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“There are training clothes, here in the room, for you to change into.” Elara indicated the various garments hanging among the vines, which confirmed they were indeed for Dru. She wondered how they’d possibly had time to so quickly produce clothes in her size. If they were in her size.

“I need to clean up first. I’m filthy. And there doesn’t seem to be a shower, or a—well, a bathroom.”

“The waterfall is for cleansing yourself,” Elara said. “And there, behind that velvet curtain, is the privy.” She made a face, as if talking about such things made her uncomfortable. “Wash and dress. I will wait for you outside the door.”

The moment Elara was gone, Dru stripped off her clothes with a feeling of great relief, dropping her brooch into a silver dish tucked into a small ledge. She had been worried that the waterfall would be ice-cold, but it was pleasantly lukewarm, and there was Osmanthus-scented soap in a dish of polished pebbles. She scrubbed the dirt and blood off herself, and watched as threads of red and brown invaded the clear stream. When she was clean, she dried with a velvet towel and went to investigate the training clothing.

It was easy enough to find; the other clothes were all dresses. The outfit consisted of a tunic and trousers of soft linen. They were dark blue and fit perfectly, which was a bit eerie. Suede boots had been provided too, but Dru went back to her own trusty Docs. It was nice to be able to wear one thing that looked like her.

While underwear was provided, the one thing Dru noticed was missing was a bra. She put her own back on, and wondered if she was just supposed to wear it for the foreseeable future. Maybe the Fair Folk simply didn’t know what to do when confronted with double Ds. She pictured a bunch of delicate faerie seamstresses sitting around shaking their heads. “But how can such bosoms be contained?” they would complain to each other. “They are enormous.”

She thought of how funny Thais would find the whole idea, and sobered. She had walked away from Thais in Pandemonium, and then vanished. No chance to say goodbye. No way to exchange a message. And it was the same with all her friends and family. Everyone besides Clary was far beyond the reach of runes or fire-messages, as if trapped beyond a pane of dark glass. She thought of Julian, of how he must be panicking, and felt sick.

Now in an even worse mood, she went to the door and, finding it unlocked, joined Elara in the corridor. They started off down the twisting hallways, each one of packed earth and illuminated by glowing vines and mosses. It looked like paintings of Faerie she had seen in books, which probably explained why it felt familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

Dru tried to count the steps and turns—a long hallway going straight, then a left, then a right, then two rights—but was soon hopelessly confused. Books made this sort of thing seem easy, but in real life, without a Memory rune, it was nearly impossible.

Elara moved beside her, silent, her hands still clasped. Finally Dru cleared her throat. “So what’s Ash like? Is he ever nice? Spill the faerie tea.”

Elara didn’t look up. “I think it best for you to get to know him yourself.”

“I think you don’t want to get caught saying something bad about the Prince,” said Dru. “But fine. What’s the training room like, then? Weapons? Targets? Sparring mats?”

“It is as the Prince wanted it to be. He took instruction on its creation from Janus, who still recalls being a Shadowhunter. And Ash has always been determined to hone his fighting skills.”

Ash, Dru thought. She wondered if Elara really felt comfortable calling the Prince of the Seelie Court by his first name. Maybe it meant she wasn’t afraid of him. Or just that she didn’t respect him. Either way, it was interesting.

“And Prince Ash isn’t worried I’ll try to stab him once I’m in a room full of weapons?” Dru inquired.

Now Elara glanced over her shoulder, black eyes worried. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said. “And besides, surely you know his story? The Unseelie King worked dark magic on Ash when he was young. It gave him the power of commanding loyalty. You will find that you wish to please him, not hurt him. That you wish to do what he says. You must have felt the pull already—it works on everyone save the Queen herself, and the Huntsman.”

She’s right, Dru thought with a jolt. About Ash’s history, not about Dru’s feelings. She knew quite a bit about what the old Unseelie King had done to Ash when he was a child, using the Black Volume of the Dead to endow him with powers that would turn him into a weapon, a monster who could spread destruction with the touch of his hand.

But the King had never been able to realize his full intentions. Ash had been taken to Thule by Annabel Blackthorn before the final steps of the spell could be completed. Dru didn’t know all the steps, though she was sure one of them had required Ash to kill Kieran so he could spill royal blood.

Dru wasn’t sure if the incomplete spell had granted Ash any other powers beyond being able to make people love him and want to do what he asked. (There were the wings, of course, but maybe those were just a part of his odd heritage.) Not that Dru had wished to please Ash when she’d seen him throwing knives at Clary. All she had felt was rage. The overwhelming desire to fight him, hit him. But she didn’t say that aloud.

Remember, Dru thought. Don’t trust anyone here.

They had reached a heavy double door carved with a pattern of butterflies and vines. Elara paused and, with a graceful sweep of her hand, pushed the door open.

Dru stepped into the training room.

—

Kit’s room was in chaos. His drawers were open and clothes, gear, and weapons were scattered around like confetti. He’d never much liked packing, even for the short trips he’d taken with Jem and Tessa: to London, to Paris, to southern Spain so Mina could see the beach. It had been years, but he still associated packing with boxing up and abandoning a previous life and being forced to start over. First, when he’d left his father’s house, and later, when he’d left the Blackthorns.

He never regretted coming to live with Tessa and Jem. But it had been the beginning of a circumscribed life: Being careful where he went, when he went. A life surrounded by wards and warding spells. For the same reason that Ty had come to him today, and not to someone—anyone—else. Because he was the Heir.

He began shoving clothes into a backpack with none of his usual precision. A pair of sneakers, some sweaters in case the weather was cold, his stele, the witchlight rune-stone Ty had given him years ago. He reminded himself to stop by the weapons closet next—that was where he kept the runed gun that had once belonged to James Herondale, Tessa’s first child and the only Shadowhunter who could fire it, until Kit came along. He packed the Herondale dagger Jace had given him, seraph blades, fighting gloves, and a book he’d been reading that told some of the history of Auraline, the First Heir. His ancestor. The reason he was what he was.

The Heir. What a joke.

He knew the story. Long ago, in a world of dancing revels and cruel bargains, a little girl was born of the union of the Unseelie King and the Seelie Queen. They had conceived a child to heal the fractured Courts, but when the child was born a girl, the Unseelie King, who was determined to have a son, was furious. When she became a young woman, he tried to have Auraline killed, but with the help of her nurse, Mother Hawthorn, she escaped into the mortal world. She married a Herondale, and that bloodline—part faerie, part Shadowhunter—had endured down through the generations until it ended with one descendant. Kit.

Kit, heir to a throne that didn’t exist, tasked with a duty—uniting Faerie—that he didn’t want. The result of a failed dream, the inheritor of a birthright no one believed in. The only thing being the Heir had ever brought him was danger to himself and those he loved. That plus the uncomfortable knowledge that for those who knew of his lineage—the Shadowhunters and Downworlders closest to him and his family, and an unclear number of faeries—half thought of him as a threat while the other half thought of him as a savior.

Which made some sense. The Heir was supposed to have a kind of power that lived outside faerie magic, outside what warlocks could do. But for Kit, the only time this supposed power had shown itself was on the Imperishable Fields, in the middle of battle, when something had awakened inside him and allowed him to tear the ancient Riders of Mannan out of the sky. He still remembered the cold fire that had blazed through him when it happened: chilling, destructive, and exhilarating.