Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

It rolled to the side. She blinked at the object revealed under it, then bent to pick it up. A glove--a man's glove, made of leather, soft as silk but a thousand times tougher. The leather was printed with the image of a golden crown snapped in half.

"Mark!" she called. "!Necesito que veas algo!"

A moment later she realized she'd been so startled she'd actually called out in Spanish, but it didn't seem to matter. Mark had come leaping nimbly down the stones toward her. He stood just above her, the wind lifting his airy, pale-gold curls away from the slight points of his ears. He looked alarmed. "What is it?"

She handed him the glove. "Isn't that the emblem of one of the Faerie Courts?"

Mark turned it over in his hands. "The broken crown is the Unseelie King's symbol," he murmured. "He believes himself to be true King of both the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts, and until he rules both, the crown will remain snapped in half." He tilted his head to the side like a bird studying a cat from a safe distance. "But these kind of gloves--Kieran had them when he arrived at the Hunt. They are fine workmanship. Few but the gentry would wear them. In fact, few but the King's sons would wear them."

"You don't think this is Kieran's?" Cristina said.

Mark shook his head. "His were . . . destroyed. In the Hunt. But it does mean that whoever visited Malcolm here, and left this glove, was either high in the Court, or the King himself."

Cristina frowned. "It's very odd that it's here."

Her hair had escaped from its braids and was blowing in long curls around her face. Mark reached up to tuck one back behind her ear. His fingers skimmed her cheek. His eyes were dreamy, distant. She shivered a little at the intimacy of the gesture.

"Mark," she said. "Don't."

He dropped his hand. He didn't look angry, the way a lot of boys tended to when asked not to touch a girl. He looked puzzled and a little sad. "Because of Diego?"

"And Emma," she said, her voice very low.

His puzzlement increased. "But you know that's--"

"Mark! Cristina!" It was Emma, calling to them from where she and Julian had joined Diego and Clary. Cristina was grateful not to have to answer Mark; she raced up the pile of rocks and glass, glad her Shadowhunter boots and gear protected her from stray sharp edges.

"Did you find something?" she asked as she approached the small group.

"Have you ever wanted a really up-close look at a gross tentacle?" Emma asked.

"No," said Cristina, drawing closer warily. Clary did appear to have something unpleasantly floppy speared on the end of her odd weapon. It wriggled a bit, showing pink suckers against green, mottled skin.

"No one ever seems to say yes to that question," said Emma sadly.

"Magnus introduced me to a warlock with tentacles like this once," Clary said. "His name was Marvin."

"I assume these aren't Marvin's remains," Julian said.

"I'm not sure they're anyone's remains," said Clary. "To command sea demons, you'd need either the Mortal Cup or something like this--a piece of a powerful demon you could enchant. I think we have some definite evidence that Malcolm's death is tied to the recent Teuthida attacks."

"Now what?" said Emma, side-eyeing the tentacle. She wasn't a huge fan of the ocean, or the monsters that lived in it, though she'd fight anything or anyone on dry land.

"Now we go back to the Institute," said Clary, "and decide what our next step is. Who wants to carry the tentacle?"

There were no volunteers.

*

"You've got to be kidding," Kit said. "There's no way I'm jumping off that."

"Just consider it." Jace leaned down from a rafter. "It's surprisingly easy."

"Give it a try," Emma called. She had come to the training room when they'd gotten back from Malcolm's, curious to see how it was going. She had found Ty and Livvy sitting on the floor, watching as Jace tried to convince Kit to throw a few knives (which he was willing to do) and then to learn jumping and falling (which he wasn't).

"My father warned me you people would try to kill me," Kit said.

Jace sighed. He was in training gear, balanced on one of the intricate network of rafters that intersected the interior of the training room's pitched roof. They ranged from thirty to twenty feet above the floor. Emma had taught herself to fall from those exact rafters over the years, sometimes breaking bones.

A Shadowhunter had to know how to climb--demons were fast and often multi-legged, scurrying up the sides of buildings like spiders. But learning how to fall was just as important.

"You can do it," Emma called now.

"Yeah? And what happens if I splatter myself all over the floor?" asked Kit.

