"Why?" Kieran said. He was standing facing a little away from Mark, his posture rigid, as if he expected to be slapped. "Why come with me?"
"Because you require watching," said Mark. "I could trust you once. I cannot trust you now."
"That is not the truth," said Kieran. "I know you, Mark. I know when you lie."
Mark spun on him. He had always felt a little afraid of Kieran, he realized: of the power of his rank, of his unassailable surety in himself. That fear was gone now, and he couldn't say if it was because of the Courage rune on his shoulder or because he no longer desperately needed Kieran to live. Wanted him, loved him--those were different questions. But he could survive, either way. He was a Shadowhunter.
"Fine," Mark said, and he knew he should have said "very well," but the language wasn't in him anymore, it didn't beat in his blood, the high speech of Faerie. "I'll tell you why I wanted to come with you--"
There was a flash of white. Windspear cleared a small rise and bounded up to them, answering the call of her master. She whinnied when she saw Mark and nosed at his shoulder.
He stroked her neck. A hundred times she had carried him and Kieran in the Hunt, a hundred times they had shared a single mount, and ridden together, and fought together, and as Kieran climbed up onto the horse's back the familiarity was like fishhooks under Mark's skin.
Kieran looked down at him, every inch the prince despite his bloodstained clothes. His eyes were half-lidded crescents of silver and black. "So tell me," he said.
Mark felt the Agility rune burn on his back as he swung himself up behind Kieran. His arms went around Kieran automatically, hands settling themselves where they had always settled, at Kieran's belt. He felt Kieran inhale sharply.
He wanted to drop his head to Kieran's shoulder. He wanted to put his hands over Kieran's and lace their fingers together. He wanted to feel what he had felt living among the Hunt, that with Kieran he was safe, with Kieran he had someone who would never leave him.
But there were worse things than being left.
"Because," Mark said, "I wished to ride with you in the Hunt one last time." He felt Kieran flinch. Then the faerie boy leaned forward, and Mark heard him say a few words to Windspear in the Fair Speech. As the horse began to run, Mark reached back to touch the place where Julian had put the runes. He had felt a rush of panic when the stele touched his skin, and then a calm that had flowed through him, surprising him.
Maybe the runes of Heaven truly did belong on his skin. Maybe he'd been born to them after all.
He held tight to Kieran as Windspear lifted up into the sky, hooves tearing the air, and the Institute spun away below them.
When Emma and the others reached the convergence, Mark and Kieran were already there. They cantered out of the shadows on the back of a gorgeous white stallion that made Emma think of all the times in her childhood that she had wanted a horse.
The Toyota came to a stop. The sky was bare of clouds, and the moonlight was sharp and silver as a knife. It outlined Mark and Kieran, turned them into the brilliantly illuminated outlines of faerie knights. Neither of them looked human.
The field that reached to the bluff lay deceptively peaceful under the moonlight. The wide space of sea grass and sage bushes moved with soft rustles. The granite hill rose above it all, the dark space in the wall seeming to beckon them closer.
"We killed many Mantids," said Mark. His eyes met Emma's. "Cleared the way."
Kieran sat glowering, his face half-hidden by dark hair. Mark had his hands on Kieran's belt, steadying himself. As if suddenly recollecting this, Mark let go and slid to the ground.
"We'd better go in," Mark said, tipping his face up to Kieran's. "You and Windspear stand guard."
"But I--" Kieran began.
"This is Blackthorn family business," said Mark in a tone that brooked no argument. Kieran looked toward Cristina and Diego, opened his mouth as if to voice a protest, and then closed it again.
"Weapons check, everyone," Julian said. "Then we head in."
Everyone, even Diego, obediently checked their belts and gear. Ty fished an extra seraph blade out of the car trunk. Mark looked over Dru's gear, reminded her again that her job was to stay behind them and to stick close to the others.
Emma unbuckled her arm guard and rolled up her sleeve. She held her arm out to Julian. He looked at her bare arm and then up at her face and nodded. "Which one?"
"Endurance," she said. She was already marked with runes for courage and accuracy, runes for precision and healing. The Angel had never really given the Shadowhunters runes for emotional pain, though--there were no runes to mend grief or a broken heart.
The idea that her parents' death had been a failed experiment, a pointless throwaway, hurt more than Emma could have imagined. She had thought all these years they had died for some reason, but it was no reason at all. They had simply been the only Shadowhunters available.
Julian took her arm gently, and she felt the familiar and welcome pressure of the stele against her skin. As the Mark emerged, it seemed to flow into her bloodstream, like a shaft of cool water.
Endurance. She would have to endure this, this knowledge, fight past and through it. Do it for Tavvy, she thought. For Julian. For all of them. And maybe at the end of it, she would have her revenge.
Julian lowered his hand. His eyes were wide. The Mark blazed against her skin, infused with a brightness she had never seen before, as if the edges of it were burning. She drew her sleeve down quickly, not wanting anyone else to notice.
At the edge of the bluff, Kieran's white horse reared up against the moon. The sea crashed in the distance. Emma turned and marched toward the opening in the rock.
Emma and Julian led the way into the cavern, and Mark brought up the rear, sandwiching the others between them. As before, the tunnel was narrow at first, the ground tumbled with uneven pebbles. The rocks were disturbed now, many of them kicked aside. Even in the dimness--Emma had not dared illuminate her witchlight--she could see where the moss growing along the cave wall had been clawed at by human fingers.
"People came through here earlier," Emma murmured. "A lot of people."
"Followers?" Julian's voice was low.
Emma shook her head. She didn't know. She was cold, the good sort of cold, the battle cold that came from your stomach and spread outward. The cold that sharpened your eyes and seemed to slow time around you, so that you had infinite hours to correct the sweep of a seraph blade, the angle of a sword.
She could feel Cortana between h
er shoulder blades, heavy and golden, whispering to her in her mother's voice. Steel and temper, daughter.
They came out into the high-ceilinged cavern. Emma stopped dead, and the others crowded around her. No one said a word.
The cavern was not as Emma remembered it. It was dim, giving the impression of immense space spreading away into darkness. The portholes were gone. Etched into the stone of the cave near her were the words of the poem that had become so familiar to them all. Emma could see sentences here and there, flashing out at her.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
The winged seraphs of Heaven.
Shadowhunters.
Julian's witchlight flared up in his hand, illuminating the space, and Emma gasped.
In front of them was a stone table. It rose chest high, the surface rough and pitted. It looked as if it had been carved out of black lava. A wide circle of white chalk, sketched on the floor, surrounded the table.
On it lay Tavvy. He seemed to be sleeping, his small face soft and slack, his eyes closed. His feet were bare, and his wrists and ankles were locked into chains that were attached by loops of iron to the table's stone legs.
A metal bowl, splashed with ominous-looking stains, had been placed by his head. Beside it was a jagged-toothed copper knife.
The witchlight cut into the shadows that seemed to hang in the room like a living thing. Emma wondered how big the cave really was, and how much of it was a shifting illusion.