Lord of Shadows Read online

They both turned. A short man stood in front of them. He was pale, with a flat, sickly cast to his skin. He wore a three-piece gray wool suit, which must have been boiling in the warm weather. His hair and beard were dark and neatly clipped.

  "Barnabas," said Kit, blinking. Julian noticed Hyacinth shrinking slightly in her booth. A small crowd had gathered behind Barnabas.

  The short man stepped forward. "Barnabas Hale," he said, holding out a hand. The moment his fingers closed around Julian's, Julian felt his muscles tighten. Only Ty's affinity for lizards and snakes, and the fact that Julian had had to carry them out of the Institute and dump them back in the grass more than once, kept him from pulling his hand away.

  Barnabas's skin wasn't pale: It was a mesh of overlapping whitish scales. His eyes were yellow, and they looked with amusement on Julian, as if expecting him to jerk his hand away. The scales against Julian's skin were like smooth, cold pebbles; they weren't slimy, but they felt as if they ought to be. Julian held the grip for several long moments before lowering his arm.

  "You're a warlock," he said.

  "Never claimed anything different," said Barnabas. "And you're a Shadowhunter."

  Julian sighed and pulled his sleeve back into place. "I suppose there wasn't much point in trying to disguise it."

  "None at all," said Barnabas. "Most of us can recognize a Nephilim on sight, and besides, young Mr. Rook has been the talk of the town." He turned his slit-pupilled eyes on Kit. "Sorry to hear about your father."

  Kit acknowledged this with a slight nod. "Barnabas owns the Shadow Market. At least, he owns the land the Market's on, and he collects the rent for the stalls."

  "That's true," said Barnabas. "So you'll understand I'm serious when I ask you both to leave."

  "We're not causing any trouble," said Julian. "We came here to do business."

  "Nephilim don't 'do business' at Shadow Markets," said Barnabas.

  "I think you'll find they do," said Julian. "A friend of mine bought some arrows here not that long ago. They turned out to be poisoned. Any ideas about that?"

  Barnabas jabbed a squat finger at him. "That's what I mean," he said. "You can't turn it off, even if you want to, this thinking you get to ask the questions and make the rules."

  "They do make the rules," said Kit.

  "Kit," said Julian out of the side of his mouth. "Not helping."

  "A friend of mine disappeared the other day," said Barnabas. "Malcolm Fade. Any ideas about that?"

  There was a low buzz in the crowd behind him. Julian opened and closed his hands at his sides. If he'd been here alone, he wouldn't have been worried--he could have gotten himself out of the crowd easily enough, and back to the car. But with Kit to protect, it would be harder.

  "See?" Barnabas demanded. "For every secret you think you know, we know another. I know what happened to Malcolm."

  "Do you know what he did?" Julian asked, carefully controlling his voice. Malcolm had been a murderer, a mass murderer. He'd killed Downworlders as well as mundanes. Surely the Blackthorns couldn't be blamed for his death. "Do you know why it happened?"

  "I see only another Downworlder, dead at the hands of Nephilim. And Anselm Nightshade, too, imprisoned for a bit of simple magic. What next?" He spat on the ground at his feet. "There might have been a time I tolerated Shadowhunters in the Market. Was willing to take their money. But that time is over." The warlock's gaze skittered to Kit. "Go," he said. "And take your Nephilim friend with you."

  "He's not my friend," said Kit. "And I'm not like them, I'm like you--"

  Barnabas was shaking his head. Hyacinth watched, her blue hands steepled under her chin, her eyes wide.

  "A dark time is coming for Shadowhunters," said Barnabas. "A terrible time. Their power will be crushed, their might thrown down into the dirt, and their blood will run like water through the riverbeds of the world."

  "That's enough," Julian said sharply. "Stop trying to frighten him."

  "You will pay for the Cold Peace," said the warlock. "The darkness is coming, and you would be well advised, Christopher Herondale, to stay far away from Institutes and Shadowhunters. Hide as your father did, and his father before him. Only then can you be safe."

  "How do you know who I am?" Kit demanded. "How do you know my real name?"

  It was the first time Julian had heard him admit that Herondale was his real name.

  "Everyone knows," said Barnabas. "It's all the Market has been buzzing about for days. Didn't you see everyone staring at you when you came in?"

