Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Tell me again why you think they’re up to something?” said Kit.

“All right,” said Ty. Kit had noticed already that Ty responded directly to what you said to him, and much less so to tone or intonation. Not that he couldn’t use a refresher on why they were halfway up a building, staring at a bunch of jerks. “I was sitting in front of your room this morning when I saw Zara go into Diana’s office. When I followed her, I saw that she was going through papers there.”

“She could have had a reason,” said Kit.

“To be sneaking through Diana’s papers? What reason?” said Livvy, so firmly that Kit had to admit that if it looked scurrilous, it probably was scurrilous.

“I texted Simon Lewis about Cartwright, Whitelaw, and Aldertree,” said Livvy, resting her chin on the lower crossbar of the railing. “He says Gen and Thomas are solid, and Cartwright is kind of a lunk, but basically harmless.”

“They might not all be involved,” said Ty. “We have to figure out which of them are, and what they want.”

“What’s a lunk?” said Kit.

“Sort of a combination of hunk and lump, I think. As in, large but not that smart.” Livvy grinned her quick grin as a shadow rose up over them—Cristina, her hands on her hips, her eyebrows quirked.

“What are you three doing?” she asked. Kit had a healthy respect for Cristina Rosales. Sweet as she looked, he’d seen her throw a balisong fifty feet and hit her target exactly.

“Nothing,” said Kit.

“Making rude comments about the Centurions,” said Livvy.

For a moment, Kit thought Cristina was going to scold them. Instead she sat down next to Livvy, her mouth curling up into a smile. “Count me in,” she said.

Ty was resting his forearms on the crossbar. He flicked his storm-cloud-gray eyes in Kit’s direction. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “we follow them to see where they go.”

Kit was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.

*

It was an uncomfortable evening—the Centurions, even after drying off, were exhausted and reluctant to talk about what they’d done that day. Instead they descended on the dining room and the food laid out there like ravenous wolves.

Kit, Ty, and Livvy were nowhere to be seen. Emma didn’t blame them. Meals with the Centurions were an increasingly uncomfortable affair. Though Divya, Rayan, and Jon Cartwright tried their best to hold up a friendly conversation about where everyone planned to spend their travel year, Zara soon interrupted them with a long description of what she’d been doing in Hungary before she’d arrived at the Institute.

“Bunch of Shadowhunters complaining that their steles and seraph blades stopped working during a fight with some faeries,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We told them it was just an illusion—faeries fight dirty, and they should be teaching that at the Academy.”

“Faeries don’t fight dirty, actually,” said Mark. “They fight remarkably cleanly. They have a strict code of honor.”

“Honor?” Samantha and Dane laughed at the same time. “I doubt you know what that means, ha—”

They paused. It had been Dane who was speaking, but it was Samantha who flushed. The word unspoken hung in the air. Half-breed.

Mark shoved his chair back and walked out of the room.

“Sorry,” Zara said into the silence that followed his departure. “But he shouldn’t be sensitive. He’s going to hear a lot worse if he goes to Alicante, especially at a Council meeting.”

Emma stared at her incredulously. “That doesn’t make it all right,” she said. “Just because he’s going to hear something ugly from the bigots on the Council doesn’t mean he should hear it first at home.”

“Or ever at home,” said Cristina, whose cheeks had turned dark red.

“Stop trying to make us feel guilty,” Samantha snapped. “We’re the ones who’ve been out all day trying to clean up the mess you made, trusting Malcolm Fade, like you could trust a Downworlder. Didn’t you people learn anything from the Dark War? The faeries stabbed us in the back. That’s what Downworlders do, and Mark and Helen will do it to you, too, if you’re not careful.”

“You don’t know anything about my brother or my sister,” said Julian. “Please refrain from saying their names.”

Diego had been sitting beside Zara in stony silence. He spoke finally, his lips barely moving. “Such blind hatred does no credit to the office or the uniform of Centurions,” he said.

Zara lifted her glass, her fingers curled tightly around the slender stem. “I don’t hate Downworlders,” she said, and there was cool conviction in her voice. It was more chilling, somehow, than passion would have been. “The Accords haven’t worked. The Cold Peace doesn’t work. Downworlders don’t follow our rules, or any rules that aren’t in their interest to follow. They break the Cold Peace when they feel like it. We are warriors. Demons should fear us. And Downworlders should fear us. Once we were great: We were feared, and we ruled. We’re a shadow now of what we were then. All I’m saying is that when the systems aren’t working, when they’ve brought us down to the level we’re at now, then we need a new system. A better one.”

Zara smiled, tucked a stray bit of hair back into her immaculate bun, and took a sip of water. They finished dinner in silence.

*

“She lies. She just sits there and lies like her opinions are facts,” said Emma furiously. After dinner, she’d retreated with Cristina to the other girl’s room; they were both sitting on the bed, Cristina worrying her dark hair between her fingers.

“I think they are, to her and those like her,” said Cristina. “But we should not waste time on Zara. You said on the way upstairs that you had something to tell me?”

As concisely as she could, Emma caught Cristina up on the visit from Gwyn. As Emma talked, Cristina’s face grew more and more pinched with worry. “Is Mark all right?”

“I think so—he can be really hard to read, sometimes.”

“He’s one of those people with a lot going on in his head,” said Cristina. “Has he ever asked—about you and Julian?”

Emma shook her head violently. “I don’t think it would ever cross his mind we had anything but parabatai feelings for each other. Jules and I have known each other so long.” She rubbed at her temples. “Mark assumes Julian feels the same way about me that he does—brotherly.”

“It’s strange, the things that blind us,” said Cristina. She drew her knees up, her hands looped around them.

“Have you tried to reach Jaime?” Emma asked.

Cristina leaned her cheek on the tops of her knees. “I sent a fire-message, but I haven’t heard anything.”

“He was your best friend,” Emma said. “He’ll respond.” She twisted a piece of Cristina’s woven blanket between her fingers. “You know what I miss most? About Jules? Just—being parabatai. Being Emma and Julian. I miss my best friend. I miss the person I told everything to, all the time. The person who knew everything about me. The good things and the bad things.” She could see Julian in her mind’s eye as she spoke, the way he had looked during the Dark War, all thin shoulders and determined eyes.

The sound of a knock on the door echoed through the room. Emma glanced at Cristina—was she expecting someone?—but the other girl looked as surprised as she did.

“Pasa,” Cristina called.

It was Julian. Emma looked at him in surprise, the younger Julian of her memory blurring back into the Julian standing in front of her: a nearly grown-up Julian, tall and muscular, his curls unruly, a hint of stubble prickling along his jawline.

“Do you know where Mark is?” he asked, without preamble.

“Isn’t he in his room?” Emma said. “He left during dinner, so I thought—”

Julian shook his head. “He’s not there. Could he be in your room?”

It cost him visible effort to ask, Emma thought. She saw Cristina bite her lip and prayed Julian wouldn’t notice. He could never find out how much Cristina knew.