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In front of an empty fireplace, the Queen was pacing. She wore a robe that made Dru think of an old-fashioned dressing gown. It was ivory silk, strung with seed pearls. Her hair had been twisted into a thick red braid that swung when she turned to glare at Dru, her blue eyes glittering with anger.

“You,” she said, the moment the door closed. “Shadowhunter girl. You know Christopher Herondale, do you not?”

Dru barely noted the Queen’s rudeness; she was too shocked by the question. “You mean Kit?” Dread began to uncoil in her stomach—if the Queen knew about Kit, and was looking for him…that was bad. Very bad. There was no point in lying about knowing him: Plenty of the Fair Folk had seen her with Kit before. Maybe she could play things down a bit. “I know him, but not well. It’s been years since I’ve seen him.”

Unless you count FaceTime, but I’m not explaining that to the Queen of Seelie.

“How many years? For a year is a short time indeed,” said the Queen.

“Not for a mortal.”

The Queen ceased her pacing. Beside Dru, the Huntsman stood utterly still. “Did you know,” said the Queen, her gaze level, “that he is the descendant of Auraline, my daughter, the First Heir of Faerie? And that this makes him the Heir himself?”

“I…” Dru’s mind was racing. She didn’t want to provide the Queen with any information about Kit, but she couldn’t refuse to respond, either. She looked around the room and then at Janus, whose eyes were flat as gold coins. There was no help to be had here. “I heard something like that. It’s why he lives surrounded by so many wards.”

“Well, those wards have come down, though the result of it is not what I hoped,” said the Queen. “Cirenworth Hall lies empty, and Christopher Herondale is missing. He is not with the rest of the Shadowhunters. He is somewhere in the mortal world but my servants are unable to find him.”

Surprised, Dru said, “You can communicate with your servants in the mortal world? I thought all the ways between here and there were closed.”

“The Queen,” said the Huntsman, speaking for the first time since they’d come through the door, “does not require such doorways to commune with those who serve her.”

Dru wondered if this was true—the Huntsman could lie—but there was no way to know. Besides, her mind was still on Kit. Cirenworth empty? What had happened to Jem, Tessa, and Mina? They would never have left Kit given any kind of choice. “I have no idea where he could be,” she said. “He might go to an Institute for help.”

The Queen moved closer to Dru. Up close, her face was eerily perfect, her skin completely smooth, almost textureless, as if she had been carved from a pale, translucent stone. “Is that really what you think he’d do?” she murmured. “The descendant of Auraline belongs in Faerie. He has royal blood, twice over, and therefore a claim upon the united throne of Seelie and Unseelie.”

But you want that throne for Ash, Dru thought, feeling as if her heart were beating inside her stomach. She wondered what happened to people who threw up on the Seelie Queen. Probably nothing good.

“I can have a stele brought to you,” said the Queen. “You could send a fire-message to Christopher Jonathan. Kit, as you call him. Tell him you wish to meet in a particular place, somewhere familiar to you both.”

“But I can’t get to the mortal world to meet him. No one from Faerie can. The doorways are closed.”

“Not every doorway,” said the Queen. “It is within my power to send you to your world so that you might bring Christopher to safety.”

Faerie-speak, Dru thought. They can bring him to safety. That doesn’t mean they will. And beneath that thought, Ash’s words. She is my mother, and a monster.

Kit had a claim on the throne of a united Faerie. Auraline had been the daughter of the Unseelie King and the Seelie Queen. Both royal lineages mixed in his blood, though it was obvious that the Queen was not interested in him as her descendant. That she only regarded him as Ash’s rival, a threat to her control of the High King’s throne.

“Kit isn’t really interested in the throne of Faerie,” Dru said carefully. “He’d rather just be left alone. I know that much.”

“Then it is even more urgent that we find him,” said Janus. “For there are significant forces within Faerie who want nothing more than to see him on the throne. Even if he must be forced to take it.”

The Queen was watching Dru expectantly. She wants me to bait a trap for Kit, Dru thought. Is there any chance she doesn’t intend to harm him? Certainly there’s a chance, but not one I can take on Kit’s behalf.

“No,” she said.

The Queen looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“No. I can’t lie to Kit. I won’t do it.” She had to hold herself back from an apologetic shrug; the Queen didn’t deserve an apology, and would probably see even that small gesture as a weakness.

The Queen smiled dangerously. “As a mortal, you have been given the capacity to lie. The power to lie. Why would you not want to use it?”

“It is because we are able to lie,” Dru said, “that it means something important when we don’t.”

Dru had expected the Queen to erupt in fury. Instead she looked at Dru with a considering gaze, almost as if she were meeting Dru for the first time. “You are not a stupid girl,” said the Queen. “But you are behaving foolishly. I have other ways of finding the Herondale boy; you are merely inconveniencing me. I shall discover him if I have to raise the dead to do it.”

Dru stared. “You would do necromancy? That is not faerie magic—”

“Not with my own hands.” The Queen only looked pleased. “I have allies more powerful than you know. War and death will find the boy regardless of what you do. Consider that well while you endure your punishment.”