Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“I have no desire to hurt or harm you,” Julian said. He wondered; if he moved closer to her, would he be able to grab her? Though the idea of using physical force to try to get the Black Volume sickened him. He realized he hadn’t imagined how he was going to get it away from her. Finding her had been too much of a priority. “But I saw you kill Malcolm.”

“I remember this place two hundred years past,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. Her accent was British, but there was an oddness to it, a sound Julian had never heard before. “It looked much the same, though there were fewer houses, and more ships in the harbor.” She turned to look back at the cottage. “Malcolm built that house himself. With his own magic.”

“Why didn’t you come inside?” Julian said. “Why did you wait for me out here?”

“I am barred,” she said. “Malcolm’s blood is on my hands. I cannot enter his home.” She turned to face Julian. “How could you have seen me kill him?”

The moon had come out from behind a cloud. It lit the night up brilliantly, framing the ragged edges of the clouds with light.

“I watched Malcolm raise you,” Julian said. “In a scrying glass of the Seelie Queen. She wanted me to see it.”

“But why would the Queen want such a thing?” Her lips parted in realization. “Ah. To make you want to follow me. To make you want the Black Volume of the Dead and all its power.”

She reached into her cloak and drew out the book. It was black, a dense sort of black that seemed to gather shadows into itself. It was tied closed with a leather strap. The words stamped onto its cover had long faded away.

“I remember nothing of my death,” Annabel said softly, as Julian stared at the book in her hands. “Not how it was done, nor the time after it when I lay beneath the earth, nor when Malcolm learned of my death and disturbed my bones. I only discovered later that Malcolm had spent many years trying to raise me from the dead, but during that time none of the spells he cast worked. My body rotted and I did not wake.” She turned the book over in her hands. “It was the Unseelie King who told him that the Black Volume was the key. The Unseelie King who gave him the rhyme and the spell. And it was the King who told Malcolm when Sebastian Morgenstern’s attack on the Institute would come—when it would be empty. All the King asked in return was that Malcolm worked for him on spells that would weaken the Nephilim.”

Julian’s mind raced. Malcolm hadn’t mentioned the Unseelie King’s part in all this when he’d told his version of the story to the Blackthorns. But that was hardly surprising. The King was far more powerful than Malcolm, and the warlock would have been reluctant to invoke his name. “In the Unseelie Lands, our powers are useless,” said Julian. “Seraph blades don’t work there, or witchlight or runes.”

“Malcolm’s doing,” she said. “As it is in his own Lands, so the King wishes it to be all over the world, and in Idris. Shadowhunters made powerless. He would take Alicante and rule from it. Shadowhunters would become the hunted.”

“I need the Black Volume, Annabel,” Julian said. “To stop the King. To stop all this.”

She only stared at him. “Five years ago,” she said, “Malcolm spilled Shadowhunter blood trying to raise me.”

Emma’s parents, Julian thought.

“It woke my mind but not my body,” Annabel said. “The spell had half-worked. I was in agony, you understand, half-alive and trapped beneath the earth. I screamed my pain in silence. Malcolm could not hear me. I could not move. He thought me insensible, unhearing, yet he spoke to me nonetheless.”

Five years, Julian thought. For five years she had been trapped in the convergence tomb, conscious but unable to be heard, unable to speak or scream or move.

Julian shuddered.

“His voice filtered down into my tomb. He read me that poem, over and over. ‘It was many and many a year ago.’?” Her gaze was bleak. “He betrayed me while I lived, and again when I was dead. Death is a gift, you understand. The passing beyond pain and sorrow. He denied me that.”

“I’m sorry,” Julian said. The moon had started to sink in the sky. He wondered how late it was.

“Sorry,” she echoed dismissively, as if the word had no meaning for her. “There will be a war,” she said, “between Faerie and Shadowhunters. But that is not my concern. My concern is that you promise to no longer try to obtain the Black Volume. Let it alone, Julian Blackthorn.”

He exhaled. He would have lied in a moment and promised, but he suspected a promise to someone like Annabel would hold a terrifying weight. “I can’t,” he said. “We need the Black Volume. I cannot tell you why, but I swear it will be kept safe and out of the hands of the King.”

“I have told you what the book did to me,” she said, and for the first time, she seemed animated, her cheeks flushed. “It has no use but evil use. You should not want it.”

“I won’t use it for evil,” Julian said. That much was true, he thought.

“It cannot be used for anything else,” she said. “It destroys families, people—”

“My family will be destroyed if I don’t have the book.”

Annabel paused. “Oh,” she said. And then, more gently, “But think of what will be destroyed with this book out there, in the world. So much more. There are higher causes.”

“Not to me,” said Julian. The world can burn if my family lives, he thought, and was about to say it when the cottage door flew open.

Emma stood in the doorway. She was shoving her feet into unlaced boots, Cortana in her hand. Her hair was rumpled over her shoulders, but her grip on the sword was unwavering.

Her gaze sought out Julian, then found Annabel; she started, stared incredulously. He saw her mouth shape Annabel’s name, as Annabel threw her hood up over her head and bolted.

Julian started after her, Emma only a second behind him. But Annabel was shockingly fast. She flew across the grass and heather-strewn slope to the edge of the cliff; with a last glance back, she flung herself into the air.

“Annabel!” Julian raced to the cliff edge, Emma at his side. He stared down into the water, hundreds of feet below, untroubled by even a ripple. Annabel had vanished.

*

They exploded back into the Institute, appearing in the library. It was like being dropped from a great height, and Kit staggered and fell back against the table, clawing at Livvy so he wouldn’t drop her.

Ty had fallen to his knees and was righting himself. Kit glanced at Livvy’s face—it was gray, with an eerie yellowish tinge.

“Magnus—” he gasped.

The warlock, who had landed with the ease of long practice, spun around, instantly assessing the situation. “Calm down,” he said, “everything’s fine,” and he started to take Livvy from Kit’s grasp. Kit let her go with relief—someone was going to take care of this. Magnus Bane was going to take care of this. He wouldn’t let Livvy die.

It took Kit a moment to notice that there was already someone standing in the library. Someone he didn’t know, who moved toward Magnus just as the warlock eased Livvy down onto the long table. It was a young man about Jace’s age, with straight dark hair that looked as if he had slept on it and not bothered to brush it. He wore a washed-out sweater and jeans. He glared at Magnus. “You woke up the kids,” he said.

“Alec, we have kind of an emergency here,” said Magnus.

So this was Alec Lightwood. Somehow Kit had expected him to look older.

“Small children who are awake are also an emergency,” said Alec. “I’m just saying.”

“All right, move the furniture back,” Magnus said to Ty and Kit. “I need some working space.” He glanced sideways at Alec as the two younger boys moved chairs and small bookcases out of the way. “So where are the kids?”

Magnus was stripping off his coat. Alec held out his hand and caught the coat as Magnus tossed it to him, a practiced move that suggested he was used to the gesture. “I left them with a nice girl named Cristina. She said she likes children.”

“You just left our children with strangers?”

“Everyone else is asleep,” said Alec. “Besides, she knows lullabies. In Spanish. Rafe is in love.” He glanced over at Kit again. “By the Angel, it’s uncanny,” he said in a sudden burst, as if he couldn’t help it.

Kit felt unnerved. “What’s uncanny?”