Bitter of Tongue (Tales from Shadowhunter Academy 7)

"Maybe," said Simon. "There's more to both sides than the worst."

Mark smiled, a faint terrible smile. "Where has the best gone? I try to remember my father's stories, about Jonathan Shadowhunter, about all the golden heroes who have served as shields for humanity. But my father is dead. His voice fades away with the north wind, and the Law he held sacred is something written in the sand by a child. We laugh and point, that anyone should be so foolish as to think it would last. All that is good, and true, is lost."

Simon had never thought there was much of a silver lining about his memory loss. It occurred to him now that he had been shown some small accidental mercy. All his memories had been stripped away at once.

While Mark's memories were being torn at and worn away, sliding from him one by one, in the cold dark under the hill where nothing gold lasted.

"I wish I could remember," Simon said, "when we first met."

"You weren't human then," said Mark bitterly. "But you're human now. And you look like more of a Shadowhunter than I do."

Simon opened his mouth and found all words wanting. He did not know what to say: It was true, as everything Mark said was true. When he'd first seen Mark, he'd thought faerie, and felt instinctively uneasy. Shadowhunter Academy must have been rubbing off on him even more than he'd thought.

And the environment Mark was in had changed him, too, changed him already almost past reclaiming. There was an eerie quality to him that went beyond the fine bones and delicately pointed ears of faerie. Helen had possessed those too, but ultimately she had moved like a fighter, stood tall like a Shadowhunter, spoken as the Clave and the people of the Institutes spoke. Mark spoke like a poem and walked like a dance. Simon wondered, even if Mark found his way back, if Mark could possibly fit into the Shadowhunter world now.

He wondered if Mark had forgotten how to lie.

"What do you think I am, apprentice Shadowhunter?" Mark asked. "What do you think I should do?"

"Show them what Mark Blackthorn is made of," said Simon. "Show them all."

"Helen, Julian, Livia, Tiberius, Drusilla, Octavian. And Emma," Mark whispered, his voice low and reverent, one Simon recognized from the synagogue, from the voice of mothers calling their children, from all the times and places he had heard people call on what they held most sacred. "My brothers and sisters are Shadowhunters, and in their name I will help you. I will."

He turned and shouted: "Hefeydd!"

Hefeydd of the purple ears sidled back into view, back from among the trees.

"This Shadowhunter is my kinsman," said Mark, with some difficulty. "Do you dare to insist you have a claim on a kinsman of the Wild Hunt?"

That was ridiculous. Simon was not even a Shadowhunter yet, Hefeydd was never going to believe-- Only here was Mark, Simon realized. A faerie, to all appearances, and a faerie somewhat to be feared. Even Simon had not known if he could lie.

"Of course I would not insist," Hefeydd said, bowing. "That is--"

Simon was watching the sky. He had not even realized he was doing so, that he had been scanning the skies since someone had dropped from them, until now.

Now that Simon was watching, he could see what was happening more clearly: not someone falling from the sky, but a wild sky-bound horse charging for the earth and letting fall its rider. This horse was white as a cloud or mist given proud and shining shape, and the rider who hurtled toward the ground was in dazzling white as well. He had cobalt hair, the dark blue of evening before it became the black of night, and one gleaming-jet and one gleaming-silver eye.

"The prince," whispered Hefeydd.

"Mark of the Hunt," said the new faerie. "Gwyn sent you to find out why the Hunt had been so disturbed. He did not suggest you delay the Hunt yourself by tarrying a year and a day. Are you running away?"

The question was asked with emotion behind it, though Simon could not tell if it was suspicion or something else. He could tell that the question was more serious, perhaps, than the asker had meant it to be.

Mark gestured to himself. "No, Kieran. As you see. Hefeydd has caught himself a Shadowhunter, and I was a little curious."

"Why?" asked Kieran. "The Nephilim are behind you, and looking behind causes nothing but broken spells and wasted pain. Look forward, to the wild wind and to the Hunt. And to my back, because I am like to be before you in any hunt."

Mark smiled, in the way you did with a friend you were used to teasing. "I can recall several hunts in which that has not been the case. But I see you hope for better luck in the future, while I rely on skill."

Kieran laughed. Simon felt a leap of hope--if this faerie was Mark's friend, then the rescue mission was still on. He had moved unconsciously closer to Mark, his hand closing on one of the bars of his cage. Kieran's eye was drawn to the movement, and for an instant he glared at Simon with eyes gone perfectly cold: shark-black, mirror-shard eyes.

