Lady Midnight Read online

  "La Bella Durmiente," said Cristina. Sleeping Beauty. "But I did not remember it being so sad, or the prince so defeated." She glanced at Emma. "Is he a sorrowful boy, Julian?"

  "No," Emma said, only half paying attention. She hadn't come into Jules's room since he'd gone. It looked like he hadn't cleaned up before he left, and there were clothes on the floor, half-done sketches scattered over the desk, even a mug on the nightstand that probably held coffee that had long since molded. "Not depressed or anything like that."

  "Depressed is not the same as sad," Cristina observed.

  But Emma didn't want to think about Julian being sad, not now, not when he was so close to coming home. Now that it was past midnight, he was technically coming home tomorrow. She felt a shiver of excitement and relief.

  "Come on." She went out of the room and across the hall, Cristina following. Emma put her hand against a closed door. It was wood, like the others, the surface chipped as if no one had cleaned or sanded it in a long time.

  "This was Mark's room," she said.

  Every Shadowhunter knew Mark Blackthorn's name. The half-faerie, half-Shadowhunter boy who had been taken during the Dark War and made a part of the Wild Hunt, the most vicious of the fey. The ones who rode through the sky once a month, preying on humans, visiting the scenes of battle, feeding on fear and death like murderous hawks.

  Mark had always been gentle. Emma wondered whether he still was anymore.

  "Mark Blackthorn was part of the reason I came here," Cristina said, a little shyly. "It has always been my hope that one day I might be part of brokering a better treaty than the Cold Peace. Something more fair to Downworlders and those Shadowhunters who might love them."

  Emma felt her eyes widen. "I didn't know. You never told me that."

  Cristina gestured around them. "You have shared something with me," she said. "You have shared the Blackthorns. I thought I should share something with you."

  "I'm glad you came here," Emma said impulsively, and Cristina blushed. "Even if it was partly for Mark. And even if you won't tell me anything else about why."

  Cristina shrugged. "I like Los Angeles." She gave Emma a sly sideways smile. "Are you absolutely sure you don't want bad movies and ice cream?"

  Emma took a deep breath. She remembered Julian telling her once that when things got to be too much, he imagined locking certain situations and emotions away in a box. Shut them away, he'd said, and they won't bother you. They're gone.

  She imagined, now, taking her memories of the body in the alley, of Sebastian Morgenstern and the Clave, her breakup with Cameron, her need for answers, her anger at the world over her parents' deaths, and her eagerness to see Julian and the others tomorrow, and locking them up in a box. She imagined placing the box somewhere she could get to it easily, somewhere she could find it and open it again.

  "Emma?" Cristina said anxiously. "Are you all right? You look a little as if you might throw up."

  Click went the lock on the box. In her mind, Emma set it aside; back in the world, she smiled at Cristina. "Ice cream and bad movies sounds great," she said. "Let's go."

  The sky above the ocean was streaked with the pink and rose of sunset. Emma slowed from a run to a jog, gasping, her heart pounding in her chest.

  Usually Emma trained in the afternoon and evening and ran in the early morning, but she'd woken up late after staying up nearly all night with Cristina. She'd spent the day feverishly rearranging her evidence, calling Johnny Rook to cajole further details about the murders out of him, writing up notes for her wall, and waiting impatiently for Diana to turn up.

  Unlike most tutors, Diana didn't live in the Institute with the Blackthorns--she had her own house in Santa Monica. Technically, Diana didn't need to be at the Institute at all today, but Emma'd sent her at least six texts. Maybe seven. Cristina had stopped her from sending eight, and suggested she go for a run to get rid of her anxiety.

  She leaned forward, hands on her bent knees, trying to catch her breath. The beach was nearly deserted except for a few mundane couples finishing their romantic sunset walks, heading back up to the cars they'd left parked along the highway.

  She wondered how many miles she'd run up and down this stretch of beach in the years she'd lived in the Institute. Five miles a day, every day. And that was after three hours at least in the training room. Half the scars Emma had on her body she'd put there herself, teaching herself to fall from the highest rafters, training herself to fight through pain by practicing barefoot--on broken glass.

