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The music had changed, the dance speeding up. Masked faeries spun by her: a pair of young men dressed as crowned wolves, a couple in porcelain dove masks who stared at her openly. Dru felt dizzied, even as a hand reached out of the crowd and caught hold of hers. She was pulled nearly off her feet, into the dance.

—

By the time Kit and Ty got to the Shadow Market, it was almost ten o’clock.

They’d lingered at the Dohány Street Synagogue longer than they’d meant to—it had taken Ty an uncharacteristically long time to remember the incantation that opened the front door. In the name of the Clave, I ask entry to this holy place. In the name of the Battle That Never Ends, I ask the use of your weapons. And in the name of the Angel Raziel, I ask your blessings on my mission against the darkness.

Kit hadn’t known the words until Ty spoke them. They made him shiver.

Glamoured, they had slipped through the open doors. Inside, the synagogue looked, oddly, a bit like a church, with rows of pews and a great deal of stained glass and gold. They’d found the weapons stash easily enough, behind a door marked with a faint Angelic rune. They took what was easy to carry: seraph blades, shortswords, throwing knives, all tucked through their weapons belts.

They’d left the synagogue to find Livvy waiting for them on the street. Kit wondered why she hadn’t come inside, then wondered if the dead could enter holy places. He suspected it would be rude to ask. She seemed full of energy, swooping and chattering as she led them through the night-darkened streets toward the Central Market Hall at the heart of Budapest.

“Smart to put the Shadow Market there,” she said, hovering beside Ty as he strode along. He’d picked up a round bead at the ruin bar, and was rolling it between his fingers in a continuous loop of motion. “The place is already set up with about a million different stalls. The Downworlders show up after sunset, switch out the contents of a stall for their own items, and that’s it. As long as they put everything back in place before they leave, no issues.”

As they neared the Market Hall itself, Kit heard Jem’s voice in his head. When you approach a new magical location, evaluate it carefully first. Could it be dangerous?

Kit sighed to himself. Unfortunately the answer was that he couldn’t tell anything from the outside of the Hall. It was built from sturdy red brick, probably about a century old. Its towering, pointed rooflines were softened by the arches that ran along the facade and the delicate wrought ironwork around the windows and doors.

“Everything checked out inside?” he asked, turning to Livvy. “Nothing we need to guard against?”

She shook her head, and her hair floated around her face as if it was lighter than the air. “I mean, the normal things you need to worry about at Shadow Markets. Vampires selling illegally spiked blood, faeries trying to pay for things with leaves. But nothing at all that indicates they’re expecting you.”

Ty was looking over the building, his gray eyes ticking from one point to another. “It’s locked up. How do the Market-goers get in?”

Livvy scrunched up her face. “I didn’t notice that. Rats. I went through the wall. You know—”

“Ghost-style,” said Kit.

Livvy looked pleased. “That’s right. Ghost-style.”

“It’s fine.” Ty indicated Kit and Livvy should follow him across the street. The main doors were underneath a neo-Gothic arch, padlocked shut. Ty drew his stele from his sleeve and traced an Open rune on the lock, which sprang apart with a squeak like a mouse. Kit loosened the chains enough to allow them to slip through the front doors, Livvy following, a drifting white sail.

The inside felt massive, strangely bigger than the outside would have indicated. The overhead lights were on, but dim, the booths unoccupied, the wide paths between them empty. The scent of sausages mixed with the vanilla scent of pastry, making Kit’s stomach rumble. He was going to have to eat something that approached real food soon.

Livvy led them down the middle of the market. On either side were booths fronted with glass cases displaying meats and cheeses, fruit candies, bags of red-orange paprika. Hand-scrawled signs in Hungarian were pasted up everywhere, presumably advertising specials. Virsli, Kürtőskalács, Téliszalámi, Szalonna. At the far side of the market was an escalator. Livvy sprang onto a moving step, letting it carry her down into shadow.

Kit and Ty followed. As they descended, the sound of voices grew louder. Darkness gave way to torchlight, and Kit could smell the familiar scents of a Shadow Market: incense, smoke, perfume, herbs. At the foot of the escalator was a faerie with olive-green skin and curling hair to match. She scowled at Kit and Ty as they reached the bottom.

“Nephilim!” she barked, her voice rough and unfriendly. “Haven’t seen any of you around for a while, and demon activity is up.” She squinted at them. “Is that why you’re here? Demons?”

Livvy, floating behind the faerie woman, was making ridiculous faces. Kit tried not to smile. “No,” he said. “We’re just here to see a friend.”

“Dressed like that? Carrying weapons?”

“We have come at the request of Ragnor Fell,” said Ty, firmly.

The faerie eyed them both for a moment, then gave a reluctant nod. “You should have started with that,” she said, and gestured for them to enter the Market.

Kit felt a sense of the familiar surround him as the Market swallowed them. He’d pretty much grown up in the Los Angeles Shadow Market, where his father, Johnny Rook, had a booth. He could remember his father’s voice, low and confidential. Johnny had been a seller of secrets—he’d known something shameful about almost everyone. Sometimes he got paid to tell, and sometimes to stay quiet.

Kit had never missed his father in the exact way people seemed to assume he would; he had never performed his grief in the way that others seemed to sometimes demand it. He’d never wanted to explain his feelings about Johnny, not to anyone. Even with Tessa and Jem, who had always made it clear that if Kit missed his old life they were happy to talk to him about it, he’d never started the conversation. He loved them, but that didn’t mean they could totally understand.

He didn’t miss being Kit Rook, because Rook had only been an alias his father had invented—another lie in the sea of lies Kit had grown up with. He didn’t miss the life he’d had with Johnny, because it had been incredibly, painfully lonely: It had only ever been him and his father, like castaways on an island. In those days, he’d always felt that part of himself, a part denied and lied about but still present, was missing. Being a Shadowhunter had given him that part back.

But sometimes he did miss feeling that things were simpler. He’d grown up without a real sense of belonging, but now he belonged to so many places and people, so many bloodlines and lineages that expected things from him. To his surprise, the Market stirred something in him he hadn’t known he felt. With the memory of his father’s voice came a sort of regret. He had no desire to return to his old life, but that didn’t mean no part of his father lived inside him. It didn’t mean he didn’t remember that his father, as difficult and strange as he’d been, had tried to keep Kit safe in the best way he knew how. Maybe that was all you could do when you loved someone.

Ty was looking around, his shoulders stiff. The way he’d tightened up made Kit suspect he wanted to put his headphones on, drown out the noise. He seemed to be gritting his teeth and getting through it, so Kit let him be and watched the Market.