Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Julian wondered if it was wrong to feel irrationally jealous that Mark, who had reappeared in their life only yesterday, was able to talk to his younger brother when he was not. Julian loved Ty more than he loved his own life, and yet he hadn't thought of anything as elegantly simple to say to his brother as now we both have hurt hands.

"He can't go," Julian said. "He's only fifteen. The other students are eighteen at least. It's meant for Academy graduates."

"He's as smart as any Academy graduate," Diana said. "He knows as much."

She leaned forward, elbows on her glass desk. Behind her the ocean stretched to the horizon. It was creeping toward late afternoon, and the water was a dark silver-blue. Julian thought about what would happen if he brought his hand down hard on the desk; did he have the strength to shatter the glass?

"It's not about what he knows," Julian said, and stopped himself. He was getting dangerously close to exactly what they never talked about: the way in which Ty was different.

Julian often thought the Clave was a black shadow over his life. They had stolen his older brother and sister from him just as much as the Fair Folk had. Down through the centuries, the exact way Shadowhunters could and should behave had been strictly regimented. Tell a mundane about the Shadow World and be disciplined, even exiled. Fall in love with a mundane, or your parabatai, and have your Marks ripped off--an agonizing process not everyone survived.

Julian's art, his father's interest in the classics: all had been regarded with deep suspicion. Shadowhunters weren't meant to have outside interests. Shadowhunters weren't artists. They were warriors, born and bred, like Spartans. And individuality was not something they valued.

Ty's thoughts, his beautiful, curious mind, were not like everyone else's. Julian had heard stories--whispers, really--of other Shadowhunter children who thought or felt differently. Who had trouble focusing. Who claimed letters rearranged themselves on the page when they tried to read them. Who fell prey to dark sadnesses that seemed to have no reason, or fits of energy they couldn't control.

Whispers were all there were, though, because the Clave hated to admit that Nephilim like that existed. They were disappeared into the "dregs" portion of the Academy, trained to stay out of the way of other Shadowhunters. Sent to far corners of the globe like shameful secrets to be hidden. There were no words to describe Shadowhunters whose minds were shaped differently, no real words to describe differences at all.

Because if there were words, Julian thought, there would have to be acknowledgment. And there were things the Clave refused to acknowledge.

"They'll make him feel like there's something wrong with him," Julian said. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"I know that." Diana sounded sorrowful. Tired. Julian wondered where she had gone the day before, when they'd been at Malcolm's. Who had helped her ward the convergence.

"They'll try to force him into their mold of what a Shadowhunter ought to be like. He doesn't know what they'll do--"

"Because you haven't told him," Diana said. "If he has a rosy picture in his mind of what the Scholomance is like, it's because you've never corrected him. Yeah, it's harsh there. It's brutal. Tell him so."

"You want me to tell him he's different," Julian said coldly. "He's not stupid, Diana. He knows that."

"No," said Diana, standing up. "I want you to tell him how the Clave feels about people who are different. Shadowhunters who are different. Because how can he make up his mind if he doesn't have all the information?"

"He's my little brother," Julian snapped. The day outside was hazy; parts of the windows seemed mirrored, and he could see bits of himself--an edge of cheekbone, a set jaw, tangled hair. The look in his own eyes frightened him. "He's three years from graduation--"

Diana's brown eyes were fierce. "I know you've basically brought him up since he was ten, Julian. I know you feel like all of them are your children. And they are yours, but Livvy and Ty at least aren't children anymore. You're going to have to let go--"

"You're telling me to be more forthcoming?" Julian demanded. "Really?"

Her jaw tightened. "You're walking the edge of a razor blade, Julian, with everything you hide. Believe me. I've walked that razor blade half my life. You get used to it, so used to it sometimes you forget that you're bleeding."

"I don't suppose you want to be any more specific about that?"

"You have your secrets. I have mine."

"I can't believe this." Julian wanted to yell, punch a wall. "Keeping secrets is all you ever do. Remember when I asked you if you wanted to run the Institute? Remember when you said no and told me not to ask why?"

Diana sighed and ran one finger along the back of her chair. "Being angry at me won't help anything, Jules."

"You might be right," he said. "But that's the one thing you could have done that would probably really have helped me. And you didn't. So forgive me if I feel like I'm in this totally alone. I love Ty, God, believe me, I want him to have what he wants. But say I told Ty how harsh the Scholomance was, and he wanted to go anyway. Could you promise me that he'd be fine there? Could you swear he and Livvy would be all right separated when they've never spent a day apart in their whole lives? Can you guarantee it?"

