Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

"I've never known what you thought," Diana said. It was true. She had no children, but if it had been her sister who had been exiled, she couldn't imagine not fighting tooth and claw to have her released.

"When Helen was first exiled, and Aline chose to go with her, I thought about resigning as Consul," said Jia, her hands still taut. "I knew I had no power to reverse the Clave's decision. The Consul is not a tyrant who can impose her choices on the unwilling. Usually I would say that was a good thing. But I will tell you, for a long time, I wished I could be a tyrant."

"Why not resign, then?"

"I didn't trust who might come after me," said Jia simply. "The Cold Peace was very popular. If the Consul who followed me wished to, they could separate Aline from Helen--and though I want my daughter home, I don't want her heart broken. They could do worse, too. They could try Aline and Helen as traitors, turn Helen's sentence of exile into one of death. Maybe Aline's as well. Anything was possible." Her gaze was dark and heavy. "I remain where I am to stand between my daughter and the Clave's darker forces."

"Then aren't we on the same side?" Diana said. "Don't we want the same thing?"

Jia gave a flat smile. "What separates us, Diana, is five years. Five years of my trying everything to get the Council to reconsider. Helen is their example. Their way of saying to the Fair Folk: Look, we take the Cold Peace so seriously we even punish our own. Every time the issue comes up for a vote, I am voted down."

"But what if other circumstances presented themselves?"

"What other circumstances did you have in mind?"

Diana rolled her shoulders back, feeling the tension prickle along her spine. "Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild were dispatched to Faerie for a mission," she said. It was half a guess--while the two of them had been at the Institute, she had glimpsed the contents of their bags: Both had been packed with iron and salt.

"Yes," said Jia. "We have received several messages since they left."

"Then they've told you," said Diana. "About the blight on the Unseelie King's Lands."

Jia sat arrested, one hand hovering over her desk. "No one knows what they told me but the Inquisitor and myself," she said. "How do you know . . . ?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm telling you because I need you to believe that I know what I'm talking about," said Diana. "I know that the Unseelie King hates Nephilim, and that he has uncovered some force, some magic, that renders our powers useless. He has made it so that there are parts of his kingdom where runes do not work, where seraph blades will not light."

Jia frowned. "Jace and Clary didn't mention anything so specific. And they've had no contact with anyone but me since they entered Faerie--"

"There is a boy," said Diana. "A faerie, a messenger from the Seelie Court. Kieran. He's also a prince of Unseelie. He knows some of what his father plans. He's willing to testify in front of the Council."

Jia looked bewildered. "An Unseelie prince would testify for the Seelie Court? And what is the Seelie Court's interest?"

"The Seelie Queen hates the Unseelie King," said Diana. "More, apparently, than she hates Shadowhunters. She is willing to commit the forces of her army to defeating the Unseelie King. To wiping out his power and reversing the blight on his Lands."

"Out of the kindness of her heart?" Jia raised an eyebrow.

"In exchange for the end of the Cold Peace," said Diana.

Jia gave a short bark of laughter. "No one will agree to that. The Clave--"

"Everyone is sick of the Cold Peace except the most extreme bigots," said Diana. "And I don't think either of us want to see them gain power."

Jia sighed. "You mean the Dearborns. And the Cohort."

"I spent quite a bit of time with Zara Dearborn and her Centurion friends at the Institute," said Diana. "Her views are not pleasant."

Jia stood up, turning toward the window. "She and her father seek to return the Clave to a lost golden age. A time that never was, when Downworlders knew their place and Nephilim ruled in harmony. In truth, that past was a violent time, when Downworlders suffered and those Nephilim who possessed compassion and empathy were tormented and punished along with them."

"How many of them are there?" Diana asked. "The Cohort?"

"Zara's father, Horace Dearborn, is the unofficial leader," said Jia. "His wife is dead and he has raised his daughter to follow in his footsteps. If he succeeds in placing himself at the head of the Los Angeles Institute, she will rule from beside him. Then there are other families--the Larkspears, the Bridgestocks, the Crosskills--they're scattered around the world."

"And their goal is to continue restricting Downworlder rights. Registering them all, giving them numbers--"

"Forbidding their marriages to Shadowhunters?"

Diana shrugged. "It's all part of a piece, isn't it? First you number people, then you restrict their rights and break up their marriages. Then--"

"No." Jia's voice was gritty. "We can't let this happen. But you don't understand--Zara's being put forth as the great new Shadowhunter of her generation. The new Jace Herondale. Since she killed Malcolm--"

Diana bolted out of her chair. "That--that lying girl did not kill Malcolm."

