"I went with Catarina to Bangkok. But not as David. I went as Diana. And I did not go as a Shadowhunter. I lived with Catarina in a small apartment. I told my parents of Aria's death and that I was Diana now: They replied that they had told the Council that David was the one who had died. That they loved me and understood, but that I must live in the mundane world now, for I was seeing mundane doctors and that was against the law.
"It was too late for me to stop them. The Clave was told that David had died out on the island, fighting revenants. They gave David my sister's death, a death with honor. I wished they had not lied, but if they had to wear white for the boy who was gone, even if he'd never really existed, I couldn't deny them that.
"Catarina had worked as a nurse for years. She knew mundane medicine. She brought me to a clinic in Bangkok. I met others like myself there. I wasn't alone any longer. I was there for three years. I never planned to be a Shadowhunter again. What I was gaining was too precious. I couldn't risk being discovered, having my secrets flayed open, being called by a man's name, having who I was denied.
"Through the years, Catarina guided me through the mundane medical procedure that gave me the body in whose skin I felt comfortable. She hid my unusual test results from the doctors so they would never be puzzled by my Shadowhunter blood."
"Mundane medicine," Gwyn echoed. "It is forbidden, is it not, for a Shadowhunter to seek out mundane medical treatment? Why did Catarina not simply use magic to aid you?"
Diana shook her head. "I wouldn't have wanted that," she said. "A magic spell can always be undone by another spell. I will not have the truth of myself be something that can be dissolved by a stray enchantment or passing through the wrong magical gate. My body is my body--the body I have grown into as a woman, as all women grow into their bodies."
Gwyn nodded, though Diana couldn't tell if he understood. "So that is what you fear," was all he said.
"I'm not afraid for myself," said Diana. "I'm afraid for the children. As long as I'm their tutor, I feel like I can protect them in some way. If the Clave knew what I'd done, that I'd sought out mundane doctors, I'd wind up in prison under the Silent City. Or in the Basilias, if they were being kind."
"And your parents?" Gwyn's face was unreadable. Diana wished he would give her some kind of sign. Was he angry? Would he mock her? His calmness was making her pulse race. "Did they come to you? You must have missed them."
"I feared to expose them to the Clave." Diana's voice hitched. "Each time they spoke of a clandestine visit to Bangkok, I put them off. And then the news came that they had died, slain in a demon attack. Catarina was the one who told me. I wept all night. I could not tell my mundane friends of my parents' deaths because they would not understand why I didn't return home for a funeral.
"Then news came of the Mortal War. And I realized I was still a Shadowhunter. I could not let Idris suffer peril without a fight. I returned to Alicante. I told the Council that I was the daughter of Aaron and Lissa Wrayburn. Because that was the truth. They knew there had been a brother and a sister and the brother had died: I gave my name as Diana. In the chaos of war, no one questioned me.
I rose up as Diana in battle. I fought as myself, with a sword in my hand and angel fire in my veins. And I knew I could never go back to being a mundane. Among my mundane friends I had to conceal the existence of Shadowhunters. Among the Shadowhunters I had to hide that I had once used mundane medicine. I knew either way I would have to hide a part of myself. I chose to be a Shadowhunter."
"Who else has known all this? Besides Catarina?"
"Malcolm knew. There is a medicine I must take, to maintain the balance of my body's hormones--I usually get it from Catarina, but there was a time she couldn't do it, and had Malcolm make it. After that, he knew. He never directly held it over my head, but I was always aware of his knowledge. That he could hurt me."
"That he could hurt you," Gwyn murmured. His face was a mask. Diana could hear her heart beating in her ears. It was as if she had come to Gwyn with her heart in her hands, raw and bleeding, and now she waited for him to produce the knives.
"All my life I've tried to find the place to be myself and I'm still looking for it," said Diana. "Because of that, I have hidden things from people I loved. And I have hidden this from you. But I have never lied about the truth of myself."