"You get a big state funeral," Emma said. "We put your body in a boat and shove you over a waterfall like a Viking."

Kit glared at her. "That's from a movie."

She shrugged. "Maybe."

Jace, losing patience, launched himself from the highest rafter. He somersaulted gracefully in the air before landing in a soundless crouch. He straightened up and winked at Kit.

Emma hid a smile. She'd had a horrendous crush on Jace when she was twelve. Later that had turned into wanting to be Jace--the best there was: the best fighter, the best survivor, the best Shadowhunter.

She wasn't there yet, but she wasn't done trying, either.

Kit looked impressed despite himself, then scowled again. He looked very slight next to Jace. He was close to the same height as Ty, though less fit. The potential Shadowhunter strength was there, though, in the shape of his arms and shoulders. Emma had seen him fight, when in danger. She knew what he could do.

"You'll be able to do that," Jace said, pointing up at the rafter, and then at Kit. "As soon as you want to."

Emma could recognize the look in Kit's eye. I might never want to. "What's the Nephilim motto again?"

" 'We are dust and shadows,' " said Ty, not looking up from his book.

"Some of us are very handsome dust," Jace added, as the door flew open and Clary stuck her head in.

"Come to the library," she announced. "The tentacle is starting to dissolve."

"You drive me wild with your sexy talk," said Jace, pulling on his gear jacket.

"Adults," said Kit, with some disgust, and stalked out of the room. To Emma's amusement, Ty and Livvy were instantly on their feet, following him. She wondered what exactly had sparked their interest in Kit--was it just that he was their age? Jace, she imagined, would have put it down to the famous Herondale charisma, though from what she knew, the Herondales who had immediately predated him had been pretty low on the stuff.

The library was in a certain amount of chaos. The tentacle was starting to dissolve, into a sticky puddle of green-pink goo that reminded Emma horribly of melted jelly beans. As Diana pointed out, this meant that the time left to identify the demon was shortening quickly. Since Magnus wasn't picking up his phone and no one wanted to involve the Clave, this left good old-fashioned book research. Everyone was handed a pile of fat tomes on sea creatures, and they dispersed to various parts of the library to examine paintings, sketches, drawings, and the occasional clipped-in photo.

At some point during the passing hours, Jace decided that they required Chinese food. Apparently kung pao chicken and noodles in black bean sauce were a requirement every time the New York Institute team had to engage in research. He hauled Clary off to an empty office to conjure up a Portal--something no other Shadowhunter besides Clary could do--promising them all the best Chinese food Manhattan had to deliver.

"Got it!" Cristina announced, about twenty minutes after the door had closed behind Jace and Clary. She held up a massive copy of the Carta Marina.

The rest of them crowded around the main table as Diana confirmed that the tentacle belonged to the sea demon species Makara, which--according to the sketches between the maps in the Carta Marina--looked like a part-octopus, part-slug thing with an enormous bee head.

"The disturbing thing isn't that it's a sea demon," said Diana, fro

wning. "It's that Makara demon remains only survive on land for one to two days."

Jace pushed the library door open. He and Clary were loaded down with green-and-white take-out boxes marked JADE WOLF. "A little help here?"

The research team disbanded briefly to lay out food on the long library tables. There was lo mein, the promised kung pao chicken, mapo tofu, zhajiangmian, egg fried rice, and delicious sesame balls that tasted like hot candy.

Everyone had a paper plate, even Tavvy, who was arranging toy soldiers behind a bookcase. Diego and Cristina occupied a love seat, and Jace and Clary were on the floor, sharing noodles. The Blackthorn kids were squabbling over the chicken, except for Mark, who was trying to figure out how to use his chopsticks. Emma guessed they didn't have them in Faerie. Julian sat at the table across from Livvy and Ty, frowning at the nearly dissolved tentacle. Amazingly, it didn't seem to be putting him off his food.

"You are friendly with the great Magnus Bane, aren't you?" Diego said to Jace and Clary, after an affable few minutes of everyone chewing.

"The great Magnus Bane?" Jace choked on his fried rice. Church had taken up residence at his feet, alert for any evidence of dropped chicken.

"We're friendly with him, yes," Clary said, her mouth twitching at the corner. "Why?"