“I wish you would,” Manuel said. “Then I wouldn’t have to suffer through another dinner of dandelion greens and half a parsnip garnished with unseasoned pigeon while your father’s cronies bicker about whether we mark the start of this new age by naming ourselves Raziel’s Chosen Angels or the Birthright or the Glorious Front. Why not just call ourselves Super Amazing People Who Did the Right Thing but Now Have Run Out of Coffee and Staples?”
“You think with your stomach,” Zara said.
Manuel ignored this. “Meanwhile, out there, there are Downworlders having baguettes slathered with Brie, and chocolate chip cookies, and vats and vats of coffee. Do you know how awful it is to spy on people who are eating delicious things like chocolate croissants when you don’t even have a cube of sugar? By the Angel, I never thought I would say this, but I miss the food at the Scholomance. What I would give for olive loaf. Olive loaf!”
Livvy thought, I’m dead and I wouldn’t eat olive loaf. But then, I wouldn’t hang out with Zara, either. She could still see nothing of Idris inside the wards, but as she tried to push through again, glittering symbols she did not recognize appeared, hanging in the air.
“This will be a brief chapter in the history of the Imperishable Order,” Zara said. “Or whatever historians end up calling us. Anyway, the point is, when we see that the time is right to leave Idris and we have the whole world to set to rights, no one is going to bother recording that you missed olive loaf. They’re going to write about all the battles that we won, and how good we looked winning them, and how all our enemies like Emma Carstairs died pitifully choking on their own pleas for mercy.”
“Last time I looked, she was partying on a beach,” Manuel said. “As if she wasn’t thinking about us at all.”
“Good,” Zara said. “Let them not think about us. And then let us be the last thing they ever see. Come on. The wards are holding. Let’s get back before there’s nothing left for lunch.”
And like that, the voices were gone. Livvy was alone in the green meadow, Idris as inaccessible as ever. But she had succeeded, sort of, hadn’t she? She hadn’t gotten past the wards, but she had gathered information. She’d learned, what? That the Cohort was low on food, and just as unpleasant as ever. They had some sort of plan to emerge at some unknown date from Idris, in some kind of surprise attack. Most important, they seemed to be able to spy, somehow, on the outside world. She should go back to Ty and report what she had learned. All she had to do was tug on that strand of necromantical magic that connected her to Ty, and she would go flying back. This was the farthest she had ever gone from her twin, and it was not entirely a comfortable sensation. And yet it was a sensation and Livvy found herself savoring it. There was so little left to feel. For months now she had been less than a shadow at Ty’s heels. Now, stretched so far away from him, she felt both more and less solid than she had been.
She sank into the grassy meadow, feeling herself growing smaller and smaller until the blades of grass towered around her. The noise of the insects changed—where before it had been shrill, now it slowed and grew thunderous. Why could she hear and see but not touch anything? She stretched out her hand toward a towering stalk of grass and then drew it back with a gasp. There was a bead of blood on her palm as if she had cut herself on the green edge. And when she raised her hand to her mouth, her blood was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste, and when she opened them again, she was floating above the placid black nothing of Dimmet Tarn.
* * *
There was something she was supposed to do. There was someone who knew her, who knew what she should be doing. She could feel them tugging at her, as if she were a balloon on a tenuous string. They were pulling her away from the black reflective surface in which she could see no face, hard as she looked, and she let herself be reeled in.
Then she was in a room with a tall, rather thin boy with messy hair who was pacing up and down, fiddling with an empty lighter, a small creature stalking after him, pouncing at his heels. “Livvy!” the boy said.
As he said this, she recognized both herself and him. He was quite tall now. Hardly a boy now at all. It wasn’t that she was growing smaller. It was just that he was growing, would continue to grow, and she was dead. That was all.
“Ty,” she said.
“You’ve been gone all day,” he said. “It’s three in the morning. I stayed up because I got worried. It felt like you were . . . well, far away. It felt like something was . . . wrong.”
