But she thought again of Diana in Thule. Their runes began to burn like fire, as if they had fire in their veins instead of blood. People said that the blades of those who fought them shattered in their hands. Black lines spread over their bodies and they became monstrous—physically monstrous. I never saw it happen, mind you—I heard this all thirdhand. Stories about ruthless, massive shining creatures, tearing cities apart. Sebastian had to release thousands of demons to take them down. A lot of mundanes and Shadowhunters died.
She and Julian could not become monsters. They could not destroy everyone they knew and loved. It was better to break the parabatai bonds than to be responsible for death and destruction. It felt like forever since Jem had explained the curse to her. They had tried everything to escape it.
Eventually the power would make them mad, until they became as monsters. They would destroy their families, the ones they loved. Death would surround them.
There was no escape but this. Her hands clamped tighter around the sword’s hilt. She raised Maellartach.
Forgive me, Julian.
“Stop!” A voice rang through the Bone City. “Emma! What are you doing?”
She turned, without moving from the Speaking Stars or lowering the Sword. Julian stood at the entrance to the chamber. He was white-faced, staring at her in total shock. He had clearly been running: He was breathless, leaves in his hair and mud on his shoes.
“Don’t try to stop me, Julian.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He held his hands out as if to show they were empty of weapons and took a step forward, toward her. She shook her head and he stopped. “I always thought this would be me,” he said. “I never thought it would be you doing this.”
“Get out of here, Julian. I don’t want you to be here for this. If they find me here, I want them to find me alone.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re sacrificing yourself. You know they’ll blame someone—someone with access to the Mortal Sword—and you want it to be you. I know you, Emma. I know exactly what you’re doing.” He took another step toward her. “I won’t try to stop you. But you can’t make me leave you either.”
“But you have to!” Her voice rose. “They’ll exile me, Julian, at best, even if Horace is overthrown; even Jia wouldn’t overlook this, nobody would or could—they won’t understand it—if it’s the two of us, they’ll think we did it so we could be together, you’ll lose the kids. I won’t let that happen, not after everything—”
“Emma!” Julian held his hands out to her. The sea-glass bracelet on his wrist glittered, bright color in this place of bones and grayness. “I will not leave you. I will not ever leave you. Even if you shatter that rune, I won’t leave you.”
A sob tore through Emma. And then another. She slid to her knees, still holding the Sword. Despair ripped into her, as strong as relief. Maybe it was relief. She couldn’t tell, but she could sense Julian come up quietly and kneel down across from her, his knees against the cold stone.
“What happened?” he said. “What about the cushion of time Magnus said we had—”
“My rune has been burning—and yours, too, I know it. And there’s this.” She tugged up the sleeve of her sweater, turning her hand over to show him the mark on her forearm—a dark spiderweb-like pattern, small but growing. “I don’t think we have time left.”
“Then we could get our Marks stripped,” Julian said. His voice was soft, reassuring—a voice he saved for the people he loved the most. “Mine as well as yours. I thought that—”
“I talked to Jem at the meeting,” Emma said. “He told me he would never do it, never, and Magnus can’t do it alone—” She caught her breath. “In Thule, Diana told me that when Sebastian started to take over, the parabatai in that world turned into monsters. Their runes burned, and their skin was covered with black marks, and then they became monsters. That’s what’s happening to us, Julian. I know it is. All that stuff about the curse turning us into monsters. It’s like that monstrosity is hidden in the heart of the bond. Like—like a cancer.”
There was a long pause. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I didn’t believe it at first,” she whispered. “At least, I thought it was something that could only happen in Thule. But our runes have burned. And the black marks on my skin—I knew—”
“But we don’t know,” he said softly. “I know how you feel. You feel shaky, right? Your mind’s racing. Your heart’s racing too.”
She nodded. “How—”
“I feel the same way,” he said. “I do think it’s the curse. Jem said it would give us power. And I do feel like—like I’ve been lit up with electricity and I can’t stop shaking.”
“But you seem all right,” Emma said.
“I think recovering from the spell, for me, is like climbing up out of a pit,” he said. “I’m not quite at the top yet, where you are. I’m a little protected.” He looped his arms around his knees. “I know why you’re scared. Anyone would be. But I’m still going to ask you to do something for me. I’m going to ask you to have faith.”
