Lord of Shadows
Page 37

Something sparked inside the blade—a brief, dull gleam. Then it was gone. Julian stared at it. A seraph blade that could not be brought to life was barely more use than a plastic knife: dull-bladed, heavy, and short.
With a violent jerk of his arm, Julian cast the blade aside. It skidded across the grass. He raised his eyes. Emma could sense how tightly he was holding back. She felt it like a pressure in her own body that made it hard to breathe.
“So,” he said. “We’re going to have to journey across Faerie, a place where Shadowhunters aren’t welcome, using only the stars to navigate, and we can’t use runes, seraph blades, or witchlight. Is that the situation, roughly?”
“I would say it’s the situation exactly,” said Mark.
“Also, we’re heading for the Unseelie Court,” Emma added. “Which is supposed to be like one of those horror movies Dru likes, but less, you know, fun.”
“Then we will travel at night,” Cristina said. She pointed into the distance. “There are landmarks that I’ve seen on maps. Do you see those ridges in the distance, against the sky? I think that those are the Thorn Mountains. The Unseelie Lands lie in their shadow. It is not so far away.”
Emma could see Mark relax at the sound of Cristina’s sensible voice. It didn’t seem to be working on Julian, though. His jaw was clenched, his hands rigid fists at his sides.
It wasn’t that Julian didn’t get angry. It was that he didn’t let himself show it. People thought he was quiet, calm, but that was deceptive. Emma recalled something she had read once: that volcanoes had the lushest green slopes, the loveliest and quietest aspect, because the fire that pulsed through them kept their earth from ever freezing.
But when they erupted, they could rain down devastation for miles.
“Jules,” she said. He glanced over at her; fury gleamed behind his eyes. “We might not have witchlight, or runes, but we are still Shadowhunters. With everything that means. We can do this. We can.”
It felt like a clumsy speech to her, but she saw the fire die in his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry.”
“And I’m sorry for bringing you all here,” said Mark. “If I had known—about the runes—but it must be something recent, very much so . . . .”
“You didn’t bring us here,” said Cristina. “We followed you. And we all came through not just for you but because of what the phouka told each of us; isn’t that true?”
One you have loved and lost. “It’s true for me,” said Emma. She glanced at the sky. “We should get going, though. Morning is probably in just a few hours. And if we don’t have Energy runes, we’ll have to get our energy the old-fashioned way.”
Mark looked puzzled. “Drugs?”
“Chocolate,” Emma said. “I brought chocolate. Mark, where do you even come up with these things?”
Mark smiled crookedly, shrugging one shoulder. “Faerie humor?”
“I thought faeries mostly made jokes at other people’s expense and played pranks on mundanes,” said Julian.
“Sometimes they tell very long, rhyming stories they think are hilarious,” said Mark. “But I have to admit I never really understood why.”
Julian sighed. “That actually sounds worse than anything else I’ve heard about the Unseelie Court.”
Mark shot Julian a grateful look, as if to say that he understood that his brother had mastered his temper in part for him, for all of them, so that they would be all right. So that they could continue on their way, and find Kieran, with Julian leading them as he always did. “Come,” Mark said, turning. “It is this way—we should begin walking; it may not be very many more hours until dawn.”
Mark headed into the shadows between the trees. Mist clung to the branches, like ropes of white and silver. Leaves rustled softly in the wind above their heads. Julian moved to walk up ahead next to his brother; Emma could hear him asking, “Puns? At least promise me there won’t be puns.”
“The way that boys tell each other they love each other is so very odd,” said Cristina as she and Emma ducked beneath a branch. “Why can’t they just say it? Is it so difficult?”
Emma grinned at her friend. “I love you, Cristina,” she said. “And I’m glad you’re getting to visit Faerie, even if it’s under weird circumstances. Maybe you can find a hot faerie guy and forget about Imperfect Diego.”
Cristina smiled. “I love you, too, Emma,” she said. “And maybe I will.”
* * *
Kit’s list of grievances against the Shadowhunters had now gotten long enough that he’d started writing it down. Stupid hot people, he’d written, won’t let me go home and get my stuff.
They won’t tell me anything about what it would mean to actually become a Shadowhunter. Would I have to go somewhere and train?
They won’t tell me how long I can stay here, except “as long as you need to.” Don’t I have to go to school eventually? Some kind of school?
They won’t talk about the Cold Peace or how it sucks.
They won’t let me eat cookies.
He thought for a while, and then crossed that one out. They did let him eat cookies; he just suspected they were judging him for it.
They don’t seem to understand what autism is, or mental illness, or therapy, or medical treatment. Do they believe in things like chemotherapy? What if I get cancer? I probably won’t get cancer. But if I did . . .
They won’t tell me how Tessa and Jem found my dad. Or why my dad hated Shadowhunters so much.
That one was the hardest to write. Kit had always thought of his father as a small-time con man, a lovable rogue, a sort of Han Solo type, swindling his way across the galaxy. But lovable rogues didn’t get torn apart by demons the moment their elaborate protection spells fell apart. And though mostly Kit was confused by what had happened at the Shadow Market, he had learned one thing: His dad had not been like Han Solo.
Sometimes, in the dark watches of the night, Kit wondered who he was like himself.
Speaking of the dark watches of the night, he had a new grievance to add to his list. They make me get up early.
Diana, whose official title was tutor but who seemed to function as a guardian-slash-high school principal, had woken Kit up early in the morning and herded him, along with Ty and Livvy, into a corner office with an expansive view and a massive glass desk. She looked pissed off the way adults sometimes looked pissed off when they were angry at someone else, but they were going to take it out on you.
Kit was correct. Diana was currently furious at Julian, Emma, Mark, and Cristina, who, according to Arthur, had disappeared to Faerie in the dead of night to rescue someone named Kieran who Kit had never met. Further discussion illuminated that Kieran was the son of the Unseelie King and Mark’s ex-boyfriend, both of which were interesting pieces of information that Kit filed away for later.
“This is not good,” Diana finished. “Any travel to Faerie is entirely off-limits to Nephilim without special permissions.”
“But they’ll come back, right?” Ty said. He sounded strained. “Mark will come back?”
“Of course they’ll come back,” said Livvy. “It’s just a mission. A rescue mission,” she added, turning to Diana. “Won’t the Clave understand they had to go?”