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Kieran said nothing; he was beginning to have a very uneasy feeling.

“His name,” said Mother Hawthorn, “is Christopher Herondale, and he is of the blood of Auraline, the First Heir.”

“I will not have Kit dragged into this,” Kieran said coldly.

Mother Hawthorn laughed. “He is already in it.”

Kieran’s skin prickled. “What have you done to him?”

“Only warned him that his journey was beginning,” she said. “This was always going to be his destiny; you cannot stop it or turn it back. And you would be unwise to try. He is the salvation Faerie requires.”

“But you hate Shadowhunters. Why do you desire so strongly that he be King?”

She looked at him with an annoying little smile. “The blood of the First Heir is powerful. Once Kit Herondale comes to Faerie, his Shadowhunter traits will slowly fade from him, leaving only his true faerie form.”

Kieran rubbed at his eyes. His head was pounding. “The Queen has her favorite,” he said, “and she is determined to set him on the throne. You have your favorite, and you are determined to set him on the throne. I cannot help but pity them both, and us. This way civil war lies.”

“And in civil war, one must pick one’s side,” said Mother Hawthorn. “I offer you an alliance, but only on the condition that you stand behind Kit when he takes the throne.”

“Does he even want the throne?” asked Kieran, who had never wanted his.

Something dark flickered behind Mother Hawthorn’s eyes, something that reminded Kieran that the wild fey did not just prize freedom, but cruelty as well. “He had better learn to want it, my lord. The only other choice for him is death.”

17

A Cruel Feast

The tickets Hyacinth had given Ty and Kit turned out to be for a private first-class compartment. Kit had never seen such a fancy sleeper carriage: Two fabric-covered bench seats faced each other and above them, reachable by a narrow ladder, were two platform beds bolted into opposite walls. The beds had already been made up with clean sheets, pillows, and even duvets.

Kit dropped his bag on one of the bench seats and turned to Ty, who was leaning against the single large window. Since the light was on in the carriage, the glass surface mirrored Kit back to himself, all worried expression and tangled blond hair.

But he wasn’t focused on himself. He was focused on Ty, who had dropped his pack at his feet and looked exhausted.

“We should check your Energy runes,” Kit said, stepping over Ty’s pack. He reached toward Ty—and stopped. Something about Ty, the way he was standing, the weariness radiating off him, made Kit hesitate. “Only if you want to,” he added.

Ty raised his hand and touched the side of his neck, where an Energy rune had faded to gray. “I’m all right. I just really, really…” He closed his eyes. “Need to sleep.”

The way Ty looked, the new crack in his heron necklace—Kit couldn’t help worrying, but he knew there was no point in telling Ty that. He ran his hands through his hair, his fingers catching on the tangles. “Okay. Let’s go to sleep. I’ll grab my stuff and change.”

As Kit made his way to the bathroom at the far end of the carriage he could hear Ty murmuring the beginning of his sleep routine. His own mind felt as if it were full of the kind of staticky noises Jem’s old radio made sometimes. He brushed his teeth, changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt, and returned to the carriage to find Ty already curled up on his bed, asleep.

I was hoping we would talk. About everything we learned tonight. Kit closed his eyes, feeling ungrounded, as if the world were slipping away beneath his feet. He told himself not to be stupid. Ty was exhausted. He needed to rest.

Kit grabbed the ladder and hauled himself up to his bed with unnecessary force. He pulled the cover over himself and turned onto his side. Ty was sleeping on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes. His worn T-shirt was loose at the neck, his bare collarbones oddly vulnerable. Kit looked at him for a long moment before switching off the light and hoping sleep would come soon.

It didn’t. He lay awake, staring out the window at the passing countryside, all black and gray under the moon. The Riders would find them eventually, they always found their prey, even if Kit and Ty had a head start.

Kit thought of the three pieces of the artifact, wrapped in a shirt inside his backpack. Were the artifacts dangerous in other hands? And what about what had happened in the cemetery, the way he’d dispatched the dullahans? Was it wrong for him to be on this quest with Ty? Should he be applying his power, whatever it was, toward rescuing his family?

He thought of the dream he kept having, the one where he found Ty on a battlefield after the killing had come to an end. A dream where Ty was sinister, powerful. Was the dream trying to tell him something? Were he and Ty going to do something that left the world a wasteland?

“Kit.” Ty’s soft voice. Kit’s eyes flew open to see Ty climbing the ladder to his bunk. A little moonlight spilled through the window, illuminating Ty’s face as he hesitated. “Kit, are you awake?”

Kit pushed himself up on his elbows. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The pendants around Ty’s neck caught the light as he crawled onto the mattress and then, to Kit’s astonishment, scooted up so that he and Kit were lying beside each other on the very narrow bunk.

Kit instinctively moved back to make space for Ty, but there wasn’t much space to give. Ty didn’t seem bothered: not by Kit’s closeness, nor by the fact that his hair was tickling Kit’s face. Kit could tell what he was wearing just by the feel of the fabric against his skin. Ty’s shirt had been washed so many times it almost felt like a second skin, and he wore light training pants tied at the waist, like doctor’s scrubs.