Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(204)

“Mention what?”

“Nightshade’s been using dark magic for profit,” said Julian. His kept his expression calm, a touch regretful. “He’s been making money hand over fist using addictive powders in the pizza he makes.”

“That’s—totally right!” said Emma, speaking over Arthur’s stunned silence. “There are people all over the city so addicted that they would do anything for him just to get more.”

“Pizza thralls?” said Jace. “This is without doubt, the weirdest—” He broke off as Clary stomped on his foot. “Seems serious,” he said. “I mean, addictive demon powders and all.”

Julian crossed the room to the hall closet and yanked it open. Several pizza boxes slid out.

“Magnus?” Julian said.

Magnus threw the end of his scarf over his shoulder and approached Julian and the boxes. He lifted the lid of a pizza box with as much gravity as if he were opening a locked treasure chest.

He held his hand out over the box, turning it from left to right. Then he looked up.

“Arthur’s right,” he said. “Dark magic.”

A cry echoed from inside the Sanctuary. “Betrayal!” Anselm shouted. “Et tu, Brute?”

“He can’t get out,” said Arthur, looking dazed. “The outside doors are locked.”

Robert took off running into the Sanctuary. After a moment Jace and Clary followed, leaving only Magnus, hands in his pockets, remaining in the foyer.

Magnus regarded Julian with serious green-gold eyes. “Nicely done,” he said. “I don’t know quite how else to describe it, but—nicely done.”

Julian looked over at Arthur, who was leaning back against the wall by the Sanctuary door, his eyes half-shut, pain etched on his face. “I’ll burn in Hell for this,” he muttered in a low voice.

“There is no shame in burning for your family,” said Mark. “I will burn beside you, gladly.”

Julian looked at him, surprise and gratitude written across his face.

“And so will I,” said Emma. She looked at Magnus. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m the one who killed Malcolm. I know he was your friend, and I wish—”

“He was my friend,” said Magnus, his eyes darkening. “I knew he had loved someone who died. I didn’t know the rest of the story. The Clave betrayed him, just like they betrayed you. I’ve lived a long time—I’ve seen many betrayals, and many broken hearts. There are those who let their grief devour them. Who forget that others also feel pain. If Alec died—” He looked down at his hands. “I have to think I wouldn’t be like that.”

“I’m just glad I finally know what happened to my parents,” Emma said. “Finally, I know.”

Before anyone could add anything, there was an explosion of noise at the entrance to the Sanctuary. Jace appeared suddenly, skidding backward, his fancy blazer ripped and his blond hair mussed. He turned a smile on the rest of them, so bright it seemed to light up the room.

“Clary’s got Nightshade pinned in a corner,” he said. “He’s pretty nimble for such an old vampire. Thanks for the exercise, by the way—and to think I thought tonight was going to be boring!”

After everything had been sorted out with the Inquisitor, who had hauled off Anselm Nightshade (still vowing revenge), and most of the Institute’s inhabitants had crawled off to bed, Mark went to the front door and looked out.

It was nearly dawn. Mark could see the sunrise, far in the distance, at the eastern edge of the beach’s curve. A pearlescent lightening of the water, as if white paint were spilling into the world through a crack in the sky.

“Mark,” said a voice at his shoulder.

He turned. It was Jace Herondale.

It was strange looking at Jace and Clary, strange in a way he doubted it was for his siblings. After all, the last time he’d seen them they’d been Julian’s age. They’d been the last Shadowhunters he’d seen before he’d disappeared into the Hunt.

They were far from unrecognizable—they were probably only twenty-one or twenty-two. But up close Mark could see that Jace had acquired an indefinable aura of decisiveness and adulthood. Gone was the boy who had looked into Mark’s eyes and said in a shaking voice, The Wild Hunt. You’re one of them now.

“Mark Blackthorn,” Jace said. “I’d be polite and say you’ve changed, but you haven’t.”

“I have,” Mark said. “Just not in a way you can see.”

Jace seemed to take this with good grace; he nodded and looked out toward the ocean. “A scientist said once that if the ocean were as clear as the sky, if we could see everything in it, no one would ever go into the sea. It’s that horrifying, what lives in the water, five miles down.”

“There speaks one who does not know the terrors of the sky,” said Mark.

“Maybe not,” Jace said. “Do you still have the witchlight I gave you?”

Mark nodded. “I kept it with me through Faerie.”

“I’ve only ever given witchlight rune-stones to two people in my life,” said Jace. “Clary and you.” He cocked his head to the side. “There was something about you, when we found you in the tunnels. You were frightened, but you weren’t going to give up. I never had the slightest doubt I’d see you again.”