Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(168)

“What’s going on?” Emma demanded. “Has something happened?”

Gwyn glanced at her dismissively. “This is none of your affair, Carstairs girl,” he said. “This matter concerns Mark Blackthorn. None of the rest of you.”

Julian crossed his arms over his chest. “Anything that concerns my brother concerns me. In fact, it concerns all of us.”

Kieran’s mouth set into a hard, uncompromising line. “We are Gwyn and Kieran of the Wild Hunt, and Iarlath of the Unseelie Court, here on a matter of justice. And you will fetch your brother.”

Emma moved to stand in the center of the top step, unsheathing Cortana, which sent bright sparks skittering into the air. “Don’t tell him what to do,” she said. “Not here. Not on the steps of the Institute.”

Gwyn gave an unexpected, rumbling laugh. “Don’t be a fool, Carstairs girl,” he said. “No single Shadowhunter can hold off three of the Fair Folk, not even armed with one of the Great Swords.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate Emma,” said Julian in a voice like razor wire. “Or you’ll find your head lying on the ground next to your still-twitching body.”

“How graphic,” said Iarlath, amused.

“I’m here,” said a breathless voice behind them, and Emma half-closed her eyes, fear going through her like pain.

Mark.

It looked as if he had thrown on jeans and a sweater in a hurry, and jammed his feet into sneakers. His blond hair was ruffled and he looked younger than he usually did, his eyes wide with surprise and undefended astonishment.

“But my time isn’t up,” Mark said. He was speaking to Gwyn but looking at Kieran. There was an expression on his face—one Emma couldn’t interpret or describe, one that seemed to mix pleading and pain and gladness. “We’re still trying to find out what’s going on. We’re nearly there. But the deadline—”

“Deadline?” Kieran echoed. “Listen to you. You sound like one of them.”

Mark looked surprised. “But, Kieran—”

“Mark Blackthorn,” said Iarlath. “You stand accused of sharing one of the secrets of Faerie with a Shadowhunter, despite being expressly forbidden to do so.”

Mark let the door of the Institute fall shut behind him. He took several steps forward, until he was standing beside Julian. He clasped his hands behind his back; they were shaking. “I—I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I haven’t told my family anything forbidden.”

“Not your family,” said Kieran, an ugly twist to his voice. “Her.”

“Her?” Julian said, looking at Emma, but she shook her head.

“Not me,” she said. “He means Cristina.”

“You didn’t expect us to leave you unobserved, did you, Mark?” Kieran said. His black and silver eyes were like etched daggers. “I was outside the window when I heard you speaking with her. You told her how Gwyn could be deprived of his powers. A secret known only to the Hunt, and forbidden to repeat.”

Mark had turned the color of ashes. “I didn’t—”

“There is no point lying,” said Iarlath. “Kieran is a prince of Faerie and cannot speak untruths. If he says he overheard this, then he did.”

Mark shifted his gaze to Kieran. The sunlight no longer seemed beautiful to Emma, but merciless, beating down on Mark’s gold hair and skin. Hurt spread across his face like the stain of red from a slap. “It would never mean anything to Cristina. She would never tell anyone. She would never hurt me or the Hunt.”

Kieran turned his face away, his beautiful mouth twisting at the corner. “Enough.”

Mark took a step forward. “Kieran,” he said. “How can you do this? To me?”

Kieran’s face was bleak with pain. “Mine is not the betrayal,” he said. “Speak to your Shadowhunter princess of promises broken.”

“Gwyn.” Mark turned to plead with the Hunt’s leader. “What is between myself and Kieran is not a matter for the law of the Courts or the Hunt. Since when did they interfere in matters of the heart?”

Matters of the heart. Emma could see it on both their faces, Mark’s and Kieran’s, in the way they looked at each other and the way they didn’t. She wondered how she had missed it before, in the Sanctuary, that these were two people who loved each other. Two people who had hurt each other the way only two people in love could.

Kieran looked at Mark as if Mark had taken something irreplaceably precious from him. And Mark looked—

Mark looked crushed. Emma thought of herself on the beach, in the morning, with Julian, and the lonely screech of the gulls circling overhead.

“Child,” said Gwyn, and to Emma’s surprise, there was gentleness in his voice. “I regret the necessity of this visit more than I can say. And believe me, the Hunt does not interfere, as you say, in matters of the heart. But you broke one of the oldest laws of the Hunt, and put every member of it into danger.”

“Exactly,” said Kieran. “Mark has broken the law of Faerie, and for that, he must return to Faerie with us and tarry no longer in the human world.”

“No,” said Iarlath. “That is not the punishment.”

“What?” Kieran turned to him, puzzled. His hair flared at the edges with blue and white like hoarfrost. “But you said—”