"We know Emma didn't," said Jia. "He returned."

"I am aware of exactly how he died," said Diana. "He raised Annabel Blackthorn from the dead. She killed him."

"What?" Jia sounded shocked.

"It's the truth, Consul."

"Diana. You would need proof that what you're saying is true. A trial by Mortal Sword--"

Diana's greatest fear. "No," she said. It wouldn't be just my secrets I'd be revealing. It would be Julian's. Emma's. They'd all be ruined.

"You must see how this looks," Jia said. "As if you're seeking a way to keep the Los Angeles Institute under your control by discrediting the Dearborns."

"They discredit themselves." Diana looked hard at Jia. "You know Zara," she said. "Do you really think she killed Malcolm?"

"No," Jia said, after a pause. "I don't." She went to an ornate carved cabinet against one wall of her office. She slid open a drawer. "I need time to think about this, Diana. In the meantime--" She drew out a thick, cream-colored folder full of papers. "This is Zara Dearborn's report on the death of Malcolm Fade and the attacks on the L.A. Institute. Perhaps you can find some discrepancies that might discredit her story."

"Thank you." Diana took the folder. "And the Council meeting? A chance for Kieran to give testimony?"

"I'll discuss it with the Inquisitor." Jia suddenly looked even older than she had before. "Go home, Diana. I'll summon you tomorrow."

*

"We should have brought Dru," Livvy said, standing inside the gates of Blackthorn Hall. "This is every horror-movie fantasy she's ever had come true."

Blackthorn Hall turned out to be in a suburb of London not far from the Thames River. The area around it was ordinary: redbrick houses, bus stops plastered with movie posters, kids riding by on bicycles. After days trapped in the Institute, even the foreignness of London felt to Kit like waking up to reality after a dream.

Blackthorn Hall was glamoured, which meant that mundanes couldn't see it. Kit had a sort of double vision when he glanced at it for the first time: He could see a pleasant but dull-looking private park, superimposed over a massive house with towering walls and gates, its stones blackened by years of rain and neglect.

He squinted hard. The park vanished, and only the house remained. It loomed overhead. It looked to Kit a little like a Greek temple, with columns holding up an arched portico in front of a set of double doors, massive and made of the same metal as the fence that ran all the way around the property. It was high, tipped with sharp points; the only entrance was a gate, which Ty had made short work of with one of his runes.

"What's that one mean?" Kit had asked, pointing, as the gate creaked open with a puff of rust.

Ty looked at him. "Open."

"I was going to guess that," Kit muttered as they headed inside. Now within the proper

ty, he gazed around in wonder. The gardens might have fallen into disrepair now, but you could see where there had been rose arbors, and marble balustrades holding up massive stone jugs spilling flowers and weeds. There were wildflowers everywhere--it was beautiful in its own odd, ruined way.

The house was like a small castle, the circlet of thorns that Kit recognized as the Blackthorn family symbol stamped into the metal front doors and onto the tops of the columns.

"Looks haunted," said Livvy, as they went up the front steps. In the distance, Kit could see the pitch-black circle of an old ornamental pond. Around it were set marble benches. A single statue of a man in a toga regarded him with blank, worried eyes.

"There used to be a whole collection of statues of different Greek and Roman playwrights and poets here," said Livvy, as Ty went to work on the doors. "Uncle Arthur had most of them shipped to the L.A. Institute."

"The open rune's not working," said Ty, straightening up and looking at Kit as if he knew everything Kit was thinking. As if he knew everything Kit had ever thought. There was something about being the focus of Tiberius's gaze that was frightening and thrilling all at once. "We'll have to figure another way in."

Ty pushed past Kit and his sister, heading down the stairs. They made their way around the side of the Hall, down a pebbled path. Hedges that had probably once been neat and clipped curved away in explosions of leaves and flowers. In the far distance, the water of the Thames shimmered.

"Maybe there's a way in through the back," Livvy said. "The windows can't be that secure either."

"What about this door?" Kit pointed.

Ty turned around, frowning. "What door?"

"Here," Kit said, puzzled. He could see the door very clearly: a tall, narrow entrance with an odd symbol carved into it. He placed his hand on the old wood: It felt rough and warm under his fingers. "Don't you see it?"

"I see it now," Livvy said. "But--I swear it wasn't there a second ago."