“Julian? Emma?” called the same voice—familiar, and full of surprise and relief. The witchlight grew, and Emma could see the figures in the opposite cell clearly now. She bolted upright with astonishment. “It’s us—it’s Jace and Clary.”
16
A THOUSAND THRONES
Oban and his guards had led Mark and Kieran blindfolded through the tower, so if there were more reactions to Kieran’s presence, Mark had been unable to note them. He had, however, heard Manuel and Oban laughing about what the King was likely to do to Kieran, and to Mark as well, and he had struggled against his manacles in rage. How dare they speak that way when Kieran could hear them? Why would anyone take pleasure in such torture?
They had been led finally to a windowless stone room and left there, their hands still manacled. Oban had torn their blindfolds from them as he walked out of the room, laughing. “Look one last time upon each other before you die.”
And Mark did look at Kieran now, in the dim room. Though there were no windows, light filtered down from a grating far above. The room was close, oppressive as the bottom of an elevator shaft.
“It is meant to be horrible,” Kieran said, answering the question Mark had not asked. “This is where the King keeps prisoners prior to bringing them before the throne. It is meant to terrify.”
“Kieran.” Mark moved closer to the other boy. “It will be all right.”
Kieran smiled painfully. “That is what I love about mortals,” he said. “That you can say such things, for comfort, whether they be true or not.”
“What did that girl give you?” Mark said. Kieran’s hair was blue-black in the shadows. “The little girl, on the steps.”
“A flower.” Kieran’s hands were bound in front of him; he opened one and showed Mark the crushed white bloom. “A white daffodil.”
“Forgiveness,” Mark said. Kieran looked at him in puzzlement; his education had not been flower-focused. “Flowers have their own meanings. A white daffodil means forgiveness.”
Kieran let the flower fall from his hand. “I heard the words those people said as I went through the courtyard,” he said. “And I do not remember.”
“Do you think your father made you forget?” Mark’s hands had begun to ache.
“No. I think it did not matter to me. I think I was kind because I was a prince and arrogant and careless and it suited me to be kind, but I could just as easily have been cruel. I do not remember saving a farm or a child. I was drunk on an easy life in those days. I should not be thanked or forgiven.”
“Kieran—”
“And during the Hunt, I thought only of myself.” White threads shot through Kieran’s dark hair. He let his head fall back against the stone wall.
“No,” said Mark. “You thought of me. You were kind to me.”
“I wanted you,” Kieran said, a hard twist to his mouth. “I was kind to you because it benefited me in the end.”
Mark shook his head. “When mortals say that things will be all right, it is not only for comfort,” he said. “In part it is because we do not, as faeries do, believe in an absolute truth. We bring our own truth to the world. Because I believe things will be all right, I will be less unhappy and afraid. And because you are angry at yourself, you believe that everything you have done, you have done out of selfishness.”
“I have been selfish,” Kieran protested. “I—”
“We are all selfish sometimes,” said Mark. “And I am not saying you have nothing to atone for. Perhaps you were a selfish prince, but you were not a cruel one. You had power and you chose to use it to be kind. You could have chosen the opposite. Do not dismiss the choices you made. They were not meaningless.”
“Why do you try to comfort and cheer me?” Kieran said in a dry voice, as if his throat ached. “I was angry with you when you agreed to return to your family from the Hunt—I told you none of it was real—”
“As if I did not know why you said that,” said Mark. “I heard you, in the Hunt. When they whipped you, when you were tormented, you would whisper to yourself that none of it was real. As if to say the pain was all a dream. It was a gift you meant to give me—the gift of escaping agony, of retreating into a place in your mind where you were safe.”
“I thought the Shadowhunters were cruel. I thought they would hurt you,” said Kieran. “With you, with your family, I have learned differently. I thought I loved you in the Hunt, Mark, but that was a shadow of what I feel for you now, knowing what loving-kindness you are capable of.”
The elf-bolt at his throat shone as it rose and fell with his quick breathing.
“In the Hunt, you needed me,” said Kieran. “You needed me so much I never knew if you would want me, if you did not need me. Do you?”
Mark stumbled a little, moving closer to Kieran. His wrists were burning fire, but he didn’t care. He pressed close to Kieran, and Kieran’s bound hands caught at Mark’s waist, fumbling to pull Mark closer to him. His heels lifted off the ground as he leaned into Kieran, the two of them trying to get as close as possible, to comfort each other despite their bound hands.
Mark buried his face in the crook of Kieran’s neck, breathing in his familiar scent: grass and sky. Perhaps this was the last grass and sky he would ever know.
The door to the cell swung open and a burst of light cut at Mark’s eyes. He felt Kieran go tense against him.
Winter, the redcap general, stood in the doorway, his shirt and cap the color of rusty old blood, his iron-soled boots clanging on the stone floor. In his hand was a long, steel-tipped pike.
“Move apart, the both of you,” he said, voice clipped. “The King will see you now.”
* * *
Emma flew to the front of the cell—and remembered the thorns just in time, leaping back from touching them. Julian followed with a greater hesitation.
“Oh, thank the Angel you’re here,”
said Emma. “I mean, not that you’re here, in prison, that’s bad, but—” She threw up her hands. “I’m glad to see you.”
Clary chuckled wanly. “We know what you mean. I’m glad to see you, too.” Her face was smudged and dirty, her red hair tied up in a knot at the back of her head. In the light of the rune-stone, Emma could see that she looked a little thin; her dirt-stained jean jacket hung loose around her shoulders. Jace, behind her, was tall and golden as ever, his eyes bright-burning in the dimness, his chin shadowed with rough beard.
“What are you doing here?” he said, dispensing with pleasantries. “Were you in Faerie? Why?”
“We were on a mission,” said Julian.
Clary ducked her face down. “Please don’t tell me it was to find us.”
“It was to find the Black Volume of the Dead. The Inquisitor sent us.”
Jace looked incredulous. “Robert sent you here?”
Emma and Julian glanced at each other. There was an awful silence.
Jace moved closer to the thorned bars of the cage that held him and Clary. “Whatever you’re not telling us, don’t hold it back,” he said. “If something happened, you need to let us know.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, it was Julian who spoke. “Robert Lightwood is dead.”
The witchlight blinked out.
In the darkness, with her Night Vision rune useless, Emma could see nothing. She heard Jace make a muffled noise, and Clary whispering. Words of comfort, words of soothing—Emma was sure of it. She recognized herself, murmuring to Julian in the quiet of night.
The whispering stopped, and the witchlight flickered back on. Jace was holding it in one hand, his other wrapped tightly around one of the vines. Blood ran from between his fingers, down his arm. Emma imagined the thorns stabbing into his palm and winced.
“What about everyone else?” he said in a voice so tight it was barely human. “What about Alec?”
Emma moved closer to the front of the cell. “He’s fine,” she said, and filled them in as quickly as she could on what had happened, from Annabel’s murder of Robert and Livvy to Horace’s ascension as Inquisitor.