“Faith?” she said. “Faith in what?”
“In us,” he said. “Even when you told me why it was forbidden for us to be in love—even when I knew we shouldn’t ever have become parabatai—I still had all the memories of how wonderful it was to be your partner, to have our friendship made into something holy. I still believe in our bond, Emma. I still believe in the bonds of parabatai, in the importance of it, in the beauty of what Alec and Jace have, or what Jem had in the past.”
“But what if it can be turned against us?” Emma said. “Our greatest strength made into our greatest weakness?”
“That’s why I asked you to have faith,” he said. “Believe in us if you can’t believe in the idea of it. Tomorrow we might go into battle. Us against them. We need Jace and Alec, Clary and Simon—we need ourselves—to be whole and unbroken on the battlefield. We need to be at our strongest. One more day, Emma. We’ve made it this far. We can make it one more day.”
“But I need the Mortal Sword,” said Emma, hugging the blade to her. “I can’t do this without it.”
“If we win tomorrow, then we can get help from the Clave,” Julian said. “If we don’t win, Horace will be happy to strip our runes off. You know he will.”
“I thought of that,” Emma said. “But we can’t be sure, can we?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “But if you do this, if you cut the bonds, then I’m going to stand by you and take the blame along with you. You can’t stop me.”
“But the kids,” she whispered. She couldn’t bear the thought of Julian being separated from them, of more pain and suffering coming to the Blackthorns.
“Have Helen and Aline now,” said Julian. “I’m not the only one who can keep our family together. When I was at my worst, you were at your best for me. I can only do the same for you.”
“All right,” she said. “All right, I’ll wait one day.”
As if it heard her voice, the floor closed up at her feet, hiding the parabatai tablet beneath the protecting marble. She wanted to reach out to Julian, to touch his hands, to tell him she was grateful. She wanted to say more, say the words they were forbidden to say, but she didn’t—just looked at him silently and thought them, wondering if anyone had thought these words before in the Silent City. If they had thought them like this: with equal hope and despair.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
30
THE RICHES THERE THAT LIE
A scratching noise at the tent flap woke Emma. She had slept dreamlessly all night, waking only when Cristina crept into the tent late and rolled herself up in her blankets. She struggled awake now, feeling groggy; she could see through the gap in the tent fabric that it was gray outside, the sky heavy with impending rain.
Helen was outside their tent. “Thirty-minute warning,” she said, and her footsteps receded as she continued with the wake-up call.
Cristina groaned
and rolled out of her blankets. They had both slept in their clothes. “My stele,” she said. “We should”—she yawned—“Mark each other. Also, there had better be coffee.”
Emma stripped down to her tank top, shivering as Cristina did the same. They exchanged runes—Swiftness and Sure-Footedness for Emma, Blocking and Deflecting runes for Cristina, Sure-Strike and Farsight for both. Cristina didn’t ask why Emma wasn’t getting her runes from Julian. They both knew.
They zipped and laced their way into their gear and boots and clambered out of the tent, stretching their stiff muscles. The sky was heavy with dark clouds, the ground wet with dew. It seemed as if everyone else was already awake and hurrying around the camp—Simon was zipping his gear, Isabelle polishing a longsword. Magnus, dressed somberly in dark colors, was helping a geared-up Alec strap on his quiver of arrows. Aline was drawing a Fortitude rune on the back of Helen’s neck. Mark, his weapons belt bristling with daggers, was stirring some porridge over the fire.
Cristina whimpered. “I don’t see coffee. Only porridge.”
“I always tell you coffee’s evil, addict,” said Emma. “Give me your hand—I’ll draw you an Energy rune.”
Cristina grumbled but held her hand out; a good Energy rune worked much like caffeine. Emma looked at Cristina affectionately as she ran the stele over her skin. She had a suspicion she knew where Cristina had been the night before, though now wasn’t the time to ask.
“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Cristina said as Emma returned her hand.
“I know,” Emma said. She squeezed Cristina’s hand before putting her stele away. “I’ll have your back if anything happens. You know that.”