Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Despite the look of clear reluctance on his face, Robert nodded. "Very well," he said. "Everyone wants to hear you speak, Julian Blackthorn. So speak."

Julian spoke. Calmly and without flourishes, he began to describe the investigation, from the first bodies found to their realization that evening of Malcolm's guilt.

Emma watched her parabatai as he spoke, and wondered how things would have turned out differently if Sebastian Morgenstern hadn't attacked the L.A. Institute five years ago.

In Emma's mind, for years now, there had been two Julians. Julian before the attack, who was like everyone else--loving his family but annoyed by them too; a brother among brothers and sisters with whom he squabbled and argued and teased and laughed.

And Julian after. Julian, still a child, teaching himself how to feed and change a baby, cooking four different meals for four younger siblings who liked and disliked different things; Julian hiding his uncle's sickness from a mass of adults who would have taken his children away from him; Julian waking up from screaming nightmares that something had happened to Ty or Livvy or Dru.

Emma had been there to hold him, but she had never quite understood--how could she have, when she didn't know about Arthur, didn't know how alone Julian truly was? She only knew that the nightmares had faded and a quiet strength had settled over Jules, a hard determination before which the softness of childhood gave way.

He hadn't been a boy in a long, long time. It had been that boy that Emma had thought could be her parabatai. She would never have fallen in love with that Julian. But she had fallen in love with this one, without knowing it, because how could you fall in love with someone you only half-guessed existed?

She wondered if Mark recognized the same dissonance in some way, if he saw the strangeness in how Julian stood and spoke to the Inquisitor now, as if they were two adults together. If he saw the care with which Julian told the story of what had happened: the key details he left out, the way he made it seem natural, inevitable, that they hadn't told the Clave what they were doing. The way he left out Kit and Johnny Rook. He wove a tale of a series of events that was nobody's fault, that no one could have foreseen or prevented, and he did it without a shred of guile ever showing on his face.

When he was done, Emma shivered inside. She loved Julian, she would always love Julian. But for just that moment, she was a little afraid of him too.

"Malcolm was creating murderers?" Robert echoed when Julian had stopped speaking.

"It makes sense," said Magnus. He stood with his chin cupped in his hand, one long finger tapping against his cheekbone. "One of the reasons necromancy is forbidden is that so many necessary ingredients are things like the hand of a murderer who killed in cold blood, or the eye of a hanged man which still holds the image of the last thing he saw. Obtaining those ingredients by orchestrating the situations that create them was ingenious." He seemed to notice Robert glaring at him. "Very evil, also," he added. "Very."

"Your nephew tells a convincing story, Arthur," said Robert. "But you are notably absent from it. How did you not notice all this was going on?"

Julian had woven his story to make Arthur's absence seem natural. But Robert was like a dog with a bone. Emma supposed that was why he had been elected to the position of Inquisitor.

Emma looked across the room and met Clary's green gaze with her own. She thought of Clary kneeling in front of her in Idris, holding her hands, complimenting Cortana. She thought of how the kindnesses that were shown to children were things they never forgot.

"Robert," Clary said. "There's no need for this. They made difficult decisions, but they weren't wrong decisions."

"Then let me ask Arthur this, Clary," said Robert. "What punishment would he choose for Nephilim, even young Nephilim, who break the Law?"

"Well, that would depend," Arthur said, "on whether they were punished already, five years ago, by losing their father and brother and sister."

Robert flushed darkly. "It was the Dark War that took their family--"

"It was the Clave that took Mark and Helen," said Magnus. "We expect betrayal from our enemies. Not from those who are supposed to care for us."

"We would have protected Mark," said Robert Lightwood. "There was no need to fear the Clave."

Arthur was pale, his eyes dilated. Yet Emma had never heard him speak so eloquently, or with such clarity. It was bizarre. "Would you have?" he demanded. "In that case, why is Helen still at Wrangel Island?"

"She's safer there," snapped Robert. "There are those--not myself--who still hate the faeries for the betrayal of the Dark War. How do you think they would treat her if she were among other Shadowhunters?"