  So they hadn't been looking at Julian. Or at least not just at Julian. It wasn't much comfort, though, Jules thought, not when Kit had that expression on his face.

  "I thought I could come back here," Kit said. "Take over my father's stall. Work in the Market."

  A forked tongue flickered out between Barnabas's lips. "Born a Shadowhunter, always a Shadowhunter," he said. "You cannot wash the taint from your blood. I'm telling you for the last time, boy--leave the Market. And don't come back."

  Kit backed up, looking around him--seeing, as if for the first time, the faces turned toward him, most blank and unfriendly, many avidly curious.

  "Kit--" Julian began, reaching out a hand.

  But Kit had bolted.

  It took Julian only a few moments to catch up with Kit--the boy hadn't really been trying to run; he'd just been pushing blindly through the crowds, with no destination. He'd fetched up in front of a massive stall that seemed to be in the middle of being torn apart.

  It was just a bare latticework of boards now. It looked as if someone had ripped it to pieces with their hands. Jagged bits of wood lay scattered around on the blacktop. A sign dangled crookedly from the top of the stall, printed with the words PART SUPERNATURAL? YOU'RE NOT ALONE. THE FOLLOWERS OF THE GUARDIAN WANT YOU TO SIGN UP FOR THE LOTTERY OF FAVOR! LET LUCK INTO YOUR LIFE!

  "The Guardian," Kit said. "That was Malcolm Fade?"

  Julian nodded.

  "He was the one who got my father involved in all that stuff with the Followers and the Midnight Theater," said Kit, his tone almost thoughtful. "It's Malcolm's fault he died."

  Julian didn't say anything. Johnny Rook hadn't been much of a prize, but he was Kit's father. You only got one father. And Kit wasn't wrong.

  Kit moved then, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the sign. It clattered to the ground. In the moment before Kit pulled his hand back, wincing, Julian saw a flash of the Shadowhunter in him. If the warlock wasn't already dead, Julian believed sincerely that Kit would have killed Malcolm.

  A small crowd had followed from Hyacinth's stall, staring. Julian put a hand on Kit's back, and Kit didn't move to shake him off.

  "Let's go," Julian said.

  *

  Emma showered carefully--the downside of having your hair long when you were a Shadowhunter was never knowing after a fight if there was ichor in it. Once the back of her neck had been green for a week.

  When she came out into her bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a tank top and rubbing her hair dry with a green towel, she found Mark curled up at the foot of her bed, reading a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

  He was wearing a pair of cotton pajama bottoms that Emma had bought for three dollars from a vendor on the side of the PCH. He was partial to them as being oddly close in their loose, light material to the sort of trousers he'd worn in Faerie. If it bothered him that they also had a pattern of green shamrocks embroidered with the words GET LUCKY on them, he didn't show it. He sat up when Emma came in, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and smiled at her.

  Mark had a smile that could break your heart. It seemed to take up his whole face and brighten his eyes, firing the blue and gold from inside.

  "A strange evening, forsooth," he said.

  "Don't you forsooth me." She flopped down on the bed next to him. He wouldn't sleep on the bed, but he didn't seem to mind using the mattress as a sort of giant sofa. He set his book down and leaned back against the footboard. "You know my rul
es about forsoothing in my room. Also the use of the words 'howbeit,' 'welladay,' and 'alack.' "

  "What about 'zounds'?"

  "The punishment for 'zounds' is severe," she told him. "You'll have to run naked into the ocean in front of the Centurions."

  Mark looked puzzled. "And then?"

  She sighed. "Sorry, I forgot. Most of us mind being naked in front of strangers. Take my word for it."

  "Really? You've never swum naked in the ocean?"

  "That's kind of a different question, but no, I never have." She leaned back beside him.

  "We should one day," he said. "All of us."

  "I can't imagine Perfect Diego ripping off all his clothes and leaping into the water in front of us. Maybe just in front of Cristina. Maybe."

  Mark clambered off the bed and onto the pile of blankets she'd put on the floor for him. "I doubt it. I bet he swims with all his clothes on. Otherwise he'd have to take off his Centurion pin."

