They passed into the station, which was brightly lit and modern, the walkways lined with stores like the Body Shop and Caffe Nero. She glanced ahead at Julian, but he was deep in discussion with Bridget. Julian had an amazing ability to make conversation with literally anyone. She wondered what he could possibly find to talk to Bridget about. Evelyn's odd habits? London history?
"Have you gotten a chance to talk to Mark at all about, you know, the kiss?" asked Emma as they passed an Upper Crust bakery that smelled like butter and cinnamon, mixed with the smoke of the station. "Especially with the whole Kieran thing going on now."
Cristina shook her head. She looked drawn and pale, as if she hadn't slept well. "Kieran and Mark have history. Like Diego and me. I can't find fault with Mark for being drawn to his history. It was the reason I was drawn to Diego, and I did that without all the pressures that are on Mark now."
"I don't know how it'll play out. Mark's not much of a liar," said Emma. "I say this as someone who isn't great at it myself."
Cristina gave a pained smile. "You are terrible. Watching you and Mark pretend to be in love was like watching two people who kept falling over and then hoping nobody noticed."
Emma giggled. "Very flattering."
"I am only saying that for the good of us all, Kieran must believe in Mark's feelings," said Cristina. "A faerie who thinks they have been scorned or spited can be very cruel."
She gasped suddenly, bending almost double. Emma caught her as she sank down. In a blind panic, she dragged Cristina into a corner between two shops. She didn't dare scream; she wasn't glamoured, mundanes would hear her. But she glanced toward Julian and Bridget, still deep in conversation, and thought as hard as she could.
Jules, Julian, I need you, right now, come right now, please!
"Emma--" Cristina had her arms crossed, hugging her stomach as if it pained her, but it was the blood on her shirt that terrified Emma.
"Cristina--sweetheart--let me see, let me see." She pulled frantically at Cristina's arms until the other girl let go.
There was blood on her right hand and sleeve. Most of it seemed to be coming from her arm and to have transferred itself to her shirt. Emma breathed a little easier. A wound to the arm was less serious than one to the body.
"What's going on?" It was Julian's voice. He and Bridget had reached them; Jules was white-faced. She saw the terror in his eyes and realized what had caused it: He'd thought something had happened to Emma.
"I'm all right," Emma said mechanically, shocked by the look on his face.
"Of course you are," said Bridget impatiently. "Let me get to the girl. Stop clinging to her, for goodness' sake."
Emma detached herself and watched as Bridget knelt and peeled Cristina's sleeve back. Cristina's wrist was banded with a bracelet of blood, her skin puffy. It was as if someone was tightening an invisible wire around her arm, cutting into the flesh.
"What are you two just sitting there for?" Bridget demanded. "Put a healing rune on the girl."
They both reached for steles; Julian got to his first and drew a quick iratze on Cristina's skin. Emma leaned forward, holding her breath.
Nothing happened. If anything, the skin around the bleeding circle seemed to swell more. A fresh gush of blood welled up, spattering Bridget's clothes. Emma wished she still had her old stele; she'd always superstitiously believed she could draw stronger runes with it. But it was in faerie hands now.
Cristina didn't whimper. She was a Shadowhunter, after all. But her voice shook. "I don't think an iratze will help this."
Emma shook her head. "What is it--?"
"It looks like a faerie charm," said Bridget. "While you were in the Lands, did any fey seem to cast a spell on you? Were your wrists ever tied?"
Cristina pushed herself up on her elbows. "That--I mean, that couldn't be it . . . ."
"What happened?" Emma demanded.
"At the revel, two girls tied my wrist and Mark's together with a ribbon," Cristina said reluctantly. "We sliced it off, but there may have been a stronger magic there than I guessed. It could be a sort of binding spell."
"This is the first time you've been away from Mark since we were in Faerie," Julian said. "You think that's it?"
Cristina looked grim. "The farther I go from him, the worse it becomes. Last night was almost the first time I'd left his side, and my arm burned and ached. And as we drove away from the Institute, the pain got worse and worse--I hoped it would go away, but it didn't."
