Bitter of Tongue Read online

"Marisol!" Jon Cartwright shouted. "Marisol, to me!"

  She pulled the horse toward his. Jon stood on his horse and leaped onto hers, bow already in hand and firing arrows into the trees, standing on the horse's back and thus shielding Marisol like a strange bow-shooting acrobat. Simon knew he'd never be able to do anything like that, ever, unless he Ascended.

  Julie and Beatriz turned their horses toward the trees where the concealed faeries were firing.

  "They have Marisol," George panted. "We can still get the fruit seller."

  "No, George," Simon began, but George had already wheeled his horse toward the hooded figure, now disappearing behind the tree and the mist.

  There was a spear of sunlight shooting between the trunk and the branch of the tree, a dazzling white line between the crooked arc of tree limbs. It seemed to refract in Simon's eyes, becoming broad and fair, like the path of moonlight on the sea. The hooded figure was slipping away, half-disappeared into the dazzle, and George's horse was inches from danger, George's hand reaching for the edge of the figure's cloak, George heedless of the course he had placed himself upon.

  "No, George!" Simon shouted. "We are not going to trespass into Faerie!"

  He forced his own horse into George's path, making George pull up, but he was so hell-bent on stopping George that he did not take into consideration his mount, now terrified and fleeing and urged to speed.

  Until the white dazzling light filled Simon's vision. He remembered suddenly the feeling of falling away into Faerie, soaked to the skin, in a pool filled with water: remembered Jace being kind to him, and how much he had resented that, how he'd thought: Don't show me up any further, and his chest had burned with resentment.

  Now he was tumbling into Faerie with the scream of a terrified horse in his ears, leaves blinding him and twigs scraping at his face and his arms. He tried to shield his eyes and found himself thrown on rock and bones, with darkness rushing at him. He would have been very grateful if Jace had been there.

  *

  Simon woke in Faerieland. His whole skull was throbbing, in the way your thumb did when you hit it with a hammer. He hoped nobody had hit his head with a hammer.

  He woke in a gently swaying bed, slightly prickly under his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw that he was not exactly in a bed, but lying amid twigs and moss, scattered across a swaying surface constructed of wooden laths. There were strange stripes of darkness in front of his vision, obscuring his view of the vista beyond.

  Faerieland almost looked like the moors in Devon, yet it was entirely different. The mists in the distance were faintly purple, like storm clouds clinging to the earth, and there was movement in the cloud suggesting odd and menacing shapes. The leaves on the trees were green and yellow and red like the trees of the mundane world, but they shone too brightly, like jewels, and when the wind rustled through them Simon could almost make out words, as if they were whispering together. This was nature run riot, alchemized into magic and strangeness.

  And Simon was, he realized, in a cage. A big wooden cage. The stripes of darkness across his vision were his cage bars.

  The thing that outraged him most was how familiar it felt. He remembered being trapped like this before. More than once.

  "Shadowhunters, vampires, and now faeries, all longing to throw me in prison," Simon said aloud. "Why exactly was I so anxious to get back all these memories? Why is it always me? Why am I always the chump in the cage?"

  His own voice made his aching head hurt.

  "You are in my cage now," said a voice.

  Simon sat up hastily, though it made his head throb fiercely and all of Faerieland reel drunkenly around him. He saw, on the other side of his cage, the hooded and cloaked figure whom George had tried so desperately to capture on the moors. Simon swallowed. He could not see the face beneath the hood.

  There was a whirl in the air, like a shadow whipping over the sun. A new faerie dropped out of the clear blue sky, the leaves of the forest floor crunching under his bare feet. Sunlight washed his fair hair into radiance, and a long knife glittered in his hand.

  The hooded and cloaked faerie dropped his hood and bowed his head in sudden deference. Unhooded, Simon saw, he had large ears, tinted purple, as if he had an eggplant stuck to each side of his face, and wisps of long white hair that curled over his eggplant ear like cloud.

  "What has happened, and why are your tricks interfering with the work of your betters, Hefeydd? A horse from the mundane world ran into the path of the Wild Hunt," the new faerie said. "I do hope the steed was not of immense emotional significance, because the hounds have it now."

  Simon's heart bled for that poor horse. He wondered if he too was about to be fed to the hounds.

