Lord of Shadows
Page 46

You didn’t grow up with someone, dream of them, let them shape your soul and put their fingerprints on your heart, and not know when the person you were kissing wasn’t them. Julian yanked himself away, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. Blood smeared his knuckles.
He was looking at a faerie woman, her skin smooth and pale, an unmarked, unwrinkled canvas. She was grinning, her lips red. Her hair was the color of cobwebs—it was cobwebs, gray and fine and drifting. She could have been any age at all. Her only clothes were a ragged black shift. She was beautiful and also hideous.
“You delight me, Shadowhunter,” she crooned. “Will you not come back to my arms for more kisses?”
She reached out. Julian stumbled back. He had never in his life kissed anyone but Emma; he felt sick now, in his heart and guts. He wanted to reach for a seraph blade, to burn the air between them, to feel the familiar heat race up his arm and through his veins and cauterize his nausea.
His hand had only just closed around the hilt of the blade when he remembered: It wouldn’t work here.
“Leave him alone!” someone shouted. “Get away from my brother, leanansídhe!”
It was Mark. He was emerging from a copse of trees with Cristina just behind him. There was a dagger in his hand.
The faerie woman laughed. “Your weapons will not work in this realm, Shadowhunter.”
There was a click, and Cristina’s folding knife bloomed open in her hand. “Come and speak your words of challenge to my blade, barrow-woman.”
The faerie pulled back with a hiss, and Julian saw his own blood on her teeth. He felt light-headed with sickness and anger. She whirled and was gone in a moment, a gray-black blur racing down the hill.
The music had stopped. The dancers, too, had begun to scatter: The sun was setting, the shadows thick across the ground. Whatever kind of revel it had been, it was one that apparently was not friendly to nightfall.
“Julian, brother.” Mark hurried forward, his eyes concerned. “You look ill—sit down, drink some water—”
A soft whistle came from farther up the hill. Julian turned. Emma was standing on the ridge, buckling on Cortana. He saw the relief on her face as she caught sight of them.
“I wondered where you’d gone,” she said, hurrying down the hill. Her smile as she looked at them all was hopeful. “I was worried you’d eaten faerie fruit and were running naked around the greensward.”
“No nudity,” said Julian. “No greensward.”
Emma tightened the strap on Cortana. Her hair had been pulled back into a long braid, only a few pale tendrils escaping. She looked around at their tense faces, her brown eyes wide. “Is everything okay?”
Julian could still feel the fingerprints of the leanansídhe all over him. He knew what leanansídhe were—wild faeries who took the shape of whatever you wanted to see, seduced you, and fed on your blood and skin.
At least he was the only one who would have seen Emma. Mark and Cristina would have seen the leanansídhe in her true form. That was one humiliation and danger spared them all.
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “We’d better get going. The stars are just coming out, and we’ve got a long way still to go.”
* * *
“All right,” Livvy said, pausing in front of a narrow wooden door. It didn’t look much like the rest of the Institute, glass and metal and modernity. It seemed like a warning. “Here we go.”
She didn’t look eager.
They’d decided—with Kit mostly as silent onlooker—to go directly to Arthur Blackthorn’s office. Even if it was two in the morning, even if he didn’t want to be bothered with Centurion business, he needed to know what Zara was planning.
She was after the Institute, Livvy had explained as they scrambled back along the beach and rocks to where they’d started. Surely that’s why she’d said what she had about Arthur—clearly she’d tell any lie.
Kit had never thought about Institutes much—they’d always struck him as something like police stations, buzzy hives of Shadowhunters meant to keep an eye on specific locations. It seemed they were more like small city-states: in charge of a certain area, but run by a family appointed by the Council in Idris.
“There’s seriously an entire private country that’s just Shadowhunters?” Kit demanded as they headed up the road to the Institute, rising like a shadow against the mountains behind it.
“Yes,” said Livvy tersely. In other words, Shut up and listen. Kit had the feeling she was processing what was happening by explaining it to him. He shut up and let her.
An Institute was run by a head, whose family lived with him or her; they also housed families who’d lost members, or Nephilim orphans—of whom there were many. The head of an Institute had significant power: Most Consuls were chosen from that pool, and they could propose new Laws, which would be passed if a vote went their way.
All Institutes were just as empty as the Los Angeles one. In fact, it was unusually crowded at the moment, due to the Centurion presence. They were meant to be that way, in case they needed to house a battalion of Shadowhunters at any moment. There was no staff, as there was no need of one: Shadowhunters who worked for the Institute, called the Conclave, were spread out all over the city in their own houses.
Not that there were many of them either, Livvy added grimly. So many had died in the war five years ago. But if Zara’s father were to become the head of the Los Angeles Institute, not only would he be able to propose his bigoted Law, but the Blackthorns would be thrown out on their ears with nowhere to go but Idris.
“Is Idris so bad?” Kit had asked as they went up the stairs. Not that he wanted to be shipped off to Idris. He was just getting used to the Institute. Not that he’d want to stay in it if Zara’s father took over—not if he was anything like Zara.
Livvy glanced at Ty, who hadn’t interrupted her during her tirade. “Idris is fine. Great, even. But this is where we live.”
They’d reached the door to Arthur’s office then, and everything had gone silent. Kit wondered if he should just lead the way. He didn’t care particularly if he annoyed Arthur Blackthorn or not.
Ty looked at the door with troubled eyes. “We’re not supposed to bother Uncle Arthur. We promised Jules.”
“We have to,” Livvy said simply, and pushed the door open.
A narrow set of stairs led to a shadowy room under the eaves of the house. There was a cluster of desks, each with a lamp on it—so many lamps the room was filled with brilliance. Every book, every piece of paper with scrawled writing, every plate with half-eaten food on it, was harshly illuminated.
A man sat at one of the desks. He wore a long bathrobe over a ragged sweater and jeans; his feet were bare. The robe had probably once been blue, but was now a sort of dirty white from many washings. He was clearly a Blackthorn—his mostly gray hair curled like Julian’s did, and his eyes were a brilliant blue-green.
They went past Livvy and Ty and fastened on Kit.
“Stephen,” he said, and dropped the pen he was holding. It hit the ground, spilling ink in a dark pool over the floorboards.
Livvy’s mouth was partly open. Ty was pressed against the wall. “Uncle Arthur, that’s Kit,” said Livvy. “Kit Herondale.”