Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(169)

Ty was already across the street, opening the door. Livvy hurried after him. Kit was last-cautious and a little less than eager. He had grown up around magic-sellers and their patrons, and was wary of both.

The inside of the shop didn't offer much reason to improve his views. The frosted windows let in glare but not light. It was clean at least, with long shelves lined with some things he'd seen before-dragon's teeth, holy water, blessed nails, enchanted beauty powders, luck charms-and quite a few he hadn't. Clocks that ran backward, though he had no idea why. The wire-jointed skeletons of animals he'd never seen before. Shark teeth too big to belong to any shark on earth. Jar after jar of butterfly wings in explosive colors of hot pink, neon yellow, and lime green. Bottles of blue water whose surfaces rippled like tiny seas.

There was a dusty copper bell on the front counter. Livvy picked it up and rang it, while Ty studied the maps on the walls. The one he was staring at was marked with names Kit had never seen before-the Thorn Mountains, Hollow Town, the Shattered Forest.

"Faerie," Ty said in an unusually subdued voice. "Hard to get maps of it, since the geography tends to change, but I looked at quite a few when Mark was missing."

The tap-tap of heels on the floor announced the arrival of the shopkeeper. To Kit's surprise, she was familiar-dark-skinned and bronze-haired, dressed today in a plain black sheath dress. Hypatia Vex.

"Nephilim," she said with a sigh. "I hate Nephilim."

"I take it this isn't one of those places where the customer is always right," Livvy said.

"You're not Sallows," said Ty. "You're Hypatia Vex. We met you yesterday."

"Sallows died years ago," said Hypatia. "Killed by Nephilim, as it happens."

Awkward, Kit thought.

"We have a list of things we need." Livvy pushed a paper across the counter. "For Magnus Bane."

Hypatia raised an eyebrow. "Ah, Bane, your great defender. What a pest that man is." She took the paper. "Some of these will take at least a day to prepare. Can you come back tomorrow?"

"Do we have a choice?" said Livvy, with a winsome smile.

"No," said Hypatia. "And you'll pay in gold. I'm not interested in mundane money."

"Just tell us how much," said Ty, and she reached for a pen and began scribbling. "And also-there's something I want to ask you."

He looked over at Kit and Livvy. Livvy got the hint first, and drew Kit outside the shop until they were standing in the street. The sun was warm on his hair and skin; he wondered what mundanes saw when they looked at the shop. Maybe a dusty convenience store or a place that sold tombstones. Something you'd never want to go into.

"How long are you planning on being friends with my brother?" Livvy said abruptly.

Kit jumped. "I-what?"

"You heard me," she said. Her eyes were much bluer than the Thames. Ty's eyes were really more the river's color.

"People don't really think about friendship that way," said Kit. "It depends how long you know the person-how long you're in the same place."

"It's your choice," she said, her eyes darkening. "You can stay with us as long as you want to."

"Can I? What about the Academy? What about learning to be a Shadowhunter? How am I supposed to catch up with you when you're all a million years ahead of me?"

"We don't care about that-"

"Maybe I care about that."

Livvy spoke in a steady voice. "When we were kids," she said, "the Ashdowns used to come over to play. Our parents thought we should see more kids outside our family, and Paige Ashdown was about my age, so she got shoved together with me and Ty. And once he was talking to us about what he was obsessed with-it was cars back then, before Sherlock. And she said sarcastically that he ought to come over and tell her all about it because it was so interesting."



       
         
       
        

"What happened?"

"He went over to her house to talk to her about cars, and she wasn't there, and when she came home, she laughed at him and told him to go away, she hadn't meant it, and was he stupid?"

Kit felt a slow boil of fury toward a girl he'd never met. "I'd never do that."

"Look," Livvy said. "Since then, Ty's learned so much about the way people say things they don't mean, about tone not matching expression, all that. But he trusts you, he's let you in. He might not always remember to apply that stuff to you. I'm just saying-don't lie to him. Don't lead him on."