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“Which would turn anyone into a monster,” Dru said. “And I wonder. I don’t think he was born a monster, like Sebastian. He’s just been raised by people who lied to him, wanted to use him. The Unseelie King. Sebastian in Thule. Janus. The Queen.”

“Annabel,” Clary said quietly.

“He never mentions her,” Dru said, realizing only now what a relief that had been.

“Because he knows she murdered your sister,” said Clary, as if it were obvious. “He knows it would hurt you.”

Dru said nothing. If it was true, it was an oddly uncomfortable thought.

“What does he say about the Queen?” Clary asked, kindly changing the subject.

“He doesn’t think much of her, but he feels tied to Janus—even though he seems to know that the things Janus wants to do aren’t right. And he believes Sebastian was a better person in our world. That he would have made a good father.”

“I gathered that,” Clary said. “Given he was angry enough about Sebastian to throw knives at me.”

“I don’t know how to get him to believe the truth,” said Dru. “I think he’s clinging to the story he’s been told. I think, in a way, he has to.”

Clary looked at her with green eyes the same color as Ash’s. “For a long time, Jace still loved Valentine. It’s not something you can just turn off. He had good memories of him, not just bad ones.”

“Jace got away from Valentine when he was, what, ten years old?” said Dru. “What if he’d had to stay another seven or eight years? What would he have been like then?”

“I don’t know,” Clary said. “Janus does talk to me and I don’t think he always knows what he’s revealing. I get the sense he used to be much closer to Ash, and that what changed was him. Janus. That he might have been…better when he first came here. More human. I don’t know what altered him. But it was something.”

“So he talks to you about Ash?”

“Sometimes. He once said, ‘In the end, only you and I will matter.’ So I asked him about Ash. Wouldn’t Ash matter? And he just said, ‘His will is my will. We are united in purpose.’ He thinks of Ash as an extension of himself. I don’t think he can imagine Ash wanting something other than what he wants himself.”

“Which is what?” Dru said. “No one seems to have any idea what Janus wants. Even if he’s allied himself with the Cohort, the Cohort doesn’t have the kind of power that would let them shut the ways into Faerie—”

“He’s told me before he has other allies, powerful ones. He likes to brag.” Clary made a face. “Maybe the wild fey? But no—the Queen would regard that as a huge betrayal. He wouldn’t risk it.” She looked thoughtful. “There has to be some way to find out who Janus is working with. Believe me, I want to get out of here as much as you do, maybe more. But I’d love it if we could take some information back with us. See what you can get Ash to tell you.”

Dru sighed inwardly. There were those in the world who were great at getting information out of people—Thais with her disarming smile, Julian with his smooth, effortless lying, Emma by simply scaring it out of them. Dru had never thought of it as a skill she had. She was much more likely to piss people off.

But Clary was looking at her hopefully, and Dru felt guilty about not having laid hands on a stele yet.

“All right,” she said, just as Elara opened the door, indicating to Dru with a hand gesture that they were out of time. “I’ll try.”

Jaime

In the end, they had gone to Blackthorn Manor, when Thais had wisely pointed out that if they fled to the ancestral homes of either the Rosales or Pedroso families, they would quickly be found by Manuel.

Besides, Blackthorn Manor was stocked with food. Most of the other houses would have been stripped bare of provisions by the Cohort, but there was a hidden cellar full of canned food at the manor. Dru had confided in Thais that her uncle Arthur had insisted on it, due to his fears of a possible faerie invasion. It didn’t make much sense as far as Jaime was concerned, but in the end, the reason didn’t matter.

“To paranoid Uncle Arthur,” Jaime said, raising a glass of canned peaches. “Long may you be remembered.”

Thais laughed. They were in the dimly lit dining room. One of the first things they’d done—after they found clean clothes to change into—was pull all the drapes closed and check the locks on all the doors. They dragged mattresses into the living room, along with the weapons they’d gathered inside the house. Then, finally, they’d caught a few hours of sleep. Jaime still felt tired, but it was nothing an Energy rune couldn’t fix.

“All right,” said Thais. “We’ve got weapons, we’ve got supplies. You told me you have a ring that might be able to summon Magnus Bane, though we don’t know how the wards will affect it. What’s our next move?”

Jaime took a moment to admire Thais. After everything—her best friend disappearing, the rest of her companions vanishing moments before she followed them, being kidnapped by Manuel—she was still focused on doing what needed to be done. If she was upset, she didn’t show it. She reminded him of himself, which was good, since he was one of his favorite people. “Well, what I’ve been thinking is that when you all disappeared, your group ended up here, in Idris. You were peeled away from the rest of them by Manuel, because…”

“Because he’s a disgusting creep,” said Thais. “And I agree with you. I also think the others are in Idris. I don’t think we should contact Magnus yet—not until we have some real information we can give him.”

“Right,” Jaime said. “The last thing we want to do is lead the Consul or his husband into a trap.”

“Exactly. If the others are here in Idris, that means we can Track them. And since we’re in Blackthorn Manor, it shouldn’t be hard to find something of Julian’s or even Emma’s.”

Indeed, it wasn’t hard. In one of the bedrooms they found an old piece of notepaper with Julian’s handwriting on it. The pencil marks were so faint now that Jaime had to squint to see them. He recognized the lines immediately as those of the oath that bound parabatai together.