"Oh--Mark!" Emma exclaimed, realizing suddenly that of course Malcolm hadn't known before tonight that he was in the Institute. Quickly, she put her hand over her mouth. Mark raised an eyebrow at her. He seemed remarkably calm.
"You concealed it," Malcolm went on, "knowing that I would realize it meant faerie involvement in these murders, and that I would know I might be breaking the Cold Peace by helping you."
"You couldn't break it if you didn't know," Julian said. "I was protecting you, too."
"Maybe," said Malcolm. "But I've had enough. Tell them the truth. Or that will be the end of my help."
Julian nodded. "I'll tell Emma and Mark," he said. "It's not fair on the others."
"Your uncle would probably be able to tell you who said this," Malcolm said. "'Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.'"
"I can tell you who said it." Julian's eyes burned with a low fire. "Sophocles."
"Clever boy," said Malcolm. There was affection in his voice, but weariness, too.
He turned and marched down the steps. He paused when he reached the bottom, staring off past Emma, his eyes too dark for her to read. He seemed to be seeing something in the distance she couldn't, either something too far in the future to imagine or too far in the past to remember.
"You'll help us, still?" Julian called after him. "Malcolm, you won't . . ." He trailed off; Malcolm had vanished into the shadows of the night. "Abandon us?" he said, speaking as if he knew no one was listening.
Julian was still leaning against the pillar as if it was the only thing holding him up, and Emma couldn't keep her mind from flashing to the pillars in the Hall of Accords, to Julian when he was twelve, crumpled against one and sobbing into his hands.
He'd cried since then, but not often. There wasn't much, she supposed, that measured up to having killed your father.
The seraph blade in his hand had burned out. He flung it aside just as Emma came close to him. She slid her hand into his now-empty one. There was no passion in the gesture, nothing that recalled that night on the beach. Only the absolute solidity of the friendship they had shared for more than a decade.
He looked over at her then, and she saw the gratitude in his eyes. For a moment there was nothing in the world but the two of them, breathing, his fingertip dancing across her bare wrist. T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U.
"Malcolm said there was something you needed to tell us," said Mark. "You seemed to agree. What is it? If we keep the kids waiting much longer, they'll riot."
Julian nodded, straightening up, drawing away from the pillar. He was the calm older brother again, the good soldier, the boy with a plan.
"I'll go tell them what's going on. You two, wait for me in the dining room," he said. "Malcolm was right. We need to talk."
Los Angeles, 2008
Julian would always remember the day his uncle Arthur first arrived at the Los Angeles Institute.
It was only the third time he'd ever been there, even though his brother, Andrew, Julian's father, had headed up the biggest Institute on the West Coast for almost fifteen years. Relations had been strained between Andrew and the rest of the Blackthorns ever since a faerie woman had arrived on his doorstep carrying two tiny sleeping children, declared them to be Andrew's son and daughter with the Lady Nerissa of the Seelie Court, and deposited them there to be taken into his care.
Even the fact that his wife had adopted them quickly, adored them, and treated them just as she treated her other children with Andrew hadn't entirely repaired the breach. Julian always thought there was more to it than his father was admitting. Arthur seemed to think so too, but neither of them spoke of what they knew, and now that Andrew was dead, Julian suspected the story had died with him.
Julian stood at the top of the Institute steps, watching his uncle get out of the car Diana had picked him up in from the airport. Arthur could have Portaled, but he'd chosen to travel like a mundane. He looked crumpled and travel worn as he headed up the steps, Diana behind him. Julian could see that her mouth was set in a hard line, and wondered if Arthur had done something to annoy her. He hoped not; Diana had been at the Los Angeles Institute for only a month and already Julian liked her enormously. It would be better for everyone if she and Arthur got along.
Arthur entered the Institute foyer, blinking as his sun-dazzled eyes adjusted to the dimness inside. The other Blackthorns were there, dressed in their best clothes--Dru was wearing velvet, and Tiberius had a tie knotted around his throat. Livvy held Tavvy in her arms, beaming hopefully. Emma stood warily at the foot of the steps, clearly very aware of her status as part of the family, but still not one of them.
She'd had her braids pinned up, loops of pale hair swinging like coiled rope on either side of her head. Julian still remembered that.
Diana made the introductions. Julian shook hands with his uncle, who, up close, still didn't look much like Julian's father. Maybe that was a good thing. Julian's last memory of his father was not a pleasant one.
Julian stared at his uncle as Arthur clasped his hand in a firm grip. Arthur had the Blackthorn brown hair, though it was almost entirely gray, and blue-green eyes behind glasses. His features were broad and rough and he still limped slightly from the injury he'd incurred during the Dark War.
