Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(237)

Even Julian paused before he reached her, hesitating as if deciding how to break the silence. Near him, Ty stood between Livvy and Kit, all of them staring at Annabel as if she were an apparition and not really there at all.

"Annabel." It was Magnus. He had limped down the steps to the bottom; he had only a light hand on Dru's shoulder now, though there were dark crescents of exhaustion below his eyes. He sounded sad, that depthless sort of sadness that came out of a time, a life, that Emma could not even imagine. "Oh, Annabel. Why did you come here?"

Annabel drew the folded piece of paper from the Black Volume. "I received a letter," she said, in a voice so soft it was barely audible. "From Tiberius Blackthorn."

Only Kit didn't look surprised. He put his hand on Ty's arm as Tiberius scanned the ground furiously.

"There was something in it," she said. "I had thought the world's hand turned against me, but as I read the letter, I imagined there was a chance it was not so." She raised her chin, that characteristic, defiant Blackthorn gesture that broke Emma's heart every time. "I have come to speak with Julian Blackthorn about the Black Volume of the Dead."

* * *

"There is an undead person in our library," said Livvy. She was sitting on one of the long beds in the infirmary. They'd all gathered there-all but Magnus, who had closed himself into the library with Annabel. They were in various stages of being runed and patched up and cleaned. There was a small pile of bloody cloths growing on the counter.

Ty was on the same bed as Livvy, his back to the headboard. As always after a battle, Emma noticed, he had withdrawn a bit, as if he needed time to recuperate from the clang and shock of it. He was twisting something between his fingers in regular rhythmic motions, though Emma couldn't see what it was. "It's not our library," he said. "It's Evelyn's."

"Still strange," Livvy said. Neither she nor Ty had been injured in the fight, but Kit had, and she was finishing an iratze on his back. "All done," she said, patting his shoulder, and he drew his T-shirt down with a wince.

"She isn't undead, not exactly," said Julian. Emma had given him an iratze, but some part of her had become afraid of drawing runes on him, and she'd stopped there, bandaging the wound instead. He'd had a long cut running down his upper arm, and even after he'd pulled his shirt back on, the bandages were visible through the fabric. "She's not a zombie or a ghost."

One of the glasses of water on a nightstand fell over with a crash.

"Jessamine didn't appreciate that," said Kit.

Cristina laughed-she wasn't injured either, but she was worrying at the pendant around her throat as she watched Mark tend to Kieran's injuries. Hunters healed faster, Emma knew, but they also bruised easily, it seemed. A map of blue-black spread over Kieran's back and shoulders, and one of his cheekbones was darkening. With a cloth that Cristina had wet down in one of his hands, Mark was gently sponging away the blood. 

The elf-bolt gleamed around Mark's neck. Emma didn't know what was going on with Mark and Kieran and Cristina exactly-Cristina had been remarkably reluctant to explain-but she knew Kieran had learned the truth about his and Mark's relationship. Still, Kieran hadn't taken his elf-bolt back, so that was something.

She realized with a small jolt of surprise that she was hoping things worked out for them. She hoped that wasn't disloyal to Cristina. But she was no longer angry at Kieran-he might have made a mistake, but he'd made up for it many times over since then.

"Where was Jessamine earlier?" said Julian. "Isn't she supposed to protect the Institute?"

Another crash of glass.

"She says she can't leave the Institute. She can only protect inside of it." Kit paused. "I don't know if I should repeat the rest of what she said." After a moment, he smiled. "Thank you, Jessamine."

"What did she say?" Livvy asked, picking up her stele.

"That I'm a true Herondale," he said. He frowned. "What did that metal guy say to me when I told him my name? Was it faerie language?"

"Oddly, it was Latin," said Julian. "An insult. Something Mark Antony once said to Augustus Caesar-'you, boy, who owe everything to a name.' He was saying he would never have amounted to anything if he hadn't been a Caesar."

Kit looked annoyed. "I've been a Herondale for like three weeks," he said. "And I'm not sure what I've gotten out of it."

"Do not pay too much attention to the pronouncements of faeries," said Kieran. "They will get under your skin in any way they can."

"Does that include you?" asked Cristina, with a smile.

"Obviously," said Kieran, and he smiled too, just slightly.