Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

"Where's Diana?" asked Julian.

"She went back to Idris. She says she has to keep Jia and the Council happy and calm and expecting this meeting to take place with no hiccups."

"But we don't have the Black Volume," Julian said.

"Well, we still have a day and a half," said Emma. "To find Annabel."

"Without leaving these hallowed walls?" Mark said. He sat down on the arm of one of the chairs. "We are kind of trapped."

"I don't know if the Riders realize Alec and I are here," Magnus said. "Or perhaps we could prevail on Gwyn."

"The danger seems pretty severe," said Emma. "We wouldn't feel right, asking for that kind of help."

"Well I'm going back to Idris with the kids--I can certainly see what I can do from there." Alec flung himself down in a chair near Rafe and ruffled the boy's dark hair.

Maybe Alec could get into Blackthorn Manor, Julian thought. He was exhausted, nerves frayed from one of the best and worst days of his life. But Blackthorn Manor was probably the place on earth Annabel had loved the most. His mind began to tick over the possibilities.

"Annabel cared about Blackthorn Manor," he said. "Not Blackthorn Hall, here in London--the family didn't own that yet. The one in Idris. She loved it."

"So you think she might be there?" said Magnus.

"No," said Julian. "She hates the Clave, hates Shadowhunters. She'd be too afraid to go to Idris. I was just thinking that if it was in danger, if it was threatened, she might be called out of where she's hiding."

He could tell Emma was wondering why he wasn't mentioning that he'd seen Annabel in Cornwall; he wondered it a bit himself, but his instincts told him to keep it secret a little longer.

"You're suggesting we burn down Blackthorn Manor?" said Ty, his eyebrows up around his hairline.

"Oddly," Magnus muttered, "you wouldn't be the first people ever to have that idea."

"Ty, don't sound so excited," Livvy said.

"Pyromania interests me," said Ty.

"I think you have to burn down several buildings before you can consider yourself to be an actual maniac for pyro," Emma said. "I think before that you're just an enthusiast."

"I think setting a large fire in Idris will attract attention we don't want," said Mark.

"I think we don't have a lot of choices," said Julian.

"And I think we should eat," Livvy said hastily, patting her stomach. "I'm starving."

"We can discuss what we know, especially regarding Annabel and the Black Volume," said Ty. "We can pool our information."

Magnus glanced fleetingly at Alec. "After we eat we need to send the children to Idris. Diana's standing by on the other side to help us keep the Portal open, and I don't want her to have to wait too long."

It was kind of him, Julian thought, to phrase it as if sending the children to Alicante was a favor Magnus was doing Diana, rather than a precaution taken to protect them. Tavvy skipped along with Rafe and Max to the dining room and Julian felt a pang, realizing how much his little brother had missed having friends close to his own age, even if he hadn't known it.

"Jules?" He glanced down and saw that Dru was walking beside him. Her face was pale in the corridor's witchlight.

"Yeah?" He resisted the urge to pat her cheek or pull her braids. She'd stopped appreciating that when she was ten.

"I don't want to go to Alicante," she said. "I want to stay here with you."

"Dru . . ."

She hunched her shoulders up. "You were younger than me in the Dark War," she said. "I'm thirteen. You can send the babies where it's safe, but not me. I'm a Blackthorn, just like you."

"So is Tavvy."

"He's seven." Dru took a shaky breath. "You make me feel like I'm not part of this family."

Julian stopped dead. Dru stopped with him, and they both watched as the others went into the dining room. Julian could hear Bridget scolding them all; apparently she'd been holding dinner for them for hours, though it had never occurred to her to find them and tell them so.

"Dru," he said. "You really want to stay?"

She nodded. "I really want to."

"Then that's all you had to say. You can stay with us."

She threw herself into his arms. Dru wasn't a huggy sort of person, and for a moment Julian was too surprised to move; then he put his arms around his sister and tightened them against the flood of memories--baby Dru sleeping in his arms, taking her first toddling steps, laughing as Emma held her over the water at the beach, barely getting her toes wet.

"You're the heart of this family, baby girl," he said in the voice that only his brothers and sisters ever heard. "I promise you. You're our heart."

*

Bridget had somewhat haphazardly set out cold chicken, bread, cheese, vegetables, and banoffee pie. Kieran picked at the vegetables while the rest of them talked over each other to lay out what they knew.

Emma sat beside Julian. Every once in a while their shoulders would bump or their hands collide as they reached for something. Each touch sent a shower of sparks through him, like a small explosion of fireworks.

Ty, his elbows on the table, took point on the d

iscussion, explaining how he, Kit, and Livvy had found the aletheia crystal and the memories trapped within it. "Two hundred years ago Malcolm and Annabel broke into the Cornwall Institute," he explained, his graceful hands slicing through the air as he talked. Something seemed different about Ty, Julian thought, though how could his brother have changed in the few short days he'd been away? "They stole the Black Volume, but they were caught."

"Do we know why they wanted it?" Cristina asked. "I do not see how necromancy would have helped them."

"They planned to trade it to someone else, it looks like," said Emma. "The book wasn't for them. Someone had promised to trade them protection from the Clave for it."

"It was a time when a relationship between a Shadowhunter and a Downworlder could have meant a death sentence for both of them," said Magnus. "Protection would have been a very attractive offer."

"They never got that far," Ty said. "They were caught and thrown in prison in the Silent City, and the Black Volume was taken from them and returned to the Cornwall Institute. Then something weird happened." He frowned. Ty didn't like not knowing things. "Malcolm disappeared. He left Annabel to be questioned and tortured."

"He wouldn't have done that willingly," said Julian. "He loved her."

"People can betray even those they love," said Mark.

"No, Julian's right," said Emma. "I hate Malcolm more than anyone, but he absolutely would never have left Annabel. She was his whole life."

"It's still what happened," said Ty.

"They tortured Annabel for information until she pretty much lost her mind," said Livvy. "Then they released her to her family. And they killed her and told everyone she'd become an Iron Sister. But it wasn't true."