Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

And it nearly had been. In order to raise Annabel, Malcolm had required the sacrifice and blood of a Blackthorn. He had kidnapped Tavvy and nearly killed him. Just the memory of it made Emma shiver.

“But this was not the sigil of the King that long ago,” said Mark. “This dates from the beginning of the Cold Peace. Time works differently in Faerie, but—” He shook his head, as if to say not that differently. “I am afraid.”

Jace and Clary exchanged a look. They were on their way to Faerie, weren’t they, to look for a weapon? Emma leaned forward, meaning to ask them what they knew, but before she could get the words out, the Institute doorbell rang, echoing through the house.

They all looked at each other, surprised. But it was Tavvy who spoke first, looking up from the corner where he was playing. “Who’s here?”

*

If there was one thing Kit was good at, it was slipping out of rooms unnoticed. He’d been doing it all his life, while his father held meetings in the living room with impatient warlocks or jumpy werewolves.

So it wasn’t too much of a challenge to creep out of the library while everyone else was talking and eating Chinese food. Clary was doing an imitation of someone called the Inquisitor, and everyone was laughing. Kit wondered if it occurred to them that it was weird to endorse a governmental position that sounded like it was all about torture.

He’d been in the kitchen a few times before. It was one of the rooms he liked best in the house—homey, with its blue walls and farmhouse sink. The fridge wasn’t badly stocked either. He guessed Shadowhunters were probably hungry pretty frequently, considering how often they worked out.

He wondered if he’d have to work out all the time too, if he became a Shadowhunter. He wondered if he’d end up with muscles and abs and all that stuff, like Julian and Jace. At the moment, he was more on the skinny side, like Mark. He lifted his T-shirt and gazed at his flat, undefined stomach for a moment. Definitely no abs.

He let the shirt fall and grabbed a Tupperware container of cookies out of the fridge. Maybe he could frustrate the Shadowhunters by refusing to work out and sitting around eating carbs. I defy you, Shadowhunters, he thought, thumbing the top off the container and popping a cookie in his mouth. I mock you with my sugar cravings.

He let the door of the fridge fall shut, and nearly yelled out loud. Reflexively, he swallowed his cookie and stared.

Ty Blackthorn stood in the middle of the kitchen, his headphones dangling around his neck, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Those are pretty good,” he said, “but I like the butterscotch ones better.”

Thoughts of cookie-related rebellion floated out of Kit’s head. Despite sleeping in front of his room, Ty had hardly ever spoken to him before. The most he’d probably ever said at once was when he was holding Kit at knifepoint in the Rooks’ house, and Kit didn’t think that counted as social interaction.

Kit set the Tupperware down on the counter. He was once again conscious of the sense that Ty was studying him, maybe counting up his pluses and minuses or something like that. If Ty was someone else, Kit would have tried to catch his eye, but he knew Ty wouldn’t look at him directly. It was kind of restful not to worry about it.

“You have blood on your hand,” Ty said. “I noticed it earlier.”

“Oh. Right.” Kit glanced down at his split knuckles. “I hurt my hand at the Shadow Market.”

“How?” Ty asked, leaning against the edge of the counter.

“I punched a board,” Kit said. “I was angry.”

Ty’s eyebrows went up. He had interesting eyebrows, slightly pointed at the tops, like inverted Vs, and very black. “Did it make you feel better?”

“No,” Kit admitted.

“I can fix it,” Ty said, taking one of the Shadowhunters’ magic pencils out of his jeans pocket. Steles, they were called. He held out his hand.

Kit supposed he could have refused to accept the offer, the way he had when Julian had suggested healing him in the car. But he didn’t. He held his forearm out trustingly, wrist turned upward so the blue veins were exposed to the boy who’d held a knife to his throat not that long ago.

Ty’s fingers were cool and careful as he took hold of Kit’s arm to steady it. He had long fingers—all the Shadowhunters did, Kit had noticed. Maybe it had something to do with the need to handle a variety of weapons. Kit was caught up enough in wondering about it to only flinch slightly when the stele moved across his forearm, leaving a feeling of heat as if his skin had passed over a candle flame.

Ty’s head was down. His black hair slanted across his face. He drew the stele back when he was finished, letting go of Kit.

“Look at your hand,” he said.

Kit turned his hand over and watched as the tears over his knuckles sealed themselves together, the red patches turning back to smooth skin. He stared down at the black mark that spread across his forearm. He wondered when it would start fading. It weirded him out, stark evidence that it really was all true. He really was a Shadowhunter.

“That is pretty cool,” he admitted. “Can you heal literally anything? Like what about diabetes and cancer?”

“Some diseases. Not always cancer. My mother died of that.” Ty put his stele away. “What about your mother? Was she a Shadowhunter too?”

“I don’t think so,” Kit said. His father had sometimes told him his mother was a Vegas showgirl who’d taken off after Kit was born, but it had occurred to him in the past two weeks that his father might not have been entirely truthful about that. He certainly hadn’t been about anything else. “She’s dead,” he added, not because he thought that was likely the case but because he realized he didn’t want to talk about her.

“So we both have dead mothers,” Ty said. “Do you think you’ll want to stay here? And become a Shadowhunter?”

Kit started to answer—and stopped, as a sound like a low, sweet bell tolling echoed through the house. “What’s that?”

Ty raised his head. Kit got a quick flash of the color of his eyes: true gray, that gray that was almost silver.

Before he could answer, the kitchen door swung open. It was Livvy, a soda can in her left hand. She looked unsurprised to see Kit and Ty; pushing between them, she jumped up onto the table, crossing her long legs.

“The Centurions are here,” she said. “Everyone’s running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Diana went to welcome them, Julian looks like he wants to kill someone . . . .”

“And you want to know if I’ll go and spy on them with you,” said Ty. “Right?”

She nodded. “I’d suggest somewhere that we won’t be seen, because if Diana catches us, we’ll be making up beds and folding towels for Centurions for the next two hours.”

That seemed to decide things; Ty nodded and headed for the kitchen door. Livvy jumped off the table and followed him.

She paused with a hand on the doorframe, looking back over her shoulder at Kit. “You coming?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure you want me to?” It hadn’t occurred to him to invite himself—the twins seemed like such a perfect unit, as if they needed no one but each other.

She grinned. He smiled hesitantly back; he was plenty used to girls, even pretty girls, but something about Livvy made him feel nervous.

“Sure,” she said. “One warning—rude and catty comments about the people we’re spying on are required. Members of our family exempted, of course.”

“If you make Livvy laugh, you get double points,” Ty added, from the hallway.

“Well, in that case . . .” Kit started after them. What was it Jace had said, after all? Herondales couldn’t resist a challenge.

*