Lady Midnight
Page 158

Emma opened her mouth to mount an indignant protest, but Tessa was already speaking. “Your father said many things that weren’t true,” she said. “Not to speak ill of the dead, Christopher, but I doubt I am telling you anything you don’t already know. And it is one thing to have the Sight. It is another thing to fight off a Mantid demon with no training.”
“You said you’ve been looking for him?” Emma asked, as the run-down Topanga Canyon Motel flashed by, its smeared windows dull brown in the sunshine. “Why?”
“Because he is a Herondale,” said Jem. “And the Carstairs owe the Herondales.”
A faint shudder went through Emma. Her father had spoken the same words to her, many times.
“Years ago, Tobias Herondale was convicted of desertion,” said Jem. “He was sentenced to death, but he could not be found, so the sentence was carried out on his wife instead. She was pregnant. A warlock, Catarina Loss, smuggled the baby to safety in the New World.”
“The sentence was carried out on his pregnant wife?” Kit said. “What is wrong with you people?”
“That is screwed up,” Emma said, for once in agreement with Kit. “So Kit here is descended from Tobias Herondale?”
Tessa nodded. “There is no defense for the Clave’s actions. As you know, I was Tessa Herondale once—I knew of Tobias; his story was a legend of horror. But only a few years ago was I told by Catarina of the survival of the child. Jem and I decided to find what had become of the Herondale line. Much searching led us to your father, Kit.”
“My father’s last name was Rook,” Kit muttered.
“Legally, your family has had several names,” said Tessa. “It made it quite hard to find you. I assume your father knew of his Shadowhunter blood and was hiding you from us. Certainly posing out in the open as a mundane with the Sight was clever. He was able to make connections, ward his house, bury his identity. Bury you.”
Kit spoke in a dull voice. “He used to say I was his biggest secret.”
Emma turned onto the road to the Institute.
“Christopher,” said Tessa. “We are not Shadowhunters, Jem and I. We are not the Clave, bent on making you something you do not want to be. But your father had many enemies. Now that he is dead and cannot protect you, they will come after you. You will be safest in the Institute.”
Kit grunted. He looked neither impressed nor trusting.
It was odd, Emma thought, as they pulled up at the end of the road. The only things Kit had in common with his father, looks-wise, were his height and slenderness. As he stepped out of the car, hunching over his bloody shirt, his eyes were a clear blue. His hair, pale gold waves—that was pure Herondale. And his face, too, the fine bones of it, the gracefulness. He was too bloody and scratched and miserable-looking to tell now, but he’d be devastating someday.
Kit looked at the Institute, all glass and wood and shining in the afternoon light, with loathing. “Aren’t Institutes like jails?”
Emma snorted. “They’re like big houses. Shadowhunters from all over the world can stay there. They have a million bedrooms. I live in this one.”
“Whatever.” Kit sounded sullen. “I don’t want to go in.”
“You could run away,” Tessa said, and for the first time Emma heard the hardness under the gentle tone of her voice. It was a reminder that she and Jace shared some of the same blood. “But you would most likely be eaten by a Mantid demon as soon as the sun set.”
“I’m not a Shadowhunter,” Kit said, getting out of the car. “Stop acting like I am.”
“Well, there’s a quick test for it,” said Jem. “Only a Shadowhunter can open the door of the Institute.”
“The door?” Kit stared at it. He was holding one arm close against his body. Emma’s gaze sharpened. With Julian as a parabatai, she had become familiar with the way boys handled themselves when they were trying to conceal an injury. Maybe some of that blood was his.
“Kit—” she began.
“Let me get this straight,” he interrupted. “If I try to open that door and I can’t, you’ll let me go?”
Tessa nodded. Before Emma could say anything else, Kit limped up the stairs. She dashed after him, Tessa and Jem behind her. Kit put his shoulder to the door. He shoved.
The door flew open and he half-fell inside, nearly knocking over Tiberius, who had been crossing the entryway. Ty stumbled back and stared at the boy on the floor.
Kit was kneeling, his hand clearly cradling his left arm. He was breathing hard as he looked around, taking in the entryway—the marble floor, carved with runes. The swords hanging on the walls. The mural of the Angel and the Mortal Instruments. “It’s impossible,” he said. “I can’t be.”
Ty’s look of astonishment faded. “Are you all right?”
“You,” Kit said, staring up at Ty. “You pointed a knife at me.”
Ty looked uncomfortable. He reached up to tug on a lock of his dark hair. “It was just work. Not personal.”
Kit started to laugh. Still laughing, he sank back onto the floor. Tessa knelt down next to him, putting her hands on his shoulders. Emma couldn’t help seeing herself, during the Dark War, breaking down when she realized her parents were dead.
Kit looked up at her. His expression was blurry. It was the expression of someone who was using every bit of his willpower not to cry. “A million bedrooms,” he said.
“What?” Emma said.
“You said there were a million bedrooms here,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’m going to find an empty one. And then I’m going to lock myself into it. And if anyone tries to break the door down, I’ll kill them.”
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” Emma asked. “Kit, I mean?”
She was standing on the front steps with Jem, who was cradling Church in his arms. The cat had come running up a few moments after Jem had arrived, and practically launched his small furry body into Jem’s arms. Jem was petting him now, rubbing absentmindedly under his chin and around his ears. The cat had gone limp under his ministrations, like a washcloth.
The ocean rose and fell at the horizon. Tessa had stepped away from the Institute to make a phone call. Emma could hear her voice in the distance, though not the individual words.
“You can help him,” said Jem. “You lost your own parents. You know what it’s like.”
“But I don’t think—” Emma was alarmed. “If he stays, I don’t know—” She thought of Julian, of Uncle Arthur, of Diana, of the secrets they were all hiding. “Can’t you stay?” she said, and was surprised at the wistfulness in her voice.
Jem smiled at her over Church’s head. That smile she remembered from the first time she’d really seen Jem’s face, the smile that reminded her, in a way she couldn’t have described, of her father. Of the Carstairs blood that they shared. “I would like to stay,” he said. “Since we met in Idris, I have missed you, and thought of you often. I would like to visit with you. Spend time with my old violin. But Tessa and I, we must go. We must find Malcolm’s body, and the Black Volume, for even leagues underwater a book like that can still cause us trouble.”