Simon knew, with absolute bone-deep certainty and with no idea why, that Kieran did not like Shadowhunters and did not wish Simon any good.

"Leave Hefeydd with his toy," said Kieran. "Come away."

"He told me something interesting," Mark informed Kieran in a brittle voice. "He said the Clave voted against coming for me. My people, the people I was raised among and taught by and trusted, agreed to leave me here. Can you believe that?"

"Can you be surprised? His kind has always liked cruelty full as much as justice. His kind have nothing to do with you any longer," Kieran said, voice caressing and persuasive, laying a hand on Mark's neck. "You are Mark of the Wild Hunt. You ride on the air, a hundred dizzy wheeling miles above them all. They will never hurt you again, save that you let them. Do not let them. Come away."

Mark hesitated, and Simon found himself doubting. Kieran was right, after all. Mark Blackthorn owed the Shadowhunters nothing.

"Mark," Kieran said, a thread of steel in his voice. "You know there are those in the Hunt who would seize any reason to punish you."

Simon could not tell if Kieran's words were a warning or a threat.

A smile crossed Mark's face, dark as a shadow. "Better than you," he said. "But I thank you for your care. I will go with you and explain myself to Gwyn." He turned to look at Simon, his bicolored eyes unreadable, sea glass and bronze. "I will come back. Do not harm him," he told Hefeydd. "Give him water."

He nodded toward Hefeydd, slight emphasis in the gesture, and nodded toward Simon. Simon nodded in return.

Kieran, whom Hefeydd had called a prince, kept his grip on Mark and turned him so that he was facing away from Simon. He whispered something to Mark that Simon could not hear, and Simon could not tell if the tight grasp of Kieran's hand was affection, anxiety, or a wish to imprison.

Simon had no doubt that if Kieran had his way, Mark would not come back.

Mark whistled, and Kieran made the same sound. On the wind, as a shadow and a cloud, came a dark and a light horse swooping down for their riders. Mark leaped into the air and was gone in a flicker of darkness, with a cry of joy and challenge.

Hefeydd chuckled, the low sound creeping through the undergrowth.

"Oh, I will give you water with pleasure," he said, and came over with a cup fashioned out of bark, filled to the brim with water that seemed to shine with light.

Simon reached out through the bars and accepted the drink, but fumbled it and spilled half the water. Hefeydd cursed and caught the cup, holding it to Simon's lips and smiling a darkly encouraging smile.

"There is still some left," he whispered. "You can drink. Drink."

Except Simon was Academy trained. He had no intention of accepting food or drink from faeries, and he was sure Mark had not meant him to. Mark had been nodding at the key dangling from one of the long sleeves of Hefeydd's cloak.

Simon pretended to drink as Hefeydd smiled. He slipped the key into his gear, and when Hefeydd trotted away he waited, and counted the minutes until he thought the coast was clear. He slid his hand through the bars, slipped the key into the lock, and swung the cage

door slowly open.

Then he heard a sound, and froze.

Stepping out of the whispering green trees, wearing a red velvet jacket and a long black lace dress that turned into transparent cobwebs around the knees, in winter boots and red gloves that Simon thought he might remember, graceful as a gazelle and intent as a tiger, was Isabelle Lightwood.

*

"Simon!" she exclaimed. "What do you think you're doing?"

Simon drank her in with his eyes, better than water from any land. She had come for him. The others must have fled back to the Academy and said that Simon was lost in Faerie, and Isabelle had gone charging into Faerieland to find him. First out of anybody, when she was meant to be getting ready to attend a wedding. But she was Isabelle, and that meant she was always ready to fight and defend.

Simon recalled feeling conflicted when she had rescued him from a vampire last year. Right now he could not imagine why.

He knew her better now, he thought, knew her all over again, and knew why she would always come.

"Er, I was escaping my terrible captivity," said Simon. Then he took a step back from the cage door, met Isabelle's eyes, and grinned. "But, you know . . . not if you don't want me to."

Isabelle's eyes, which had been hard with worry and purpose, were suddenly glittering like jet.

"What are you saying, Simon?"

Simon spread his hands. "I'm just saying, if you came all the way here to rescue me, I don't wish to appear ungrateful."

"Oh no?"