  She laughed and he gave her an answering smile, though he looked tired. She sympathized. It wasn't the normal activities of Shadowhunting that were tiring her out. It was the pretense. Perhaps it made sense that she and Mark could only unwind at night around each other, since there was no one, then, to pretend for.

  They were the only times she had relaxed since the day Jem had told her about the parabatai curse, how parabatai who fell in love would go insane and destroy themselves and everyone they loved.

  She'd known immediately: She couldn't let that happen. Not to Julian. Not to his family, who she loved too. She couldn't have stopped herself loving Julian. It was impossible. So she had to make Julian not love her.

  Julian had given her the key himself, only days before. Words, whispered against her skin in a rare moment of vulnerability: He was jealous of Mark. Jealous that Mark could talk to her, flirt with her, easily, while Julian always had to hide what he felt.

  Mark was leaning against the footboard beside her now, his eyes half-closed. Crescents of color under his lids, his eyelashes a shade darker than his hair. She remembered asking him to come to her room. I need you to pretend with me that we're dating. That we're falling in love.

  He'd held out his hand to her, and she'd seen the storm in his eyes. The fierceness that reminded her that Faerie was more than green grass and revels. That it was callous wild cruelty, tears and blood, lightning that slashed the night sky like a knife.

  Why lie? he'd asked.

  She'd thought for a moment he'd been asking her, Why do you want to tell this lie? But he hadn't been. He'd been asking, Why lie when we can make it the truth, this thing between us?

  She'd stood before him, aching all the way down to the floor of her soul, in all the places where she'd ripped Julian away from her as if she'd torn off a limb.

  They said that men joined the Wild Hunt sometimes when they had sustained a great loss, preferring to howl out their grief to the skies than to suffer in silence in their ordinary gray lives. She remembered soaring through the sky with Mark, his arms around her waist: She had let the wind take her screams of excitement, thrilling to the freedom of the sky where there was no pain, no worry, only forgetfulness.

  And here was Mark, beautiful in that way that the night sky was beautiful, offering her that same freedom with an outstretched hand. What if I could love Mark? she thought. What if I could make this lie true?

  Then it would be no lie. If she could love Mark, it would end all the danger. Julian would be safe.

  She had nodded. Reached her hand out to Mark's.

  She let herself remember that night in her room, the look in his eyes when he'd asked her, Why lie? She remembered his warm clasp, his fingers circling her wrist. How they had nearly stumbled in their haste to get nearer to each other, colliding almost awkwardly, as if they'd been dancing and had missed a step. She had clasped Mark by the shoulders and stretched up to kiss him.

  He was wiry from the Hunt, not as muscled as Julian, the bones of his clavicle and shoulders sharp under her hands. But his skin was smooth where she pushed her hands down the neck of his shirt, stroking the top of his spine. And his mouth was warm on hers.

  He tasted bittersweet and felt hot, as if he had a fever. She instinctively moved closer to him; she hadn't realized she was shivering, but she was. His mouth opened over hers; he explored her lips with his, sending slow waves of heat through her body. He kissed the corner of her mouth, brushed his lips against her jaw, her cheek.

  He drew back. "Em," he said, looking puzzled. "You taste of salt."

  She drew her right hand back from its clasp around his neck. Touched her face. It was wet. She'd been crying.

  He frowned. "I don't understand. You want the world to believe we are a couple, and yet you are weeping as if I have hurt you. Have I hurt you? Julian will never forgive me."

  The mention of Julian's name almost undid her. She sank down at the foot of her bed, gripping her knees. "Julian has so much to cope with," she said. "I can't have him worrying about me. About my relationship with Cameron."

  Silently, she apologized to Cameron Ashdown, who really hadn't done anything wrong.

  "It's not a good relationship," she said. "Not healthy. But every time it ends, I fall back into it again. I need to break that pattern. And I need Julian not to be anxious about it. There's already too much--the Clave will be investigating the fallout from Malcolm's death, our involvement with the Court--"

  "Hush," he said, sitting down next to her. "I understand."

  He reached up and pulled the blanket down from her bed. Emma watched him in surprise as he wrapped it around the two of them, tucking it around both their shoulders.

  She thought of the Wild Hunt then, the way he must have been with Kieran, huddling in shelters, wrapping themselves in their cloaks to block the cold.