"So you couldn't have protected Mark," said Arthur. "You admit it."

Before Robert could speak, Julian said, "Uncle Arthur, you can tell him the truth."

Arthur looked puzzled; as clearheaded as he had seemed, he didn't seem to know what Julian meant. He was breathing quickly, too, as he had in the Sanctuary when his head pained him.

Julian turned to Robert. "Arthur wanted to go to the Council as soon as the Fair Folk brought Mark here," he said. "We begged him not to. We were afraid our brother would be taken away. We thought if we could just solve the murders, if Mark helped us do it, it might make him look better in the eyes of the Council. Help convince them to let him stay."

"But do you understand what you did?" the Inquisitor demanded. "Malcolm--if he was in pursuit of dark power--he could have posed a threat to all the Clave." Robert didn't sound convinced, though.

"He wasn't in pursuit of power," said Julian. "He wanted to raise someone he loved from the dead. It was evil, what he did. And he's died for it, as he should have. But it was his only goal and only plan. He never cared about the Clave or Shadowhunters. He only cared about her."

"Poor Malcolm," said Magnus quietly. "To lose the person he loved, that way. We all knew that he had loved a girl who had become an Iron Sister. We had no idea of the truth."

"Robert," Jace said. "These kids haven't done anything wrong."

"Perhaps not, but I'm the Inquisitor. I can hardly conceal this. With Malcolm Fade dead, having taken the Black Volume to the bottom of the ocean with him, and with all of this having happened without the head of the Institute having noticed--"

Julian stepped forward. "There's something Uncle Arthur isn't telling you," he said. "He wasn't just letting us run around wild while he did nothing. He's been tracking down a different source of dark magic."

Julian looked at Magnus as he spoke. Magnus, who had helped them in the past. He seemed to be willing Magnus to understand and believe him.

"It's no coincidence that Anselm Nightshade is in the Sanctuary," Julian went on in a hard voice. "Arthur brought him because he knew you were coming."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Is that true? Arthur?"

"You'd better tell them," Julian said, looking hard at his uncle. "They're going to find out anyway."

"I--" Arthur was staring at Julian. There was a blankness on his face that made Emma's stomach knot up. Julian appeared to be almost willing Arthur to follow his lead. "I didn't want to mention it," Arthur said, "because it seemed to pale in comparison to what we learned about Malcolm."

"Mention what?"

"Nightshade's been using dark magic for profit," said Julian. His kept his expression calm, a touch regretful. "He's been making money hand over fist using addictive powders in the pizza he makes."

"That's--totally right!" said Emma, speaking over Arthur's stunned silence. "There are people all over the city so addicted that they would do anything for him just to get more."

"Pizza thralls?" said Jace. "This is without doubt, the weirdest--" He broke off as Clary stomped on his foot. "Seems serious," he said. "I mean, addictive demon powders and all."

Julian crossed the room to the hall closet and yanked it open. Several pizza boxes slid out.

"Magnus?" Julian said.

Magnus threw the end of his scarf over his shoulder and approached Jul

ian and the boxes. He lifted the lid of a pizza box with as much gravity as if he were opening a locked treasure chest.

He held his hand out over the box, turning it from left to right. Then he looked up.

"Arthur's right," he said. "Dark magic."

A cry echoed from inside the Sanctuary. "Betrayal!" Anselm shouted. "Et tu, Brute?"

"He can't get out," said Arthur, looking dazed. "The outside doors are locked."

Robert took off running into the Sanctuary. After a moment Jace and Clary followed, leaving only Magnus, hands in his pockets, remaining in the foyer.

Magnus regarded Julian with serious green-gold eyes. "Nicely done," he said. "I don't know quite how else to describe it, but--nicely done."

Julian looked over at Arthur, who was leaning back against the wall by the Sanctuary door, his eyes half-shut, pain etched on his face. "I'll burn in Hell for this," he muttered in a low voice.