She rolled to the side and reached to touch her witchlight, on the nightstand table. It flared to a soft glow, illuminating the room—the enormous English bed, the heavy oak furniture. Someone had scrawled the initials JB+LH into the paint by the window.
She stared down at her right arm. Around her wrist was a band of paler skin, slightly reddened at the edges, like the scar left by a fiery bracelet.
* * *
“You’ll be all right?” Diana said. It was half declaration, half question.
Diana, Julian, and Emma stood in the entryway of the London Institute. The Institute doors were open and the dark courtyard was visible; it had rained earlier, and the flagstones were washed clean. Julian could see the arch of the famous metal gate that closed off the Institute, and the words worked into it: WE ARE DUST AND SHADOWS.
“We’ll be fine,” Julian said.
“Malcolm’s dead, again. No one’s trying to kill us,” said Emma. “It’s practically a vacation.”
Diana hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder. Her plan was to take a taxi to Westminster Abbey, where a secret tunnel accessible only to Shadowhunters led to Idris.
“I don’t like leaving you.”
Julian was surprised. Diana had always come and gone according to her own lights. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “Evelyn’s here, and the Clave is a phone call away.”
“Not a phone call you want to make,” said Diana. “I sent another message to Magnus and Alec, and I’ll keep in touch with them from Alicante.” She paused. “If you need them, send a fire-message and they’ll come.”
“I can handle this,” Julian said. “I’ve handled a lot worse for a lot longer.”
Diana’s eyes met his. “I would step in, if I could,” she said. “You know that. I’d take the Institute if it was possible. Put myself up against the Dearborns.”
“I know,” Julian said, and oddly enough, he did. Even if he didn’t know what prevented Diana from putting herself forward as a candidate, he knew it was something important.
“If it would make any difference,” Diana said. “But I wouldn’t even get through the interview. It would be futile, and then I wouldn’t be able to stay with you, or help you.”
She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself, and Emma reached her hand out, impulsive as always.
“Diana, you know we’d never let them take you away from us,” she said.
“Emma.” Julian’s voice was sharper than he’d intended. The anger he’d been shoving down since Emma had said she and Mark had broken up was rising again, and he didn’t know how long he could control it. “Diana knows what she’s talking about.”
Emma looked startled by the coldness in his tone. Diana flicked her eyes between them. “Look, I know it’s incredibly stressful, being kept from your home like this, but try not to fight,” she said. “You’re going to have to hold everything together until I get back from Idris.”
“It’s only a day or two,” said Emma, not looking at Julian. “And nobody’s fighting.”
“Stay in touch with us,” Julian said to Diana. “Tell us what Jia says.”
She nodded. “I haven’t been back to Idris since the Dark War. It’ll be interesting.” She leaned forward then, and kissed first Jules and then Emma, quickly, on the cheek. “Take care of yourselves. I mean it.”
She flipped the hood up on her jacket and stepped outside, swallowed up almost instantly by shadows. Emma’s arm pressed briefly against Julian’s as she raised her hand to wave good-bye. In the distance, Julian heard the clang of the front gate.
“Jules,” she said, without turning her head. “I know you said Diana refused to try to take the Institute, but do you know why . . . ?”
“No,” he said. It was a single word, but there was venom in it. “On the topic of confessions, were you planning on telling the rest of Mark’s family why you dumped their brother with no warning?”
Emma looked astonished. “You’re angry that Mark and I broke up?”
“I guess you’ve dumped two of their brothers, if we’re really counting,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “Who’s next? Ty?”
He knew immediately he’d gone too far. Ty was her little brother, just as he was Julian’s. Her face went very still.
“Screw you, Julian Blackthorn,” she said, spun on her heel, and stalked back upstairs.
* * *
Neither Julian nor Emma slept well that night, though each of them thought they were the only one troubled, and the other one was probably resting just fine.
* * *
“I think it’s time for you to get your first real Mark,” said Ty.
Only the three of them—Livvy, Ty, and Kit—were left in the parlor. Everyone else had gone to bed. Kit guessed from the quality of the darkness outside that it was probably three or four in the morning, but he wasn’t tired. It could be jet lag, or Portal lag, or whatever they called it; it could be the contagious relief of the others that they were all reunited again.
It could be an approximate six hundred cups of tea.
“I’ve had Marks,” said Kit. “You put that iratze on me.”
Livvy looked mildly curious but didn’t ask. She was sprawled in an armchair by the fire, her legs hooked over one side.
“I meant a permanent one,” said Ty. “This is the first real one we all get.” He held up his long-fingered right hand, the back toward Kit, showing him the graceful eye-shaped rune that identified all Shadowhunters. “Voyance. It clarifies Sight.”
“I can already see the Shadow World,” Kit pointed out. He took a bite out of a chocolate digestive biscuit. One of the few great foods England had to offer, in his opinion.
“You probably don’t see everything you could,” Livvy said, then held up her hands to indicate neutrality. “But you do what you want.”
“It’s the most painful rune to get,” said Ty. “But worthwhile.”
“Sure,” said Kit, idly picking up another biscuit—Livvy had sneaked a whole package from the pantry. “Sounds great.”
He looked up in surprise a moment later when Ty’s shadow fell across him; Ty was standing behind him, his stele out, his eyes bright. “Your dominant hand is your right,” he said, “so put that one out, toward me.”
Surprised, Kit choked on his cookie; Livvy sat bolt upright. “Ty,” she said. “Don’t; he doesn’t want one. He was just kidding.”
“I—” Kit started, but Ty had gone the color of old ivory and stepped back, looking dismayed. His eyes darted away from Kit’s. Livvy was starting to get up out of her chair.
“No— No, I do want one,” Kit said. “I would like the Mark. You’re right, it’s time I got a real one.”
The moment hung suspended; Livvy was half out of her chair. Ty blinked rapidly. Then he smiled, a little, and Kit’s heart resumed its normal beating. “Your right hand, then,” Ty said.
Kit put his hand out, and Ty was right: The Mark hurt. It felt like what he imagined getting a tattoo was like: a deep burning sting. By the time Ty was done, his eyes were watering.
Kit flexed his fingers, staring at his hand. He’d have this forever, this eye on the back of his hand, this thing that Ty had put there. He could never erase it or change it.
“I wonder,” Ty said, sliding his stele back into his belt, “where that house of Malcolm’s, in Cornwall, might be.”
“I can tell you exactly where it is,” said the girl standing by the fireplace. “It’s in Polperro.”
Kit stared. He was absolutely sure she hadn’t been standing there a moment ago. She was blond, very young, and—translucent. He could see the wallpaper right through her.
He couldn’t help himself. He yelled.
* * *
Bridget had led Emma to a bedroom she seemed to have picked out ahead of time, and Emma soon found out why: There were two height charts scribbled on the plaster, the kind you got by standing someone against a wall and drawing a line just above their head, with the date. One was marked Will Herondale, the other, James Carstairs.