What Gwyn did next surprised Diana. He rose from the bed, took a step forward, and went down on his knees in front of her. He did it gracefully, the way a squire might kneel to a knight or a knight to his lady. There was something ancient in the essence of the gesture, something that went back to the heart and core of the folk of Faerie.
"It is as I knew," he said. "When I saw you upon the stairs of the Institute, and I saw the fire in your eyes, I knew you were the bravest woman ever to set foot on this earth. I regret only that such a fearless soul was ever hurt by the ignorance and fear of others."
"Gwyn . . ."
"May I hold you?" he asked.
She nodded. She couldn't speak. She knelt down opposite the leader of the Wild Hunt and let him take her into his broad arms, let him stroke her hair and murmur her name in his voice that still sounded like the rumble of thunder--but now it was thunder heard from inside a warm, closed house, where everyone was safe inside.
*
Tavvy was the first one to sense Emma and Julian's return when they Portaled back into the Institute library with Magnus. He had been sitting on the floor, systematically dismantling some old toys with the assistance of Max. The moment Julian felt the floor solid under his feet, Tavvy bounded upright and careened toward him, crashing into him like a train that had gone off its tracks.
"Jules!" he exclaimed, and Julian swung him up into his arms and crushed him in a hug as Tavvy clung to him and babbled about what he'd seen and eaten and done in the past few days, and Jules ruffled his brother's hair and felt a tension he hadn't even known he was carrying go out of him.
Cristina had been sitting with Rafe, talking to him quietly in Spanish. Mark was at a library table with Alec, and--to Julian's surprise--Kieran, a mass of books open in front of them.
Cristina jumped to her feet and ran to hug Emma. Livvy came barreling into the room, Ty following more quietly after, and Julian lowered Tavvy to the ground--where he remained by Julian's side, gripping his leg--while he greeted the rest of his family in a blur of hugs and exclamations.
Emma was hugging the twins, a sight that sent a dart of familiar pain through Julian's rib cage. The dread of separation, of pulling apart what belonged together: the dream of his family, Emma as his partner, the children their responsibility.
A hand touched his shoulder, jolting him out of imagination. It was Mark, who looked at him with uneasiness. "Jules?"
Of course. Mark didn't realize Julian knew the truth about him and Emma. He looked worried, hopeful, like a puppy who had come begging for scraps but half-expected to be slapped away from the table.
Was I that bad? Julian wondered, guilt spearing through him. Mark hadn't even known, hadn't imagined Julian loving Emma. Had been horrified when he found out. Mark and Emma loved each other, but not romantically, which was what Julian would have wanted. His heart swelled with tenderness toward both of them for everything they had given up to protect him, for being willing to let him hate them if that was what it took.
He drew Mark with him into a corner of the room. The hubbub of greeting went on all around them as Julian lowered his voice. "I know what you did," he said. "I know you were never really dating Emma. I'm grateful. I know it was for me."
Mark looked surprised. "It was Emma's idea," he said.
"Oh, believe me, I know." Julian put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "And you did a good job with the kids. Magnus told me. Thank you."
Mark's face lit up. It made Julian's heart ache even harder. "I didn't-- I mean, they got in so much trouble--"
"You loved them and you kept them alive," said Julian. "Sometimes that's the best anyone can do."
&
nbsp; Julian pulled his brother toward him into a hard hug. Mark made a muffled noise of surprise before his own arms went around Julian, half-crushing the breath out of him. Julian could feel his brother's heart hammering against his, as if the same relief and joy were beating through their shared blood.
They drew apart after a moment. "So you and Emma . . . ?" Mark began, half-hesitantly. But before Julian could reply, Livvy had thrown herself at them, somehow managing to hug Julian and Mark at the same time, and the conversation vanished into laughter.
Ty came more diffidently after her, smiling and touching Julian on the shoulder and then the hand as if to make sure he was really there. Tactile expression sometimes meant as much to Ty as what he could observe with his eyes.
