Page 91

Lust and bloodlust, they’re not so different.

A shriek of laughter split the air. The twins had gotten down from their platform and were engaged in a fistfight at the edge of the lake, rolling around on grass scattered with broken pieces of their stag masks.

Whatever had been in Ash’s eyes vanished. He sighed and said, “I am duty bound to go drag those morons out of the lake. Stay here; I’ll be back.”

Dru nodded, watching him vanish into the crowd. Quite a few of the couples had stopped dancing and were eyeing the fight between the twins with amusement. One of them had managed to get atop the other one and was pummeling him with a bloodied fist. Dru shuddered and turned away.

Stay here, Ash had said, but Dru decided that a liberal interpretation of “here” was fair enough. She left the dancers behind, moving away from the fighting twins and toward the great mirror that had been set up at the edge of the festivities.

Up close, she could see that the frame of the mirror was made of twisted black wood, smooth from polishing in some parts, rough in others. The wood had been carved into intricate whorls and twists, and from the sharp points of the curlicues hung tiny glowing bells. They were dark red.

As she approached, the surface of the mirror seemed to shimmer, like lake water disturbed by rain. She came closer, half expecting to see herself and half expecting the mirror to speak to her, or for her to speak to it. Mirror, mirror. Who’s the fairest?

Dru glanced over her shoulder. Ash was arguing with the twins, who seemed to be smeared with either blood or cherry juice. She almost smiled before turning back.

She froze in shock.

In the mirror’s depths, she saw two pale figures. That was odd. As far as she could tell, the mirror was supposed to show the viewer a version of themselves. That made sense, it was part of the theme of doubles. But these were two people, both tall, neither dressed in faerie raiment, but rather in Shadowhunter gear…

She moved closer. The image in the mirror sharpened and refined. She saw the background first, a dim, inchoate view of hanging velvet fabric and spindly wooden furniture. She thought she could see tarot cards spread on a table.

She saw her brother first. Black hair, wide eyes, his face so familiar that it seemed to cut at her. Ty. He looked too thin, his cheeks hollow, and there were dark circles under his eyes. She felt tears press against the back of her own eyes and fought them away. The pain of missing him, of missing all her siblings, was like a dull throb under her ribs.

He wasn’t alone, at least. With him was Kit. Kit wasn’t as skinny as Ty; in fact he wasn’t skinny at all. He’d grown muscles and looked somehow older than Dru remembered him.

She leaned as close as she could, pressing her hands to the mirror’s surface. She wanted to scream, break the glass so she could cross through to them. She knew, somehow, that they were in the mortal world, that this was really them she was seeing and also that something was wrong. Very wrong. It wasn’t just that Ty looked weary and fragile. There was something else, an energy she couldn’t define.

In the mirror, Ty turned away from Kit, his eyes narrowing as if he’d seen something. Dru stared in disbelief as his gaze met hers. She saw him blink in surprise, saw his mouth move, forming the shape of her name.

Dru?

And the vision was gone, blinked out of existence as if she’d switched off a light. Dru was left standing in the dark: the shadow of the massive wall.

Every thought of staying in the Court because of Clary, or because she needed information from Ash, fled from her mind. She only saw her brother and Kit, together somewhere unfamiliar and—she knew somehow—alone and far from help. She could still feel the danger hanging over them like a weight. The Riders of Mannan, she thought. What else could it be? Did they even know the Riders were after them?

Slowly she backed away from the mirror. The wall rose like a black wave, half hidden by the forest growing between the wall and the lake where the revel was being held. Even in the darkness, she could make out the deep green of the leaves, the thickness of the shadows between the trees.

Go, she thought. Now. Ash wasn’t looking at her. Nobody was. It was the first chance she’d had to flee, and the only one she might ever get. She hated leaving Clary, but if she could get to the wall, maybe she could find a way past it. Climb it, even. Get to Kieran. He could send help for Clary, and Dru could find out about her family, about Kit and Ty…

Dru spun on her heel and ran, plunging into the darkness of the forest without looking behind her.

—

The forest seemed to swallow Dru up. The darkness closed in, and the echoes of laughter and music, the smell of wine and cut grass and lake water fading as she ran. She dodged between trees, her skirt hiked up to her knees, glancing behind her to see if anyone was following.

But she was alone. All she could make out of the revel was the faint light of lanterns, glowing like fireflies in the distance. The silence shocked her—it was as if the trees were made out of cotton, muffling noise. A little bit farther, and the lanterns disappeared like snuffed-out stars; the trees closed in, their growth thickening as she went deeper into the forest. No weapon, no stele, she thought grimly. Without them, she felt as vulnerable as a mundane.

Her clothes didn’t help either. There was a reason that people did not go barging around forests wearing long dresses covered in delicate flower petals. Or delicate, silver-soled shoes. As she ran, she could feel the occasional hard jut of tree roots, jabbing into her feet.

She wondered if this was what it had been like for Snow White, plunging into the dark forest, terrified of the queen’s huntsman. Although in the story there had been no enigmatic prince, with a smile like a blade and eyes that gave nothing away.

She almost wished she could have told Ash she was leaving.

Something in the deep woods howled. Clutching the slender trunk of a smaller tree, Dru looked around, her stomach tight. She had no weapons on her, unless you counted lipstick, which she didn’t.

The howl came again, but fainter. Whatever it was, it was moving in the opposite direction. Dru shoved her damp hair back from her face and started to run again, branches slapping and tearing at her as she pushed further, into the darkest part of the forest.

Somewhere behind her, a horn blew, low and mournful.