Bitter of Tongue (Tales from Shadowhunter Academy 7)

Except that you did not become someone stronger and better by only thinking about yourself.

He did not know what they were doing to Mark in Faerie, to make his family slip away from him.

"Helen's well," he said awkwardly. "I saw her recently. She came and lectured at the Academy. I'm sorry. I had a demon take--a lot of memories from me, not so long ago. I know what it's like, not to remember."

"Fortunate is the one who knows the name of their heart. They are the ones whose hearts are never truly lost. They can always call their heart back home," Mark said, his voice almost a chant. "Do you remember the name of your heart, Simon Lewis?"

"I think so," Simon whispered.

"How are they?" Mark asked in a low, worn voice. He sounded very tired.

"Helen's getting married," Simon offered. It was the only good thing, he felt, that he had to offer Mark. "To Aline Penhallow. I think--they really love each other."

He almost said he was going to their wedding, but even that felt cruel. Mark could not go to his own sister's wedding. He had not been invited. He had not even been told.

Mark did not seem angry or hurt. He smiled, softly as a child being told a bedtime story, and leaned his face against the bars of Simon's cage.

"Sweet Helen," he said. "My father used to tell stories about Helen of Troy. She was born out of an egg, and the most beautiful woman in the world. Being born out of an egg is very unusual for humans."

"I've heard that," said Simon.

"She was very unhappy in love," Mark continued. "Beauty can be like that. Beauty cannot be trusted. Beauty can slip through your fingers like water and burn on your tongue like poison. Beauty can be the shining wall that keeps you from all you love."

"Um," said Simon. "Totally."

"I am glad that my beautiful Helen will be happier than the last beautiful Helen," said Mark. "I am glad she will be given beauty for beauty, love for love, and no false coin. Tell her that her brother Mark sends her felicitations on her wedding day."

"If I make it there, I will."

"Aline will be able to help her with the children, too," Mark said.

He was paying very little attention to Simon, his face still wearing that fixed and faraway expression, as if he were listening to a story or recalling a memory. Simon feared that stories and memory were becoming much the same to Mark Blackthorn: longed-for, beautiful, and unreal.

"Ty needs special attention," Mark went on. "I remember my parents talking about it." His mouth twisted. "I mean my father and the woman who sang me to sleep every night though I was not of her blood, the Shadowhunter I am no longer allowed to call my mother. Songs are not blood. Blood is all that matters to Shadowhunters and faeries alike. The songs matter only to me."

Blood is all that matters to Shadowhunters.

Simon could not remember the context, but he could remember the constant refrain, from people he loved now but had not loved then. Mundane, mundane, mundane. And later, vampire. Downworlder.

He remembered that the first prison he had ever been inside was a Shadowhunter prison.

He wished he could tell Mark Blackthorn that anything he said was wrong.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

He was sorry for not listening, and sorry for not caring more. He'd thought he was the voice of reason in the Academy, and had not realized how complacent he'd grown, how easy it was to hear his friends sneer at people who were--after all--not like him anymore, and let them get away with it.

He wished he knew how to say any of this to Mark Blackthorn, but he doubted Mark would care.

"If you are sorry, speak," said Mark. "How is Ty? There is nothing wrong with Ty, but he is different, and the Clave hates all that is different. They will try to punish him, for being who he is. They would punish a star for burning. My father was there to stand between him and our cruel world, but my father is gone and I am gone too. I might as well be dead, for all the good I am to my brothers and sisters. Livvy would walk over hot coals and hissing serpents for Ty, but she is as young as he is. She cannot do and be everything to him. Is Helen having difficulties with Tiberius? Is Tiberius happy?"

"I don't know," Simon said helplessly. "I think so."

All he knew was that there were a bunch of Blackthorn kids: faceless, nameless victims of the war.

"And there's Tavvy," said Mark.

His voice grew stronger as he kept talking, and he used nicknames for his brothers and sisters rather than the full names he had worked so laboriously to remember. Simon supposed Mark was not usually allowed even to speak of his mortal life or his Nephilim family. He didn't want to think about what the Wild Hunt might do to Mark, if he tried.

