The Land I Lost Read online

  After a moment, the cobbler shook his head. “When the werewolf woman who looked after the orphans vanished, the other kids were given homes by my people. But, no offense meant, faeries won’t take in a Shadowhunter.”

  Not with the Cold Peace breeding hatred between Shadowhunters and faeries. The laws were all wrong, and children were paying the price.

  “Also that child hates everybody,” said the faerie cobbler. “Watch out. He bites.”

  They were almost at the wire tunnel leading to the exit of the Shadow Market now. This far out from the center of the Market there were fallen walls, more signs of a place crushed by war and then left to decay.

  “Hey,” Alec told Rafael. “Come here a second. Mach dir keine—”

  “You’re telling him not to worry in German,” Lily reported gleefully.

  Alec sighed and knelt in the gray dust, among the rubble, gesturing Rafael to sit on a piece of the fallen wall. The child eyed Alec and the boots in his hand with an air of extreme mistrust. Then he plunked himself down and let Alec slip his feet into the too-large boots.

  The kid’s feet were small, his soles black with filth. Alec swallowed, and drew the laces on Rafael’s boots as tight as he could, so they would stay on and Rafael could walk properly.

  Rafael stood as soon as Alec was done tying his laces. Alec stood as well.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Rafael’s dark, measuring gaze was on Alec again. He stood perfectly still, for a long moment.

  Then he lifted both his arms in a commanding gesture. Alec was so used to that gesture from Max that he moved without even thinking and scooped Rafael up in his arms.

  It was nothing like carrying Max, small and plump, always laughing and cuddling. Rafael was tall for his age, and much too thin. Alec could feel the knobbly bones of his back. Rafael held himself very stiffly, as though he was undergoing an unpleasant ordeal. It was like holding a small statue, if you felt desperately sorry for the statue and unsure what to do.

  “Carrying you means the boots are pointless,” murmured Alec. “But that’s all right. I’m glad you’re coming with us. You’re safe now. I have you.”

  “No te entiendo,” said Rafael’s small clear voice in his ear, then after a thoughtful pause: “Boludo.”

  Alec was sure of two things: that word was not a nice word, and this kid didn’t like Alec at all.

  Jem and Tessa were standing at the gates of the Shadow Market when they saw him. They’d hoped to catch Alec and Lily before they reached the Buenos Aires Institute. Finding no sign of them, they’d worried Breakspear had detained them, but a warlock acquaintance of Tessa’s had sent word a Shadowhunter had been let into the Market.

  Now they were worried the Queen of the Market had detained them. Jem was conferring with Tessa when the gates opened. Against barbed wire and starlight they saw a tall man, his black head bowed and his tender blue eyes fixed on the child in his arms. Will, thought Jem, and grasped Tessa’s hand tight. Whatever he felt, it was worse for her.

  Alec looked up and said, sounding relieved: “Tessa.”

  “What a handsome end to a long night,” Lily said delightedly. “If it isn’t the former Brother Snackariah.”

  “Lily!” Alec exclaimed.

  But Tessa, still holding Jem’s hand, gave Jem a highly amused look and smiled her gradual, beautiful smile. “It’s Raphael’s Lily,” she said. “How nice to see you. Forgive me, I feel like I know you better than I do. He talked about you often.”

  Lily’s grin fractured as if someone had dropped a mirror.

  “What did he say about me?” she asked in a small voice.

  “He said you were more efficient and intelligent than most of the clan, who were morons.”

  It sounded very cold to Jem, but that had been Raphael’s way. Lily’s smile returned, warm as a flame held between cupped hands. It reminded Jem of the way she’d looked when they first met. He had not known, then, that Tessa had sent Raphael to him for help. He’d done his best then, and now Lily was a friend.

  “Thank you both for coming to help us,” said Jem. “Who is the child?”

  Alec explained the events of the night—being turned away from the Buenos Aires Institute, learning of the disappearances, and the discovery of Rafael, the child the Institute had abandoned.

