had that much willpower.
No one.
She was nodding her head, without even knowing she was going to do it. "Julian, yes," she said. "Yes."
She heard him make an almost anguished sound. Then his hands were on her hips; he was lifting her so she was pinned between his body and the wall. It felt desperate, world-ending, and she wondered if there would ever be a time when it wouldn't, when it could be soft and slow and quietly loving.
He kissed her fiercely and she forgot gentleness or any desire for it. There was only this, his whispering her name as they pushed aside the clothes that needed to be pushed aside. He was gasping, a faint sheen of sweat on his skin, damp hair plastered to his forehead; he lifted her higher, pressed toward her so fast his body collided with hers. She heard the ragged moan dragged out of his throat. When he lifted his face, eyes black with desire, she stared at him, wide-eyed.
"You're all right?" he whispered.
She nodded. "Don't stop."
His mouth found hers, unsteady, his hands shaking where they held her. She could tell he was fighting for every second of control. She wanted to tell him it was fine, it was all right, but coherence had deserted her. She could hear the waves outside, smashing brutally against the rocks; she closed her eyes and heard him say that he loved her, and then her arms were around him, holding him as his knees gave way and they sank to the floor, clutching each other like the survivors of a ship that had run aground on some distant, legendary shore.
*
Tavvy, Rafe, and Max were easy enough to locate. They'd been in t
he care of Bridget, who was amusing them by letting them annoy Jessamine so that she knocked things off high shelves, thus sparking a "Do not tease ghosts" lecture from Magnus.
Dru, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. She wasn't in her bedroom any longer, or hiding in the library or the parlor, and the kids hadn't seen her. Possibly Jessamine could have helped them more, but Bridget had reported that she had flounced off after the children were done bothering her, and besides, she only liked talking to Kit.
"Dru wouldn't have left the Institute, would she?" Mark said. He was stalking down the corridor, shoving doors open left and right. "Why would she do something like that?"
"Mark." Kieran took the other boy by his shoulders and turned him so that they faced each other. Cristina felt a throb in her wrist, as if Mark's distress were communicating itself to her through the binding.
Of course, Mark and Kieran shared another kind of binding. The binding of shared experience and emotion. Kieran was holding Mark by the shoulders, concentrating on nothing but him in that way that faeries had. And Mark was relaxing slowly, some of the tension leaving his body.
"Your sister is here," said Kieran. "And we will find her."
"We'll split up and look," said Alec. "Magnus--"
Magnus swung Max up into his arms and headed down the hallway, the other two kids trailing behind him. The rest of them agreed to meet back in the library in twenty minutes. Each of them got a quadrant of the Institute to search. Cristina wound up with west, which took her downstairs to the ballroom.
She wished it hadn't--the memories of dancing there with Mark and then with Kieran were confusing and distracting. And she didn't need to be distracted now; she needed to find Dru.
She headed down the stairs--and froze. There, on the landing, was Drusilla, all in black, her brown braids tied with black ribbon. She turned a pale, anxious face to Cristina.
"I was waiting for you," she said.
"Everyone's looking for you!" Cristina said. "Ty and Livvy--"
"I know. I heard. I was listening," said Dru.
"But you weren't in the library--"
"Please," Dru said. "You have to come with me. There's not a lot of time."
She turned and hurried up the stairs. After a moment, Cristina followed her.
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