"Dru, Mark's worried. The Riders are terribly dangerous. He needs to know you're all right."
"I'll go and tell him I'm fine in a second," Dru said. "But I need you to come with me."
"Dru--" They'd made it to the hallway where most of the spare bedrooms were.
"Look," said Dru. "I just need you to do this, okay? If you try yelling for Mark, I promise you there are places in this Institute I can hide where you won't find me for days."
Cristina couldn't help being curious. "How do you know the Institute so well?"
"You would too if every time you showed your face, someone tried to make you babysit," said Dru. They'd reached her bedroom. She stood hesitating, with her hand on the knob of her door.
"But we looked in your bedroom," Cristina protested.
"I'm telling you," said Dru. "Hiding places." She took a deep breath. "Okay. You go in here. And don't freak out."
Dru's small face was set and determined, as if she were nerving herself to do something unpleasant.
"Is everything all right?" Cristina said. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk to Mark than me?"
"It isn't me who wants to talk to you," Dru said, and pushed her bedroom door open. Cristina stepped inside, feeling more puzzled than ever.
She only saw a shadow first, a figure in front of the windowsill. Then he stood up and her heart caught in her throat.
Brown skin, tangled black hair, sharp features, long lashes. The faint slouch to the shoulders she remembered, that she used to tell him always made him look as if he was walking into a high wind.
"Jaime," she breathed.
He reached out his arms, and a moment later she was hugging him tightly. Jaime had always been skinny, but now he felt positively prickly with pointed collarbones and sharp elbows. He hugged her back, tightly, and Cristina heard the bedroom door close quietly, the lock clicking.
She pulled back and looked up into Jaime's face. He looked like he always did--bright-eyed, edged with mischief. "So," he said. "You really missed me."
All the nights she'd stayed up sobbing because of him--because he was missing, because she hated him, because he'd been her best friend and she hated hating him--burst. Her left palm cracked across his cheek, and then she was hitting him on the shoulders, the chest, wherever she could reach.
"Ow!" He writhed away. "That hurts!"
"!Me vale madre!" She hit him again. "How dare you disappear like that! Everyone was worried! I thought maybe you were dead. And now you turn up hiding in Drusilla Blackthorn's bedroom, which by the way if her brothers find out they will kill you dead--"
"It wasn't like that!" Jaime windmilled his arms as if to fend off her blows. "I was looking for you."
She put her hands on her hips. "After all this time avoiding me, suddenly you're looking for me?"
"It wasn't you I was avoiding," he said. He took a crumpled envelope out of his pocket and held it out to her. With a pang, she recognized Diego's handwriting.
"If Diego wants to write to me, he doesn't need the message hand-delivered," she said. "What does he think you are, a carrier pigeon?"
"He can't write to you," said Jaime. "Zara watches all his mail."
"So you know about Zara," Cristina said, taking the envelope. "How long?"
Jaime slouched back against a large oak desk, hands propped behind him. "How long have they been engaged? Since you two broke up the first time. But it's not a real engagement, Cristina."
She sat down on Dru's bed. "It seemed real enough."
Jaime ran a hand through his black hair. He looked only a little like Diego, maybe in the set of his mouth, the shape of his eyes. Jaime had always been playful where Diego was serious. Now, tired and skinny, he resembled the glum, style-conscious boys who hung around coffee shops in the Colonia Roma. "I know you probably hate me," he said. "You've got every reason. You think I wanted our branch of the family to take over the Institute because I wanted power and didn't care about you. But the fact is I had a good reason."
"I don't believe you," Cristina said.
Jaime made an impatient noise. "I'm not self-sacrificing, Tina," he said. "That's Diego, not me. I wanted our family out of trouble."
Cristina dug her hands into the bedspread. "What kind of trouble?"
"You know we've always had a connection with faeries," said Jaime. "It's where that necklace of yours comes from. But there's always been more than that. Most of it didn't matter, until the Cold Peace. Then the family was supposed to turn everything over to the Clave--all their information, anything the faeries had ever given them."
