He drew himself up. There was something odd about his face, as well as his eyes; it had an almost ravaged look, as if something awful had happened to him when he was young, something that had cut lines like knife scars into his skin. “You’re not the head of the Institute, Emma Carstairs,” he said. “The information I gave you was good.”
“You said you’d stay quiet!”
“Emma.” Emma’s name, spoken firmly and with precision. Emma turned with slow dread to see Diana watching her from the top of the steps, the evening wind blowing her curly hair. She was wearing another long, elegant dress that made her look tall and imposing. She also looked absolutely furious.
“I guess you got my texts,” Emma said. Diana didn’t react.
“Leave Mr. Rook alone. We need to talk. I want to see you in my office in precisely ten minutes,” she said.
Diana turned and went back into the Institute. Emma shot Rook a venomous glare. “Deals with you are supposed to be secret,” she said, stabbing her index finger into his chest. “Maybe you didn’t promise you’d keep your mouth shut, but we both know that’s what people want from you. What they expect.”
A small smile played around his mouth. “You don’t scare me, Emma.”
“Maybe I should.”
“That’s what’s funny about you Nephilim,” said Rook. “You know about Downworld, but you don’t live in it.” He put his lips to her ear, uncomfortably close. His breath raised the hairs on her neck when he spoke. “There are far more frightening things than you in this world, Emma Carstairs.”
Emma wrenched herself away from him, turned, and ran up the Institute steps.
Ten minutes later Emma was standing in front of Diana’s desk, her hair, still wet from her shower, dripping onto the polished tile floor.
Though Diana didn’t live at the Institute, she had an office there, a comfortable corner room overlooking the highway and the sea. Emma could see the grass stretching out in front of the Institute in the twilight, blue-shadowed at the edges with coastal sage scrub. Rain had begun to patter down, streaking the windows.
The office was sparsely decorated. On the desk was a photograph of a tall man with his arm around a small girl who resembled Diana despite her youth. They stood in front of a shop whose sign read DIANA’S ARROW.
There were flowers on the windowsill that Diana had placed there to brighten the room. She folded her arms across the top of the desk and looked at Emma levelly.
“You lied to me last night,” she said.
“I didn’t,” Emma said, “not exactly. I—”
“Don’t say you omitted, Emma,” said Diana. “You know better than that.”
“What did Johnny Rook tell you?” Emma said, and was immediately sorry she’d said it. Diana’s expression darkened.
“Why don’t you tell me?” she said. “In fact, tell me what you did and what your punishment should be. Does that seem fair?”
Emma crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. She hated being caught, and Diana was good at catching her. Diana was smart, which was often awesome, but not when she was angry.
Emma could either fill in for Diana what she thought Diana was angry about, thus possibly revealing more than Diana already knew, or she could stay silent, thus possibly annoying Diana further. After a moment’s deliberation, she said, “I should have to take care of a box of kittens. You know how cruel kittens are, with their tiny little claws and terrible attitudes.”
“Speaking of terrible attitudes,” Diana said. She was idly playing with a pencil. “You went to the Shadow Market, against specific rules. You talked to Johnny Rook. He tipped you off that there’d be a body dump at the Sepulchre that might be connected to your parents’ deaths. You didn’t just happen to be there. You weren’t patrolling.”
“I paid Rook not to say anything,” Emma muttered. “I trusted him!”
Diana threw her pencil down. “Emma, the guy is known as Rook the Crook. In fact, he’s not just a crook, he’s on the Clave’s watch list because he works with faeries without permission. Any Downworlder or mundane who works in secret with faeries is locked out of business with Shadowhunters and forfeits their protection; you know that.”
Emma threw up her hands. “But those are some of the most useful people out there! Cutting them off isn’t helping the Clave, it’s punishing Shadowhunters!”
Diana shook her head. “The rules are the rules for a reason. Being a Shadowhunter, a good one, is about more than just training fourteen hours a day and knowing sixty-five ways of killing a man with salad tongs.”
“Sixty-seven,” Emma said automatically. “Diana, I’m sorry. I really am, especially for dragging Cristina into this. It’s not her fault.”
“Oh, I know that.” Diana was still frowning. Emma plunged ahead.