  “I’m sorry you went to the Institute at all,” Jem said. “We should have warned you, but I haven’t been a Shadowhunter in a long time. I didn’t realize that your first instinct would be to go there. Our lodging house has rooms available, and at least one of them is windowless. Come with us.”

  Alec carried the child with the ease of long habit. One hand remained free to grab a weapon, and he walked easily through the streets with the small precious weight. Jem, long out of practice, wouldn’t have been able to do it himself. He’d held Tessa’s children, James and Lucie, when they were little, but that had been more than a century ago. Not many people wanted a Silent Brother near their child, unless that child was near death.

  They walked through the streets, past houses painted in flamboyant hues, flame scarlet, sea blue, crocodile green, the streets lined with jacaranda and olive trees. At last they reached their lodgings, the low whitewashed building turned blue by the first signs of dawn. Jem pushed open the circular red door and requested more rooms from their landlady, one without a window.

  Jem and Tessa had already secured the use of the little courtyard at the center of the lodging house, a group of small stone pillars open to the sky, circled with the soft violet-blue of bougainvillea. They gathered there, Alec placing Rafael carefully down on the stone bench beside him. Rafael scooted to the other edge of the bench. He hung his head and was silent when Tessa spoke to him softly in Spanish, asking him for any information about the missing women. Jem hadn’t heard about them before, but now that he knew, it was clear they had to help. Rosemary Herondale might be in danger, but so were these werewolf women. Jem wanted to do whatever he could for them.

  Returning to speech had been strange for Jem, but Tessa had learned many languages and taught him everything she could. Jem tried asking Rafael too, but Rafael shook his head sullenly.

  Lily was sitting cross-legged on the ground, one elbow propped on Alec’s knee, to be near the child. She tilted her head toward Rafael and asked him if he would please get on with it, because the sun was rising and she’d have to go to bed soon.

  Rafael reached out and patted the bright pink streak in Lily’s hair.

  “Bonita,” he said, face still solemn.

  The poor child didn’t smile much, Jem thought. Of course, nor did Alec, who was looking miserable and determined about the missing women.

  Lily, who smiled very easily, did so now. “Aw, cute baby,” she said in Spanish. “Do you want to call me Aunt Lily?”

  Rafael shook his head. Lily looked undaunted.

  “I have a trick,” she offered, and snapped her fangs in Rafael’s direction.

  Rafael looked absolutely appalled.

  “What are you guys saying?” asked Alec worriedly. “Why is he looking like that? Why did you do that?”

  “Max loves it when I do that!” said Lily, and added in Spanish: “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Wasn’t scared,” Rafael responded in Spanish. “That was stupid.”

  “What did he say?” Alec asked.

  “He said that was an awesome trick and he really enjoyed it,” Lily reported.

  Alec raised a skeptical eyebrow in her direction. Rafael pressed close to Alec. Tessa joined Lily on the ground. Tessa talked to Rafael gently, and Lily teased him, and together they got the full story, Lily translating for Alec as they went. Alec’s face went more and more grim as he heard the story.

  “Rafael knows he’s a Shadowhunter, and he’s trying to learn—”

  Rafael, who Jem thought understood more Engl
ish than he was letting on, interrupted to correct Lily.

  “Excuse me,” Lily said. “He’s trying to train. He spies on the other Shadowhunters, so he knows what to do. He’s small, and he makes sure they don’t see him. While he was spying on them, he saw a Shadowhunter creeping off down a lane. He met a warlock at the door of a big house. He got as close as he could, and he heard women inside.”

  “Can you describe the Shadowhunter you saw?” asked Alec, and Jem translated for him.

  “I think you can do it,” Jem added to the child encouragingly. “You see so much.”

  Rafael gave Jem a dark look, as though he disliked praise. He spent a few more moments in furious thought, kicking his too-big boots over the edge of the stone bench, then reached into the pocket of his tattered trousers and placed a slim wallet in Alec’s hands.

  “Oh.” Alec looked startled. “You stole this from the Shadowhunter you saw?”

