Page 31

“By ‘you,’ do you mean Kit?” asked Ty. “And how do we know that this secret entrance hasn’t already been closed?”

“Yes. The order was founded to protect the First Heir. Auraline.” Ragnor spun his empty coffee cup in a circle. “And the way cannot be closed because it does not yet exist. The Order of the Briar provide way stations along a route only the Heir can walk. Once you have walked it, you will be able to enter any part of Faerie you wish. You can enter with the intention of being taken to Dru and Clary, and the door you have created will bring you to them. It’s what this path was designed to allow Auraline to do.”

“Of course I want to help Dru,” said Kit. He felt dizzy, and sick to his stomach. “But Jem and Tessa and Mina—I have to do something. They’re alive, they need me—”

“I can’t tell you what to do,” said Ragnor. “It’s your decision. We have countless Downworlders and Shadowhunters working on these disappearances. But no one has found a single existing way into Faerie that can still be used—and without that, I do not know how we can discover who is responsible for all this.”

Kit put his hands over his eyes. “How can we just—go to Faerie?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I want to find Dru and Clary. Of course I do. But how can we justify only looking for them when it seems like all the Shadowhunters need help? Including my family…”

Silence hung in the air for a moment. “I think you should do what you feel is right,” said Ty, looking down at his hands. “But it’s not a coincidence, Faerie being shut down at the same time that everyone started to disappear. There must be something in Faerie they don’t want us to know about. Not that they have Dru and Clary. It’s something bigger.”

“Understand, Kit,” Ragnor said. “We have many people trying to help the Shadowhunters who have disappeared. In terms of getting into Faerie—and perhaps even discovering why the Shadowhunters have been taken—there is no one who can do it except you. It could help everyone,” he added. “Including Jem and Tessa.”

Kit knew they were right. He knew Jem and Tessa, too, would want him to do this, to use the fact that he was the Heir—an identity that he’d never felt brought him anything positive—to finally do some good. To help as many people as possible, not just the ones closest to him. Even if it hurt.

With his hands still over his eyes, Kit nodded.

Ragnor breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Good.” His damp cloak rustled. “Now, Kit, you shouldn’t go alone. You’ll need help along the way. Ty, if you want to stay with your family, we can find someone else—”

“I have to go,” Ty said immediately. Kit dropped his hands and saw that Ty wore an expression of grim determination. “Dru is my sister. She needs someone who loves her to be looking for her. This is my task, too.”

Kit felt a strange jolt—relief, and something else. It hadn’t occurred to him, he realized, that Ty might not come with him. He’d assumed he would. He felt his muscles tighten. He couldn’t just fall back into old ways, when he and Ty were a team. He’d have to remember to keep his guard up if he didn’t want to get hurt.

“Good,” said Ragnor, looking pleased. “Your train leaves in one hour. I need you to travel like mundanes. No Portals, no Institutes, keep a low profile. Don’t trust anyone but each other.” He pondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “And don’t do drugs. Or listen to loud music.”

Kit raised an eyebrow. “How are those last two things relevant?”

“They just seem like good advice.” Ragnor pushed a battered leather folder across the table. “Go on.”

Kit opened the folder. Inside was a credit card in the mysterious name of Reginald T. Murgatroyd, a map of Amsterdam with two locations circled, and a pair of tickets for the train from London.

“Who’s Reginald Murgatroyd?” Kit demanded. “Did you steal this credit card?”

“It’s one of my aliases,” Ragnor said, as if aliases were something everyone had. “Now pay attention. Here’s the place you’ll stay, and here’s the library.” He indicated the marks on the map. “Go there tomorrow, ask for the Cabalion. And please, try not to die. It would be very inconvenient if you did.”

Though Ty didn’t meet Kit’s gaze directly (as he often didn’t when stressed), it was clear enough what he was thinking, because Kit was thinking it, too. It was an insane plan, almost terrifyingly so. It required them to trust Ragnor completely, and Kit wasn’t sure either of them did. It meant they would be cut off from information, from other Shadowhunters, from news of their families, from everything, for as long as it took for them to find “the path.”

And they were definitely going to do it anyway.

Magnus

Magnus stood in the doorway of the Institute library, looking around the room. No one had noticed his arrival yet and he wanted to take a moment to simply observe his friends—and his husband—before he broke the bad news to them.

In a move that did not surprise Magnus at all, they had set up something of a situation room in the library, having hung a massive corkboard to which various items were pinned: a list of Institutes that had been contacted and those that could not be, a count of available weapons stores, a chart of entrances to Faerie with notes on whether they had been checked to see if they might be working. So far, none were.

The New York Shadowhunters had been up all night working, and most were still in the same clothes they’d worn at Pandemonium. Alec was by the corkboard, talking in a low voice to Jace. Emma and Julian and Thais, at a long table, were studying the illustrations in an old book. Isabelle and Simon leaned together, half asleep, in one of the window embrasures.

They were not the kind of people who wallowed in misery, Magnus knew. Shadowhunters took grief and sorrow and compartmentalized it, pushing it down and down so that they could function, so that they could continue to pursue what they thought of as their sacred duty of protection. Still, he could feel the tension and unhappiness radiating off them and felt terrible that he was about to make it worse.

Alec looked up first, as if sensing Magnus in the doorway. He started to smile at Magnus before hesitating. “What is it?” he said, and Magnus hated the sound of real fear in his voice. “Are the kids all right?”

“No—I mean yes, the kids are fine. I heard from Maryse; everything is good at home. Rafe ate about a pound of gummy bears and has a stomachache.”

Alec narrowed his eyes. “Then why do you have that look on your face?”

By this point, everyone was staring at Magnus. They looked like boxers tensed for a blow. Jace, especially; the pain in his eyes reminded Magnus of Will standing on his doorstep, so long ago, wet with rain, agony plain on his face even before he told Magnus that he had nowhere else to go.

Magnus cleared his throat. “I heard from Hypatia Vex. It’s Jem and Tessa and Kit. The wards are down around Cirenworth. They’re all missing, even Mina. Only Church was left behind.”