Lady Midnight
Page 28

She looked sideways at Jules, but he had his head bent over some papers. They hadn’t really spoken so far today, aside from being polite to each other at breakfast. She had woken up with her stomach feeling hollow and her hands hurting from clenching the bedclothes.
Also Church had abandoned her sometime during the night. Stupid cat.
“They were signed in 1872,” said Cristina. “They were a series of agreements between the species of the Shadow World and Nephilim, meant to keep the peace among them and establishing common rules for all of them to follow.”
“They also protect Downworlders,” said Julian. “Before the Accords, if Downworlders harmed each other, Shadowhunters couldn’t and wouldn’t step in. The Accords gave Downworlders our protection.” He paused. “At least until the Cold Peace.”
Emma remembered the first time she had heard of the Cold Peace. She and Julian had been in the Hall of Accords when it was proposed. The punishment of the faeries for their part in Sebastian Morgenstern’s Dark War. She remembered the confusion of her feelings. Her parents had died because of that war, but how did Mark and Helen, who she loved, deserve to bear the brunt of that simply because of the faerie blood in their veins?
“And where were the papers of the Cold Peace signed?” Diana asked.
“In Idris,” said Livvy. “At the Hall of Accords. Everyone who usually attends the Accords was supposed to be there, but the Seelie Queen and the Unseelie King never showed up to sign the treaty, so it was altered and signed without them.”
“And what does the Cold Peace mean for faeries?” Diana’s look at Emma was pointed. Emma glared down at her desk.
“Faeries aren’t protected under the Accords anymore,” said Ty. “It’s forbidden to help them, and they’re forbidden from contacting Shadowhunters. Only the Scholomance and the Centurions are meant to deal with faeries—and the Consul and Inquisitor.”
“A faerie who carries a weapon can be punished by death,” Jules added. He looked exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes.
Emma wished he would look at her. She and Julian didn’t fight. They never fought. She wondered if he was as baffled as she was. She kept hearing what he’d said over and over: that he wouldn’t have wanted a parabatai. Was it any parabatai he didn’t want, or her specifically?
“And what is the Clave, Tavvy?” It was a question too elementary for any of the rest of them, but Tavvy looked pleased to be able to answer something.
“The government of the Shadowhunters,” he said. “Active Shadowhunters are all in the Clave. The ones who make decisions are the Council. There are three Downworlders on the Council, each one representing a different Downworlder race. Warlocks, werewolves, and vampires. There hasn’t been a faerie representative since the Dark War.”
“Very good,” said Diana, and Tavvy beamed. “Can anyone tell me what other changes have been wrought by the Council since the end of the war?”
“Well, the Shadowhunter Academy was reopened,” said Emma. This was familiar territory for her—she had been invited by the Consul to be one of the first students. She’d chosen to stay with the Blackthorns instead. “A lot of Shadowhunters are trained there now, and of course they bring in a lot of Ascendant hopefuls—mundanes who want to become Nephilim.”
“The Scholomance was reestablished,” said Julian. Wavy strands of his hair, dark and glossy, fell against his cheek as he lifted his head. “It existed before the first Accords were signed, and when the Council was betrayed by faeries, they insisted on opening it again. The Scholomance does research, trains Centurions . . .”
“Think of what it must have been like in the Scholomance for all those years it was closed,” said Dru, her eyes gleaming with horror-movie delight. “All the way up in the mountains, totally abandoned and dark, full of spiders and ghosts and shadows . . .”
“If you want to think about somewhere scary, think about the Bone City,” said Livvy. The City of Bones was where the Silent Brothers lived: It was an underground place of networked tunnels built out of the ashes of dead Shadowhunters.
“I’d like to go to the Scholomance,” interrupted Ty.
“I wouldn’t,” said Livvy. “Centurions aren’t allowed to have parabatai.”
“I’d like to go anyway,” said Ty. “You could come too if you wanted.”
“I don’t want to go to the Scholomance,” said Livvy. “It’s in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains. It’s freezing there, and there are bears.”
Ty’s face lit up as it often did at the mention of animals. “There are bears?”
“Enough chatter,” said Diana. “When was the Scholomance reopened?”
Cristina, who had the seat closest to the window, raised her hand to interrupt. “There’s someone coming up the path to the front door,” she said. “Several someones, in fact.”
Emma glanced over at Jules again. It was rare that anyone paid an unscheduled visit to the Institute. There were only a few people who might, and even most of the members of the Conclave would have made an appointment with Arthur. Then again, maybe someone did have an appointment with Arthur. Though by the look on Julian’s face, if they did, it was one he didn’t know about.
Cristina, who had risen to her feet, drew her breath in. “Please,” she said. “Come and see.”
Everyone bolted to the one long window that ran across the main wall of the room. The window itself looked out onto the front of the Institute and the winding path that led from the doors down to the highway that divided them from the beach and the sea. The sky was high and blue and cloudless. The sunlight sparked off the silver bridles of three horses, each with a silent rider seated on its bare back.
“Hadas,” Cristina said, the word emerging on a staccato beat of astonishment. “Faeries.”
It was undeniably the case. The first horse was black, and the rider who sat on him wore black armor that looked like burned leaves. The second horse was black as well, and the rider who sat on him wore a robe the color of ivory. The third horse was brown, and its rider was wrapped head to toe in a hooded robe the color of earth. Emma couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, a child or an adult.
“‘So first let pass the horses black and then let pass the brown,’” Jules murmured, quoting an old faerie poem. “One robed in black, one brown, one white—it’s an official delegation. From the Courts.” Julian looked across the room at Diana. “I didn’t know Arthur had a meeting with a delegation from Faerie. Do you think he told the Clave?”
She shook her head, clearly puzzled. “I don’t know. He never mentioned it to me.”
Julian’s body was taut like a bowstring; Emma could feel the tension coming off him. A delegation from Faerie was a rare, serious thing. Permission from the Clave had to be granted before a meeting could be held. Even by the head of an Institute. “Diana, I have to go.”
Frowning, Diana tapped her stele against one hand, then nodded. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“I’ll come with you.” Emma slid down from the window seat.
Julian, already headed to the door, paused and turned. “No,” he said. “It’s all right. I’ll take care of it.”