Ghosts of the Shadow Market

by Cassandra Clare

  The noise from behind the stall was growing closer.

  A lot of noise, very close to the ground.

  The orphans of the Buenos Aires Shadow Market exploded from behind a stall where a werewolf was selling stew. There were kids everywhere, Downworlders of every kind, and all of them seemed to be trying to get his attention, shouting out names, requests, jokes. The main language was Spanish, but Alec heard a few others, and was immediately confused about which words belonged to which language. Multicolored lights swung on dozens of faces. He turned his head, overwhelmed, not able to make out any face or voice in the chaos.

  “Hey,” he said, stooping over the kids and pulling food out of his duffel bag. “Hey, is anybody hungry? Take these.”

  “Gross, are those energy bars?” Lily demanded. “Way to pile misery on orphans!”

  Alec took out his wallet and began to give the kids money. Magnus was always magically making cash appear there, in case of emergencies. Alec wouldn’t spend it on himself.

  Lily was laughing. She liked kids, though sometimes she pretended she didn’t. Then she froze. For a moment her bright black eyes went flat and dead. Alec stood up straight.

  “You, kid.” Lily’s voice was trembling. “What did you say your name was?”

  She shook her head and repeated the question in Spanish. Alec followed her line of sight to one particular child in the crowd.

  The other children were jostling each other, pressed up against each other and the stalls, but there was a small circle of space around this boy. Now that he had their attention, he wasn’t shouting. His curly head was tipped back so he could study them, and he was doing so with narrowed, very dark eyes. His extremely critical air had to be Alec’s imagination. The kid looked about six years old.

  The boy answered Lily, his voice calm: “Rafael.”

  “Rafael,” Lily whispered. “Right.”

  Rafael’s face was one of the youngest in that crowd of heartbreakingly young faces, but there was a chilling air of self-possession about him. He advanced, and Alec wasn’t surprised to see the other kids move out of his path. He carried distance with him.

  Alec’s own eyes narrowed. He couldn’t tell what kind of Downworlder this kid was, but there was something about the way he moved.

  Rafael said something else in Spanish. From the imperious tilt at the end of the sentence, it was a question or a demand. Alec looked helplessly at Lily. She nodded, visibly gathering her composure.

  “The kid said . . .” She cleared her throat. “He says: ‘Are you a Shadowhunter? Not like the ones at the Institute. Are you a real Shadowhunter?’ ”

  Alec blinked. Rafael’s eyes were fixed on his face.

  Alec knelt on the ground amid the bright riot of the Shadow Market, so he could look into those dark intent eyes.

  “Yes,” said Alec. “I’m a Shadowhunter. Tell me how I can help you.”

  Lily translated. Rafael shook his curly head, expression even cooler, as if Alec had failed some sort of test. He snapped out several more lines of Spanish.

  “He says he doesn’t want help,” said Lily. “He says he overheard you ask about the women who vanished.”

  “So the kid can understand some English?” asked Alec, hopeful.

  Rafael rolled his eyes and said something else in Spanish.

  Lily grinned. “He says no, not at all. He has information, but he doesn’t want to talk here.”

  Alec frowned. “Boludo,” he repeated. “He said that. What does that word mean?”

  Lily grinned. “It means he thinks you’re a nice man!”

  It hadn’t sounded nice. Alec squinted at Rafael. Rafael gave him a blank stare back.

  “All right,” Alec said slowly. “Who’s taking care of you? Let’s go to them, and we can talk together.”

  The night was dark, especially under the awning of a stall, but Alec was pretty sure Rafael rolled his eyes. He transferred his attention from Alec, whom he clearly found to be hopeless, and looked to Lily.

  “He says that he takes care of himself,” said Lily.

  “But he can’t be more than six!” said Alec.

  “He says he’s five,” Lily said, her brows knitted as she listened and translated slowly. “His parents died in the Dark War, when the Institute fell, and then there was a werewolf woman who looked after a bunch of kids. But she’s gone now. He says nobody else wants him.”

  She must be one of the women who disappeared, Alec thought grimly. That thought was lost in the rush of horror when he realized what Lily was saying.