Arthur turned to greet the rest of the children and Julian felt something jolt through his veins. He saw Dru's hopeful face turned up, Ty's shy sideways glance, and thought: Love them. Love them. For the Angel's sake, love them.
It didn't matter if anyone loved him. He was twelve. He was old enough. He had Marks, he was a Shadowhunter. He had Emma. But the others still needed someone to kiss them good night, ward off the nightmares, bandage scraped knees, and soothe hurt feelings. Someone to teach them how to grow up.
Arthur moved to Drusilla and shook her hand awkwardly. The smile faded off her face as he went to Livvy next, ignoring Tavvy, and then bent to Tiberius, his hand outstretched.
Ty didn't reach back.
"Look at me, Tiberius," Arthur said, his voice slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat. "Tiberius!" He straightened up and turned to Julian. "Why won't he look at me?"
"He doesn't always like to make eye contact," Julian said.
"Why?" Arthur asked. "What's wrong with him?"
Julian saw Livvy slip her free hand into Ty's. It was the only thing that stopped him from knocking his uncle down to get to his younger brother himself. "Nothing. It's just how he is."
"Odd," Arthur said, and turned away from Ty, dismissing him forever. He looked at Diana. "Where's my office?"
Diana's lips thinned further. Julian felt as if he were choking. "Diana doesn't live here or work for us," he said. "She's a tutor; she works for the Clave. I can help you find your office."
"Good." Uncle Arthur picked up his suitcase. "I have a lot of work to do."
Julian went up the stairs feeling as if his head were full of tiny explosions, drowning out Uncle Arthur's lecture about the important monograph on the Iliad that he was working on. Apparently the Dark War had interrupted his work, some of which had been destroyed in the attack on the London Institute.
"Very inconvenient, war," said Arthur, stepping into the office that had been Julian's father's. The walls were light wood; dozens of windows looked out onto the sea and the sky.
Particularly for the people who died in it, Julian thought, but his uncle was shaking his head, his knuckles whitening around the handle of his briefcase. "Oh no, no," Arthur said. "This won't do at all." When he turned away from the windows, Julian saw that he was white and sweating. "Too much glass," he said, his voice lowering to a mumble. "Light--too bright. Too much." He coughed. "Is there an attic?"
Julian hadn't been in the attic of the Institute for years, but he remembered where it was, up a narrow flight of stairs from the fourth floor. He trudged up there wit
h his uncle, coughing on dust. The room itself had floorboards blackened with mold, stacks of old trunks, and a massive desk with a broken leg propped in one corner.
Uncle Arthur set his case down. "Perfect," he said.
Julian didn't see him again until the next night, when hunger must have driven him downstairs. Arthur sat at the dinner table in silence, eating furtively. Emma tried to talk to him that night, and then the next. Eventually even she gave up.
"I don't like him," Drusilla said one day, frowning as he retreated down the hall. "Can't the Clave send us another uncle?"
Julian put his arms around her. "I'm afraid not. He's what we've got."
Arthur became more withdrawn. Sometimes he would speak in snatches of poetry or a few words of Latin; once he asked Julian to pass the salt in Ancient Greek. One night Diana stayed for dinner; after Arthur retired for the night, she took Julian aside.
"Maybe it would be better if he didn't eat with the family," she said quietly. "You could bring him up a tray at night."
Julian nodded. The anger and fear that had been like explosions going off in his head had quieted to the dull throb of disappointment. Uncle Arthur was not going to love his brothers and sisters. He was not going to tuck them into bed and kiss their scraped knees. He was not going to be any help at all.
Julian determined that he would love them twice as fiercely as any adult could. He would do everything for them, he thought, as he went up to the attic one night after his uncle had lived in the Institute for some months. He would make sure they had everything they wanted. He would make sure they never missed what they didn't have; he would love them enough to make up for everything they'd lost.
He shouldered open the door to the attic. For a moment, blinking in disorientation, he thought that the room was empty. That his uncle had gone, or was downstairs, sleeping, as he sometimes did at odd hours.
"Andrew?" The voice came from the floor. There was Uncle Arthur, hunched over, his back against the massive desk. It looked as if he were sitting in a pool of darkness. It took Julian a moment to realize that it was blood--black in the dim light, sticky pools of it everywhere, drying on the floor, gumming together loose pages of paper. Arthur's shirtsleeves were rolled up, his shirt itself liberally splattered with blood. He held a dull knife in his right hand. "Andrew," he said in a slurred voice, rolling his head toward Julian. "Forgive me. I had to do it. I had--too many thoughts. Dreams. Their voices are carried to me on blood, you see. When I spill the blood, I stop hearing them."