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“That one,” she said. “Agility. It’s more interesting than Strength.”

He nodded, setting the book down on the shelf, and held out the stele to her. He said something about Agility, how they’d start there, but Dru was too focused on the stele to even hear him. As her hand closed around it, a jolt of power and familiarity went through her. I need this, she thought, and then, If I could get it to Clary, there’s so much she could do with it. She can create Portals and invent runes that redefine what’s possible—if anyone could open a way back home for us, it would be her.

“I said, we can get started now.” Dru hadn’t noticed Ash move, but he was already in the middle of the room, standing on one of the moss mats. “Or do you and the stele need more time alone?”

That was definitely a joke, or at least sarcasm. It also meant she hadn’t been obedient enough. Dru let her hand fall to her side and approached Ash, schooling her features into a neutral expression.

“Where do you want the rune placed? It’ll fade after you use it; it’s not permanent, but you’ll always have a white mark there. Most of us have hundreds.”

He nodded. “Here’s fine,” he said, and reached for the hem of his shirt. He pulled it up, baring his stomach and the lower part of his chest.

Dru’s steps slowed until she was practically inching her way toward him. He can’t be serious, she thought. He can’t actually want me to draw on his abs. Because he did have abs. She remembered someone telling her that faeries were strong but not muscular. She wished she could go back in time and tell them that this was dangerous misinformation. Ash resembled a Greek statue, a kouros, all pale marble skin and muscles that looked as smooth and hard as sea-washed stone.

He’s hot, Dru thought. No point denying that. He’s also a knife-throwing fuckstick. She wondered how he would react to being called a knife-throwing fuckstick. Probably not well. Even though it was true. It was also true that you could be a hot knife-throwing fuckstick; the attributes didn’t cancel each other out. Let yourself notice he’s hot, she thought, stopping a few inches from him. Then dismiss it. It doesn’t matter. He’s the enemy.

“You’re staring,” he remarked, still holding up his shirt. He looked amused.

“I’m considering rune placement,” Dru said, with great dignity.

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

Dru moved an inch closer to him. She wanted to kick him in the ankle. Instead, she reached out and took hold of his right arm, just above the elbow. It felt hard as driftwood under her touch. Steadying herself, she applied the tip of the rune to a patch of skin just below his rib cage, and started to draw.

She heard air hiss out from between his teeth. She’d wondered if she should warn him that it would hurt. Now she was glad she hadn’t. “You know, some people burst into flames from this,” she said. “Although I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Only mundanes die or turn into Forsaken from runes,” he said calmly. “I’ve done my Shadowhunter history research. I see you haven’t.”

He looked at her, a long, cool, assessing look that made something deep inside her tighten.

Dru glanced away first. “I don’t see why you can’t get Evil Jace to teach you all this,” she said, still drawing.

He grinned. “I think you’ll find he prefers Janus.”

He very definitely sounded amused. It was hard to pin down how Ash really felt about Janus the Huntsman, or how the Huntsman felt about him. Dru said, “Janus grew up using runes. He must remember some of it.”

Ash regarded her calmly. “I know you are aware of Thule,” he said. “Your brother and his friend will have told you about it. There, after Clary’s death, all Shadowhunters fell under Sebastian Morgenstern’s power.”

He spoke Thule Sebastian’s name impersonally, as though they had no blood kinship—which, Dru reminded herself, they technically didn’t. Ash was the son of the Sebastian from her world, not the one from Thule, even if Sebastian had in some way looked after him there.

“They became part of what he was—demonic, no longer the inheritors of angels,” Ash went on. “They lost the ability to bear runes, to draw them, sometimes even to touch them. He hoped the ability would come back when we left Thule, even tried runing himself, but it never worked. In fact, it got worse. Not only can he not bear a rune, he cannot make his stele work—”

“It doesn’t perform?” Dru inquired, straight-faced. “Would you describe his stele as limp and ineffective?”

That odd look passed over Ash’s face again. He looked down at Dru, who quickly returned her attention to finishing the Agility rune. She could feel Ash’s gaze, feel it like a hand brushing the hair away from the nape of her neck.

Dru hid her involuntary shiver by straightening up. She stepped back, eyeing her work. It was a good rune, though it looked a little strange to her. The Agility rune was never anyone’s first rune, and with his body otherwise unmarked, it looked almost like a mundane tattoo, very black against his pale skin.

“You can let go of your shirt,” she said.

He lowered the hem slowly, his eyes still on her. “Janus understands why I want to learn how to fight like a Shadowhunter. But he has asked that I keep the runes on my body where they won’t be seen by the Court. I cannot have a Voyance rune, for instance, since it would be on my hand. Besides, I hardly need it.”

“Would you be punished if the whole Court found out?” Dru asked, trying to make it sound as if she didn’t want him to be.

“Probably not,” he said. “But you might be. Rather unfair, but that’s the nature of the faerie Courts. Shadowhunters have laws, we have whims.”

Dru forced herself to smile. “Very well. Shall we practice? We could spar, now that you have the Agility rune. You can see the difference.”

He nodded, so Dru went to retrieve the sword she’d hung up. When she turned back to Ash, she found that he had drawn a blade as well, and that the blade was familiar. A sword of steel so dark it almost looked black, with a design of stars along the ridge of the blade. Phaesphoros. The sword Sebastian Morgenstern had carried when he lived. He had carried it when he attacked the Institute in Los Angeles, when he kidnapped Mark and turned Dru’s father into an evil zombie.