Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

It was just a bare latticework of boards now. It looked as if someone had ripped it to pieces with their hands. Jagged bits of wood lay scattered around on the blacktop. A sign dangled crookedly from the top of the stall, printed with the words PART SUPERNATURAL? YOU’RE NOT ALONE. THE FOLLOWERS OF THE GUARDIAN WANT YOU TO SIGN UP FOR THE LOTTERY OF FAVOR! LET LUCK INTO YOUR LIFE!

“The Guardian,” Kit said. “That was Malcolm Fade?”

Julian nodded.

“He was the one who got my father involved in all that stuff with the Followers and the Midnight Theater,” said Kit, his tone almost thoughtful. “It’s Malcolm’s fault he died.”

Julian didn’t say anything. Johnny Rook hadn’t been much of a prize, but he was Kit’s father. You only got one father. And Kit wasn’t wrong.

Kit moved then, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the sign. It clattered to the ground. In the moment before Kit pulled his hand back, wincing, Julian saw a flash of the Shadowhunter in him. If the warlock wasn’t already dead, Julian believed sincerely that Kit would have killed Malcolm.

A small crowd had followed from Hyacinth’s stall, staring. Julian put a hand on Kit’s back, and Kit didn’t move to shake him off.

“Let’s go,” Julian said.

*   *   *

Emma showered carefully—the downside of having your hair long when you were a Shadowhunter was never knowing after a fight if there was ichor in it. Once the back of her neck had been green for a week.

When she came out into her bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a tank top and rubbing her hair dry with a green towel, she found Mark curled up at the foot of her bed, reading a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

He was wearing a pair of cotton pajama bottoms that Emma had bought for three dollars from a vendor on the side of the PCH. He was partial to them as being oddly close in their loose, light material to the sort of trousers he’d worn in Faerie. If it bothered him that they also had a pattern of green shamrocks embroidered with the words GET LUCKY on them, he didn’t show it. He sat up when Emma came in, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and smiled at her.

Mark had a smile that could break your heart. It seemed to take up his whole face and brighten his eyes, firing the blue and gold from inside.

“A strange evening, forsooth,” he said.

“Don’t you forsooth me.” She flopped down on the bed next to him. He wouldn’t sleep on the bed, but he didn’t seem to mind using the mattress as a sort of giant sofa. He set his book down and leaned back against the footboard. “You know my rules about forsoothing in my room. Also the use of the words ‘howbeit,’ ‘welladay,’ and ‘alack.’ ”

“What about ‘zounds’?”

“The punishment for ‘zounds’ is severe,” she told him. “You’ll have to run naked into the ocean in front of the Centurions.”

Mark looked puzzled. “And then?”

She sighed. “Sorry, I forgot. Most of us mind being naked in front of strangers. Take my word for it.”

“Really? You’ve never swum naked in the ocean?”

“That’s kind of a different question, but no, I never have.” She leaned back beside him.

“We should one day,” he said. “All of us.”

“I can’t imagine Perfect Diego ripping off all his clothes and leaping into the water in front of us. Maybe just in front of Cristina. Maybe.”

Mark clambered off the bed and onto the pile of blankets she’d put on the floor for him. “I doubt it. I bet he swims with all his clothes on. Otherwise he’d have to take off his Centurion pin.”

She laughed and he gave her an answering smile, though he looked tired. She sympathized. It wasn’t the normal activities of Shadowhunting that were tiring her out. It was the pretense. Perhaps it made sense that she and Mark could only unwind at night around each other, since there was no one, then, to pretend for.

They were the only times she had relaxed since the day Jem had told her about the parabatai curse, how parabatai who fell in love would go insane and destroy themselves and everyone they loved.

She’d known immediately: She couldn’t let that happen. Not to Julian. Not to his family, who she loved too. She couldn’t have stopped herself loving Julian. It was impossible. So she had to make Julian not love her.

Julian had given her the key himself, only days before. Words, whispered against her skin in a rare moment of vulnerability: He was jealous of Mark. Jealous that Mark could talk to her, flirt with her, easily, while Julian always had to hide what he felt.

Mark was leaning against the footboard beside her now, his eyes half-closed. Crescents of color under his lids, his eyelashes a shade darker than his hair. She remembered asking him to come to her room. I need you to pretend with me that we’re dating. That we’re falling in love.