“Nothing was wrong,” Livvy said. “I just couldn’t get into Idris. But I think I was just outside of it, somehow. Just outside the wards. I overheard people talking. Zara and Manuel. They were checking the wards and talking.”
“Talking about what?” Ty said. He sat down at his desk and flipped open his notebook.
“Mostly about how hungry they were. But I think they have a way to spy on us. Well, not us, but you know. They can spy on everyone out here outside Idris. And they’re planning some kind of surprise attack.”
“When?” Ty said, busily writing.
“They didn’t say. And ‘surprise attack’ is overstating it. They mentioned in a vague kind of way that when they did attack us, we were going to be really surprised and then really dead. Because they think they’re super awesome and all we do is sit around and eat delicious croissants. And then they finished testing the wards and went away, and I couldn’t hear anything else.”
“Still,” Ty said. “Those are two pieces of information. We should go tell someone. I could tell Ragnor. Or Catarina.”
“No,” Livvy said. “I’m the one who figured it out. I want to be the one who gets to tell. I’ll go find Magnus and tell him. Didn’t Helen say in her last letter that Magnus was spending time at the Los Angeles Institute?”
Ty didn’t look at her. “Yes,” he said at last. “That seems fair. You should go. Only, Livvy?”
“What,” she said.
“While you were gone,” he said, “did you feel different? Did you feel anything strange?”
Livvy considered his question. “No,” she said. “Write that down in the book. That I didn’t feel anything strange at all. You don’t need to worry about me, Ty. I’m dead. Nothing bad can happen to me now.”
Irene was curled up on Ty’s bed now, leg extended as she fastidiously groomed one haunch. Her unblinking golden eyes stayed fixed on Livvy. They said, I belong here. Do you?
“You and Irene take care of each other while I’m gone, okay?” Livvy said.
“You’re going now?” Ty said. He grimaced as if the thought was causing him physical discomfort.
“Don’t wait up,” Livvy said, and then the room around her was gone, and she was once again standing on the beach beside the Los Angeles Institute, the sun slipping down below the darkening waves of the Pacific Ocean. The rush of the water down the sand was wrong somehow.
She could see lights blazing in the windows of the Institute. She wasn’t sure, but most likely they had already had dinner. Someone, probably Helen or Aline, would be doing the dishes. Tavvy would be getting ready for bed. Someone would read a book to him. Mark and Cristina would be in New York, most likely. Was Mark more settled in the human world now? It had always seemed so strange to her, how he had been taken from them and then restored. How alien he had seemed when he came back. And yet now she had become something even stranger.
She wished to be inside the Institute suddenly, away from the blackness of the water so like the blackness of Dimmet Tarn. And so she was inside. She found herself in the kitchen. Helen was sitting at the table, the dishes still waiting to be washed. Aline’s head rested against her shoulder. Her arm was around Helen’s shoulders. They looked utterly at home, as if they had always lived there. As if they had never been exiled to a small frozen island far away from their family.
“It’s nice to have Mark home for a few days,” Helen said.
Aline turned her face into Helen’s neck. “Mmm,” she said. “Do
you think we could trust him to hold down the Institute for a few hours? I was thinking I could book a spa day for the two of us.”
“No,” Helen said. “Probably not. But let’s do it anyway.”
It was wonderful to see how settled in Helen and Aline were, but it was also all extremely unfair, Livvy felt. Everyone else got to come home. Mark. Helen. Even Ty would come home someday. But she would never truly be home again. A shudder of envy and despair and longing went through her, and as if she had any material effect on the world at all, the pile of dishes beside the sink suddenly toppled over, sending shards and bits of food all over the counter and floor.
“What was that?” Aline said, standing up.
Helen groaned. “A tremor, I think. You know, welcome to California.”
Livvy fled the kitchen, up to Dru’s room, where her sister sat on her bed, watching one of her horror movies on the Institute’s battered television.
“Hey!” Livvy said. “You like scary movies so much? Well, here I am! The real deal. Boo!”
She got right into Dru’s face, being as loud as she could. “Here I am! Can you see me? Dru? Why can’t you see me! I’m right here!”