  “His parents died when the Institute fell?” Alec repeated. Every cell in his body sparked with shock. “Is this boy a Shadowhunter?”

  “Would it be worse to find a Shadowhunter child like this?” Lily asked, her voice cold.

  “Yes,” Alec snarled back. “Not because Downworlder kids deserve this. My kid’s a Downworlder. No kid deserves this. But you heard Juliette. Everybody’s doing the best they can. Shadowhunters fall in battle every day, and homes are found for orphans. There is a system in place for Shadowhunter children. The Shadowhunters should be doing better than this. The Law is meant to protect the most helpless among us. What is wrong with this Institute?”

  “As you’re using your stern voice, I guess we’re going to find out,” Lily remarked, sounding chipper again.

  Alec was still looking at Rafael with dismay so profound it felt almost like despair. He saw now that Rafael looked dirtier, and less cared for, than any other child in the crowd. Alec had learned the Law at his mother’s knee, at his father’s, from his tutor and every book in the library at the Institute back home. It had made sense to him when he was young, when very little made sense to him. The Shadowhunters’ sacred duty, for all time: to stand unseen against the darkness, to defend at any cost.

  Now he was older, and he knew how complicated the world could be. It still hurt like an unexpected blow when he saw that shining ideal tarnished. If he were in charge of it all—

  But they didn’t live in that world.

  “Come with me for now,” Alec told the Nephilim child. “I’ll take care of you.”

  If Rafael really was alone, Alec could take Rafael to the New York Institute or to Alicante. He wasn’t going to leave him here where he looked so friendless and neglected. He reached out, arms open, to pick Rafael up and carry him away.

  Rafael bolted backward with the speed of a wild animal. He gave Alec a filthy look, as if he might bite if Alec tried that again.

  Alec drew his arms back and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right,” he said. “Sorry. But will you come with us? We want to hear your information. We want to help.”

  Lily translated. Rafael, still watching Alec warily, nodded. Alec rose and offered Rafael his hand. Rafael eyed the hand with disbelief, shaking his head and muttering something. Alec was almost sure it was that word again. He looked Rafael over. The kid’s clothes were stained and torn, he was much too thin, and he was barefoot. There were dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. Alec didn’t even know where they were going to sleep.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “We have to buy him some shoes.”

  He walked out of the throng of kids, with Lily at his side and Rafael orbiting them like a wary moon.

  “Maybe I can help you, Shadowhunter,” called out a faerie woman with dandelion hair from a stall.

  Alec started forward, then stopped. Lily had caught his arm in a grip like iron.

  “Don’t go near that woman,” she whispered. “I’ll explain later.”

  Alec nodded and went on, despite the call of the faerie woman to come buy. Juliette had been right: this Market was a community, with huts and wagons surrounding the stalls. It was the biggest Market Alec had ever seen.

  Alec found a faerie cobbler who seemed nice enough, though even the smallest pair of boots he had were too big. Alec took them anyway. He asked the cobbler, who spoke English, if anyone was taking care of Rafael. Surely, no matter what the kid said, s
omeone must care.

  After a moment the cobbler shook his head. “When the werewolf woman who looked after the orphans vanished, the other kids were given homes by my people. But, no offense meant, faeries won’t take in a Shadowhunter.”

  Not with the Cold Peace breeding hatred between Shadowhunters and faeries. The laws were all wrong, and children were paying the price.

  “Also, that child hates everybody,” said the faerie cobbler. “Watch out. He bites.”

  They were almost at the wire tunnel leading to the exit of the Shadow Market now. This far out from the center of the Market there were fallen walls, more signs of a place crushed by war and then left to decay.

  “Hey,” Alec told Rafael. “Come here a second. Mach dir keine Sorgen—”

  “You’re telling him not to worry in German,” Lily reported gleefully.

  Alec sighed and knelt in the gray dust, among the rubble, gesturing for Rafael to sit on a piece of the fallen wall. The child eyed Alec and the boots in his hand with an air of extreme mistrust. Then he plunked himself down and let Alec slip his feet into the too-large boots.

