Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“That’s enough,” Julian said sharply. “Stop trying to frighten him.”

“You will pay for the Cold Peace,” said the warlock. “The darkness is coming, and you would be well advised, Christopher Herondale, to stay far away from Institutes and Shadowhunters. Hide as your father did, and his father before him. Only then can you be safe.”

“How do you know who I am?” Kit demanded. “How do you know my real name?”

It was the first time Julian had heard him admit that Herondale was his real name.

“Everyone knows,” said Barnabas. “It’s all the Market has been buzzing about for days. Didn’t you see everyone staring at you when you came in?”

So they hadn’t been looking at Julian. Or at least not just at Julian. It wasn’t much comfort, though, Jules thought, not when Kit had that expression on his face.

“I thought I could come back here,” Kit said. “Take over my father’s stall. Work in the Market.”

A forked tongue flickered out between Barnabas’s lips. “Born a Shadowhunter, always a Shadowhunter,” he said. “You cannot wash the taint from your blood. I’m telling you for the last time, boy—leave the Market. And don’t come back.”

Kit backed up, looking around him—seeing, as if for the first time, the faces turned toward him, most blank and unfriendly, many avidly curious.

“Kit—” Julian began, reaching out a hand.

But Kit had bolted.

It took Julian only a few moments to catch up with Kit—the boy hadn’t really been trying to run; he’d just been pushing blindly through the crowds, with no destination. He’d fetched up in front of a massive stall that seemed to be in the middle of being torn apart.

It was just a bare latticework of boards now. It looked as if someone had ripped it to pieces with their hands. Jagged bits of wood lay scattered around on the blacktop. A sign dangled crookedly from the top of the stall, printed with the words PART SUPERNATURAL? YOU’RE NOT ALONE. THE FOLLOWERS OF THE GUARDIAN WANT YOU TO SIGN UP FOR THE LOTTERY OF FAVOR! LET LUCK INTO YOUR LIFE!

“The Guardian,” Kit said. “That was Malcolm Fade?”

Julian nodded.

“He was the one who got my father involved in all that stuff with the Followers and the Midnight Theater,” said Kit, his tone almost thoughtful. “It’s Malcolm’s fault he died.”

Julian didn’t say anything. Johnny Rook hadn’t been much of a prize, but he was Kit’s father. You only got one father. And Kit wasn’t wrong.

Kit moved then, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the sign. It clattered to the ground. In the moment before Kit pulled his hand back, wincing, Julian saw a flash of the Shadowhunter in him. If the warlock wasn’t already dead, Julian believed sincerely that Kit would have killed Malcolm.

A small crowd had followed from Hyacinth’s stall, staring. Julian put a hand on Kit’s back, and Kit didn’t move to shake him off.

“Let’s go,” Julian said.

*

Emma showered carefully—the downside of having your hair long when you were a Shadowhunter was never knowing after a fight if there was ichor in it. Once the back of her neck had been green for a week.

When she came out into her bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a tank top and rubbing her hair dry with a green towel, she found Mark curled up at the foot of her bed, reading a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

He was wearing a pair of cotton pajama bottoms that Emma had bought for three dollars from a vendor on the side of the PCH. He was partial to them as being oddly close in their loose, light material to the sort of trousers he’d worn in Faerie. If it bothered him that they also had a pattern of green shamrocks embroidered with the words GET LUCKY on them, he didn’t show it. He sat up when Emma came in, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and smiled at her.

Mark had a smile that could break your heart. It seemed to take up his whole face and brighten his eyes, firing the blue and gold from inside.

“A strange evening, forsooth,” he said.

“Don’t you forsooth me.” She flopped down on the bed next to him. He wouldn’t sleep on the bed, but he didn’t seem to mind using the mattress as a sort of giant sofa. He set his book down and leaned back against the footboard. “You know my rules about forsoothing in my room. Also the use of the words ‘howbeit,’ ‘welladay,’ and ‘alack.’?”

“What about ‘zounds’?”

“The punishment for ‘zounds’ is severe,” she told him. “You’ll have to run naked into the ocean in front of the Centurions.”

Mark looked puzzled. “And then?”

She sighed. “Sorry, I forgot. Most of us mind being naked in front of strangers. Take my word for it.”

“Really? You’ve never swum naked in the ocean?”

“That’s kind of a different question, but no, I never have.” She leaned back beside him.

“We should one day,” he said. “All of us.”

“I can’t imagine Perfect Diego ripping off all his clothes and leaping into the water in front of us. Maybe just in front of Cristina. Maybe.”

Mark clambered off the bed and onto the pile of blankets she’d put on the floor for him. “I doubt it. I bet he swims with all his clothes on. Otherwise he’d have to take off his Centurion pin.”

She laughed and he gave her an answering smile, though he looked tired. She sympathized. It wasn’t the normal activities of Shadowhunting that were tiring her out. It was the pretense. Perhaps it made sense that she and Mark could only unwind at night around each other, since there was no one, then, to pretend for.

They were the only times she had relaxed since the day Jem had told her about the parabatai curse, how parabatai who fell in love would go insane and destroy themselves and everyone they loved.

She’d known immediately: She couldn’t let that happen. Not to Julian. Not to his family, who she loved too. She couldn’t have stopped herself loving Julian. It was impossible. So she had to make Julian not love her.

Julian had given her the key himself, only days before. Words, whispered against her skin in a rare moment of vulnerability: He was jealous of Mark. Jealous that Mark could talk to her, flirt with her, easily, while Julian always had to hide what he felt.

Mark was leaning against the footboard beside her now, his eyes half-closed. Crescents of color under his lids, his eyelashes a shade darker than his hair. She remembered asking him to come to her room. I need you to pretend with me that we’re dating. That we’re falling in love.

He’d held out his hand to her, and she’d seen the storm in his eyes. The fierceness that reminded her that Faerie was more than green grass and revels. That it was callous wild cruelty, tears and blood, lightning that slashed the night sky like a knife.

Why lie? he’d asked.

She’d thought for a moment he’d been asking her, Why do you want to tell this lie? But he hadn’t been. He’d been asking, Why lie when we can make it the truth, this thing between us?

She’d stood before him, aching all the way down to the floor of her soul, in all the places where she’d ripped Julian away from her as if she’d torn off a limb.

They said that men joined the Wild Hunt sometimes when they had sustained a great loss, preferring to howl out their grief to the skies than to suffer in silence in their ordinary gray lives. She remembered soaring through the sky with Mark, his arms around her waist: She had let the wind take her screams of excitement, thrilling to the freedom of the sky where there was no pain, no worry, only forgetfulness.

And here was Mark, beautiful in that way that the night sky was beautiful, offering her that same freedom with an outstretched hand. What if I could love Mark? she thought. What if I could make this lie true?

Then it would be no lie. If she could love Mark, it would end all the danger. Julian would be safe.