"He is so little," said Mark. "He won't remember Dad, or M--or his mother. He's the littlest thing. They let me hold him, the day he was born, and his head fit into the palm of my hand. I can still feel its weight there, even when I cannot grasp his name. I held him and I knew I had to support his head: that he was mine to support and protect. Forever. Oh, but forever lasts such a short time in the mortal world. He will not remember me either. Maybe Drusilla will forget as well." Mark shook his head. "I do not think so, though. Dru learns everything by heart, and she has the sweetest heart of us all. I hope her memories of me stay sweet."

Clary must have told Simon every one of the Blackthorns' names, and talked a little bit about how each of them was doing. She must have let fall some scrap of information, which Simon had discarded as useless and which would be better than treasure to Mark.

Simon stared at him helplessly.

"Just tell me if Aline is helping with the younger ones," said Mark, his voice growing sharper. "Helen cannot do it all by herself, and Julian will not be able to help her!" His voice softened again. "Julian," he said. "Jules. My artist, my dreamer. Hold him up to the light and he would shine a dozen different colors. All he cares about is his art and his Emma. He will try to help Helen, of course, but he is still so young. They are so young and so easily lost. I know what I am saying, Shadowhunter. In the land under the hill we prey on the tender and new-hearted. And they never grow old, with us. They never have the chance."

"Oh, Mark Blackthorn, what are they doing to you?" Simon whispered.

He could not keep the pity out of his voice, and he saw it sting Mark: the slow flush that rose to his thin cheeks, and the way he lifted his chin, holding his head high.

Mark said: "Nothing I cannot bear."

Simon was silent. He did not remember everything, but he remembered how much he had been changed. People could bear so much, but Simon did not know how much of the original you was left when the world had twisted you into a whole different shape.

"I remember you," Mark said suddenly. "We met when you were on your way to Hell. You were not human then."

"No," said Simon awkwardly. "I don't remember much about it."

"There was a boy with you," Mark continued. "Hair like a halo and eyes like hellfire, a Nephilim among Nephilim. I'd heard stories about him. I--admired him. He pressed a witchlight into my hand, and it meant--it meant a lot to me. Then."

Simon could not remember, but he knew who that must have been.

"Jace."

Mark nodded, almost absentmindedly. "He said, 'Show them what a Shadowhunter is made of; show them you aren't afraid.' I thought I was showing them, the Fair Folk and the Shadowhunters both. I could not do what he asked me. I was afraid, but I did not let it stop me. I got a message back to the Shadowhunters and I told them the Fair Folk were betraying them and allying with their enemy. I made sure they knew and could protect the City of Glass. I warned them, and the Hunters could have killed me for it, but I thought if I died I would die knowing my brothers and sisters were saved, and that everyone would know I was a true Shadowhunter."

"You did," said Simon. "You got the message back. Idris was protected, and your brothers and sisters were saved."

"What a hero I am," Mark murmured. "I proved my loyalty. And the Shadowhunters left me here to rot."

His face twisted. In the depths of Simon's heart, fear twined with pity.

"I tried to be a Shadowhunter, even in the depths of Faerie, and what good did it do me? 'Show them what a Shadowhunter is made of!' What is a Shadowhunter made of, if they desert their own, if they throw away a child's heart like rubbish left on the side of the road? Tell me, Simon Lewis, if that is what Shadowhunters are, why would I wish to be one?"

"Because that's not all they are," Simon said.

"And what are faeries made of? I hear Shadowhunters say they are all evil now, barely more than demons set upon the earth to do wicked mischief." Mark grinned, something wild and fey in the grin, like sunlight glittering through a spiderweb. "And we do love mischief, Simon Lewis, and sometimes wickedness. But it is not all bad, to ride the winds, run upon the waves, and dance upon the mountains, and it is all I have left. At least the Wild Hunt wants me. Maybe I should show Shadowhunters what a faerie is made of instead."