Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(47)

Julian cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, he does.”

Ty cocked his head to the side. “Why did they bring him back?”

Julian hesitated. Emma didn’t move; she didn’t know, any more than he did, how to tell the children who were looking at them with wide eyes that the lost brother who appeared to have been returned to them forever might be here only temporarily.

“He’s bleeding,” Dru said.

“What?” Julian tapped the witchlight lamp at the side of the bed and the glow in the room intensified to a hot brightness. Emma drew in her breath. The side of Mark’s ragged white T-shirt, at his shoulder, was red with blood—a patch that was slowly spreading.

“Stele,” Julian barked, holding out his hand. He was already pulling at his brother’s shirt, baring his shoulder and collarbone, where a half-healed gash had opened. Blood was trickling from the wound, not fast, but Tavvy made an inarticulate sound of distress.

Emma pulled her stele from her belt and threw it. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t need to. Julian’s hand came up and he caught it out of the air. He bent to press the tip to Mark’s skin, to begin the healing rune—

Mark screamed.

His eyes flew open, bright and crazed, and he thrashed out at the air with his stained, dirty, bloody hands.

“Get it away,” he snarled, struggling upright. “Get it away, get that thing away from me!”

“Mark—”

Julian reached for his brother, but Mark batted him away. He might have been thin, but he was strong; Julian stumbled, and Emma felt it like a burst of pain in the back of her head. She dashed forward, putting herself between the two brothers.

She was about to shout at Mark, to tell him to stop, when she caught sight of his face. His eyes were wide and white with fear, his hand clutched to his chest—there was something there, something that glittered at the end of a cord around his throat—and then he hurled himself off the bed, his body jerking, hands and feet scrabbling at the hardwood.

“Move back,” Julian said to his siblings, not shouting, but his voice quick and authoritative. They scrambled away, scattering. Emma caught a glimpse of Tavvy’s unhappy face as Dru lifted him off his feet and carried him out of the room.

Mark had darted into the corner of the bedroom, where he froze, his hands wrapped around his knees, his back pressed hard to the wall. Julian started after his brother, then stopped, the stele dangling helplessly from his hand.

“Don’t touch me with that,” Mark said, and his voice—very recognizably Mark’s voice, and very cold and precise—was shockingly at odds with the filthy scarecrow look of him. He held them at bay with his glare.

“What’s wrong with him?” Livvy asked in a near whisper.

“It’s the stele.” It was Julian, voice soft.

“But why?” said Emma. “How can a Shadowhunter be afraid of a stele?”

“You call me afraid?” demanded Mark. “Insult me again and find your blood spilled, girl.”

“Mark, this is Emma,” Julian said. “Emma Carstairs.”

Mark pressed himself farther back into the wall. “Lies,” he said. “Lies and dreams.”

“I’m Julian,” Jules said. “Your brother Julian. And that’s Tiberius—”

“My brother Tiberius is a child!” Mark shouted, suddenly livid, his hands clawing behind him at the wall. “He is a little boy!”

There was a horrified silence. “I’m not,” said Ty, finally, into the quiet. His hands were fluttering at his sides, pale butterflies in the dim light. “I’m not a child.”

Mark said nothing. He closed his eyes, and tears slid out from beneath his lids, tracking down his face, mixing with the dirt.

“Enough.” To everyone’s surprise, it was Cristina who had spoken. She looked embarrassed as everyone turned to look at her, but stood her ground, chin up, straight-backed. “Can’t you see this is tormenting him? If we were to go into the hall—”

“You go,” said Julian, looking at Mark. “I’ll stay here.”

Cristina shook her head. “No.” She sounded apologetic but firm. “All of us.” She paused as Julian hesitated.

“Please,” she said.

She crossed the room and opened the door. Emma watched in amazement as the Blackthorns, one by one, filed out of the room; a moment later they were all standing in the corridor, and Cristina was shutting the door of Mark’s room behind her.

“I don’t know,” Julian said immediately as the door clicked shut. “Leaving him alone in there—”

“It’s his room,” Cristina said. Emma stared at her in amazement; how could she be so calm?

“But he doesn’t remember it,” Livvy said, looking agitated. “He doesn’t remember—anything.”

“He does remember,” Emma said, laying a hand on Livvy’s shoulder. “It’s just that everything he remembers has changed.”

“We haven’t.” Livvy looked so woebegone that Emma pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, which was no mean feat since Livvy was only an inch shorter than her.

“Oh, you have,” she said. “We all have. And so has Mark.”

Ty looked agitated. “But the room is dusty,” he said. “We threw out his things. He’ll think we forgot him, that we don’t care.”