  "I am so sorry to have disturbed the Wild Hunt," the cloaked faerie said, bowing his white head even further.

  "You should be," answered the faerie of the Wild Hunt. "Those who cross the path of the Hunt always regret it."

  "This is a Shadowhunter," continued the other anxiously. "Or at least one of the children they hope to change. They were lying in wait for me in the mortal world, and this one pursued me even into Faerie, so he is my rightful prey. I had no wish to disturb the Wild Hunt and bear no fault!"

  Simon felt this was an inaccurate and hurtful summary of the situation.

  "Is it so? Come now, I am in a merry mood," said the Wild Hunt faerie. "Give me your regrets and words with your captive--as you know, I have some little interest in Shadowhunters--and I will not bring back my lord Gwyn your tongue."

  "Never was a fairer bargain made," said the cloaked faerie in some haste, and ran off as though afraid the Wild Hunt faerie might change his mind, almost tripping over his own cloak.

  As far as Simon was concerned, this was out of the faerie frying pan and into the faerie fire.

  The new faerie looked like a boy of sixteen, not much older than Marisol and younger than Simon, but Simon knew that how faeries looked was no indicator of their age. He had mismatched eyes, one amber as the beads found in the dark heart of trees, and one the vivid blue-green of sea shallows when sunlight strikes through. The jarring contrast of his eyes and the light of Faerie, filtered green through wickedly whispering leaves and touched with false gold, made his thin, dirt-streaked face wear a sinister aspect.

  He looked like a threat. And he was coming closer.

  "What does a faerie of the Wild Hunt want with me?" Simon croaked.

  "I am no faerie," said the boy with eerie eyes, pointed ears, and leaves in his wild hair. "I am Mark Blackthorn of the Los Angeles Institute. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do to me. I still remember who I am. I am Mark Blackthorn."

  He looked at Simon with wild hunger in his thin face. His thin fingers clutched the bars of the cage.

  "Are you here to save me?" he demanded. "Have the Shadowhunters come for me at last?"

  *

  Oh no. This was Helen Blackthorn's brother, the one who was half-faerie like her, the one who had believed his family dead and been taken by the Wild Hunt and never returned. This was very awkward.

  This was worse than that. This was horrific.

  "No," said Simon, because hope seemed the cruelest blow he could deal Mark Blackthorn. "It's just like the other faerie said. I wandered here by accident and I was captured. I'm Simon Lewis. I . . . know your name, and I know what happened to you. I'm sorry."

  "Do you know when the Shadowhunters are coming for me?" Mark asked with heartbreaking eagerness. "I--sent them a message, during the war. I understand the Cold Peace must make all dealings with faerie difficult, but they must know I am loyal and would be valuable to them. They must be coming, but it has been . . . it has been weeks and weeks. Tell me, when?"

  Simon stared at Mark, dry-mouthed. It had not been weeks and weeks since the Shadowhunters had abandoned him here. It had been a year and more.

  "They're not coming," he whispered. "I was not there, but my friends were. They told me what happened. The Clave took a vote. The Shadowhunter
s do not want you back."

  "Oh," said Mark, a single soft sound that was familiar to Simon: It was the kind of sound creatures made when they died.

  He turned away from Simon, his back arched in a spasm of pain that looked physical. Simon saw, on his bare lean arms, the old marks of a whip. Even though Simon could not see his face, Mark covered it for a moment, as if he could not even bear to look upon Faerieland.

  Then he turned and snapped: "What about the children?"

  "What?" Simon asked blankly.

  "Helen, Julian, Livia, Tiberius, Drusilla, Octavian. And Emma," said Mark. "You see? I have not forgotten. Every night, no matter what has happened during the day, no matter if I am torn and bloodied or so bone-tired I wish I were dead, I look up at the stars and I give each star a brother's name or a sister's face. I will not sleep until I remember every one. The stars will burn out before I forget."

  Mark's family, the Blackthorns. They were all younger than Mark but Helen; Simon knew that. And Emma Carstairs lived with the younger Blackthorn kids in the Los Angeles Institute, the little girl with blond hair who had been orphaned in the war and who wrote to Clary a lot.