  The most brutal scar she had was on her forearm, and she'd given herself that, too, in a sense. It had come from Cortana, the day her parents had died. Julian had placed the blade in her arms, and she'd cradled it through the blood and the pain, weeping as it cut her skin. It had left a long white line along her arm, one that sometimes made her feel shy about wearing sleeveless dresses or tank tops. She wondered if even other Shadowhunters would stare at the scar, wonder where it came from.

  Though Julian never stared.

  She straightened up. From the waterline, she could see the Institute, all glass and stone, up on the hill above the beach. She could see the bump of Arthur's attic, even the dark window of her own bedroom. She'd slept restlessly there today, dreaming about the dead mundane man, the marks on his body, the marks on her parents. She'd tried to conjure up a vision of what she'd do when she found out who'd killed them. How any amount of physical pain she could inflict could ever even begin to make up for what she'd lost.

  Julian had been in the dream too. She didn't know what exactly she'd dreamed, but she'd woken up with a clear picture of him in her mind--tall, slender Jules, with his dark brown curls and startling blue-green eyes. His dark lashes and pale skin, the way he bit his nails when he was under stress, his confident handling of weapons and even more confident handling of brushes and paints.

  Julian, who would be home tomorrow. Julian would understand exactly what she was feeling--how long she'd waited for a clue about her parents. How now that she'd found one, the world suddenly seemed full of a terrifyingly imminent possibility. She remembered what Jem, the ex-Silent Brother who'd helped preside over her parabatai ceremony, had said about what Julian was to her, that there was an expression for it in his native Chinese, zhi yin. "The one who understands your music."

  Emma couldn't play a note on any instrument, but Julian understood her music. Even the music of revenge.

  Dark clouds were rolling in from the ocean. It was about to rain. Trying to put Jules out of her mind, Emma started to run again, darting up the dirt road toward the Institute. Nearing the building, she slowed, staring. There was a man coming down the steps. He was tall and narrow, dressed in a long coat the color of crow feathers. His hair was short and graying. He usually dressed in black; she suspected that was where his last name came from. He wasn't a warlock, Johnny Rook, even if he had a name like one. He was something else.

  He saw her and his eyes widened. She broke into a sprint, cutting him off before he could dart around the side of the house, away from her.

  She skidded to a stop in front of him, blocking his way. "What are you doing here?"

  His odd eyes darted around, seeking an escape route. "Nothing. Stopping by."

  "Did you say anything about me coming to the Shadow Market to Diana? Because if you did--"

  He drew himself up. There was something odd about his face, as well as his eyes; it had an almost ravaged look, as if something awful had happened to him when he was young, something that had cut lines like knife scars into his skin. "You're not the head of the Institute, Emma Carstairs," he said. "The information I gave you was good."

  "You said you'd stay quiet!"

  "Emma." Emma's name, spoken firmly and with precision. Emma turned with slow dread to see Diana watching her from the top of the steps, the evening wind blowing her curly hair. She was wearing another long, elegant dress that made her look tall and imposing. She also looked absolutely furious.

  "I guess you go
t my texts," Emma said. Diana didn't react.

  "Leave Mr. Rook alone. We need to talk. I want to see you in my office in precisely ten minutes," she said.

  Diana turned and went back into the Institute. Emma shot Rook a venomous glare. "Deals with you are supposed to be secret," she said, stabbing her index finger into his chest. "Maybe you didn't promise you'd keep your mouth shut, but we both know that's what people want from you. What they expect."

  A small smile played around his mouth. "You don't scare me, Emma."

  "Maybe I should."

  "That's what's funny about you Nephilim," said Rook. "You know about Downworld, but you don't live in it." He put his lips to her ear, uncomfortably close. His breath raised the hairs on her neck when he spoke. "There are far more frightening things than you in this world, Emma Carstairs."

  Emma wrenched herself away from him, turned, and ran up the Institute steps.

  Ten minutes later Emma was standing in front of Diana's desk, her hair, still wet from her shower, dripping onto the polished tile floor.