"We need to get you back to the Institute," said Emma. "We'll all go. Come on."
Cristina shook her head. "You and Julian should still go to Cornwall," she said, and gestured with her uninjured hand overhead, toward the board on which the schedules for the trains were posted. The train for Penzance left in less than five minutes. "You need to. This is necessary."
"We could wait a day," Emma protested.
"This is faerie magic," said Cristina, letting Bridget help her to her feet. "There's no assurance it will be fixed in a day."
Emma hesitated. She hated the thought of leaving Cristina.
Bridget spoke in a sharp voice, surprising them all. "Go," she said. "You are parabatai, the most powerful team the Nephilim can offer. I have seen what parabatai can do. Stop hesitating."
"She's right," Julian said. He shoved his stele back into his belt. "Come on, Emma."
A blur followed, of Emma hugging Cristina hurriedly good-bye, Julian catching at her hand, drawing her away, of the two of them running haphazardly through the train station, nearly knocking over the ticket barriers, and flinging themselves into the empty coach of a Western Railway train just as it pulled out of the station with a loud screeching of released brakes.
*
With every mile she and Bridget covered that brought them closer to the Institute, Cristina's pain faded. At Paddington, her arm had screamed with agonizing pain. Now it was a dull ache that seemed to push down into her bones.
I have lost something, the ache seemed to whisper. There is something I am missing. In Spanish, she might have said, Me haces falta. She had noticed early on when she learned English that a direct translation of that phrase didn't really exist: English speakers said I need you, where me haces falta meant something closer to, You are lacking to me. That was what she felt now, a lack like a missing chord in a song or a missing word on a page.
They pulled up in front of the Institute with a squeal of brakes. Cristina heard Bridget call her name, but she was already out of the car, cradling her wrist as she ran toward the front steps. She couldn't help herself. Her mind revolted at the thought of being controlled by something outside herself, but it was as if her body was dragging her along, pushing her toward what it needed to make itself whole.
The front doors banged open. It was Mark.
There was blood on his arm, too, soaking through the light blue sleeve of his sweater. Behind him was a chatter of voices, but he was only looking at Cristina. His light hair was disarrayed, his blue and gold eyes burning like banners.
Cristina thought she had never seen anything so beautiful.
He ran down the steps--he was barefoot--and caught at her hand, pulling her against him. The moment their bodies slammed together, Cristina felt the ache inside her vanish.
"It's a binding spell," Mark whispered into her hair. "Some kind of binding spell, tying us together."
"The girls at the revel--one tied our wrists together and the other laughed--"
"I know." He brushed his lips across her forehead. She could feel his heart pounding. "We'll figure it out. We'll fix it."
She nodded and closed her eyes, but not before she saw that several others had spilled out onto the front step and were staring at them. In the center of the group was Kieran, his elegant face pale and set, his eyes unreadable.
*
The tickets they had bought were first class, so Emma and Julian had a compartment to themselves. The gray-brown of the city had been left behind, and they were rolling through gre
en fields, studded with wildflowers and copses of green trees. Charcoal stone farmers' walls ran up and down the hills, dividing the land into puzzle pieces.
"It looks a bit like Faerie," said Emma, leaning against the window. "You know, without the rivers of blood or the high-body-count dance parties. More scones, less death."
Julian glanced up. He had his sketchbook on his knees and a black box of colored pencils on the seat next to him. "I think that's what it says on the front gate of Buckingham Palace," he said. He sounded calm, entirely neutral. The Julian who had snapped at her in the entryway of the Institute was gone. This was polite Julian, gracious Julian. Putting-up-a-front-for-strangers Julian.
There was absolutely no way she could handle interacting only with that Julian for however long they were in Cornwall. "So," she said. "Are you still angry?"
He looked at her for a long moment and set his sketchbook aside. "I'm sorry," he said. "What I said--that was unacceptable and cruel."
Emma stood up and leaned against the window. The countryside flew by: gray, green, gray. "Why did you say it?"
"I was angry." She could see his reflection in the window, looking up at her. "I was angry about Mark."
"I didn't know you were that invested in our relationship."
