Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Livvy cried out her brother's name and lunged forward. Julian caught hold of her, hauling her back. She struggled incredulously against his grip. "We need to save him," she hissed. "We have to get to him--"

"There's a protection circle," Julian hissed back. "Drawn around him on the floor. If you step through it, it could kill you."

Someone was murmuring softly. Cristina, whispering a prayer.

Mark had stiffened. "Be quiet," he said. "Someone's coming."

They did their best to melt back into the shadows, even Livvy, who had not stopped struggling. Julian's witchlight winked out.

A figure had appeared out of the darkness. Someone in a long black robe, a hood hiding their face. A tall someone with hands sheathed in black gloves. He always showed up in a robe and gloves and a hood, okay? Completely covered.

Emma's heart began to pound.

The figure approached the table, and the protection circle opened like a lock, runes vanishing and fading until there was a gap to step through. Head down, the figure came closer to Tavvy.

And closer. Emma felt the Blackthorns all around her, their fear like a living thing. She could taste blood in her mouth; she was biting her lip, so badly did she want to throw herself forward, risk the circle, grab Tavvy and run.

Livvy broke away from Julian and burst into the cavern. "No!" she cried. "Step away from my brother, or I'll kill you, I'll kill you--"

The figure froze. Slowly, it raised its head. Its hood fell back, and long, curling black hair spilled out. A familiar koi tattoo glimmered against brown skin. "Livvy?"

"Diana?" Ty spoke, voicing his sister's disbelief. Livvy was stricken silent.

Diana jerked away from the table, staring. "By the Angel," she breathed. "How many of you are here?"

It was Julian who spoke. His voice was level, though Emma could feel the effort it took to keep it that way. Diego was leaning forward, his eyes narrow. Jace Herondale and the Lightwoods were betrayed by their own tutor. "All of us," Julian said.

"Even Dru? You don't understand how dangerous this is--Julian, you have to get everyone out of here."

"Not without Tavvy," Emma snapped. "Diana, what the hell are you doing? You told us you were in Thailand."

"If she was, no one at the Bangkok Institute knew about it," said Diego. "I checked."

"You lied to us," Emma said. She remembered Iarlath saying: Foolish Shadowhunters, too naive to even know who you can trust. Had he meant Malcolm or Diana? "And you've barely been here, this whole investigation, like you were hiding something from us--"

Diana recoiled. "Emma, no, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like? Because I can't imagine what possible reason you could have for being here--"

There was a noise. Approaching footsteps, from the shadows. Diana flung out a hand. "Get back--get away--"

Julian grabbed for Livvy, hauling his sister back into the shadows just as Malcolm appeared.

Malcolm.

He looked just as he always did. A bit scruffy in jeans and a white linen jacket that matched his hair. In his hand he carried a large black book, tied with a leather strap.

"It is you," Diana whispered.

Malcolm looked at her calmly.

"Diana Wrayburn," he said. "Now, now. I didn't expect to see you here. I rather thought you'd run away."

Diana faced him. "I don't run."

He seemed to look at her again, to see how close she was to Tavvy. He frowned. "Step away from the boy."

Diana didn't move.

"Do it," he said, tucking the Black Volume into his jacket. "He's nothing to you, anyway. You're not a Blackthorn."

"I'm his tutor. He has grown up in my care."

"Oh, come now," said Malcolm. "If you'd cared about those children, you'd have taken the post as head of the Institute years ago. But I suppose we all know why you didn't do that."

Malcolm grinned. It transformed his whole face. If Emma had still held lingering doubts about his guilt, about the story Kieran had told, they vanished in that moment. His mobile, amusing features seemed to harden. There was cruelty in that smile, framed against a backdrop of echoing, depthless loss.

A flare went up from the table, a burst of fire. Diana cried out and stumbled back, out of the circle of protection. It sealed itself up behind her. She hurled herself to her feet and threw herself toward Tavvy, but this time the circle held fast; she bounced off it as if off a glass wall, the force sending her staggering back.

"No human thing can cross that barrier," said Malcolm. "I'm guessing you had a charm to get you through the first time, but it won't work again. You should have stayed away."

"You can't possibly hope for success, Malcolm," Diana gasped. She was clutching her left arm with her right; the skin looked burned. "If you kill a Shadowhunter, the Nephilim will hunt you for the rest of your days."

"They hunted me two hundred years ago. They killed her," said Malcolm, and the throb of emotion in his voice was something Emma had never heard before. "And we had done nothing. Nothing. I do not fear them, their unjust justice or unlawful laws."

"I understand your pain, Malcolm," Diana said carefully. "But--"

"Do you? Do you understand, Diana Wrayburn?" he snarled--then his voice softened. "Maybe you do. You have known the injustice and intolerance of the Clave. If only you hadn't come here--it's the Blackthorns I despise, not the Wrayburns. I always rather liked you."

"You liked me because you thought I was too frightened of the Clave to look closely at you," Diana said, turning away from him. "To suspect you." For a moment she faced Emma and the others. She mouthed RUN at them silently, before turning back to Malcolm.

Emma didn't budge, but she did hear a movement behind her. It was quiet; if she hadn't been wearing a rune that sharpened her hearing, it would have been inaudible. To her surprise, the movement was Julian, disappearing from her side. Mark was next to him. Silently they slipped back into the tunnel.

Emma wanted to call after Julian--what was he doing?--but she couldn't, not without alerting Malcolm. Malcolm was still moving toward Diana; in a moment he'd be where he could see them. She put a hand to the hilt of Cortana. Ty was gripping a knife, white-knuckled; Livvy held her saber, her face set and determined.

"Who told you?" Malcolm said. "Was it Rook? I didn't think he'd guessed." He tipped his head to the side. "No. You weren't sure when you got here. You suspected . . ." His mouth turned down at the corners. "It was Catarina, wasn't it?"

Diana stood with her feet apart, her head back. A warrior stance. "When the second line of the poem was deciphered and I heard the phrase 'Blackthorn blood,' I realized that we weren't searching for a killer of mundanes and faeries. That this was about the Blackthorn family. And there is no one more likely to know about a grudge that goes back years than Catarina. I went to her."

"And you couldn't tell the Blackthorns where you went because of the reason you know Catarina," said Malcolm. "She's a nurse--a nurse to mundanes. How do you think I found out--?"

"She didn't tell you about me, Malcolm," snapped Diana. "She keeps secrets. What she told me about you was simply what she knew--that you'd loved a Nephilim girl and that she'd become an Iron Sister. She'd never questioned the story because as far as she knew, you'd never questioned the story. But once she told me that, I was able to check with the Iron Sisters. No Nephilim girl with that story had become one of them. And once I realized that was a lie, the rest began to come together. I remembered what Emma had told us about what she'd found here, the clothes, the candelabra. Catarina went to the Spiral Labyrinth and I came here--"

"So Catarina gave you the charm to get you through the protection circle," said Malcolm. "Unfortunate that you wasted it. Did you have a plan or did you just rush here in a panic?"

Diana said nothing. Her face looked carved out of stone.

"Always have a plan," said Malcolm. "I, for one, have been crafting my current plan for years. And now here you are, the proverbial fly in the ointment. I supp

ose there's nothing to do but kill you, though I hadn't planned to, and exposing you to the Clave would have been so much more fun--"