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“It doesn’t have to,” Magnus said. “Look—no one is going to make you do anything that you don’t want to do. You can spurn the crown and the power. But imagine what will happen if you do. If you walk away from the artifact, away from Faerie, away from everything. Dru and Clary remain prisoners. The Cohort stands unopposed. Any chance we had of gaining entrance to Idris before disaster happens will be lost—”

“Enough.” Kit heard himself say the word, but it was obliterated instantly in a searing burst of illumination that he thought at first was lightning. His hands spasmed open, and a moment later he had stumbled back, away from Magnus, his palms held out as if he could ward off Magnus’s words. “I already know—”

But Magnus wasn’t listening. He stared at Kit in real shock. “What did you just do? I was using a great deal of energy to hold you in place.”

Kit sighed. He felt suddenly exhausted. “I found out what it meant for me to have the power of the Heir. I can undo spells. Ty…” He sighed again. “Ty figured it out.”

Magnus stared at him, and there was something in his eyes Kit had never seen there before. “Any spell?”

“As far as I can tell,” Kit said.

“I remember when we broke those curses in London, at Blackthorn Hall,” Magnus said, and Kit recognized what was in his eyes. Wariness. As if he were afraid of Kit. “I knew it was you, I knew you had a power. But I never thought you could unravel magic itself. Can you control it?”

“I don’t know,” Kit whispered.

Magnus scrubbed his hands through his wet black hair. “Under normal circumstances, I’d try to teach you how to use this power—but there’s no time for anything like that, Kit—”

“I could take down the wards,” Kit said. “Around Idris.”

Magnus lowered his hands. “You think you have the ability to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Kit said, desperately. “But it’s worth trying. It’s a better gamble than what might happen if I wound up being King of Faerie. If it doesn’t work, we use the crown.”

Magnus was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What you’re suggesting, Kit. It’s safer for you, much safer, and better for me, too. It gets me to Alec faster. But it would mean delaying finding Dru and Clary.”

Kit took a ragged breath. “I know. I know. But—I had something else I had to ask you, anyway.”

Magnus shrugged. “I can’t even imagine.”

“I know my power works on faerie magic,” said Kit. “It works on warlock magic. Would it work on necromantic magic?”

Magnus was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’m going to assume this is about Livvy. I thought, when I saw you with Ty, that you must have made peace with what he did—”

“I’m not angry at him,” said Kit. “I love him.”

“You can be angry at someone you love,” Magnus said, surprisingly gently.

“Yes, but—it’s not that. You know,” Kit said. “You know why I’m asking. Could I use this power to release Livvy’s ghost? Let her…pass on? I know it’s not the same as undoing a spell, but it might work.”

“I think you could probably do it, yes. But you should talk to Ty first, and I can already tell you haven’t.” Magnus glanced over Kit’s shoulder. “In fact, here’s an amazing opportunity.”

Kit spun around. He hadn’t noticed Ty approach. He’d been too focused on Magnus and on his own anger. As Ty came toward them, already damp from the drizzle, his pale face and black hair looked like a dash of white paint against a dark background.

Kit felt a lurch of panic. Had Ty heard them? And if so, how much had he heard?

“I’ll let you two talk,” said Magnus. “I’ll go wait at the end of the block.” He pointed toward a street sign. “I’ll be there if anything happens. And”—he tapped at his watch, a bejeweled Victorian-looking item—“you have five minutes. After that, we have to move.”

Kit nodded and, as Magnus walked away, turned to face Ty.

—

It was late. Dru wasn’t sure exactly how she knew that, since all the light in the Court was artificial, but her body seemed to have adjusted to the strangeness of an underground world. Or maybe she had simply become attuned to the sounds of the Court, from the morning rush of servants to the riotous singing of late evening, when drunken revelers returned to their rooms.

Nene had left Dru’s rooms after Ash did. When Dru asked if she was taking Ash’s advice to flee the Court, she only said, “You heard the Prince. I should go.”

Dru had thought about begging her to stay, but knew it would be unfair. If her real identity was revealed, there was every chance the Queen would lop off her head. Still, Nene’s departure had left Dru feeling alone and at the mercy of her own anxieties. She chewed her thumbnail—a bad habit—while worrying that she would receive an invitation to the banquet tonight, and then have to decide, without Nene’s advice, who she wanted to anger by either attending or not.

To her relief, no invitation came, and when enough hours had passed and the corridors outside were quiet, she put on the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d arrived at the Court what felt like a thousand years ago: the plaid skirt, the torn T-shirt, the ripped tights. She threw a velvet cloak on over them and slid her feet into her old boots. She pondered for a long moment before retrieving Julian’s drawing of her, the one she’d found in Ash’s room, and tucking it into the coin pocket of her skirt. She couldn’t bear to leave her brother’s work behind. Not here.