Julian flew downstairs at the loud, repetitive pounding on the front door of the Institute. He was still barefoot; he hadn't had a chance to put shoes on yet. Once he'd finished cleaning up after breakfast, he'd spent an hour trying to convince Uncle Arthur that no one had stolen his bust of Hermes (it was under his desk), found out that Drusilla had locked herself in Tavvy's playhouse in a sulk because she hadn't been invited to the diner the night before. Tavvy discovered Ty had been hiding a skunk in his room and started screaming. Livvy was busy convincing Ty to release the skunk back into the wild; Ty thought that the fact that he and Livvy had translated the Poe lines meant he'd earned the right to keep the skunk.
Mark, the only sibling who hadn't given Julian any trouble that day, was hiding somewhere.
Julian swung the door open. Malcolm Fade stood on the other side, wearing jeans and the kind of sweatshirt you could tell was expensive because it appeared to be filthy and torn, but artfully so. Someone had spent time and money ripping that sweatshirt.
"You know, it's not a good idea to whack on the door like that," said Julian. "We keep a lot of weapons down here in case someone tries to break in."
"Huh," said Malcolm. "I'm not sure what that first statement has to do with the second statement."
"Don't you? I thought it was obvious."
Malcolm's eyes were a brilliant purple, which usually meant he was in a peculiar mood. "Aren't you going to let me in?"
"No," Julian said. His mind was whirling with thoughts of Mark. Mark was upstairs, and Malcolm couldn't see Mark. Mark's return was too much of a secret to ask him to keep--and too much of a clue as to the reason for their investigation.
Julian schooled his features into a look of pleasant blandness, but didn't move from his place blocking the door. "Ty brought a skunk inside," he said. "Believe me, you don't want to come in."
Malcolm looked alarmed. "A skunk?"
"A skunk," Julian said. Julian believed that all the best lies were based on truth. "Did you translate any of the markings?"
"Not yet," Malcolm said. He moved his hand--not much, a small gesture, but the copies of the partially translated markings they'd given him appeared, held delicately between his fingers. Sometimes, Julian thought, it was easy to forget that Malcolm was a powerful user of magic. "But I did discover their origins."
"Really?" Julian tried to look shocked. They already knew the language was an ancient one of Faerie, though they hadn't been able to tell Malcolm that.
On the other hand, this was a chance to check and see if the Fair Folk had been telling them the truth. Julian eyed Malcolm with renewed interest.
"Wait, maybe this isn't the markings." Malcolm eyed the papers. "It seems to be a recipe for orange cake."
Julian crossed his arms over his chest. "No, it isn't."
Malcolm frowned. "I definitely remember looking at a recipe for orange cake recently."
Julian rolled his eyes silently. Sometimes with Malcolm you just had to be patient.
"Never mind," Malcolm said. "That was in a copy of O magazine. This--" He tapped the paper. "An ancient language of Faerie--you were right; it predates Shadowhunters. Anyway, that's the language origin. I can probably get more done in the next few days. But that's not why I came by."
Julian brightened.
"I did some examining of the poison on that fabric you sent me last night. I checked it against different toxins. It was a cataplasm--a concentrate of a rare type of the belladonna plant with demon poisons. It should have killed you."
"But Emma healed me," said Julian. "With an iratze. So are you saying we should be looking for--"
"I wasn't saying anything about looking," Malcolm interrupted. "I'm just telling you. No iratze should have been able to fix you. Even accounting for the strength of parabatai runes, you absolutely shouldn't have survived." His odd violet eyes fixed on Julian. "I don't know if it's something you did, or something Emma did, but whatever it was--was impossible. You shouldn't be breathing right now."
Julian trailed up the stairs slowly. He could hear yelling from above him, but not the sort that sounded as if anyone was in actual trouble. Telling the difference between play yelling and actual yelling was an absolute necessity when you were in charge of four kids.
His mind was still on what Malcolm had told him, about the cataplasm. It was unnerving to be told that you should be dead. There was always the possibility that Malcolm was wrong, but somehow Julian doubted it. Hadn't Emma said something about finding belladonna plants near the convergence?
Thoughts of poison and convergences vanished from his mind as he turned down the corridor from the stairs. The room they kept Tiberius's computer in was filled with light and noise. Julian moved into the doorway and stared.