  The kid’s feet were small, his soles black with filth. Alec swallowed, and drew the laces on the boots as tight as he could, so they would stay on and Rafael could walk properly.

  Rafael stood as soon as Alec was done tying his laces. Alec stood as well.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Rafael’s dark, measuring gaze was on Alec again. He stood perfectly still, for a long moment.

  Then he lifted both his arms in a commanding gesture. Alec was so used to that gesture from Max that he moved without even thinking and scooped Rafael up in his arms.

  It was nothing like carrying Max, small and plump, always laughing and cuddling. Rafael was much too thin. Alec could feel the knobbly bones of his back. Rafael held himself very stiffly, as though he was undergoing an unpleasant ordeal. It was like holding a small statue, if you felt desperately sorry for the statue and unsure what to do.

  “Carrying you means the boots are pointless,” murmured Alec. “But that’s all right. I’m glad you’re coming with us. You’re safe now. I have you.”

  “No te entiendo,” said Rafael’s small clear voice in his ear, then after a thoughtful pause: “Boludo.”

  Alec was sure of two things: that word was not a nice word, and this kid didn’t like him at all.

  * * *

  Jem and Tessa were standing at the gates of the Shadow Market when they saw him. They’d hoped to catch Alec and Lily before they reached the Buenos Aires Institute. Finding no sign of them, they’d worried Breakspear had detained them, but a warlock acquaintance of Tessa’s had sent word that a Shadowhunter had been let into the Market.

  Now they were worried the Queen of the Market had detained them. Jem was conferring with Tessa when the gates opened. Against barbed wire and starlight they saw a tall man, his black head bowed and his tender blue eyes fixed on the child in his arms. Will, thought Jem, and grasped Tessa’s hand tight. Whatever he felt, it was worse for her.

  Alec looked up and said, sounding relieved, “Tessa.”

  “What a handsome end to a long night,” Lily said delightedly. “If it isn’t the former Brother Snackariah.”

  “Lily!” Alec exclaimed.

  But Tessa, still holding Jem’s hand, gave Jem a highly amused look and smiled her gradual, beautiful smile. “It’s Raphael’s Lily,” she said. “How nice to see you. Forgive me, I feel like I know you better than I do. He talked about you often.”

  Lily’s grin fractured as if someone had dropped a mirror.

  “What did he say about me?” she asked in a small voice.

  “He said you were more efficient and intelligent than most of the clan, who were morons.”

  It sounded very cold to Jem, but that had been Raphael’s way. Lily’s smile returned, warm as a flame held between cupped hands. It reminded Jem of the way she’d looked when they first met. He had not known then that Tessa had sent Raphael to him for help. He’d done his best then, and now Lily was a friend.

  “Thank you both for coming to help us,” said Jem. “Who is the child?”

  Alec explained the events of the night—being turned away from the Buenos Aires Institute, learning of the disappearances, and the discovery of Rafael, the child the Institute had abandoned.

  “I’m sorry you went to the Institute at all,” Jem said. “We should have warned you, but I haven’t been a Shadowhunter in a long time. I didn’t realize that your first instinct would be to go there. Our lodging house has rooms available, and at least one of them is windowless. Come with us.”

  Alec carried the child with the ease of long habit. One hand remained free to grab a weapon, and he walked easily through the streets with the small precious weight. Jem, long out of practice, wouldn’t have been able to do it himself. He’d held Tessa’s children, James and Lucie, when they were little, but that had been more than a century ago. Not many people wanted a Silent Brother close to their child, unless that child was near death.

  They walked through the streets, past houses painted in flamboyant hues—flame scarlet, sea blue, crocodile green—the streets lined with jacaranda and olive trees. At last they reached their lodgings, the low whitewashed building turned blue by the first signs of dawn. Jem pushed open the circular red door and requested more rooms from their landlady, one without a window.

