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Wordlessly, Magnus took a folded parchment from his jacket pocket and handed it over to Kit and Ty. They leaned together, reading it; Kit skimmed it once, and then read it again, more slowly, feeling a cold pit open in his stomach.

There will come a time when a great adversary will rise and the Nephilim will be undone…All will be lost in the drive for power unless a great King rises. This king will have the blood of Nephilim and Faerie…He shall repair the great crown of Faerie then break it.

Kit looked up with burning eyes. “You can’t seriously think that I am the King in this prophecy.”

“Ragnor sent me to find you because he believed you are. And so do I.” Magnus looked as if he almost felt sorry for Kit. “There aren’t that many people with Shadowhunter blood and faerie blood.”

“There’s Ash,” Kit said.

“All right, there aren’t that many people with Shadowhunter and faerie blood who have recently found and assembled the crown of Faerie.” Magnus rubbed his eyes. “Kit, everyone has always thought this was a possibility for you. You are descended from the only true Heir to the united throne of Faerie. That was always, eventually, going to matter.”

“What matters is that I don’t want the throne,” Kit said. “I don’t want any of this.”

“You may not have a choice,” Magnus said. “Faerie magic is not like other forms of magic. It’s more literal. If you crown yourself the monarch of Faerie, it will tie you to the land in ways I don’t entirely understand. You know how mundane monarchs use their connection to the land to justify their reigns? In Faerie, that connection is more than symbolic. If you use the crown to open the door to Faerie, the land will recognize you as its ruler. Its master.”

Ty was looking at Kit with wide gray eyes, as if he’d never seen Kit quite this way before. Kit hated it.

“This can’t be the only way to rescue Dru and Clary,” Kit said. “There must be some other way. Couldn’t I just open the door and then give the crown to someone else? Like, give it to Kieran or something?”

Magnus said, quietly, “That would not unbind you from Faerie. The choice is not whether you want to be King or not, Kit. It’s whether opening that door now is worth it to you.”

Ty laid a hand on Kit’s shoulder. “Kit. Just listen—”

But Kit could barely hear him over the pounding in his head. He stood up, holding his hands out in front of them, as if he could push everything Magnus had just told him away. “That’s not my only choice,” he said. Ty and Magnus were staring at him, wearing almost identical looks of concern. He couldn’t stand it. “Right now I have a choice, and I choose to leave. Don’t follow me.”

Kit slammed his way out of the room and ran for the stairs.

Ty

Ty drummed his fingers on the brass railing near the bank of elevators, counting each tap as he focused on keeping them in rhythm. Beside him, Magnus stood silent, his arms crossed, his cat’s gaze thoughtful.

They had rushed after Kit the moment he’d left the hotel room, pausing only for Ty to snatch up the High Crown and slide it into the inner pocket of his jacket. He hadn’t felt comfortable leaving it in the room without anyone there to guard it. He could feel it now, tapping against his ribs when he moved.

Ty had his sea-glass fidget toy in his hand and was running his thumb over it in a calming sort of way that helped to smooth out the spikes of turmoil in his head. He told himself Kit wasn’t angry at him. He was angry about the crown, about being pushed into a situation where he felt he had no choices.

He hoped that when he’d put his hand on Kit’s shoulder, Kit hadn’t interpreted it as Ty trying to persuade him to wear the crown. Ty wanted Dru back; of course he did. But he also knew that becoming the King of Faerie was not a small thing. It was a huge thing that had to be Kit’s choice. A choice that could change Kit forever. In rescuing Dru, Ty might lose Kit, and the thought of losing Kit was an endless black swirling thing like the awful patterns in the hotel carpet.

Ty gripped the sea glass tighter just as an elevator pinged and the brass doors slid open.

Ty darted inside, Magnus following him. The elevator light was fluorescent, unlike the other lights in the hotel, and made his eyes hurt.

“Your pendant,” Magnus said, as the doors slid closed. He gestured with a careful motion at the silver heron resting against Ty’s chest. “Can I have a look at it?”

“If you want. You’re the one who gave it to us in the first place.” Ty had always thought of the pendant as a gift to both him and Livvy: It was meant to protect her, too. He knew it had once been Kit’s but assumed Kit had simply given it to Magnus because Magnus thought it would be useful and Kit wasn’t that attached to it. If Ty were to admit it to himself, though, he liked to have something of Kit’s against his skin, over his heart. Sometimes he’d run his fingers over it, as if it were a fidget toy, but when he did that he couldn’t help being reminded of Kit, and the reminder was good and bad at the same time.

Magnus tapped a finger against the alarm button, bringing the elevator to a jingling halt.

Ty frowned. “Why did you stop the elevator?”

“Because I need to talk to you, alone. This might be our only chance.” Magnus reached for the pendant and smoothed his fingertips over the cracks in the silver. “Do you remember what I told you in Idris, after you raised Livvy?”

Ty hesitated a moment. It was the sort of question that sometimes puzzled him—did Magnus want a yes-or-no answer, or for Ty to prove that he did remember? Not that it mattered. Getting Magnus to start the elevator again so he could find Kit was what mattered.

“I remember that you said that having my sister with me as a ghost was better than being without her. Which is true. And you said, ‘You don’t yet understand the price. And I hope you never have to pay it.’ ”

Magnus still held the pendant, studying its two new cracks. “You’re paying it now,” he said. “When I gave you this pendant, it was to keep you safe from the consequences of what you did. It seems like something is going on with the magic that binds you to Livvy, something that’s straining what the necklace can do. The pendant is literally coming apart from the pressure.”

“It’s weakening,” Ty admitted. “But it isn’t ruined.”