But Dru went on watching her stupid movie, and Livvy felt herself shrinking, growing smaller and smaller until she could have slipped right into the still, black calm of her sister’s pupil as if it were a pool of water and lodged herself there. She could be safe there. A secret from everyone, even Dru. And then Ty wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. He would be safe too.
“Safe from what, Livvy?” she asked herself.
The screen of the television went dark then, and the witchlight sconces over Dru’s bed flickered and went out. “What the hell,” Dru said, and got up. She went over to the wall and touched the sconce. The room filled with light again.
There was a knock on the door, and when Dru opened it, Helen and Aline were there. Helen said, “Did you feel anything just now?”
“We were in the kitchen and then a bunch of dishes fell,” Aline said eagerly. “Helen says it might have been an earthquake! My first one!”
“No,” Dru said. “I don’t think so? But the TV went off a second ago. So, maybe?”
In the doorway behind Helen and Aline, Mark appeared.
Helen said, “Did you feel it too?”
“Feel what?” Mark said.
“A tiny earthquake!” Aline said, grinning.
“No,” Mark said. “No, but Magnus just got a message from Jem. He says Tessa’s in labor. So he’s gone to them.”
“Of course,” Helen said dryly. “Because Magnus is exactly the person I want to keep me company when I’m about to give birth.”
“I bet he gives amazing baby presents, though,” Aline said. “And to be fair, I think that he feels he should have been there when Tessa and Will had their children, considering. Where are Julian and Emma right now? We should let them know.”
“Paris,” Helen said. “They like it so much there they keep extending their stay. Or do you think Magnus has let them know too?”
Magnus! Livvy realized that she had entirely forgotten why she had come. She had information for him. Well. In one moment she was in Dru’s room, ignored and forgotten by a good number of the people she had loved most in the whole world. In the next, all the doors of the Los Angeles Institute flung themselves open and all the windows of the Institute shattered outward and Livvy did not even notice because she was suddenly beneath a full moon above a black pond carpeted in lily pads, fat velvet pads of the softest gray in the moonlight. Frogs, invisible in the shadows, were singing.
She knew, without knowing how she knew this, that she was now in the countryside, somewhere outside London. This was Cirenworth Hall, the estate where Jem and Tessa lived with Kit Herondale. Julian had visited there, and described it in a letter to Ty. There were horses and cows and apple trees. Tessa had an herb garden, and there was a glass conservatory that Jem had converted into a kind of music studio. How nice life was for the living! Jem, too, had gone away from the world for whole lifetimes and been allowed to return. Oh, why couldn’t Livvy do the same? Why was she the only one who could not return and take up her life again?
It must be very late at night here, or else very early in the morning, but as with the Institute, lights were blazing in all the windows of the house. She drifted toward it, and then was inside. She was in another kitchen, this one very different from the cheery contemporary kitchen of the Institute. The walls were white plaster, hung with bundles of herbs and copper pots. Enormous beams dark with age ran across the whitewashed ceiling. Sitting at a long, scarred oaken table was Kit, playing solitaire and sipping from a mug. It might have been tea, but Livvy suspected from the face that he made as he sipped that it was something alcoholic instead.
“Boo!” she said, and Kit fumbled the mug, spilling liquid all down his pants.
“Livvy?” he said.
“That’s right,” she said, pleased. “You can see me. It gets really, really boring being invisible to everyone.”
“What are you doing here?” Kit said. Then, “Is he okay? Ty?”
“What?” Livvy said. “No, he’s fine. I’m looking for Magnus, actually. There’s something that I need to ask him. Or tell him. I think I’m supposed to tell him something.”
“Are you okay?” Kit said.
“What, aside from being dead?” Livvy said.
“Just, um, you seem a little off,” Kit said. “Or something.”
“Yeah, well, dead,” Livvy said. “But other than that.”
“Magnus is in the old conservatory with Jem and Tessa. Tessa’s in labor, but, like, they seem like it’s not a big deal or anything. They’re just sitting around and talking about stuff. But, you know, it was kind of freaking me out. Like, she’s going to have a baby, you know? Which is cool! But I thought I should give them some space.”
