Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

The window behind Jace rose high and clear, so clear Mark sometimes imagined he could fly out of it. "Maybe if it was for his own good," Jace said.

Clary made an inelegant doubtful noise. "Mark," she said. "We need your help. We have some questions about Faerie and the Courts--their actual physical layout--and there don't seem to be any answers--not from the Spiral Labyrinth, not from the Scholomance."

"And honestly," Jace said, "we don't want to look too much like we're investigating, because this mission is secret."

"Your mission is to Faerie?" Mark guessed.

They both nodded.

Mark was astonished. Shadowhunters had never been comfortable in the actual Lands of Faerie, and since the Cold Peace they'd avoided them like poison. "Why?" He turned quickly from the claymore. "Is this some kind of revenge mission? Because Iarlath and some of the others cooperated with Malcolm? Or--because of what happened to Emma?"

Emma still sometimes needed help with the last of her bandages. Every time Mark looked at the red lines crossing her skin, he felt guilt and sickness. They were like a web of bloody threads that kept him bound to the deception they were both perpetrating.

Clary's eyes were kind. "We're not planning to hurt anyone," she said. "There's no revenge going on here. This is strictly about information."

"You think I'm worried about Kieran," realized Mark. The name lodged in his throat like a piece of snapped-off bone. He had loved Kieran, and Kieran had betrayed him and gone back to the Hunt, and whenever Mark thought about him, it felt as if he were bleeding from someplace inside. "I am not," he said, "worried about Kieran."

"Then you wouldn't mind if we talked to him," said Jace.

"I wouldn't be worried about him," said Mark. "I might be worried about you."

Clary laughed softly. "Thank you, Mark."

"He's the son of the Unseelie Court's King," said Mark. "The King has fifty sons. All of them vie for the throne. The King is tired of them. He owed Gwyn a favor, so he gave him Kieran in repayment. Like the gift of a sword or a dog."

"As I understand it," said Jace, "Kieran came to you, and offered to help you, against the wishes of the fey. He put himself in grave danger to assist you."

Mark supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Jace knew that. Emma often confided in Clary. "He owed me. It was thanks to him that those I love were badly hurt."

"Still," said Jace, "there is some chance he might prove amenable to our questions. Especially if we could tell him they were endorsed by you."

Mark said nothing. Clary kissed Jace on the cheek and murmured something in his ear before she headed out of the room. Jace watched her go, his expression momentarily soft. Mark felt a sharp stab of envy. He wondered if he would ever be like that with someone: the way they seemed to match, Clary's kind playfulness and Jace's sarcasm and strength. He wondered if he had ever matched with Kieran. If he would have matched with Cristina, had things been different.

"What is it you mean to ask Kieran?" he said.

"Some questions about the Queen, and about the King," said Jace. Noting Mark's impatient movement, he said, "I'll tell you a little, and remember I should be telling you nothing. The Clave would have my head for this." He sighed. "Sebastian Morgenstern left a weapon with one of the Courts of Faerie," he said. "A weapon that could destroy us all, destroy all Nephilim."

"What does the weapon do?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. That's part of what we need to find out. But we know it's deadly."

Mark nodded. "I think Kieran will help you," he said. "And I can give you a list of names of those in Faerie to look for who might be friendly to your cause, because it will not be a popular one. I do not think you know how much they hate you. If they have a weapon, I hope you find it, because they will not hesitate to use it, and they will have no mercy on you."

Jace looked up through golden lashes that were very like Kit's. His gaze was watchful and still. "Mercy on us?" he said. "You're one of us."

"That seems to depend on who you ask," Mark said. "Do you have a pen and paper? I'll start with the names . . . ."

*

It had been too long since Uncle Arthur had left the attic room where he slept, ate, and did his work. Julian wrinkled his nose as he and Diana climbed the narrow stairs--the air was staler than usual, rancid with old food and sweat. The shadows were thick. Arthur was a shadow himself, hunched over his desk, a witchlight burning in a dish on the windowsill above. He didn't react to Julian and Diana's presence.

"Arthur," Diana said, "we need to speak with you."

Arthur turned slowly in his chair. Julian felt his gaze skate over Diana, and then over himself. "Miss Wrayburn," he said, finally. "What can I do for you?"