"But they didn't," Cristina guessed.
"They didn't," Jaime said. "They decided the relationship with the hadas was more important than the Cold Peace." He shrugged fluidly. "There's an heirloom. It has power even I don't understand. The Dearborns and the Cohort demanded it, and we told them only a Rosales could make the object work."
Realization came to Cristina with a hard shock. "So the fake engagement," she said. "So Zara could think she was becoming a Rosales."
"Exactly," said Jaime. "Diego ties himself to the Cohort. And I--I take the heirloom and run. So Diego can blame me--his bad little brother ran off with it. And the engagement drags on and they don't find the heirloom."
"Is that your only plan?" Cristina said. "Delay forever?"
Jaime frowned at her. "I don't think you entirely appreciate that I've been very bravely on the run for months now," he said. "Very bravely."
"We are Nephilim, Jaime. It's our job to be brave," Cristina said.
"Some of us are better at it than others," Jaime said. "Anyway. I would not say our whole plan is to delay, no. Diego works to find out what the Cohort's weaknesses are. And I work to find out what the heirloom does exactly."
"You don't know?"
He shook his head. "I know it helps you enter Faerie undetected."
"And the Cohort wants to be able to enter Faerie so they can start a war?" Cristina guessed.
"That would make sense," said Jaime. "To them, anyway."
Cristina sat on the bed in silence. Outside it had begun to rain. Water streaked the windowpanes. She thought of rain on the trees in the Bosque, and sitting there with Jaime, watching him eat bags of Dorilocos and lick the salt off his fingers. And talking--talking for hours, about literally everything, about what they would do when they were parabatai and could travel anywhere in the world.
"Where are you going to go?" she said finally, trying to keep her voice steady.
"I can't tell you." He pulled himself away from the desk. "I can't tell anyone. I am a good escape artist, Cristina, but only if I never tell where I'm hiding."
"You don't know, do you," she said. "You're going to improvise."
He smiled sideways. "No one knows me better than you."
"And Diego?" Cristina's voice shook. "Why didn't he ever tell me any of this?"
"People do stupid things when they're in love," said Jaime, in the voice of someone who never had been. "And besides, I asked him not to."
"So why are you telling me now?"
"Two things," he said. "In Downworld, they say the Blackthorns are going up against the Cohort. If it comes to a fight, I want to be in it. Send me a fire-message. I will come." His tone was earnest. "And secondly, to deliver Diego's message. He said you might be too angry to read it. But I was hoping that now--you would not be."
She looked down at the envelope in her hand. It had been bent and folded many times.
"I'll read it," she said quietly. "Won't you stay? Eat a meal with us. You look starved."
Jaime shook his head. "No one can know I was here, Tina. Promise me. On the fact that we were once going to be parabatai."
"That isn't fair," she whispered. "Besides, Drusilla knows."
"She won't tell anyone--" Jaime began.
"Cristina!" It was Mark's voice, echoing down the hallway. "Cristina, where are you?"
Jaime's arms were around her suddenly, wiry-strong as he hugged her hard. Whe
n he let go, she touched his face lightly. There were a million things she wanted to say--ten cuidado more than anything: Be safe, be careful. But he was already turning away from her, toward the window. He threw it open and ducked outside like a shadow, vanishing into the rain-streaked night.
25
START AND SIGH
Gwyn wouldn't come into the Institute.
Kit didn't know if it was principle or preference, but despite the fact that his arm was bleeding, soaking the side of his gray armor, the Wild Hunt leader only shook his head when Alec invited him cordially into the Institute.
"I am the head of the London Institute, however temporarily," Alec said. "I am empowered to invite whoever I want inside."
"I cannot linger," Gwyn demurred. "There is much to be done."
It had begun to rain. Alec was on the roof along with Mark, who had greeted Livvy and Ty with a mixture of terror and relief. The twins were still standing close to their brother, his arm around Livvy's shoulder, his hand clasping Ty's sleeve.