"He's my brother." Julian touched his own face as he spoke, unconsciously, as if to connect with those features--the long cheekbones and eyelashes--that were so like Mark's. "He's not--he gets hurt easily."
"He's fine," she said. "I promise you."
"It's more than that." His gaze was steady. "When you were together, at least I could feel like you were both with someone I cared about and could trust. You loved someone I loved too. Is that likely to happen again?"
"I don't know what's likely to happen," she said. I know you have nothing to worry about. I wasn't in love with Mark. I'll never be in love with anyone again who isn't you. "Just that there are things we can and can't control."
"Em," he said. "This is me we're talking about."
She turned away from the window, pressed her back to the cold glass. She was looking at Julian directly, not just his reflection. And though his face betrayed no anger, his eyes at least were open and honest. It was real Julian, not pretend Julian now. "So you admit you're a control freak?"
He smiled, the sweet smile that went straight to Emma's heart because it recalled for her the Julian of her childhood. It was like sun, warmth, the sea, and the beach all rolled up in one punch to the heart. "I admit nothing."
"Fine," she said. She didn't have to say she forgave him and knew he forgave her; they both knew it. Instead she sat down in the seat opposite him and gestured toward his art supplies. "What are you drawing?"
He picked up the sketchbook, turning it so she could see his work--a gorgeous rendition of a stone bridge they'd passed, surrounded by the drooping boughs of oak trees.
"You could sketch me," said Emma. She flung herself down onto her seat, leaning her head on her hand. " 'Draw me like one of your French girls.' "
Julian grinned. "I hate that movie," he said. "You know I do."
Emma sat up indignantly. "The first time we watched Titanic, you cried."
"I had seasonal allergies," Jules said. He'd started to draw again, but his smile still lingered. This was the heart of her and Julian, Emma thought. This gentle joking, this easy amusement. It almost surprised her. But this was what they always returned to, the comfort of their childhood--like birds returning and returning in migratory patterns toward their home.
"I wish we could get in touch with Jem and Tessa," Emma said. Green fields flashed by the window in a blur. A woman was pushing a refreshment cart up and down the narrow train corridor. "And Jace and Clary. Tell them about Annabel and Malcolm and everything."
"The whole Clave knows about Malcolm's return. I'm sure they have their ways of finding out, too."
"But only we really know about Annabel," said Emma.
"I drew her," Julian said. "I thought somehow if we could look at her, it might help us find her."
He turned his sketch pad. Emma suppressed a small shudder. Not because the face looking out was hideous--it wasn't. It was a young face, oval and even-featured, almost lost in a cloud of dark hair. But an air of something haunted and almost feral burned in Annabel's eyes; she clutched her hands at her throat, as if trying to wrap herself in a covering that had vanished.
"Where could she be?" Emma wondered aloud. "Where would you go, if you were so sad?"
"Do you think she looks sad?"
"Don't you?"
"I thought she seemed angry."
"She did kill Malcolm," said Emma. "I don't understand why she'd do that--he brought her back. He loved her."
"Maybe she didn't want to be brought back." He was still looking down at the sketch. "Maybe she was happy where she was. Strife, agony, loss--those are things the living experience." He closed the sketchbook as the train pulled into a small white station whose sign read LISKEARD. They had arrived.
*
"Was this planned?" Kieran said. His expression was stony. "It cannot be a coincidence."
Mark raised his eyebrows. Cristina was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the infirmary, her wrist bandaged; Mark's injury was hidden by the sleeve of his sweater. There was no one else in the room. Tavvy had been upset by the sight of blood on Mark and Cristina, and Dru had taken him away to calm him down. Livvy and the other two boys had left for Blackthorn Hall while Cristina was at the train station.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Mark said. "You think Cristina and I planned to spray blood all over London for fun?"
Cristina looked at him in surprise; he sounded more human than she'd ever heard him.
"Such a binding spell," said Kieran. "You must have held your wrists out for it. You would have to have remained still while you were bound."
