Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

"Of course not."

"That was a joke, Ty--" Kit broke off, the impact of Ty's words hitting him belatedly. "What? We're going where?"

"I know it was a joke," said Ty, picking up one of the printouts of the drawings. "Livvy told me that when people tell jokes that aren't that funny, the polite thing is to ignore them. Is that not true?"

He looked anxious, and Kit wanted to hug him, the way he had the other night on the roof. "No, it's true," he said, hurrying after Ty as they left the library. "It's just that humor is subjective. Not everyone agrees the same things are funny, or not funny."

Ty looked at him with sincere friendliness. "I'm sure many people find you hilarious."

"They absolutely do." They were hurrying down a set of steps now, into shadows. Kit wondered why they were going, but it almost didn't matter--he felt excitement sparking at the tips of his fingers, the promise of adventure. "But Cornwall, seriously? How? And what about Livvy?"

Ty didn't turn around. "I don't want to bring her tonight."

They'd reached the bottom of the steps. A door swung out from here into a massive open stone-bound room. The crypt of the cathedral. The floor and walls were made of massive dark slabs of stone, filed to smoothness, and there were brass fixtures attached to stone pillars that had probably once held lamps. Now the light came from Ty's rune-stone, spilling between his cupped fingers.

"What are we doing, exactly?" said Kit.

"Remember when I stayed at the shop to talk to Hypatia Vex?" Ty said. "She told me there's a permanent Portal down here. An old one, maybe one of the first ever, made around 1903. It only goes to the Cornwall Institute. The Clave doesn't know about it or regulate it."

"An unregulated Portal?" said Kit. Ty was moving around the room, shining his witchlight against the walls, into cracks and corners. "Isn't that dangerous?"

Ty didn't say anything. Long tapestries hung against the walls at intervals. He was glancing behind each one, running the light up and down the wall. It bounced off the stone, lighting up the room like fireflies.

"That's why you didn't want Livvy to come," said Kit. "It is dangerous."

Ty straightened up. His hair was a mess. "She already got hurt," he said. "Because of me."

"Ty--"

"I need to find the Portal." Ty leaned against the wall, his fingers drumming against it. "I looked behind all the tapestries."

"Maybe look in them?" Kit suggested.

Ty gave him a long, considering look, with a tinge of surprise to it. Kit caught just a flash of his gray eyes as he turned back to examine the tapestries again. Each one showed a scene from what looked like a medieval landscape: castles, long stone walls, towers and roads, horses and battle. Ty stopped in front of one that showed a high hedge, in the middle of which was an arched opening. Through the opening the sea was visible.

He put his hand against it, a hesitant, questioning gesture. There was a flare of light. Kit darted forward as the tapestry shimmered, turning glimmering and colorful as a slick of oil.

Ty glanced again at the drawing he held, then turned, his other hand outstretched to Kit. "Don't be so slow."

Kit reached for him. His fingers closed around Ty's, warm and firm under his grasp. Ty stepped forward, into the Portal, the colors parting and re-forming around him--he was half invisible already--and his grip tightened on Kit's, pulling him after.

Kit held on tightly. But somewhere in the whirling chaos of the Portal, his hand ripped free of Ty's. An irrational panic seized him, and he shouted something out loud--he wasn't sure what--before the Portal winds cartwheeled him through a shadowy doorway and spit him out into cold air, onto a slope of damp grass.

"Yes?" Ty was standing over him, witchlight in hand. The sky behind him was high and dark, shimmering with a million stars.

Kit stood up, wincing. He was getting used to Portal travel, but he still didn't like it.

"What is it?" Ty's gaze didn't meet Kit's, but he looked him over, as if checking for injuries. "You were saying my name."

"Was I?" Kit glanced around. Green lawns sloped away in three directions, and rose in the fourth to meet a large gray church. "I think I was worried you were lost in the Portal."

"That's only happened a few times. It's statistically very unlikely." Ty raised his witchlight. "This is the Cornwall Institute."