“Okay, thanks,” Livvy said. “Great to see you, Kit. Sorry I scared you. Sort of.”
And then she was in the conservatory, which had been completely outfitted for a musician. There was a grand piano in one corner, and various instruments hanging on a beautiful wooden cabinet. Jem was playing a cello, his long hands drawing the bow across the strings as if he were coaxing out those low, beautiful, belling notes. Tessa was pacing, slowly, along a glass wall, one hand on her great belly and the other on her back. Magnus was nowhere to be seen.
Livvy wasn’t really thinking about Magnus, though. Not anymore. All of her attention was focused on Tessa. On the hand that rested on the pregnant belly. She could not take her eyes away.
There was a voice in Livvy’s head, way below the song that Jem was playing, below the sounds of the living hearts that beat in the conservatory: Jem, Tessa, and the unborn baby. She almost recognized the voice. It belonged to someone who had once been very dear to her. “Livvy,” it was saying. “Something’s wrong. I think that something’s wrong.”
Livvy did her best to ignore the voice. She thought, If I make myself very small, I bet that I could do the thing I am thinking of. I could make myself so very small that I could slip into that baby. I wouldn’t take up much room at all. A baby is hardly a person at all, really. If I took the place of whoever the baby is going to be, if I wanted a do-over, it wouldn’t hurt Tessa and Jem at all. They would be good parents to me. And I would be a good daughter. I was good when I was alive! I could be good again. And it isn’t fair. I shouldn’t have died. I ought to get another chance. Why shouldn’t I have another chance?
She drew closer to Tessa. Tessa groaned.
“What is it?” Jem said, putting down his bow. “Is it my rank, terrible playing? Magnus may have magically transformed this space to be hospitable to instruments, but I am still an amateur when it comes to the cello.” His face changed. “Or is it time? Shall we go back to the house?”
Tessa shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “But drawing nearer. Keep playing. It helps me.”
“Magnus will be back soon with the herbs
you wanted,” Jem said.
“There’s still time,” Tessa said. “There’s still time too if you don’t want to be the one to deliver this baby. Magnus could fetch someone.”
“What, and miss my chance at the big time?” Jem said. “I’d like to think that all my years as a Silent Brother weren’t totally pointless.”
Livvy was shrinking, shrinking, shrinking down almost to nothingness. All the darkness outside the glass walls of the conservatory was pressing in as if they were all submerged beneath Dimmet Tarn, but she could still escape. She could be a living girl again.
Jem got up and went over to Tessa. He knelt down in front of her and laid his head against her belly. “Hello there, Wilhelmina Yiqiang Ke Carstairs. Little Mina. You are welcome, little Mina, my heart. We are waiting for you in joy and hope and love.”
Tessa rested her hand on Jem’s head. “I think she heard you,” she said. “I think she’s hurrying now.”
“Livvy!” said the other voice. The one that Livvy didn’t want to hear right now, the one that tugged at her as if it were a leash. “Livvy, what are you doing? Something’s wrong, Livvy.”
And oh, the voice was right. Livvy came back to herself. What had she been thinking of doing? She had been going to—and as she realized what she had been about to do, all the walls of the conservatory exploded outward into the night in a great cloud of glass shards.
Jem and Tessa both cried out, crouching down. And then Magnus was there in green silk pajamas beautifully embroidered with Pokémon. “What in the world?” he said, bending over to help Jem and Tessa up.
“I don’t know,” Jem said wildly. “Demons? A sonic boom?”
Magnus looked around the conservatory. A strange expression came over his face when he saw Livvy.
“I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to, Magnus!”
Looking hard at her, Magnus said to Jem and Tessa, “Not a demon, I think. There’s nothing dangerous here now. Come on. Let’s get you back to the house. I have your herbs, Tessa. Kit’s brewing you a nice cup of tea.”
Ghosts of the Shadow Market Page 44