  Simon wished he knew more about them. Clary had talked about Emma. Magnus had spoken passionately this summer, several times, about the Cold Peace and had given the Blackthorns as an example of the horrors that the Clave's decision to punish faeries had visited on those of faerie blood. Simon had listened to Magnus and felt sorry for the Blackthorns, but they had seemed like just another tragedy of the war: something terrible but distant, and ultimately easy to forget. Simon had felt he had so much to remember himself. He had wanted to go to the Academy and become a Shadowhunter, to learn more about his own life and remember everything he had lost, to become someone stronger and better.

  Except that you did not become someone stronger and better by only thinking about yourself.

  He did not know what they were doing to Mark in Faerie, to make his family slip away from him.

  "Helen's well," he said awkwardly. "I saw her recently. She came and lectured at the Academy. I'm sorry. I had a demon take--a lot of memories from me, not so long ago. I know what it's like, not to remember."

  "Fortunate is the one who knows the name of their heart. They are the ones whose hearts are never truly lost. They can always call their heart back home," Mark said, his voice almost a chant. "Do you remember the name of your heart, Simon Lewis?"

  "I think so," Simon whispered.

  "How are they?" Mark asked in a low, worn voice. He sounded very tired.

  "Helen's getting married," Simon offered. It was the only good thing, he felt, that he had to offer Mark. "To Aline Penhallow. I think--they really love each other."

  He almost said he was going to their wedding, but even that felt cruel. Mark could not go to his own sister's wedding. He had not been invited. He had not even been told.

  Mark did not seem angry or hurt. He smiled, softly as a child being told a bedtime story, and leaned his face against the bars of Simon's cage.

  "Sweet Helen," he said. "My father used to tell stories about Helen of Troy. She was born out of an egg, and the most beautiful woman in the world. Being born out of an egg is very unusual for humans."

  "I've heard that," said Simon.

  "She was very unhappy in love," Mark continued. "Beauty can be like that. Beauty cannot be trusted. Beauty can slip through your fingers like water and burn on your tongue like poison. Beauty can be the shining wall that keeps you from all you love."

  "Um," said Simon. "Totally."

  "I am glad that my beautiful Helen will be happier than the last beautiful Helen," said Mark. "I am glad she will be given beauty for beauty, love for love, and no false coin. Tell her that her brother Mark sends her felicitations on her wedding day."

  "If I make it there, I will."

  "Aline will be able to help her with the children, too," Mark said.

  He was paying very little attention to Simon, his face still wearing that fixed and faraway expression, as if he were listening to a story or recalling a memory. Simon feared that stories and memory were becoming much the same to Mark Blackthorn: longed-for, beautiful, and unreal.

  "Ty needs special attention," Mark went on. "I remember my parents talking about it." His mouth twisted. "I mean my father and the woman who sang me to sleep every night though I was not of her blood, the Shadowhunter I am no longer allowed to call my mother. Songs are not blood. Blood is all that matters to Shadowhunters and faeries alike. The songs matter only to me."

  Blood is all that matters to Shadowhunters.

  Simon could not remember the context, but he could remember the constant refrain, from people he loved now but had not loved then. Mundane, mundane, mundane. And later, vampire. Downworlder.

  He remembered that the first prison he had ever been inside was a Shadowhunter prison.

  He wished he could tell Mark Blackthorn that anything he said was wrong.

  "I'm so sorry," he said.

  He was sorry for not listening, and sorry for not caring more. He'd thought he was the voice of reason in the Academy, and had not realized how complacent he'd grown, how easy it was to hear his friends sneer at people who were--after all--not like him anymore, and let them get away with it.

  He wished he knew how to say any of this to Mark Blackthorn, but he doubted Mark would care.

  "If you are sorry, speak," said Mark. "How is Ty? There is nothing wrong with Ty, but he is different, and the Clave hates all that is different. They will try to punish him, for being who he is. They would punish a star for burning. My father was there to stand between him and our cruel world, but my father is gone and I am gone too. I might as well be dead, for all the good I am to my brothers and sisters. Livvy would walk over hot coals and hissing serpents for Ty, but she is as young as he is. She cannot do and be everything to him. Is Helen having difficulties with Tiberius? Is Tiberius happy?"

  "I don't know," Simon said helplessly. "I think so."

  All he knew was that there were a bunch of Blackthorn kids: faceless, nameless victims of the war.

  "And there's Tavvy," said Mark.