In the distance, Kit could see the glimmer of moonlight on black water. The sea. Above them the church was a heap of gray stone with broken black windows and a missing front door. The spire of the church stabbed upward into swirling clouds, lit from behind by the moon. He whistled through his teeth. "How long has it been abandoned?"

"Only a few years. Not enough Shadowhunters to man all the Institutes. Not since the Dark War." Ty was glancing between the drawing in his hand and their surroundings. Kit could see the remains of a garden gone to seed: weeds growing up among dead rosebushes, grass far too long and in need of cutting, moss covering the dozens of statues that were scattered around the garden like victims of Medusa. A horse reared into the air beside a boy with a bird perched on his wrist. A stone woman held a dainty parasol. Tiny stone rabbits peeked through weeds.

"And we're going inside?" Kit said dubiously. He didn't like the look of the dark windows. "Wouldn't we be better off coming during the day?"

"We're not going inside." Ty held up the drawing he'd brought. In the witchlight, Kit could see that it was an ink sketch of the Institute and the gardens, done during daylight hours. The place hadn't changed much in the past two hundred years. The same rosebushes, the same statues. It looked as if the drawing had been done in winter, though, as the boughs of the trees were skeletal. "What we need is out here."

"What do we need?" said Kit. "Indulge me. Explain what this has to do with my idle comment about ravens being unreliable."

"It would be unreliable. The thing is, Malcolm didn't say the raven was alive, or a real bird. We just assumed."

"No, but--" Kit paused. He'd been about to say it didn't make any sense to give your messages to a dead raven, but something about the look on Ty's face silenced him.

"It actually makes more sense for them to have just left the messages in a hiding place," said Ty. "One they could both get to easily." He crossed the grass to the statue of the boy with the bird on his wrist.

A little jolt went through Kit. He didn't know much about birds, but this one was carved out of glossy black stone.

And it looked a lot like drawings he'd seen of ravens.

Ty reached around to run his fingers over the stone bird. There was a clicking noise, and a squeak of hinges. Kit hurried over to see Ty prying open a small opening in the bird's back. "Is there anything in there?"

Ty shook his head. "It's empty." He reached into his pocket, retrieved a folded-up piece of paper, and dropped it into the opening before sealing it back up again.

Kit stopped in his tracks. "You left a message."

Ty nodded. He'd folded up the drawing and put it in his pocket. His hand swung free at his side, the witchlight in it: Its light was dimmed, the moon providing enough illumination that they could both see.

"For Annabel?" said Kit.

Ty hesitated. "Don't tell anyone," he said finally. "It was just an idea I had."

"It was smart," said Kit. "Really smart--I don't think anyone else would have guessed about the statue. I don't think anyone else could have."

"But it might not matter," said Ty. "In which case I would have failed. And I'd rather no one know." He began to murmur under his breath, the way he did sometimes.

"I'll know."

Ty paused in his murmuring. "I don't mind," he said, "if it's you."

Kit wanted to ask him why not, wanted to ask badly, but Ty looked as if he wasn't sure he knew the answer himself. And he was still murmuring, the same soft stream of words that was somewhere between a whisper and a song. "What are you saying?" Kit asked finally, not sure if it was all right to ask, but unable to help his curiosity.

Ty glanced up at the moon through his lashes. They were thick and dark, almost childlike. They gave his face a look of innocence that made him look younger--a strange effect, at odds with his almost frighteningly sharp mind. "Just words I like," he said. "If I say them to myself, it makes my mind--quieter. Does it bother you?"

"No!" Kit said quickly. "I was just curious what words you liked."

Ty bit his lip. For a moment, Kit thought he wasn't going to say anything at all. "It's not the meaning, just the sound," he said. "Glass, twin, apple, whisper, stars, crystal, shadow, lilt." He glanced away from Kit, a shivering figure in his too-large hoodie, his black hair absorbing moonlight, giving none of it back.

"Whisper would be one of mine, too," said Kit. He took a step toward Ty, touched his shoulder gently. "Cloud, secret, highway, hurricane, mirror, castle, thorns."