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Janus sounded only slightly less irritated when he responded. “Some of them needed to be moved out of the way while our plans come to fruition. You know what the Nephilim are like. If we let them run around freely, they’d slow us down.”

Dru felt lightheaded. Moving the Shadowhunters to Idris? Was that the point of Janus’s alliance with the Cohort? Had they let him into the Shadowhunters’ country, given him free run of the place? Had all that fussing and delaying the peace talks simply been meant to string the Shadowhunters along until Janus could act?

“After the ceremony, all Nephilim save a chosen few will be made mundane,” Janus went on. “No more runes. No more angel blood. They’ll survive—some of them will even thrive—but they won’t be Shadowhunters anymore.”

Turn them into mundanes? Dru shoved her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming in anger. At the same time, her mind was racing. Did the Queen know about this plan? Probably; she hated Shadowhunters. But even if you combined the Cohort, the Huntsman, and the Queen, they didn’t have the power to do what Janus was describing. It was insane.

“They must be refined,” Janus said. “As gold is refined, in the crucible. Corruption runs through their bones. Let them be mortals again, as they were before Raziel raised them up.”

“They’ll be mortals with little knowledge of the mortal world,” said Ash. There was a real tension in his voice; Dru could hear it. He seemed almost alarmed, as if he hadn’t heard this sort of talk from Janus before. “They’ll be helpless. And who will rid the world of demons, with them gone?”

“Oh, please,” Janus muttered. “This isn’t about practical concerns, Ash. You want to rescue your little Shadowhunter girlfriend, don’t you?”

Dru felt her eyes widen into saucers.

“Dru is not my girlfriend,” Ash said, without emotion. “I don’t want the mortal world overrun by demons. I’ve seen what happens when you allow darkness and evil to reign unchecked.”

“You’ve changed,” Janus said, sounding darkly amused. “You would not have said that when we first came here.”

“I am not the only one who has changed.”

“I am not Sebastian,” said Janus. “Nor are you. We will not make the mistakes he did.” One of the pairs of boots kicked irritably at the stone floor before swiveling and carrying their owner out of sight.

“At least tell me my role in all this,” Ash said, and there was an edge of desperation in his voice that surprised Dru. She had thought perhaps he felt that he had some control over Janus. Clearly, she’d been wrong. “Before the throne of Faerie is mine. Before I have to rule, when I have never led even a battalion before—”

Janus laughed softly. “Tell you. Tell you what? How to wield power? You know that. It’s in your bones. Power doesn’t ask for consent. It doesn’t earn loyalty. It demands it.”

Janus’s footsteps retreated. A door opened and closed.

Silence. Dru lay curled tightly under the bed, her heart hammering like a piston. Her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. Please no, she thought, as her vision fuzzed at the edges. Not a panic attack. Not now.

“All right, Dru,” Ash said loudly. “You can come out now.”

His voice cut through the almost disembodied feeling that always accompanied her panic attacks, as if she’d left her own body behind, a dying shell.

Her heartbeat slowed. Which was strange: Shouldn’t she be horrified that Ash knew she was there? Making sure the piece of paper she’d snapped up was tucked safely into her pocket, Dru rolled out from under the bed and rose to her feet, facing Ash, who was leaning against the wardrobe, a faintly quizzical look on his face. He was wearing black pants and a dark green shirt, very fitted, especially over the lean muscles of his arms.

“Why are all your shirts so tight?” Dru asked. “Is there some kind of fabric shortage in Faerie?”

Ash ignored this. “I see two options here,” he said. “One, you were sleepwalking, and through a series of inexplicable coincidences ended up under my bed. Two, you came in here to look for something and had to hide when I came in with Janus.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Dru, and saw his eyes narrow. “All those things Janus was saying—about Idris, about him wanting to turn all Shadowhunters into mundanes—is that true?”

“I don’t know the extent of his plans. And,” he added, with a bitterness that surprised Dru, “I suspect he isn’t telling me the whole story. But the part about the Shadowhunters being in Idris—unharmed—is true. I believe that.”

“Unharmed now,” Dru said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice. “But for all of us to become mundanes—”

“It would make me very happy,” Ash said, “if we stopped talking about this right now.”

It took everything Dru had not to demand that he answer her. But she couldn’t shatter the illusion that she was loyal to him. It wouldn’t just be dangerous, it would mean she’d never learn anything from him again.

“Of course.” She spoke as meekly as she could. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

She started toward the door, but Ash was faster, almost a blur as he caught hold of her arm and spun her around. She backed up against the wall, trying not to glare at him. She could grab him back easily enough, probably even spin him around if he wasn’t expecting it, but glumly suspected that would undermine the whole loyalty thing.

Ash planted his hands against the wall on either side of her head, caging her between his arms. “Look at me.”

Dru looked up reluctantly. Partly because she was sure she had dust bunnies in her hair, and partly because his green eyes were like daggers; she would have sworn she could feel their cutting edges. There were shadows under them, though this close up, his skin was perfectly smooth, unmarked by even a freckle. Faerie beauty was so unfair.