  Rafael nodded.

  “That’s great. I mean . . .” Alec paused. “It’s good that you’re helping us, but it’s very bad to steal wallets generally. Don’t do it again.”

  “No te entiendo,” Rafael announced firmly.

  He said that he didn’t understand Alec, and his tone suggested that he wasn’t planning to understand Alec on this topic anytime soon.

  “Don’t say the other word,” Alec said quickly.

  “What other word?” Jem asked.

  “Don’t ask,” said Alec, and opened the wallet.

  Shadowhunters did not carry mundane forms of identification like passports or ID cards, but they carried other things. Alec took out a weapons requisition document marked with the Breakspear family symbol.

  “Clive Breakspear,” Alec said slowly. “The head of the Institute. Juliette said that these Shadowhunters acted as mercenaries. What if this warlock hired them?”

  “We have to find out what’s happening,” said Jem. “And stop it.”

  Alec set his jaw.

  “Rafael can show us the house after he gets some rest. Tomorrow night we’ll go back to the Shadow Market. We’ll try to find the information you’re looking for, and tell the Queen of the Market what, if anything, we’ve discovered.”

  Rafael nodded, then held his hand out for the wallet. Alec shook his head.

  “What is this secret you want to know about?” Lily asked Jem.

  “Lily, it’s a secret,” Alec said reprovingly.

  There were crickets chirping in an odd beautiful melody beyond the walls.

  “I trust you both,” Jem said slowly. “You came here to help us. I trust this will go no further. I’m looking for someone who needs my help. There’s a hidden line of Shadowhunters I became aware of in the 1930s.”

  Lily shook her head. “The 1930s were such a disappointment. Every year, they insisted on not being the 1920s.”

  Will had died in the 1930s, and Tessa had been in agony. Jem had not liked the 1930s much either.

  “This family has been hunted for decades,” said Jem. “I don’t know why. I learned how they split off from the Nephilim, but I still didn’t know why faeries are hunting them. I met one of them, but she refused my help and ran away. Since then, I have looked for them, and friends I trust have asked discreetly around the Shadow Market. The year I met you there, Lily, I was searching for Ragnor Fell, to find out what he could tell me. I want to know why they are being hunted, so that I can help them. Whoever their enemies are, they are mine too.”

  Because the Carstairs owe the Herondales.

  “I asked in the Spiral Labyrinth as well,” said Tessa. “There was never any word. Until suddenly we heard that someone was telling stories to the children of this Market, stories of love and revenge and misery. We heard a whisper of the name Herondale.”

  She said the name that had once been hers very softly. Alec jumped as if someone had shouted it in his ear.

  Neither Jem nor Tessa mentioned Catarina Loss, who had carried the first lost Herondale child over the seas and raised him on strange shores. That wasn’t their secret. Jem trusted Alec, but he was still a Shadowhunter, and his father was the Inquisitor. Jem and Tessa were both well aware of the sentence the Law would pass on Catarina for her act of love and mercy.

  “I’ll ask Juliette,” said Alec. “I’ll find out whatever I can. I won’t go home until I’ve helped you.”

  “Thank you,” Jem said.

  “Now Rafael has to go to bed,” said Alec.

  “We have a nice little room for you,” Tessa told Rafael in Spanish, her voice soft and encouraging. Rafael shook his head. “Do you not want to be alone?” Tessa asked. “That’s fine too. You can sleep with me and Jem.”

  When Tessa reached out her hands, Rafael turned his face into Alec’s bicep and screamed. Tessa drew back at the long mutinous howl. Alec automatically put his arm around the child.

  “Lily’s vulnerable during the day,” Alec said. “I’d rather stay with her. Will you be all right in the windowless room, Rafael?”

  Lily translated. Rafael nodded emphatically.

  Jem showed them the way. At the door, he caught Alec’s arm before he could follow Lily and Rafael.

  “I appreciate this,” said Jem. “I truly do. Please don’t tell Jace yet.”