Diana had accompanied Julian on trips to the attic before, but rarely. Now that the truth of their situation was known by Mark and Emma, Julian had been able to acknowledge to Diana what they had always both known but never spoken about.

For years, since he was twelve years old, Julian had borne alone the knowledge that his uncle Arthur was mad, his mind shattered during his imprisonment in the Seelie Court. He had periods of lucidity, helped by the medicine Malcolm Fade had provided, but they never lasted long.

If the Clave knew the truth, they would have ripped Arthur away from his position as Institute head in moments. It was quite likely he would end up locked in the Basilias, forbidden from leaving or having visitors. In his absence, with no Blackthorn adult to run the Institute, the children would be split up, sent to the Academy in Idris, scattered around the world. Julian's determination to never let that happen had led to five years of secret keeping, five years of hiding Arthur from the world and the world from Arthur.

Sometimes he wondered if he was doing the right thing for his uncle. But did it matter? Either way, he would protect his brothers and sisters. He would sacrifice Arthur for them if he had to, and if the moral consequences woke him up in the middle of the night sometimes, panicked and gasping, then he'd live with that.

He remembered Kieran's sharp faerie eyes on him: You have a ruthless heart.

Maybe it was true. Right now Julian's heart felt dead in his chest, a swollen, beatless lump. Everything seemed to be happening at a slight distance--he even felt as if he were moving more slowly through the world, as if he were pushing his way through water.

Still, it was a relief to have Diana with him. Arthur often mistook Julian for his dead father or grandfather, but Diana was no part of his past, and he seemed to have no choice but to recognize her.

"The medication that Malcolm made for you," said Diana. "Did he ever speak to you about it? What was in it?"

Arthur shook his head slightly. "The boy doesn't know?"

Julian knew that meant him. "No," he said. "Malcolm never spoke of it to me."

Arthur frowned. "Are there dregs, leftovers, that could be analyzed?"

"I used every drop I could find two weeks ago." Julian had drugged his uncle with a powerful cocktail of Malcolm's medicine the last time Jace, Clary, and the Inquisitor had been at the Institute. He hadn't dared take the chance that Arthur would be anything but steady on his feet and as clearheaded as possible.

Julian was fairly sure Jace and Clary would cover up Arthur's condition if they knew it. But it was an unfair burden to ask them to bear, and besides--he didn't trust the Inquisitor, Robert Lightwood. He hadn't trusted him since the time five years ago when Robert had forced him to endure a brutal trial by Mortal Sword because he hadn't believed Julian wouldn't lie.

"You haven't kept any of it, Arthur?" Diana asked. "Hidden some away?"

Arthur shook his head again. In the dim witchlight, he looked old--much older than he was, his hair salted with gray, his eyes washed out like the ocean in the early morning. His body under his straggling gray robe was skinny, the point of his shoulder bone visible through the material. "I didn't know Malcolm would turn out to be what he was," he said. A murderer, a killer, a traitor. "Besides, I depended on the boy." He cleared his throat. "Julian."

/> "I didn't know about Malcolm either," Julian said. "The thing is, we're going to have guests. Centurions."

"Kentarchs," murmured Arthur, opening one of his desk drawers as if he meant to search for something inside. "That is what they were called in the Byzantine army. But a centurion was always the pillar of the army. He commanded a hundred men. A centurion could mete out punishment to a Roman citizen that the law usually protected them from. Centurions supersede the law."

Julian wasn't sure how much the original Roman centurions and the Centurions of the Scholomance had in common. But he suspected he got his uncle's point anyway. "Right, so that means we're going to have to be especially careful. With how you have to be around them. How you're going to have to act."

Arthur put his fingers to his temples. "I'm just so tired," he murmured. "Can we not . . . If we could ask Malcolm for a bit more medicine . . ."

"Malcolm's dead," Julian said. His uncle had been told, but it didn't seem to have quite sunk in. And it was exactly the sort of mistake he couldn't make around strangers.

"There are mundane drugs," said Diana, after a moment's hesitation.

"But the Clave," Julian said. "The punishment for seeking out mundane medical treatment is--"

"I know what it is," Diana said, surprisingly sharply. "But we're desperate."