"Ah," said Adaon. "Who does it bind?"
"Mark," said Kieran.
"Mark," Adaon echoed, a little mockingly. "What is so special about him, that you care if he is bound? Or should he be bound only to you?"
"I would not want that," Kieran said fiercely. "I would never want that. He should love me freely."
"Binding is not love, though it can reveal feelings otherwise buried." Adaon looked thoughtful. "I had not imagined I would hear you speak so, little dark one. When you were a child, you took what you wanted with no thought of the cost."
"No one in the Wild Hunt remains a child," said Kieran.
"It is a pity you were sent away," said Adaon. "You would have made a good King after our father, and the Court loved you."
Kieran shook his head. "I would not want to be King."
"Because you would have to give up Mark," said Adaon. "But every king gives up something. It is the nature of kings."
"But kings are not in my nature." Kieran tilted his head back to look up at his taller brother. "I think you are the one who would make a ruler, brother. Someone to bring peace back to the Lands."
"This is not just about a binding spell, is it?" said Adaon. "There is something else to all of this. Our father believes you have taken refuge with Shadowhunters to escape his wrath; I admit, I assumed the same. Is there more?"
"There might be," said Kieran. "I know you will not move against our father, but I also know you do not like him, or find his rule fair. If the throne were open, would you take it?"
"Kieran," said Adaon. "These are not things of which we speak."
"There has been bloodshed for so long, and no hope," said Kieran. "This is not about my safety alone. You must believe that."
"What are you planning, Kieran?" said Adaon. "What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?"
A hand clapped itself across Cristina's mouth. Another arm whipped around her, securing her. Her body jackknifed in surprise and she felt the grip on her loosen. She jerked her head backward, felt her skull connect with someone's face, and heard a yowl of pain.
"Who's there?" Adaon spun, hand on the hilt of his blade. "Show yourself!"
Something dug into Cristina's throat-something long and sharp. The blade of a knife. She froze.
* * *
"We should go," Emma whispered. She didn't ask Julian what Annabel had meant. She suspected they both knew.
Something dark and slippery flashed by across the transept, something that moved with a grotesque fluidity. The room seemed to darken. Emma wrinkled her nose-the rotten smell of demonic presence was suddenly all around, as if she'd opened a box full of a horrible potpourri.
Julian's face was luminous-pale in the shadows. He crumpled up the letter in his hand and they began to back out of the church, taking careful steps, the seraph blade offering flickering illumination. They were halfway to the exit when there was an enormous crash-the two big front doors of the church had slammed shut.
Faintly, Emma heard the giggle of a piskie.
They spun around as the altar overturned. It hit the ground with a shattering thud.
"You go left," Emma whispered. "I'll go right."
Julian slipped away noiselessly. Emma could still sense him there, his presence nearby. They had paused to rune each other halfway from the town to the church, looking out over Talland Bay and the blue ocean. Her runes prickled alive now as she slipped down the row of a pew and made her way along the inside wall of the church.
She had reached the nave. Shadows gathered thickly here, but her Night Vision rune was sparking and she was finding it easier to see in the dark. She could see the overturned altar, the huge blot of dried blood that stained the stone floor. There was a bloody handprint on one of the nearby pillars. It looked wrong and horrible, inside a church like this; it made Emma think of an Institute defiled.
Of Sebastian, spilling blood at the threshold of the Los Angeles stronghold of the Shadowhunters.
She flinched, and for just that moment of memory, her focus was diverted. Something flickered at the edge of her vision, just as Julian's voice exploded in her ears: "Emma, look out!"
Emma flung herself sideways, away from the flickering shadow. She landed on the overturned altar and spun around to see a rippling horror rising in front of her. It was scarlet-black, the color of blood-it was blood, formed of clotted, sludgy scarlet, with two burning white eyes. Its hands ended in flat points like the tip of a shovel, each with a single black, curved talon protruding from it. The talons dripped with a thin, lucent slime.