Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(186)

Kieran’s eyes seemed to shimmer when he looked back. “We are wasting time here. We should be getting to the convergence.”

“He isn’t wrong.” Diego was completely kitted out: gear, several swords, an ax, throwing knives at his belt. He wore a black cloak over his gear, pinned at the shoulder with the pin of the Centurions—it bore the pattern of a leafless stick, and the words Primi Ordines. He made Julian feel underdressed. “We must get to the ley line convergence and stop Fade—”

Julian looked around the room, at Emma and Mark, and then at Ty and Livvy, and lastly at Dru. “I know that we have known Malcolm all our lives. But he is a murderer and liar. Warlocks are immortal, but not invulnerable. When you see him, put your blade in his heart.”

There was a silence. Emma broke it. “He killed my parents,” she said. “I’ll be the one to cut out his heart.”

Kieran’s eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

“Jules.” It was Mark, having moved to stand at Julian’s shoulder. His hair, that Cristina had cut, was tangled; there were shadows under his eyes. But there was strength in the hand he laid on Julian’s shoulder. “Would you place a rune upon me, brother? For I fear that without them, I will be at a disadvantage in the battle.”

Julian’s hand went automatically to his stele. Then he paused. “Are you sure?”

Mark nodded. “It is time to let the nightmares go.” He pulled the neck of his shirt aside and down, baring his shoulder. “Courage,” he said, naming a rune. “And Agility.”

The others were discussing the fastest way to get to the convergence, but Julian was aware of both Emma’s and Kieran’s eyes on him as he put one hand on Mark’s back and used the other to draw two careful runes. At the first bite of the stele, Mark tensed, but relaxed immediately, letting out his breath in a soft exhale.

When Julian was done, he lowered his hands. Mark straightened up and turned to him. Though he had shed no tears, his two-colored eyes were brilliant. For a moment there was no one in the world but Julian and his brother.

“Why?” Julian said.

“For Tavvy,” Mark said, and suddenly, in the set of his mouth, in the curve of the determined line of his jaw, Julian could see his own self. “And,” Mark added, “because I am a Shadowhunter.” He looked toward Kieran, who was gazing at them as if the stele had seared his own skin. Love and hate had their own secret languages, Julian thought, and Mark and Kieran were speaking in them now. “Because I am a Shadowhunter,” he said again, his eyes full of a private challenge. “Because I am a Shadowhunter.”

Kieran pushed himself away from the table almost violently. “I have told you everything I know,” he said. “There are no other secrets.”

“So I suppose you’re leaving,” Mark said. “Thank you for your aid, Kieran. If you are returning to the Hunt, tell Gwyn that I will not be coming back. Not ever, no matter what rules they decree. I swear that I—”

“Don’t swear it,” Kieran said. “You do not know how things will change.”

“Enough.” Mark began to turn away.

“I have brought my steed with me,” said Kieran. He was speaking to Mark, but everyone else was listening. “A faerie steed of the Hunt can take to the air. Roads do not slow our travel. I will ride ahead and delay what is happening at the convergence until the rest of you arrive.”

“I’ll go with him,” Mark said sharply.

Everyone looked at him in surprise. “Um,” said Emma. “You can’t knife him on the way, Mark. We may need him.”

“Pleasant as that sounds, I wasn’t planning to,” said Mark. “Two warriors are better than one.”

“Good thinking,” said Cristina. She slid her two butterfly knives into her belt. Emma had finished fastening on the last of her seraph blades.

Julian felt the familiar chill of battle’s expectation rising in his veins. “Let’s go.”

As they headed downstairs, Julian found himself beside Kieran. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Kieran felt like strangeness, wild magic, the murderous abandonment of the Hunt. He couldn’t imagine what Mark had found to love about him.

“Your brother was wrong about you,” Kieran said as they descended the steps to the entryway.

Julian glanced around, but no one seemed to be listening to them. Emma was beside Cristina, the twins were together, and Dru was talking shyly to Diego.

“What do you mean?” he asked guardedly. He had learned well in the past to be wary of the Fair Folk, their verbal entrapments and their false implications.

“He said you were gentle,” said Kieran. “The most gentle person he knew.” He smiled, and there was a cold beauty to his face when he smiled, like the crystalline surface of frost. “You are not gentle. You have a ruthless heart.”

For several long moments Julian was silent, hearing only the sounds of their steps on the stairs. At the last step he turned.

“Remember it,” he said, and walked away.

Because I am a Shadowhunter.

Mark stood beside Kieran on the sweep of grass that led down to the bluff and then the sea. The Institute rose behind them, dark and lightless, though from here, at least, the hole in the roof was invisible.

Kieran put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, a sound achingly familiar to Mark. The sight of Kieran was still enough to make his heart ache, from the way he held himself, every line of his body speaking of his early Court training, to the way that his hair had grown too long since Mark had not been there to cut it, and the blue-dark strands fell into his eyes and tangled with his long eyelashes. Mark remembered being enchanted by the curve and sweep of those lashes. He remembered how they felt against his skin.