She shook her head. She looked defeated, and Julian felt no sense of triumph. "I could tell you there are no guarantees in life, Julian Blackthorn, but I can already see you don't want to hear anything I say about Ty," she said. "So I'll tell you something else instead. You may be the most determined person I've ever known. For five years, you have kept everything and everyone in this house together in a way I wouldn't have thought was possible." She looked directly at him. "But this situation can't hold. It's like a fault line in the earth. It will break apart under pressure, and then what? What will you lose--what will we lose--when that happens?"

"What is this?" Mark asked, picking up Tavvy's stuffed lemur, Mr. Limpet, and holding it gingerly by one foot. Mark was sitting on the floor of the computer room with Emma, Tavvy, and Dru. Dru had a book called Danse Macabre in one hand and was ignoring them. Tavvy was trying to get Mark, wet-haired and barefoot, to play with him.

Cristina hadn't yet returned from changing out of training clothes. Ty and Livvy, meanwhile, were manning the desk--Ty was typing, and Livvy was sitting on the desk beside the keyboard, issuing orders and suggestions. Stanley Wells had turned out to have an unlisted address, and Emma strongly suspected that whatever they were doing to try to track it down was probably illegal.

"Here," Emma said, reaching out to Mark. "Give me Mr. Limpet." She was feeling anxious and unsettled. Diana had wrapped up the testing shortly after Arthur had left, and had called Julian to her office. The way he'd thrown his testing gear into a corner of the training room before following her had made Emma think it wasn't an interview he was looking forward to.

Cristina came into the room, running her fingers through her long, wet black hair. Mark, holding out Mr. Limpet to Emma, looked up--and there was a tearing sound. The lemur's leg came away and its body thumped to the ground, scattering stuffing.

Mark said something in an unrecognizable language.

"You killed Mr. Limpet," said Tavvy.

"I think he died of old age, Tavs," said Emma, picking up the stuffed lemur's body. "You've had him since you were born."

"Or gangrene," Drusilla said, looking up from her book. "It could have been gangrene."

"Oh no!" Cristina's eyes were wide. "Wait here--I'll be right back."

"Don't--" Mark began, but Cristina had already hurried from the room. "I am a clodpole," he said mournfully. He reached to ruffle Tavvy's hair. "I am sorry, little one."

"Did you get an address for Wells?" It was Julian, striding into the room.

Livvy held up her arms in triumph. "Yep. It's in the Hollywood Hills."

"No surprise there," Emma said. Rich people often lived in the Hills. She was fond of the area herself, despite the expensiveness of the neighborhood. She liked the twisty roads, the massive sprays of flowers climbing over walls and down the sides of houses, and the views out over the electric, lit-up city. At night the air that blew through the Hills smelled like white flowers: oleander and honey-suckle, and a dry promise of the desert, miles away.

"There are sixteen people named Stanley Wells in the greater Los Angeles area," said Ty, swinging his chair around. "We narrowed the possibilities down."

"Good work," Julian said as Tavvy sprang up and came over to him.

"Mr. Limpet died," Tavvy said, tugging on Julian's jeans. Jules reached down and lifted him up in his arms.

"Sorry, kiddo," Julian said, putting his chin down on Tavvy's curls. "We'll get you something else."

"I am a murderer," said Mark gloomily.

"Don't be dramatic," Emma whispered, kicking his bare ankle.

Mark looked cross. "Faeries are dramatic. It's what we do."

"I loved Mr. Limpet," said Tavvy. "He was a good lemur."

"There are lots of other good animals." Tiberius spoke earnestly; animals were one of his favorite subjects, along with detectives and crime. Tavvy smiled at him, his face full of trust and love. "Foxes are smarter than dogs. You can hear lions roar from forty kilometers away. Penguins--"

"And bears," Cristina said, reappearing breathlessly in the doorway. She handed Tavvy a stuffed gray bear. He looked at it dubiously. "That was mine when I was a little girl," she explained.

"What's its name?" Tavvy inquired.

"Oso," said Cristina, and shrugged. "It means 'bear' in Spanish. I was not very creative."

"Oso." Tavvy took the bear and smiled a gap-toothed smile. Julian looked at Cristina as if she'd brought him water in the desert. Emma thought of what Livvy had said about Jules and Cristina in the training room, and felt a small, inexplicable sting at her heart.

Livvy was chattering away to Jules, swinging her legs cheerfully. "So we should all go," she said. "Ty and I can go in the car with Emma and Mark, and you can go with Cristina, and Diana can stay here--"

Julian set his little brother down. "Nice try," he said. "But this is really a two-person job. Emma and I will be in and out fast, see if there's anything unusual about the house, that's it."