Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

Speaking of the dark watches of the night, he had a new grievance to add to his list. They make me get up early.

Diana, whose official title was tutor but who seemed to function as a guardian-slash-high school principal, had woken Kit up early in the morning and herded him, along with Ty and Livvy, into a corner office with an expansive view and a massive glass desk. She looked pissed off the way adults sometimes looked pissed off when they were angry at someone else, but they were going to take it out on you.

Kit was correct. Diana was currently furious at Julian, Emma, Mark, and Cristina, who, according to Arthur, had disappeared to Faerie in the dead of night to rescue someone named Kieran who Kit had never met. Further discussion illuminated that Kieran was the son of the Unseelie King and Mark’s ex-boyfriend, both of which were interesting pieces of information that Kit filed away for later.

“This is not good,” Diana finished. “Any travel to Faerie is entirely off-limits to Nephilim without special permissions.”

“But they’ll come back, right?” Ty said. He sounded strained. “Mark will come back?”

“Of course they’ll come back,” said Livvy. “It’s just a mission. A rescue mission,” she added, turning to Diana. “Won’t the Clave understand they had to go?”

“Rescuing a faerie—no,” Diana said, shaking her head. “They are not entitled to our protection under the Accords. The Centurions can’t know. The Clave would be furious.”

“I won’t tell,” said Ty.

“I won’t either,” agreed Livvy. “Obviously.”

They both looked at Kit.

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” he said.

“You have a point,” said Livvy. She turned to Diana. “Why is he here?”

“You seem to have a way of knowing everything,” Diana said to Kit. “I thought it would be better to control your information. And get a promise from you.”

“That I won’t tell? Of course I won’t tell. I don’t even like the Centurions. They’re . . .” What I always thought Shadowhunters would be like. You’re not. You’re all . . . different. “Jerks,” he finished.

“I cannot believe,” Livvy said, “that Julian and them have found a fun adventure to go on and just left the rest of us here to fetch towels for Centurions.”

Diana looked surprised. “I thought you’d be upset,” she said. “Worried about them.”

Livvy shook her head. Her long hair, shades lighter than Ty’s, flew around her. “That they’re off having fun and getting to see Faerie? While we drudge around here? When they get back, I’m going to have words with Julian.”

“Which words?” Ty looked confused for a moment, before his face cleared. “Oh,” he said. “You’re going to curse him out.”

“I’m going to use every bad word I know, and look up some other ones,” said Livvy.

Diana was biting her lip. “You’re really all right?”

Ty nodded. “Cristina has studied Faerie extensively, Mark was a Hunter, and Julian and Emma are clever and brave,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

Diana looked stunned. Kit had to admit he was surprised too. The Blackthorns had struck him as a family so close-knit that “enmeshed” didn’t begin to cover it. But Livvy kept up her cheerful annoyance when they went to tell Dru and Tavvy that the others had gone to the Shadowhunter Academy to fetch something—she was quite convincing, too, as she told them how Cristina had gone along because visiting the Academy was now a required part of one’s travel year—and they repeated the same story to a glowering Diego and a bunch of Centurions, including his fiancée, who Kit had taken to calling Loathsome Zara in his mind.

“In sum,” Livvy finished sweetly, “you may have to launder some of your own towels. Now if you’ll excuse us, Ty and I are going to take Kit here on a tour of the perimeter.”

Zara arched an eyebrow. “The perimeter?”

“The wards you just put up,” said Livvy, and marched outside. She didn’t actually drag Ty and Kit after her physically, but something about the force of her personality accomplished basically the same thing. The Institute doors fell shut behind them as she was already clattering down the front steps.

“Did you see the look on those Centurions’ faces?” she demanded as they made their way around the massive side of the Institute. She was wearing boots and denim shorts that showed off her long, tanned legs. Kit attempted to seem as if he wasn’t looking.

“I don’t think they appreciated what you said about washing their own towels,” said Ty.

“Maybe I should have drawn them a map to where the detergent is,” said Livvy. “You know, since they like maps so much.”

Kit laughed. Livvy glanced over at him, half-suspicious. “What?”

They’d passed the parking lot behind the Institute and reached a low hedge of sagebrush, behind which was a statuary garden. Greek playwrights and historians stood around in plaster poses, holding wreaths of laurel. It seemed oddly out of place, but then Los Angeles was a city of things that didn’t seem like they belonged where they were.

“It was funny,” Kit said. “That was all.”

She smiled. Her blue T-shirt matched her eyes, and the sunlight found the red and copper threads in her dark brown hair and made them shine. At first Kit had been a little unnerved by how much the Blackthorns all looked like each other—except Ty, of course—but he had to admit, if you had to share family traits, luminous blue-green eyes and wavy dark hair weren’t bad ones. The only things he shared with his father were moodiness and a penchant for burglary.

As for his mother—

“Ty!” Livvy called. “Ty, get down from there!”

They had moved far enough away from the house that they were now in real chaparral desert. Kit had only been in the Santa Monica Mountains a few times, on school trips. He remembered drinking in the air, the mix of salt and sagebrush, the soft breathless heat of the desert. Hasty green lizards bloomed like sudden leaves in between the scrub cactus, and disappeared just as quickly. Large rocks were tumbled everywhere—the castoffs of some fast-moving glacier, a million years ago.

“I will when I’m done with this.” Ty was busy climbing one of the largest rocks, expertly finding handholds and footholds. He hauled himself up to the top, totally unself-conscious, arms out to keep his balance. He looked as if he were getting ready to launch himself into flight, his hair blowing back like dark wings.

“Is he going to be all right?” Kit asked, watching him climb.

“He’s a really good climber,” said Livvy. “It used to freak me out when we were younger. He didn’t have any kind of realistic sense of when he was in danger or wasn’t. I thought he was going to fall off the rocks at Leo Carillo and smash in his head. But Jules went with him everywhere and Diana showed him how, and he learned.”

She looked up at her brother and smiled. Ty had raised himself up on the balls of his feet and was looking down at the ocean. Kit could almost imagine him on a desolate plain somewhere, with a black cloak flapping around him like a hero in a fantasy illustration.

Kit took a deep breath. “You didn’t really believe what you told Diana,” he said to Livvy. She whipped around to stare at him. “About not being worried about Julian and the others.”

“Why do you think that?” Her tone was carefully neutral.

“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “All of you.”

“I know.” She looked up at him with her bright eyes, half-amused. “It’s like you’ve been taking mental notes.”

“Habit. My dad taught me everyone in the world was divided into two categories. Those you could trick and cheat and the ones you couldn’t. So you observe people. Try to figure out what they’re about. How they tick.”

“How do we tick?”