  His voice grew stronger as he kept talking, and he used nicknames for his brothers and sisters rather than the full names he had worked so laboriously to remember. Simon supposed Mark was not usually allowed even to speak of his mortal life or his Nephilim family. He didn't want to think about what the Wild Hunt might do to Mark, if he tried.

  "He is so little," said Mark. "He won't remember Dad, or M--or his mother. He's the littlest thing. They let me hold him, the day he was born, and his head fit into the palm of my hand. I can still feel its weight there, even when I cannot grasp his name. I held him and I knew I had to support his head: that he was mine to support and protect. Forever. Oh, but forever lasts such a short time in the mortal world. He will not remember me either. Maybe Drusilla will forget as well." Mark shook his head. "I do not think so, though. Dru learns everything by heart, and she has the sweetest heart of us all. I hope her memories of me stay sweet."

  Clary must have told Simon every one of the Blackthorns' names, and talked a little bit about how each of them was doing. She must have let fall some scrap of information, which Simon had discarded as useless and which would be better than treasure to Mark.

  Simon stared at him helplessly.

  "Just tell me if Aline is helping with the younger ones," said Mark, his voice growing sharper. "Helen cannot do it all by herself, and Julian will not be able to help her!" His voice softened again. "Julian," he said. "Jules. My artist, my dreamer. Hold him up to the light and he would shine a dozen different colors. All he cares about is his art and his Emma. He will try to help Helen, of course, but he is still so young. They are so young and so easily lost. I know what I am saying, Shadowhunter. In the land under the hill we prey on the tender and new-hearted. And they never grow old, with us. They never have the chance."

  "Oh, Mark Blackthorn, what are they doing to you?" Simon whispered.<
br />
  He could not keep the pity out of his voice, and he saw it sting Mark: the slow flush that rose to his thin cheeks, and the way he lifted his chin, holding his head high.

  Mark said: "Nothing I cannot bear."

  Simon was silent. He did not remember everything, but he remembered how much he had been changed. People could bear so much, but Simon did not know how much of the original you was left when the world had twisted you into a whole different shape.

  "I remember you," Mark said suddenly. "We met when you were on your way to Hell. You were not human then."

  "No," said Simon awkwardly. "I don't remember much about it."

  "There was a boy with you," Mark continued. "Hair like a halo and eyes like hellfire, a Nephilim among Nephilim. I'd heard stories about him. I--admired him. He pressed a witchlight into my hand, and it meant--it meant a lot to me. Then."

  Simon could not remember, but he knew who that must have been.

  "Jace."

  Mark nodded, almost absentmindedly. "He said, 'Show them what a Shadowhunter is made of; show them you aren't afraid.' I thought I was showing them, the Fair Folk and the Shadowhunters both. I could not do what he asked me. I was afraid, but I did not let it stop me. I got a message back to the Shadowhunters and I told them the Fair Folk were betraying them and allying with their enemy. I made sure they knew and could protect the City of Glass. I warned them, and the Hunters could have killed me for it, but I thought if I died I would die knowing my brothers and sisters were saved, and that everyone would know I was a true Shadowhunter."

  "You did," said Simon. "You got the message back. Idris was protected, and your brothers and sisters were saved."

  "What a hero I am," Mark murmured. "I proved my loyalty. And the Shadowhunters left me here to rot."

  His face twisted. In the depths of Simon's heart, fear twined with pity.

  "I tried to be a Shadowhunter, even in the depths of Faerie, and what good did it do me? 'Show them what a Shadowhunter is made of!' What is a Shadowhunter made of, if they desert their own, if they throw away a child's heart like rubbish left on the side of the road? Tell me, Simon Lewis, if that is what Shadowhunters are, why would I wish to be one?"

  "Because that's not all they are," Simon said.

  "And what are faeries made of? I hear Shadowhunters say they are all evil now, barely more than demons set upon the earth to do wicked mischief." Mark grinned, something wild and fey in the grin, like sunlight glittering through a spiderweb. "And we do love mischief, Simon Lewis, and sometimes wickedness. But it is not all bad, to ride the winds, run upon the waves, and dance upon the mountains, and it is all I have left. At least the Wild Hunt wants me. Maybe I should show Shadowhunters what a faerie is made of instead."