Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

For years, since he was twelve years old, Julian had borne alone the knowledge that his uncle Arthur was mad, his mind shattered during his imprisonment in the Seelie Court. He had periods of lucidity, helped by the medicine Malcolm Fade had provided, but they never lasted long.

If the Clave knew the truth, they would have ripped Arthur away from his position as Institute head in moments. It was quite likely he would end up locked in the Basilias, forbidden from leaving or having visitors. In his absence, with no Blackthorn adult to run the Institute, the children would be split up, sent to the Academy in Idris, scattered around the world. Julian’s determination to never let that happen had led to five years of secret keeping, five years of hiding Arthur from the world and the world from Arthur.

Sometimes he wondered if he was doing the right thing for his uncle. But did it matter? Either way, he would protect his brothers and sisters. He would sacrifice Arthur for them if he had to, and if the moral consequences woke him up in the middle of the night sometimes, panicked and gasping, then he’d live with that.

He remembered Kieran’s sharp faerie eyes on him: You have a ruthless heart.

Maybe it was true. Right now Julian’s heart felt dead in his chest, a swollen, beatless lump. Everything seemed to be happening at a slight distance—he even felt as if he were moving more slowly through the world, as if he were pushing his way through water.

Still, it was a relief to have Diana with him. Arthur often mistook Julian for his dead father or grandfather, but Diana was no part of his past, and he seemed to have no choice but to recognize her.

“The medication that Malcolm made for you,” said Diana. “Did he ever speak to you about it? What was in it?”

Arthur shook his head slightly. “The boy doesn’t know?”

Julian knew that meant him. “No,” he said. “Malcolm never spoke of it to me.”

Arthur frowned. “Are there dregs, leftovers, that could be analyzed?”

“I used every drop I could find two weeks ago.” Julian had drugged his uncle with a powerful cocktail of Malcolm’s medicine the last time Jace, Clary, and the Inquisitor had been at the Institute. He hadn’t dared take the chance that Arthur would be anything but steady on his feet and as clearheaded as possible.

Julian was fairly sure Jace and Clary would cover up Arthur’s condition if they knew it. But it was an unfair burden to ask them to bear, and besides—he didn’t trust the Inquisitor, Robert Lightwood. He hadn’t trusted him since the time five years ago when Robert had forced him to endure a brutal trial by Mortal Sword because he hadn’t believed Julian wouldn’t lie.

“You haven’t kept any of it, Arthur?” Diana asked. “Hidden some away?”

Arthur shook his head again. In the dim witchlight, he looked old—much older than he was, his hair salted with gray, his eyes washed out like the ocean in the early morning. His body under his straggling gray robe was skinny, the point of his shoulder bone visible through the material. “I didn’t know Malcolm would turn out to be what he was,” he said. A murderer, a killer, a traitor. “Besides, I depended on the boy.” He cleared his throat. “Julian.”

“I didn’t know about Malcolm either,” Julian said. “The thing is, we’re going to have guests. Centurions.”

“Kentarchs,” murmured Arthur, opening one of his desk drawers as if he meant to search for something inside. “That is what they were called in the Byzantine army. But a centurion was always the pillar of the army. He commanded a hundred men. A centurion could mete out punishment to a Roman citizen that the law usually protected them from. Centurions supersede the law.”

Julian wasn’t sure how much the original Roman centurions and the Centurions of the Scholomance had in common. But he suspected he got his uncle’s point anyway. “Right, so that means we’re going to have to be especially careful. With how you have to be around them. How you’re going to have to act.”

Arthur put his fingers to his temples. “I’m just so tired,” he murmured. “Can we not . . . If we could ask Malcolm for a bit more medicine . . .”

“Malcolm’s dead,” Julian said. His uncle had been told, but it didn’t seem to have quite sunk in. And it was exactly the sort of mistake he couldn’t make around strangers.

“There are mundane drugs,” said Diana, after a moment’s hesitation.

“But the Clave,” Julian said. “The punishment for seeking out mundane medical treatment is—”

“I know what it is,” Diana said, surprisingly sharply. “But we’re desperate.”

“But we’d have no idea about what dosage or what pills. We have no idea how mundanes treat sicknesses like this.”

“I am not ill.” Arthur slammed the drawer of the desk shut. “The faeries shattered my mind. I felt it break. No mundane could understand or treat such a thing.”