Mark was telling Emma that Dru was still in her room, but she'd be coming shortly. Magnus had gone to Alec, and the two were talking quietly by the fireplace. Only Kieran remained where he was, so silent and still at the table that he could have been a decorative plant. The sight of him flicked a memory in Julian's mind, though, and he looked around for blond hair and a sarcastic expression. "Where's Kit?"
A flood of cross-explanations followed: the story of the Riders at the riverside, the way Gwyn and Diana had saved them, Kit's injury. Emma described the four Riders they'd encountered in Cornwall, though it was Julian who detailed the way Emma had killed one of them, which prompted a great deal of exclaiming.
"I've never heard of anyone killing a Rider before," said Cristina, hurrying to the table to pick up a book. "But someone must have."
"No." It was Kieran, his voice even and quiet. There was something in the timbre of it that reminded Julian of the Unseelie King's voice. "No one ever has. There have only ever been seven, the children of Mannan, and they have lived almost since the beginning of time. There must be something very special about you, Emma Carstairs."
Emma flushed. "There isn't."
Kieran was still looking at Emma curiously. He was wearing jeans and a cream-colored sweater. He looked alarmingly human, until you really examined his face and the uncanniness of his bone structure. "What was it like to kill something so old?"
Emma hesitated. "It was like--have you ever held ice so long in your hand that the coldness hurt your skin?"
After a pause, Kieran nodded. "It is a deathly pain."
"It was like that."
"So we're safe here," Julian said to Magnus, partly to forestall any further questions about the dead Rider. "In the Institute."
"The Riders can't reach us here. They are warded away," said Magnus.
"But Gwyn was able to land on the roof," Emma said. "So Fair Folk can't be completely shut out--"
"Gwyn is Wild Hunt. They're different." Magnus reached down to pick up Max, who giggled and pulled on his scarf. "Also I've doubled the wards around the Institute since this afternoon."
"Where's Diana?" asked Julian.
"She went back to Idris. She says she has to keep Jia and the Council happy and calm and expecting this meeting to take place with no hiccups."
"But we don't have the Black Volume," Julian said.
"Well, we still have a day and a half," said Emma. "To find Annabel."
"Without leaving these hallowed walls?" Mark said. He sat down on the arm of one of the chairs. "We are kind of trapped."
"I don't know if the Riders realize Alec and I are here," Magnus said. "Or perhaps we could prevail on Gwyn."
"The danger seems pretty severe," said Emma. "We wouldn't feel right, asking for that kind of help."
"Well I'm going back to Idris with the kids--I can certainly see what I can do from there." Alec flung himself down in a chair near Rafe and ruffled the boy's dark hair.
Maybe Alec could get into Blackthorn Manor, Julian thought. He was exhausted, nerves frayed from one of the best and worst days of his life. But Blackthorn Manor was probably the place on earth Annabel had loved the most. His mind began to tick over the possibilities.
"Annabel cared about Blackthorn Manor," he said. "Not Blackthorn Hall, here in London--the family didn't own that yet. The one in Idris. She loved it."
"So you think she might be there?" said Magnus.
"No," said Julian. "She hates the Clave, hates Shadowhunters. She'd be too afraid to go to Idris. I was just thinking that if it was in danger, if it was threatened, she might be called out of where she's hiding."
He could tell Emma was wondering why he wasn't mentioning that he'd seen Annabel in Cornwall; he wondered it a bit himself, but his instincts told him to keep it secret a little longer.
"You're suggesting we burn down Blackthorn Manor?" said Ty, his eyebrows up around his hairline.
"Oddly," Magnus muttered, "you wouldn't be the first people ever to have that idea."
"Ty, don't sound so excited," Livvy said.
"Pyromania interests me," said Ty.
"I think you have to burn down several buildings before you can consider yourself to be an actual maniac for pyro," Emma said. "I think before that you're just an enthusiast."
"I think setting a large fire in Idris will attract attention we don't want," said Mark.
"I think we don't have a lot of choices," said Julian.
