Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

The library was well illuminated by its rows of green banker’s lamps. Annabel sat at the longest table, the Black Volume in front of her, her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair was long and dark, and half-hid her face, but it wasn’t wet and there wasn’t anything obviously uncanny about her. She looked—ordinary.

He sat down across from her. Magnus must have brought her something to wear from the storage room: She was in a very plain blue dress, a little short in the sleeves. Jules guessed she had been around nineteen when she died, maybe twenty.

“That was quite a trick you pulled,” he said, “with the note in the church. And the demon.”

“I didn’t expect you to burn the church down.” That pronounced accent was back in her voice, the strangeness of a way of speaking long outdated now. “You surprised me.”

“And you’ve surprised me, coming here,” Julian said. “And saying you’d only talk to me. You don’t even like me, I thought.”

“I came because of this.” She drew the folded paper from the book and held it out to him. Her fingers were long, the joints strangely misshapen. He realized he was looking at evidence that her fingers had been broken, more than once, and that the bones had knit back together oddly. The visible remnants of torture. He felt a little sick as he took the letter and opened it.

To: Annabel Blackthorn

Annabel,

You might not know me, but we are related. My name is Tiberius Blackthorn.

My family and I are looking for the Black Volume of the Dead. We know you have it, because my brother Julian saw you take it from Malcolm Fade.

I’m not blaming you. Malcolm Fade is not our friend. He tried to hurt our family, to destroy us if he could. He’s a monster. But the thing is, we need the book now. We need it so that we can save our family. We’re a good family. Youwould like us if you knew us. There’s me—I’m going to be a detective. There is Livvy, my twin, who can fence, and Drusilla, who loves everything scary, and Tavvy, who likes stories read to him. There is Mark, who is part faerie. He’s an excellent cook. There is Helen, who was exiled to guard the wards, but not because she did anything wrong. And Emma, who isn’t strictly a Blackthorn but is like our extra sister anyway.

And there is Jules. You might like him the best. He is the one who takes care of us all. He is the reason we’re all okay and still together. I don’t think he knows we know that, but we do. Sometimes he might tell us what to do or not listen, but he would do anything for any of us. People say we’re unlucky because we don’t have parents. But I think they’re unlucky because they don’t have a brother like mine.

Julian had to stop there. The pressure behind his eyes had built to a shattering intensity. He wanted to put his head down on the table and burst into unmanly, undignified tears—for the boy he had been, scared and terrified and twelve years old, looking at his younger brothers and sisters and thinking, They’re mine now.

For them, their faith in him, their expectation his love would be unconditional, that he wouldn’t need to be told he was loved back because of course he was. Ty thought this about him and probably thought it was obvious. But he had never guessed.

He forced himself to stay silent, to keep his face expressionless. He laid the letter down on the table so that the shaking of his hand was less visible. There was only a little writing left.