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“Why?” He cut her off, but for the first time that night, she thought she saw a flash of vulnerability on his face. A vulnerability she didn’t understand. “The life of a Shadowhunter is dangerous. You risk yourself—yourselves—over and over every night. You told me that. Your father and your sister—”

Died because they were Shadowhunters. Dru couldn’t bear to hear the words. “Janus lied to you,” she said. “They’re not in the Gard. I saw them.”

He hesitated. “Then they are safe regardless. Janus would not lie to me about their lives,” he added, but there was no conviction in the words.

“So ask him,” she said. “Ask him if it’s true. Ask him if they’re safe under the lake.”

Ash’s face tightened, his jaw clenching. “That is not your order to give.”

Dru’s mind raced, desperately searching for the right words, the right phrases to convince a boy who’d been told what to do by terrible people all his life that in this case, she was right. “Then spy on him. Listen in when he thinks you’re not there. Or spy on the Queen; she knows what he knows. Maybe she’ll never tell you the truth, but there are other people who she would speak more openly with. We just need to be there to listen.”

“We?” Ash echoed. His eyes darkened further. He stood up suddenly, lifting Dru with him in one smooth movement. He set her down in front of him; she backed up a step and felt the edge of the table jabbing into her back. A cascade of images burst like fireworks across the dark canvas of her mind: Ash kissing her, Ash bending her back over the table, Ash tangled up with her, their movement sending the glass and crystal flying…

“There is no we,” Ash said, snapping her back to reality. “I have been your protector here, but I am not your partner. I will not spy on my mother for you.” Bitterness spilled into his voice. “Nor will I spy on Janus. And I cannot help but ask myself how insulted I should be that you believe a few kisses, thrown to me like a bone to a dog, would change that.”

Desperation washed through Dru, tightening her throat, making it hard to breathe. She said quickly: “Then pretend I didn’t kiss you. Pretend all we did was talk.”

But it was the wrong tack to take. Ash’s eyes narrowed. “You are awfully fond of pretending. And yet you call faeries the deceptive ones.”

“Ash—”

“No more,” he said, cutting through her words. “Stay here; the redcaps are patrolling the corridors. I will send Elara to fetch you.”

He turned away from her, striding toward the door. He didn’t look back, only left Dru standing alone, the bitter taste of failure in her mouth.

Hyacinth

The feel of the world was different now, Hyacinth thought.

She was on her way back to the Shadow Market, having left the cold lights and colder iron of the train station behind her. A number of Fair Folk, who like her had been used to returning to Faerie at night to sleep, had set up a small glamoured encampment in Fővám Square, across from the Market, where they could catch a few hours of rest each night.

But Hyacinth was used to displacement. She had wandered the mortal world for centuries. That was not what made her feel that the world had changed. It was something in the air and the earth, and even more in the wind, which seemed to carry strange whispers. Something was coming: some great upheaval. And in the meantime the world mourned the loss of Faerie, and even the loss of Shadowhunters, too.

As she moved through the darkened streets, invisible to mortal eyes, the wind seemed to murmur that protection was gone, that the light of angels had vanished. That darkness would follow. She knew some of these fears resided only in her mind, but still, she trusted her feelings. She wished she had not remained in the train station long enough to see Kit and Ty board their train to Munich. None of them had thought of it in the moment, but she wasn’t supposed to know where they were going next. All she had to do was make it to the encampment, though, and she could ask one of the others to help her with a charm that would make her forget.

She did not regret helping Kit, though. She knew, after having seen the destruction of the dullahans, that he and Ty Blackthorn were a force to be reckoned with still. No wonder the Riders of Mannan sought them.

Something prickled between her shoulder blades. She turned, a thrill of fear passing through her, but there was nothing behind her but an empty street. She stared into the mist and darkness, searching for anything moving, but saw nothing. Satisfied at last, she turned around to resume her journey to the Market.

And found her way blocked. Motionless and silent, four mounted riders faced her. Once there had been seven of them, and once they had been fair, their horses and armor a gleaming bronze. They had greatly changed. Their faces were half hidden by cowled hoods, the hands that gripped their reins skeletally thin and streaked with grave-dirt. Their horses, all of unnatural colors, had eyes that gleamed red through the fog.

Hyacinth’s heart contracted in her chest. She knew them; all faeries feared them, and wise mortals too. The Riders of Mannan.

The one with the gray-green horse spoke, her voice harsh and sharply edged. Ethna. She had been the only woman among the Riders. “I see we have arrived too late, little fortune teller. The Shadowhunters have fled. But they are careless, as all Raziel’s children are. They have left you behind to tell us everything you know.”

18

Thrones and Virtues

The crisp autumn air bit lightly at Kit’s skin as he and Ty walked through the streets of Munich, heading for the location of the next test. Hyacinth had only given them an address, but when Ty looked it up, they saw that it was a church called the Asamkirche. The light of the mid-morning sun caught the falling leaves from the trees above, turning them into translucent slices of color: red, yellow, golden brown. The same light caught the edges of Ty’s hair, though it was unable to penetrate its blackness. Instead it made a sort of halo around him, as if he were glowing.

Or maybe that was just what Kit’s brain saw when he looked at Ty. He knew he’d lost any objectivity. He knew he ought to be concentrating on where they were going, on preparing for another test, another piece of the artifact. But half of his brain was still in the train carriage, tangled up in mint-flavored kisses that went on for hours.

Stop. Think about something else. But how could he, when his hair was mussed thanks to Ty running his fingers through it? When he smelled like Ty?

He tried to concentrate on the city around them as they headed into the central historic district. Ugly modern structures of glass and steel gave way to smaller buildings, rows of townhouses whose facades had been painted in soft colors of yellow and beige and blue. Clock towers and the spires of churches rose in the distance. Cafés lined the streets, with groups of people in sweaters or puffer jackets gathered around small tables protected from the sun by awnings.

Kit wondered if this was a before-work tradition—meeting up with friends for coffee. Or was it already the weekend? It startled him that he didn’t know what day it was, enough to refocus him on their surroundings. They’d reached Sendlinger Strasse, a busy shopping street. Stores lined the sides of the road, the kinds you saw in every big European city: H&M, Mango, Levi’s. Ty, looking around curiously, pointed something out to Kit: Avant-garde statues of people—dozens of them—stood at intervals along the street, each one gleaming in white stone. Some of the figures were crouching; others covered their faces with their hands. Some were smiling as if they’d just seen someone familiar; others had uplifted hands, reaching for something Kit couldn’t quite see. Tourists were posing with pictures of them: A family stood beside a statue of a young woman with a half-open umbrella, the grandfather snapping photos of his grandchildren climbing the statue’s limbs as if it were some sort of tree.