"And I think we should eat," Livvy said hastily, patting her stomach. "I'm starving."
"We can discuss what we know, especially regarding Annabel and the Black Volume," said Ty. "We can pool our information."
Magnus glanced fleetingly at Alec. "After we eat we need to send the children to Idris. Diana's standing by on the other side to help us keep the Portal open, and I don't want her to have to wait too long."
It was kind of him, Julian thought, to phrase it as if sending the children to Alicante was a favor Magnus was doing Diana, rather than a precaution taken to protect them. Tavvy skipped along with Rafe and Max to the dining room and Julian felt a pang, realizing how much his little brother had missed having friends close to his own age, even if he hadn't known it.
"Jules?" He glanced down and saw that Dru was walking beside him. Her face was pale in the corridor's witchlight.
"Yeah?" He resisted the urge to pat her cheek or pull her braids. She'd stopped appreciating that when she was ten.
"I don't want to go to Alicante," she said. "I want to stay here with you."
"Dru . . ."
She hunched her shoulders up. "You were younger than me in the Dark War," she said. "I'm thirteen. You can send the babies where it's safe, but not me. I'm a Blackthorn, just like you."
"So is Tavvy."
"He's seven." Dru took a shaky breath. "You make me feel like I'm not part of this family."
Julian stopped dead. Dru stopped with him, and they both watched as the others went into the dining room. Julian could hear Bridget scolding them all; apparently she'd been holding dinner for them for hours, though it had never occurred to her to find them and tell them so.
"Dru," he said. "You really want to stay?"
She nodded. "I really want to."
"Then that's all you had to say. You can stay with us."
She threw herself into his arms. Dru wasn't a huggy sort of person, and for a moment Julian was too surprised to move; then he put his arms around his sister and tightened them against the flood of memories--baby Dru sleeping in his arms, taking her first toddling steps, laughing as Emma held her over the water at the beach, barely getting her toes wet.
"You're the heart of this family, baby girl," he said in the voice that only his brothers and sisters ever heard. "I promise you. You're our heart."
*
Bridget had somewhat haphazardly set out cold chicken, bread, cheese, vegetables, and banoffee pie. Kieran picked at the vegetables while the rest of them talked over each other to lay out what they knew.
Emma sat beside Julian. Every once in a while their shoulders would bump or their hands collide as they reached for something. Each touch sent a shower of sparks through him, like a small explosion of fireworks.
Ty, his elbows on the table, took point on the d
iscussion, explaining how he, Kit, and Livvy had found the aletheia crystal and the memories trapped within it. "Two hundred years ago Malcolm and Annabel broke into the Cornwall Institute," he explained, his graceful hands slicing through the air as he talked. Something seemed different about Ty, Julian thought, though how could his brother have changed in the few short days he'd been away? "They stole the Black Volume, but they were caught."
"Do we know why they wanted it?" Cristina asked. "I do not see how necromancy would have helped them."
"They planned to trade it to someone else, it looks like," said Emma. "The book wasn't for them. Someone had promised to trade them protection from the Clave for it."
"It was a time when a relationship between a Shadowhunter and a Downworlder could have meant a death sentence for both of them," said Magnus. "Protection would have been a very attractive offer."
"They never got that far," Ty said. "They were caught and thrown in prison in the Silent City, and the Black Volume was taken from them and returned to the Cornwall Institute. Then something weird happened." He frowned. Ty didn't like not knowing things. "Malcolm disappeared. He left Annabel to be questioned and tortured."
"He wouldn't have done that willingly," said Julian. "He loved her."
"People can betray even those they love," said Mark.
"No, Julian's right," said Emma. "I hate Malcolm more than anyone, but he absolutely would never have left Annabel. She was his whole life."
"It's still what happened," said Ty.
"They tortured Annabel for information until she pretty much lost her mind," said Livvy. "Then they released her to her family. And they killed her and told everyone she'd become an Iron Sister. But it wasn't true."
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