  Though Diana didn't live at the Institute, she had an office there, a comfortable corner room overlooking the highway and the sea. Emma could see the grass stretching out in front of the Institute in the twilight, blue-shadowed at the edges with coastal sage scrub. Rain had begun to patter down, streaking the windows.

  The office was sparsely decorated. On the desk was a photograph of a tall man with his arm around a small girl who resembled Diana despite her youth. They stood in front of a shop whose sign read DIANA'S ARROW.

  There were flowers on the windowsill that Diana had placed there to brighten the room. She folded her arms across the top of the desk and looked at Emma levelly.

  "You lied to me last night," she said.

  "I didn't," Emma said, "not exactly. I--"

  "Don't say you omitted, Emma," said Diana. "You know better than that."

  "What did Johnny Rook tell you?" Emma said, and was immediately sorry she'd said it. Diana's expression darkened.

  "Why don't you tell me?" she said. "In fact, tell me what you did and what your punishment should be. Does that seem fair?"

  Emma crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. She hated being caught, and Diana was good at catching her. Diana was smart, which was often awesome, but not when she was angry.

  Emma could either fill in for Diana what she thought Diana was angry about, thus possibly revealing more than Diana already knew, or she could stay silent, thus possibly annoying Diana further. After a moment's deliberation, she said, "I should have to take care of a box of kittens. You know how cruel kittens are, with their tiny little claws and terrible attitudes."

  "Speaking of terrible attitudes," Diana said. She was idly playing with a pencil. "You went to the Shadow Market, against specific rules. You talked to Johnny Rook. He tipped you off that there'd be a body dump at the Sepulchre that might be connected to your parents' deaths. You didn't just happen to be there. You weren't patrolling."

  "I paid Rook not to say anything," Emma muttered. "I trusted him!"

  Diana threw her pencil down. "Emma, the guy is known as Rook the Crook. In fact, he's not just a crook, he's on the Clave's watch list because he works with faeries without permission. Any Downworlder or mundane who works in secret with faeries is locked out of business with Shadowhunters and forfeits their protection; you know that."

  Emma threw up her hands. "But those are some of the most useful people out there! Cutting them off isn't helping the Clave, it's punishing Shadowhunters!"

  Diana shook her head. "The rules are the rules for a reason. Being a Shadowhunter, a good one, is about more than just training fourteen hours a day and knowing sixty-five ways of killing a man with salad tongs."

  "Sixty-seven," Emma said automatically. "Diana, I'm sorry. I really am, especially for dragging Cristina into this. It's not her fault."

  "Oh, I know that." Diana was still frowning. Emma plunged ahead.

  "Last night," she said, "you told me you believed me. About Sebastian not killing my parents. About there being more to it. Their deaths weren't just--just Sebastian wiping out the Conclave. Someone wanted them dead. Their deaths meant something--"

  "Everyone's death means something," Diana said in a clipped tone. She passed a hand across her eyes. "I talked to the Silent Brothers last night. I found out what they know. And God, I've been telling myself I ought to lie to you about it--I've been struggling with it all day--"

  "Please," Emma whispered. "Please, don't lie."

  "But I can't. I remember when I came here, and you were this little girl, you were twelve years old, and you were wrecked. You'd lost everything. All you had to hang on to was Julian and your need for revenge. For Sebastian not to have been the reason your parents died, because if he was, then how could you punish him?" She took a deep breath. "I know Johnny Rook told you there've been a rash of murders. He's right. Twelve total, counting the one last night. No trace of the murderer left behind. All of the victims unidentified. Their teeth broken, wallets missing, fingerprints sanded off."

  "And the Silent Brothers didn't know about this? The Clave, the Council--?"

  "They did know. And this is the part you're not going to like." Diana's fingernails tapped on the glass of her desk. "Several of the dead were Fair Folk. That makes this a matter for the Scholomance, the Centurions, and the Silent Brothers. Not for Institutes. The Silent Brothers knew. The Clave knew. They didn't tell us, deliberately, because they don't want us involved."

  "The Scholomance?"