  He traced the line of her cheekbone with his fingers, but it was a friendly gesture. The heat that had been in their kiss was gone. And Emma was glad. It had seemed wrong to feel that, even the shadow of it, with anyone but Julian. "Those who are not faeries find comfort in lies," he said. "I cannot judge that. I will do this with you, Emma. I will not abandon you."

  She leaned against his shoulder. Relief made her feel light.

  "You must tell Cristina, though," he added. "She is your best friend; you cannot hide so much from her."

  Emma nodded. She had always planned to tell Cristina. Cristina was the only one who knew about her feelings for Julian, and she would never for a moment believe that Emma had suddenly fallen in love with Mark instead. She would have to be told for practicality's sake, and Emma was glad.

  "I can trust her completely," she said. "Now--tell me about the Wild Hunt."

  He began to speak, weaving a story of a life lived in the clouds and in the deserted and lost places of the world. Hollow cities at the bottom of copper canyons. The shell of Oradour-sur-Glane, where he and Kieran had slept in a half-burned hayloft. Sand and the smell of the ocean in Cyprus, in an empty resort town where trees grew through the floors of abandoned grand hotels.

  Slowly Emma drifted off to sleep, with Mark holding her and whispering stories. Somewhat to her surprise, he'd come back the next night--it would help make their relationship seem convincing, he'd said, but she'd seen in his eyes that he'd liked the company, just as she had.

  And so they'd spent every night since then together, sprawled in the covers piled on the floor, trading stories; Emma spoke of the Dark War, of how she felt lost sometimes now that she was no longer searching for the person who'd killed her parents, and Mark talked about his brothers and sisters, about how he and Ty had argued and he worried he'd made his younger brother feel as if he wasn't there to be relied on, as if he might leave at any minute.

  "Just tell him you might leave, but you'll always come back to him," Emma said. "Tell him you're sorry if you ever made him feel any different."

  He only nodded. He never told her if he'd taken her advice, but she'd taken his and told Cristina everything. It had been a huge relief, and sh
e'd cried in Cristina's arms for several hours. She'd even gotten Julian's permission to tell Cristina an abbreviated version of the situation with Arthur--enough to make it clear how badly Julian was needed here at the Institute, with his family. She'd asked Julian's permission to share that information; an extremely awkward conversation, but he'd almost seemed relieved that someone else would know.

  She'd wanted to ask him if he'd tell the rest of the family the truth about Arthur soon. But she couldn't. Walls had gone up around Julian that seemed as impenetrable as the thorns around Sleeping Beauty's castle. She wondered if Mark had noticed, if any of the others had noticed, or if only she could see it.

  She turned to look at Mark now. He was asleep on the floor, his cheek pillowed on his hand. She slid off the bed, settling among the blankets and pillows, and curled up next to him.

  Mark slept better when he was with her--he'd said so, and she believed it. He'd been eating better too, putting on muscle fast, his scars fading, color back in his cheeks. She was glad. She might feel like she was dying inside every day, but that was her problem--she'd handle it. No one owed her help, and in a way she welcomed the pain. It meant Julian wasn't suffering alone, even if he believed he was.

  And if she could help Mark at all, then that was something. She loved him, the way she should love Julian: Uncle Arthur would have called it philia, friendship love. And though she could never tell Julian about the way she and Mark were helping each other, it was at least something she felt she could do for him: make his brother happier.

  Even if he'd never know.

  A knock on the door yanked her out of her reverie. She started up; the room was dim, but she could make out bright red hair, Clary's curious face peering around the door's edge. "Emma? Are you awake? Are you on the floor?"

  Emma peered down at Mark. He was definitely asleep, huddled in blankets, out of Clary's view. She held up two fingers to Clary, who nodded and shut the door; two minutes later Emma was out in the hallway, zipping up a hoodie.

  "Is there somewhere we can talk?" Clary said. She was still so small, Emma thought, it was sometimes hard to remember that she was in her twenties. Her hair was caught back in braids, making her seem even younger.

  "On the roof," Emma decided. "I'll show you."

  She led Clary up the stairs, to the ladder and trapdoor, and then out to the dark expanse of roof. She hadn't been there herself since the night she'd come up with Mark. It seemed like years ago, though she knew it was only weeks.