There was a video game alive and flickering on the computer screen. Mark was sitting in front of it, mashing rather desperately at the buttons on a controller as a truck sped toward him on-screen. It crushed his character with a splat, and he tossed the controller aside. "The box serves the Lord of Lies!" he announced indignantly.
Ty laughed, and Julian felt something tug at his heart. The sound of his brother laughing was one of Julian's favorite noises, in part because Ty did it so sincerely, without any attempt to cover up his laughter or any sense he should hide it. Wordplay and irony often weren't funny to Ty, but people acting silly was, and he had an absolute and sincere amusement at the behavior of animals--Church falling off a table and trying to regain his dignity--that was beautiful to Julian.
In the dead of night, lying in bed staring at his murals of thorns, Julian sometimes wished he could put down the role that required him to always be the one telling Ty he couldn't have skunks in his room or reminding him it was time to study or coming in to shut his lights off when he was reading instead of sleeping. What if, like a normal brother, he could watch Sherlock Holmes movies with Ty and help him collect lizards without worrying that they were going to escape and run through the Institute? What if?
Julian's mother had always stressed the difference between doing something for someone and giving them the tools to do it themselves. It was how she had taught Julian to paint. Julian had always tried to do that for Ty, too, though it had often seemed like he was feeling his way in the dark: making books, toys, lessons that seemed tailored to the special way Ty thought--was it the right thing to do? He thought it had helped. He hoped. Sometimes hope was all you had.
Hope, and watching Ty. There was a pleasure in seeing Ty become more himself, need help and guidance less and less. Yet there was a sadness, too, for the day his brother wouldn't need him anymore. Sometimes, in the depths of his heart, Julian wondered if Ty would want to spend time with him at all, once that day had come--with the brother who was always making him do things and was no fun at all.
"It's not a box," Ty said. "It's a controller."
"Well, it lies," said Mark, turning around in his chair. He saw Julian, leaning in the doorway, and nodded. "Well met, Jules."
Julian knew this was a faerie greeting and struggled internally not to point out to Mark that they'd already met that morning in the kitchen, not to mention several thousand times before that. He won over his baser impulses, but just barely. "Hi, Mark."
"Is everything all right?"
Julian nodded. "Could I talk to Ty for a second?"
Tiberius stood up. His black hair was messy, getting too long. Julian reminded himself to schedule a haircut for both twins. Another thing to add to the calendar.
Ty came out into the corridor, pulling the computer room door shut behind him. His expression was wary. "Is this about the skunk? Because Livvy took it back outside."
Julian shook his head. "It's not about the skunk."
Ty lifted his face. He'd always had delicate features, more elfin than Helen or Mark's. His father had said he was a throwback to earlier generations of Blackthorns, and he looked not unlike some of the family portraits in the dining room they rarely used, slender Victorian men in tailored clothes with po
rcelain faces and black, curling hair. "Then what is it?"
Julian hesitated. The whole house was still. He could hear the faint crackle of the computer on the other side of the door.
He had thought about asking Ty to look into the poison that he had been shot with. But that would require him to say, I was dying. I should be dead. The words wouldn't come. They were like a dam, and behind them were so many other words: I'm not sure about anything. I hate being in charge. I hate making the decisions. I'm terrified you'll all learn to hate me. I'm terrified of losing you. I'm terrified of losing Mark. I'm terrified of losing Emma. I want someone to take over. I'm not as strong as you think. The things I want are wrong and broken things to want.
He knew he could say none of this. The facade he showed them, his children, had to be perfect: A crack in him would be like a crack in the world to them.
"You know I love you," he said, instead, and Ty looked up at him, startled, meeting his gaze for a flicker of a moment. Over the years, Julian had come to understand why Ty didn't like looking into other people's eyes. It was too much movement, color, expression, like looking into a blaring television set. He could do it--he knew it was something people liked, and that it mattered to them--but he didn't see what the fuss was about.
Ty was searching now, though, seeking in Julian's face the answer to his odd hesitancy. "I do know," Ty said, finally.
Julian couldn't help the ghost of a smile. It was what you wanted to hear, wasn't it, from your children? That they knew they were loved? He remembered when he had been carrying Tavvy upstairs, once, when he'd been thirteen; he'd tripped and fallen, twisting his body around so that he would land on his back and head, not caring if he was hurt as long as Tavvy was all right. He'd cracked himself pretty hard on the head, too, but he'd sat upright fast, his mind racing: Tavvy, my baby, is he okay?
It was the first time he'd thought "my baby" and not "the baby."