Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(205)

“Really?” Mark looked at him skeptically.

“Really.” Jace smiled his easy, charming smile. “Just remember that the New York Institute is on your side,” he said. “Remind Julian if you’re ever in trouble again. It’s not simple running an Institute. I ought to know.”

Mark began to protest, but Jace had already turned and gone back inside to rejoin Clary. Mark somehow doubted Jace would have paid any attention to his protest if he’d made it. He’d clearly seen the situation for what it was, but wasn’t planning on doing anything to upset the balance.

Mark scanned the horizon again. Dawn was spreading. The road and the highway, the desert trees, all were thrown into sharp relief by the increasing light. And there by the edge of the road stood Kieran, looking out toward the sea. Mark could see him only as a shadow, but even as a shadow Kieran could never have been anyone else.

He went down the steps and over to where Kieran was standing. He had not changed his clothes, and the blade of his sword, which hung by his side, was stained with gore.

“Kieran,” Mark said.

“You will stay?” Kieran asked, and then caught himself with a rueful look. “Of course, you will stay.”

“If you’re asking if I’m going to remain with my family or go back to the Wild Hunt, then yes, you have your answer,” said Mark. “The investigation is over. The murderer and his Followers are gone.”

“That was not the letter of the bargain,” said Kieran. “The Shadowhunters were to release the murderer into the custody of Faerie, for us to mete out justice.”

“Given that Malcolm is dead, and the magnitude of Iarlath’s betrayal, I expect your folk to look with leniency upon my choice,” said Mark.

“My folk?” Kieran echoed. “You know they are not lenient. They have not been lenient with me.” Mark thought of the first time he had seen Kieran’s black eyes staring out defiantly from the tangle of his dark hair. He thought of the glee of the other Hunters at having a prince to torment and mock. How Kieran had borne it, with an arrogant curl to his lip and a lift of his chin. How he had borne the fact that his father had thrown him to the Hunt the way a man might throw a bone to a dog. Kieran had not had a brother who loved him and fought to get him back. He had not had Julian. “But I will fight for you,” he said, meeting Mark’s gaze. “I will tell them it is your right to stay.” He hesitated. “Will we—see each other again?”

“I don’t think so, Kieran,” said Mark, as gently as he could. “Not after all that has happened.”

A brief ripple of pain, quickly hidden, passed across Kieran’s face. The color of his hair had faded to a silvery-blue, not unlike the shade of the ocean in the morning. “I did not expect a different answer,” he said. “I hoped, though. It is hard to kill hope. But I suppose I lost you a long time ago.”

“Not that long,” said Mark. “You lost me when you came here with Gwyn and Iarlath and you let them whip my brother. I could forgive you for any pain incurred by me. But I will never forgive you for what Julian and Emma suffered.”

“Emma?” said Kieran, his brows drawing together. “I thought it was the other girl who had drawn your fancy. Your princess.”

Mark gave a choked laugh. “By the Angel,” he said, and saw Kieran blanch at the Shadowhunter words. “Your imagination is limited by your jealousy. Kieran . . . everyone who lives under this roof, whether they are bound by blood or not, we are tied together by an invisible net of love and duty and loyalty and honor. That is what it means to be a Shadowhunter. Family—”

“What would I know of family? My father sold me to the Wild Hunt. I do not know my mother. I have three dozen brothers, all of whom would gladly see me dead. Mark, you are all I have.”

“Kieran—”

“And I love you,” Kieran said. “You are all that exists on the earth and under the sky that I do love.”

Mark looked into Kieran’s eyes, the silver and the black, and he saw in them, as he always had, the night sky. And he felt that treacherous pull under his rib cage, the one that said that the clouds could be his road. That he need never worry about human concerns: money and shelter and rules and laws. He could ride through the skies over glaciers, through the treetops of forests no human being knew existed. He could sleep in the ruins of cities lost for centuries. His shelter could be a single blanket. He could lie in Kieran’s arms and count the stars.

But he had always given the stars his brothers’ and sisters’ names. There was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love.

Mark drew his elf-bolt necklace up over his head. He reached out and took Kieran’s hand, turning it over so it was palm up, and dropped the necklace into it.

“I will draw no more bows for the Wild Hunt,” he said. “Keep this and perhaps remember me.”

Kieran’s hand tightened on the arrowhead, his knuckles whitening. “The stars will go out before I forget you, Mark Blackthorn.”

Lightly, Mark touched Kieran’s cheek. The faerie prince’s eyes were wide and tearless. But in them Mark could see a great wilderness of loneliness. A thousand dark nights spent riding with no home to arrive at. “I do not forgive you,” he said. “But you came to help us, at the end. I do not know what would have happened if you hadn’t. So if you need me—if it is a true need—send for me and I will come.”