  The Scholomance was a piece of Shadowhunter history come to life. A cold castle of towers and corridors carved into the side of a mountain in the Carpathians, it had existed for centuries as a place where the most elite of Shadowhunters were trained to deal with the double menaces of demons and Downworlders. It had been closed when the first Accords were signed: a show of faith that Downworlders and Shadowhunters were no longer at war.

  Now with the advent of the Cold Peace, it had been reopened and was operational again. One had to pass a series of harsh tests to be admitted, and what was learned at the school was not to be shared with others. Those who graduated were called Centurions, scholars and legendary warriors; Emma had never met one in person.

  "It might not be fair, but it's the truth."

  "But the markings. They admitted they were the same markings that were on my parents' bodies?"

  "They didn't admit anything," Diana said. "They said they'd handle it. They said not to get involved, that the rule had come down from the Council itself."

  "The bodies?" Emma said. "Did the bodies dissolve when they tried to move them, like my parents' bodies?"

  "Emma!" Diana rose to her feet. Her hair was a dark, lovely cloud around her face. "We don't interfere with what happens to the fey, not anymore. That's what the Cold Peace means. The Clave hasn't just suggested we don't do this. It's forbidden to interfere with faerie business. If you involve yourself, it could have consequences not just for you but for Julian."

  It was as if Diana had picked up one of the heavy paperweights from the desk and smashed it into Emma's chest. "Julian?"

  "What does he do every year? On the anniversary of the Cold Peace?"

  Emma thought of Julian, sitting here, in this office. Year after year, from the time he was twelve and all scraped elbows and torn jeans. He would sit patiently with pen and ink, writing his letter to the Clave, petitioning them to let his sister Helen come home from Wrangel Island.

  Wrangel Island was the seat of all the world's wards, a set of magical spells that had been set up to protect the earth from certain demons a thousand years ago. It was also a tiny ice floe thousands of miles away in the Arctic Sea. When the Cold Peace had been declared, Helen had been sent there; the Clave had said it was in order that she study the wards, but no one believed it was anything other than an exile.

  She had been allowed a few trips home since then, including the one to Idris when she had married Aline Penhallow, the daughter of t
he Consul. But even that powerful connection couldn't free her. Every year Julian wrote. And every year he was denied.

  Diana spoke in a softer voice. "Every year the Clave says no because Helen's loyalty might be to the Fair Folk. How will it look if they think we're investigating faerie killings against their orders? How would it affect the chance that they might let her go?"

  "Julian would want me to--" Emma started.

  "Julian would cut off his hand if you asked him to. That doesn't mean you should." Diana rubbed her temples as if they ached. "Revenge isn't family, Emma. It isn't a friend, and it's a cold bedfellow." She dropped her hand and moved toward the window, glancing back over her shoulder at Emma. "Do you know why I took this job, here at the Institute? And don't give me a sarcastic answer."

  Emma looked down at the floor. It was made up of alternating blue and white tiles; inside the white tiles were drawings: a rose, a castle, a church spire, an angel wing, a flock of birds, each one different.

  "Because you were there in Alicante during the Dark War," said Emma, a catch in her voice. "You were there when Julian had to--to stop his father. You saw us fight, and you thought we were brave and you wanted to help. That's what you've always said."

  "I had someone when I was younger who helped me become who I really am," said Diana. Emma's ears perked. Diana rarely spoke about her life. The Wrayburns had been a famous Shadowhunter family for generations, but Diana was the last. She never talked about her childhood, her family. It was as if her life had started when she'd taken over her father's weapons shop in Alicante. "I wanted to help you become who you really are."

  "Which is?"

  "The best Shadowhunter of your generation," said Diana. "You train and fight like no one I've ever seen. Which is exactly why I don't want to see you throw your potential away in the pursuit of something that won't heal your wounds."

  Throw my potential away? Diana didn't know, didn't understand. None of her family had died in the Dark War. And Emma's parents hadn't died fighting; they'd been murdered, tortured and mutilated. Crying out for her, maybe, in those moments, short or long or endless, between life and death.