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Dru sat back in her chair. “They are born wild, but trained young,” she said. “Humans choose the one they like, and then they perform a bonding ritual. They’re given a magical key to the car, which keeps the car loyal. For a man to steal another man’s car is a grave sin indeed.”

This information was met with serious nods from the twins and Rathna. Dru glanced down the table at Clary, but she was in polite conversation with a faerie gentleman who bore ram’s horns on either side of his head. Probably for the best.

“Tell them, Drusilla,” said Ash, his voice like sleepy honey, “are there those who own more than one car?”

“Only the very wealthy,” said Dru. “It’s scandalous, of course, but the rich find a way. Provided the cars don’t fight with each other.”

Cuan struck the table with the heel of his hand. “When I visit the mortal world, I shall slay a thousand cars!”

“You’ll feel very silly if you do,” said Ash. “Though none of us are going to the mortal world anytime soon. The paths and doorways are closed. There is no way now to pass between Faerie and the mortal world.”

So that was what Janus had meant when he’d said he’d come to get Clary before the ways closed. Her heart dropped. She wondered if Clary knew how very much they were trapped in Faerie and how difficult it would make it for their friends to rescue them.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t, she reassured herself. They’ve overcome much worse.

“Why did the Queen close them?” said Callen. He lowered his voice. “Is this her revenge for the Cold Peace? Cutting off the Nephilim?”

“Be quiet, Callen,” said Rathna. Dru was beginning to get the sense that Ash wasn’t sitting where he was at random: The twins and Rathna were clearly friends, and Ash seemed part of their group. She supposed it made sense—there weren’t that many younger gentry fey at the Court, though she wasn’t sure why. “Anyway, no one’s enforced the Cold Peace since Alec Lightwood became Consul.”

“Well, a bad law is no law, isn’t that the phrase?” said Ash. Dru shivered at the sound of her family motto in his mouth. “Though the Shadowhunters are remarkably good at enforcing bad laws.”

Before Dru could say anything, a sharp note of music pierced through the chatter. From an opening in the wall of the cavern came a green-clad faerie with beetle wings, playing a slim silver flute. The music that rose from it sounded silvery, too: sharp, sweet, powerful.

Behind the flutist came the Huntsman, his mask glowing gold. And beside him was the Queen.

Ty

Ty wanted to close his eyes against the feeling of static in his head. The train station had been bad enough, crammed with so many people, all jostling and kicking and punching to get where they were going. And hearing more than a dozen languages at once was nightmarish. There was no way to pick them apart with so much else going on, so they formed a meaningless cacophony of noise.

Now, locked in the bathroom on the train, Ty hoped it might be better, because he was alone. But the bathroom was small and dirty, which turned his stomach. He didn’t want to touch anything. He yearned for the familiarity of the places he knew, his bedroom at the Scholomance, his bedrooms in London and the Los Angeles Institute.

Moving gingerly so as not to brush against any of the surfaces in the bathroom, Ty reached over his head and pulled up his sweater and shirt. Slowly he turned around until he could see his reflection in the scratched and dented mirror that hung over the sink. As he feared, the scars were still there. They hadn’t gotten any worse, at least, but they hadn’t gotten any better. They looked like two red slashes, awkwardly bisecting each other as they spread across his shoulder blades. He knew why they were there—one had appeared on an afternoon when Livvy had gone to examine the wards around Idris, and another marked the night she had gone to New York. He had planned to go to Magnus to ask how he could fix the wounds. He still remembered what the warlock had said just after Ty had raised Livvy. I can sense the dark magic on you, Ty. It’s like a cloud around you I can see. He’d been angry and upset, but he’d still helped, and Ty thought he always would. But now everything was in chaos and contacting Magnus was out of the question.

The scars didn’t hurt, not really, especially when they had healing salve on them (iratzes did nothing), but he couldn’t reach his own back like that. Anush (who believed the first slash was Irene’s fault) wasn’t here, Livvy didn’t have corporeal hands, and Kit—Kit would be furious if he saw them.

Kit. When he thought about Kit, the static in his head spiked. Not always—he’d been able to hear Kit breathing when he went to sleep a few hours ago, and that had been good. He’d hoped when all this started that being around Livvy and Ty together would help Kit understand that raising her hadn’t been a mistake, that she was still Ty’s sister, that no terrible consequence had fallen on him for raising her, that he’d done the right thing.

He knew it would take time, though. He’d thought Kit was purely angry, but he realized now that there was something else going on. Kit seemed hurt, as if Ty had said or done something cruel to him. But raising Livvy hadn’t had anything to do with Kit. He remembered the ease and pleasure he had always found in Kit’s company. It was different now. There was still pleasure, but anxiety as well, that occasionally sharp scraping feeling as if he were being prodded by a broken zipper. And yet being prodded by a zipper was purely painful, while this feeling was—something else.

He lowered his shirt. The main thing now was to remember not to let Kit see his bare back. But really, how hard could that be?

7

Of All Kingdoms King

Kit dozed on and off until the train pulled into Centraal Station, disgorging him and Ty onto a long gray platform. Voices around them echoed in Dutch and English, mingling with the hiss of train brakes as they found an escalator and rode it down to the ground floor. Here they found a long, snaking tunnel lined with shops and kiosks selling books in a dozen languages, candy, luggage, and cheesy travel postcards. Above the stale smell of cigarette smoke rose the scent of roasting sausages and baking bread. Kit saw Ty wince and wondered if the mix of different smells bothered him the way a mashup of different noises often did.

They stopped to buy sandwiches and pastries—“Might as well,” Kit pointed out. “Ragnor said the library doesn’t open until tomorrow”—before finding their way out of the warm, bustling station into the cool of the night outside. A fine mist softened the edges of everything, making even the tourist kiosks hawking wooden shoes and tulip-shaped refrigerator magnets look less ugly.

To Kit’s surprise, the exterior of the station, in marked contrast to its interior, was beautiful: a massive Gothic structure of redbrick, with turrets and arched, leaded windows. A tangle of trolley lines led away from the station’s front exit and into the city, but Ty, who had stopped to look at his phone, shook his head. “We can walk. The hotel’s only about fifteen minutes away.”

Amsterdam. Kit had never been before. The streets were lively, and as they meandered along the Damrak, he saw Ty slip on his headphones. Kit wondered, as he always had, what kind of music Ty listened to when he wanted to drown out the world. Trolleys chugged past them down the center of the street, and neon signs flashed, advertising kebab shops and cheap hostels. In the window of an electronics store, a television blared the news that part of the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona had collapsed, killing seventy-five people.

Eventually they turned off the larger road into a maze of narrow streets, lined with colorful townhouses, that ran alongside canals the color of nettle leaves. Finally they found their hotel, a narrow townhouse tucked between boutiques, its front stoop twined with ivy. Only a discreet metal sign—Ring Bell for Service—indicated it was anything other than a private home.

Kit rang the bell, and the door popped open. They entered warily. Ty had removed his headphones and was glancing around the tiny lobby with curious eyes. As far as Kit could tell, there was no one there, though there was a small wooden front desk with a piece of white paper laid on it. Ty picked it up, read it, and handed it over to Kit without a word.

If you are friends of Ragnor Fell, then please make your way upstairs. There is one room at the top of the house. You may make use of it as you please. If you are not the friends of Ragnor Fell that I am expecting, it is very likely I will return at some point and kill you.