There was no one to greet Kit that way. He stood off a little to the side, watching. The ride on horseback from the river--Gwyn seemed to be able to summon horses out of the air, like a magician conjuring pennies--had been a blur; Ty and Livvy had ridden with Diana, and Kit had wound up behind Gwyn, clinging desperately to his belt and trying not to fall off the horse into the Thames.
"I cannot stay among all this cold iron," Gwyn said, and he did look fairly peaked, in Kit's opinion. "And you, Blackthorns--you should get yourself inside the Institute. Within its walls you are safe."
"What about Emma and Jules?" Livvy said. "They could be outside, the Riders could be looking for them--"
"Magnus went to find them," Alec reassured her. "He'll make sure they're all right."
Livvy nodded gravely, but she still looked worried.
"We might need some help from you, Diana," said Alec. "We're sending the children to Alicante as soon as Magnus returns."
"Which children?" asked Diana. She had a soft, low voice; now it was rough with tiredness. "Just yours, or . . ."
"Tavvy and Drusilla as well," Alec said. He eyed Livvy and Ty: Kit guessed that if he had his druthers, Alec would bring the twins along, too, but knew they'd never stand for it.
"Ah," said Diana. "Might I suggest that rather than taking up residence with the Inquisitor in Alicante, you stay with me on Flintlock Street? It would be good if the Cohort didn't know you were there."
"My thought exactly," said Alec. "Better to stay under the radar of the Dearborns and their ilk, especially just before the Council meeting." He frowned. "And hopefully we'll be able to get the binding spell off Mark and Cristina before we need to leave. Otherwise they might not be able to--"
"One of the Riders was killed," Kit said.
Everyone stared at him. He wasn't sure why he'd spoken, himself. The world seemed to be swaying around him, and strange things were important.
"You remember," he said. "It's why they fled, in the end. One of them had died, and the others could feel it. Maybe Julian and Emma fought them and won."
"No one can kill one of the Riders of Mannan," said Gwyn.
"Emma could," said Livvy. "If Cortana--"
Kit's knees gave out. It was very sudden and he hadn't expected it at all. One moment he was standing, the next he was kneeling in a cold puddle, wondering why he couldn't get up.
"Kit!" Diana cried. "Alec, he hit his head during the fight--he said it didn't hurt, but--"
Alec was already striding over to Kit. He was stronger than he looked. His arms braced Kit, lifting him; a hot dart of pain went through Kit's head as he moved, and a merciful grayness closed in.
*
They lay on the bed afterward in the twilight dark, Emma with her head on Julian's chest. She could hear his heart beating through the soft material of his T-shirt.
They had toweled their hair and put on dry clothes and curled up together under one layer of blankets. Their feet were tangled together; Julian was running a slow, thoughtful hand through her loose hair.
"Tell me," he said. "You said there was something I needed to know. And I stopped you." He paused. "Tell me now."
She folded her arms on his chest, resting her chin on them. There was relaxation in the curve of his body around hers. But his expression was more than curious; she could see the intensity in the back of his eyes, his need to know. To make sense out of all the pieces that didn't make sense now.
"I was never dating Mark," she said. "That was all a lie. I asked him to pretend to be dating me, and he had said he owed me his life before, so he agreed. It was never real."
His fingers stilled in her hair. Emma swallowed. She had to get through all this without thinking of whether Julian would hate her at the end. Otherwise she'd never be able to finish.
"Why would you do that?" he said carefully. "Why would Mark agree to hurt me?"
"He didn't know it was hurting you," Emma said. "He never knew there was anything between us--not until we went to Faerie. He found out then, and he told me we had to end it. That's why I stopped things in London. Mark didn't mind. We didn't feel that way about each other."
"So Mark didn't know," he said. "Why did you do it, then?" He held up a hand. "Never mind. I know the answer: to stop me loving you. To break us up. I even know why you picked Mark."
"I wish it could have been anyone else--"
"No one else would have made me hate you," he said flatly. "Nobody else would have made me give you up." He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. "Make me understand," he said. "You love me and I love you, but you wanted to wreck all that. You were so determined you brought Mark into it, which I know you'd never do if you weren't desperate. So what made you so desperate, Emma? I know being in love with your parabatai is forbidden, but it's a stupid Law--"
"It's not," she said, "a stupid Law."