He sounded bewildered, hurt. He looked enormously out of place in his breeches and linen shirt, now very crumpled, in the heart of the Institute. All around them were hospital-style beds, glass and copper jars of tinctures and powders, stacks of bandages and runed medical tools.
"It happened at a revel," said Mark. "We couldn't expect it--we didn't expect it. And no one would want this, no one would set it up on purpose, Kieran."
"A faerie would," Kieran said. "It is just the sort of thing one of us would do."
"I am not a faerie," said Mark.
Kieran flinched, and Cristina saw the hurt in his eyes. She felt a wave of sympathetic pain for him. It must be horrible to be so alone.
Even Mark looked stricken. "I didn't mean that," he said. "I am not only a faerie."
"And how glad you are," said Kieran, "how you brag of it at every opportunity."
"Please," said Cristina, "please, don't fight. We need to be on the same side in this."
Kieran turned puzzled eyes on her. Then he stepped close to Mark; he put his hands on Mark's shoulders. They were nearly the same height. Mark didn't avert his gaze. "There is only one way I know that you cannot lie," Kieran said, and kissed Mark on the mouth.
A pulse of pain went through Cristina's wrist. She had no idea if it was random or some reflection of the intensity of what Mark was feeling. There was no way he could reject the kiss, not without rejecting Kieran and severing the delicate chain of lies that kept the faerie prince bound here.
If, indeed, Mark didn't want to kiss Kieran back. Cristina couldn't tell; he returned the kiss with a fierceness like the fierceness Cristina had seen in him the first time she'd glimpsed him with Kieran. But there was more anger in it now. He gripped Kieran's shoulders, his fingers digging in; the force of the kiss angled Kieran's head back. He sucked at Kieran's bottom lip and bit it, and Kieran gasped.
They broke apart. Kieran touched his mouth; there was blood on his lip, and hot triumph in his eyes. "You did not look away," he said to Cristina. "Was it that interesting?"
"It was for my benefit." Cristina felt odd and shivery and hot, but refused to show it. Sh
e sat with her hands in her lap and smiled at Kieran. "It would have seemed rude not to watch."
At that Mark, who had been looking furious, laughed. "She understands you, Kier."
"It was very well-done kissing," she said. "But we should talk practically now, about the spell."
Kieran was still staring at Cristina. He looked at most people with disgust or fury or consideration, but when he looked at Cristina, he seemed bewildered, as if he were trying to put her together like a puzzle and couldn't.
Abruptly, he spun on his heel and stalked out of the room. The door slammed behind him. Mark looked after him, shaking his head.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone aggravate him like that," he said. "Not even me."
*
Diana had hoped to see Jia the moment she arrived in Idris, but the bureaucracy of the Clave was worse than she had recalled. There were forms to fill out, messages to be given and carried up the chain of command. It didn't help that Diana refused to state her business: For the delicate matter of Kieran and what was happening in Faerie, Diana didn't dare trust the information to anyone other than the Consul herself.
Her small apartment in Alicante was above the weapons shop on Flintlock Street that had been in her family for years. She'd closed it up when she went to live in Los Angeles with the Blackthorns. Impatience jittering her nerves, she went downstairs into the store and threw open the windows, letting in light, making the dust motes dance in the bright summer air. Her sore arm still ached, though it had nearly healed.
The shop was musty inside, dust on the formerly bright blades and rich leather of sheaths and ax handles. She took down a few of her favorite weapons and put them aside for the Blackthorns.
The children deserved new weapons. They'd earned them.
When a knock came on the door, she'd successfully managed to distract herself and was sorting sword blades by the hardness of the metal. She set down one of her favorites--a weapon of Damascus steel--and went to open the door.
Smirking on the doorstep was Manuel, who Diana had last seen fighting sea demons on the front lawn of the Institute. He was out of his Centurion gear, wearing a fashionable black sweater and jeans, his hair gelled into curls. He smiled sideways at her.
"Miss Wrayburn," he said. "I've been sent to bring you up to the Gard."
Diana locked up the store and fell in beside Manuel as he made his way up Flintlock Street toward the northern part of Alicante. "What are you doing here, Manuel?" she asked. "I thought you'd be in Los Angeles."