  Jem and Tessa had already secured the use of the little courtyard at the center of the lodging house, a group of small stone pillars open to the sky, circled with the soft violet-blue of bougainvillea. They gathered there, Alec placing Rafael carefully down on the stone bench beside him. Rafael scooted to the other edge of the bench. He hung his head and was silent when Tessa spoke to him softly in Spanish, asking him for any information about the missing women. Jem hadn’t heard about them before, but now that he knew, it was clear they had to help. Rosemary Herondale might be in danger, but so were these werewolf women. Jem wanted to do whatever he could for them.

  Returning to speech had been strange for Jem, but Tessa had learned many languages and taught him everything she could. Jem tried asking Rafael too, but Rafael shook his head sullenly.

  Lily was sitting cross-legged on the ground, one elbow propped on Alec’s knee, to be near the child. She tilted her head toward Rafael and asked him if he would please get on with it, because the sun was rising and she’d have to go to bed soon.

  Rafael reached out and patted the bright pink streak in Lily’s hair.

  “Bonita,” he said, face still solemn.

  The poor child didn’t smile much, Jem thought. Of course, neither did Alec, who was looking miserable and determined about the missing women.

  Lily, who smiled very easily, did so now. “Aw, cute baby,” she said in Spanish. “Do you want to call me Aunt Lily?”

  Rafael shook his head. Lily looked undaunted.

  “I have a trick,” she offered, and snapped her fangs in Rafael’s direction.

  Rafael looked absolutely appalled.

  “What are you guys saying?” asked Alec worriedly. “Why is he looking like that? Why did you do that?”

  “Max loves it when I do that!” said Lily, and added in Spanish, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Wasn’t scared,” Rafael responded in Spanish. “That was stupid.”

  “What did he say?” Alec asked.

  “He said that was an awesome trick and he really enjoyed it,” Lily reported.

  Alec raised a skeptical eyebrow in her direction. Rafael pressed close to Alec. Tessa joined Lily on the ground. Tessa talked to Rafael gently, and Lily teased him, and together they got the full story, Lily translating for Alec as they went. Alec’s face went more and more grim as he heard the story.

  “Rafael knows he’s a Shadowhunter, and he’s trying to learn—”

  Rafael, who Jem thought understood more English than he was letting on, interrupted to correct Lily.

  “Excuse me,” Lily said. “He’s
trying to train. He spies on the other Shadowhunters, so he knows what to do. He’s small, and he makes sure they don’t see him. While he was spying on them, he saw a Shadowhunter creeping off down a lane. He met a warlock at the door of a big house. Rafael got as close as he could, and he heard women inside.”

  “Can you describe the Shadowhunter you saw?” asked Alec, and Jem translated for him.

  “I think you can do it,” Jem added to the child encouragingly. “You see so much.”

  Rafael gave Jem a dark look, as though he disliked praise. He spent a few more moments in furious thought, kicking his too-big boots over the edge of the stone bench, then reached into the pocket of his tattered trousers and placed a slim wallet in Alec’s hands.

  “Oh.” Alec looked startled. “You stole this from the Shadowhunter you saw?”

  Rafael nodded.

  “That’s great. I mean . . .” Alec paused. “It’s good that you’re helping us, but it’s very bad to steal wallets generally. Don’t do it again.”

  “No te entiendo,” Rafael announced firmly.

  He said that he didn’t understand Alec, and his tone suggested that he wasn’t planning to understand Alec on this topic anytime soon.

  “Don’t say the other word,” Alec said quickly.

  “What other word?” Jem asked.

  “Don’t ask,” said Alec, and opened the wallet.

  Shadowhunters did not carry mundane forms of identification like passports or ID cards, but they carried other things. Alec took out a weapons requisition document marked with the Breakspear family symbol.

  “Clive Breakspear,” Alec said slowly. “The head of the Institute. Juliette said that these Shadowhunters act as mercenaries. What if this warlock hired them?”

  “We have to find out what’s happening,” said Jem. “And stop it.”

  Alec set his jaw. “Rafael can show us the house after he gets some rest,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’ll go back to the Shadow Market. We’ll try to find the information you’re looking for and tell the Queen of the Market what, if anything, we’ve discovered.”

  Rafael nodded, then held his hand out for the wallet. Alec shook his head.