He blinked. His hair was dry now. "Whatever you know, Emma," he said in a low voice, "it's time to tell me."
So she did. Leaving nothing out, she told him what Malcolm had said to her about the parabatai curse, how he was showing her mercy, killing her, when otherwise she and Julian would watch each other die. How the Nephilim hated love. What Jem had confirmed for her: the terrible fate of parabatai who fell in love; the death and destruction they would bring down around them. How she knew that neither of them could ever become mundanes or Downworlders to break the bond: how being Shadowhunters was part of their souls and their selves, how the exile from their families would destroy them.
The light from the fire threw a dark gold glow across his face, his hair, but she could see how pale he was, even under that, and the starkness that took over his expression as she spoke, as if the shadows were growing harsher. Outside, the rain poured steadily down.
When she was done, he was silent a long time. Emma's mouth was dry, as if she'd been swallowing cotton. Finally she could stand it no longer and moved toward him, knocking the pillow onto the floor. "Jules--"
He held a hand up. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"
She looked at him miserably. "Because of what Jem said. That finding out that what we had was forbidden for good reason would just make it worse. Believe me, knowing what I know hasn't made me love you any less."
His eyes were such a dark blue in the dim light they looked like Kit's. "So you decided to make me hate you."
"I tried," she whispered. "I didn't know what else to do."
"But I could never hate you," he said. "Hating you would be like hating the idea of good things ever happening in the world. It would be like death. I thought you didn't love me, Emma. But I never hated you."
"And I thought you didn't love me."
"And it didn't make any difference, did it? We still loved each other. I understand why you were so upset about what we did to Porthallow Church, now."
She nodded. "The curse makes you stronger before it makes you destructive."
"I'm glad you told me." He touched her cheek, her
hair. "Now we know nothing we can do will change how we feel about each other. We'll have to find another solution."
There were tears on Emma's face, though she didn't remember starting to cry. "I thought if you stopped loving me, you'd be sad for a while. And if I was sad forever, that would be okay. Because you'd be all right, and I'd still be your parabatai. And if you could be happy eventually, then I could be happy too, for you."
"You're an idiot," Julian said. He put his arms around her and rocked her, his lips against her hair, and he whispered, the way he whispered when Tavvy had nightmares, that she was brave to have done what she did, that they'd fix it all, they'd find a way. And even though Emma could still see no way out for them, she relaxed against his chest, letting herself feel the relief of having shared the burden, just for this moment. "But I can't be angry. There's something I should have told you, as well."
She drew away from him. "What is it?"
He was fiddling with his glass bracelet. Since Julian rarely expressed any anxiety in a visible way, Emma felt her heart thump.
"Julian," she said. "Tell me."
"When we were going into Faerie," he said in a low voice, "the phouka told me that if I entered the Lands, I would meet someone who knew how to break the parabatai bond."
The thumping of Emma's heart became a rapid tattoo beating against the inside of her rib cage. She sat up straight. "Are you saying you know how to break it?"
He shook his head. "The wording was correct--I met someone who did know how to break it. The Seelie Queen, to be precise. And she told me she knew it could be done, but not how."
"Is that part of returning the book?" Emma said. "We give her the Black Volume, she tells us how to end the bond?"
He nodded. He was looking at the fire.
"You didn't tell me," she said. "Is that because you thought I wouldn't care?"
"Partially," he said. "If you didn't want the bond broken, then neither did I. I'd rather be your parabatai than nothing."
"Jules--Julian--"
"And there's more," he said. "She told me there would be a cost."
Of course, a cost. There is always a cost when faeries are involved.
"What kind of cost?" she whispered.
"Breaking the bond involves using the Black Volume to dig out the root of all parabatai ceremonies," said Julian. "It would break our bond, yes. But it would also destroy every parabatai bond in the world. They'd all be snapped. There'd be no more parabatai."