  Jem still thought about Jace, that fierce helpless child he’d met on a dark sea, and the young man burning with heavenly fire. He’d imagined a hundred scenarios where he did better by Jace. If he’d been the Silent Brother who cared for Jace after his father left him, if he’d spent more time with Jace, if Jace had been just slightly older, the age Will had been when Jem first met him . . . maybe Jem would have known.

  But what could he have done for Jace, even if he had known?

  “I don’t want Jace to think he has family somewhere he won’t get to know,” said Jem. “Blood is not love, but it offers a chance for love. He never had the chance to know Céline Montclaire or Stephen Herondale. I don’t want him to feel he is missing another chance.”

  Jace was happy in New York, though Jem had not helped him be so. He had his love, and his parabatai, and his Institute. If Jem couldn’t help him, at least he did not want to hurt him.

  Jem still thought about Céline Montclaire too. If he hadn’t been a Silent Brother, with his heart turning to stone in his breast, perhaps he would have understood how much trouble she was in. Perhaps he could have found a way to help her.

  He didn’t call Céline Jace’s mother, because Jem had seen how Jace looked at Maryse Lightwood. Maryse was Jace’s mother.

  Many years ago, when Jem was still a child, his uncle Elias had come to the London Institute and offered to take him away. “After all,” he’d said, “We are family.”

  “You should go,” Will had said stormily. “I don’t care.”

  Will had slammed the door on his way out, declaring he was off on a wild adventure. After Elias departed, Jem had found Will sitting in the dark in the music room, staring at Jem’s violin. He’d sat down on the floor beside Will.

  “Entreat me not to leave thee, idiot,” Jem had said, and Will had put his head down on Jem’s shoulder. Jem had felt Will trembling with the effort not to laugh or cry, and known Will wanted to do both.

  Blood was not love.

  But Jem didn’t forget that Céline had never had the chance to be Jace’s mother. Life was full of broken hearts and missed chances, but Jem could try to redress some of the wrong done Céline by the world. He could do his best for Jace.

  Alec was studying Jem intently.

  “I won’t tell Jace,” he said. “Not yet. Not if you tell him soon.”

  “I hope I will,” said Jem.

  “Can I ask you something?” said Alec abruptly. “The Buenos Aires Institute is corrupted, and the Cold Peace is fraying our bonds with Downworlders. You could do a lot of good, if you were with us. Why did you stop being a Shadow
hunter?”

  “I am with you,” said Jem. “Do I have to be a Shadowhunter to be that?”

  “No,” said Alec. “But I don’t understand—why you don’t want to be one anymore.”

  “Don’t you?” Jem asked. “You have a parabatai. Once, so did I. Can you imagine fighting without him?”

  Alec was holding on to the doorframe, and as Jem watched, his knuckles went white.

  “I have Tessa, so I have more joy every day than some do in their whole lives. Far more than I deserve. I have seen the world with my wife by my side, and we have our tasks to make life meaningful. We all have different ways to serve. She has the secrets from the Spiral Labyrinth, and I those of the Silent Brothers, and we have combined our knowledge and saved lives that I believe couldn’t have been saved by any other means. I do want to help, and I will. But not as a Shadowhunter. I will never be that again.”

  Alec looked at Jem, those blue eyes wide and sorrowful. He looked like Will, but he wasn’t Will, any more than Jace was. None of them could ever be Will.

  “When you fight, you should fight with your whole heart,” said Jem softly. “I don’t have the heart for life among the Nephilim, for that particular fight, not any longer. Too much of my heart is in a grave.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alec said, awkwardly. “I do understand.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jem told him.

  He went back to his room, where Tessa was waiting, a book open in her lap. She looked up when he came in, and she smiled. There was no smile like hers in the world.

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  He looked down at her and said: “Yes.”

  Tessa shut her book and reached up to him. She was kneeling on the bed and he was standing beside it, and the world was filled with missed chances and heartbreak, but then there was Tessa.

  Tessa kissed him, and he felt her grin against his mouth . “Brother Snackariah,” she murmured. “Come here.”