“And savaged it was!” Zara cried, her eyes glittering. “Behold the bite marks—the work of kelpies! Perhaps even helped by vampires, or werewolves—”
“Stop it, Zara,” Manuel muttered. No one seemed to have noticed Zara’s ranting, though. There was too much chaos in the crowd. Shadowhunters were cursing and swearing in a dozen different languages. Diana felt a cold despair settle over her.
“This is not all—more Downworlder crimes have come to light in just these past days,” said Horace. “A group of brave Centurions, loyal to their Shadowhunter heritage, discovered an Unseelie prince hiding at the Scholomance.” He turned to Zara and Manuel. “Bring forth the traitors!”
“This is not how we do things,” Diana whispered. “This is not how Shadowhunters comport themselves, nor how we hold our own accountable—”
She broke off before Kadir could reply. Zara and Manuel had disappeared into one of the corridors beside the dais; they returned with Timothy Rockford by their side. Between them marched a line of students familiar to Diana—Diego Rosales, Rayan Maduabuchi, and Divya Joshi.
Their hands were bound behind them, their mouths closed with runes of Quietude, runes that usually only Silent Brothers bore. Diana’s eyes met Diego’s: She saw the raw fear behind them.
“Runes of Quietude,” said Kadir in disgust, as the Hall erupted into screams. “Imagine being treated like this, and silenced—unable to protest.”
Diana bolted to her feet. “What are you doing, Horace? These are just children! Shadowhunter children! It is our job to protect them!”
Horace’s amplified voice made his hiss of annoyance echo through the room. “Yes, they are our children, our hope for the future! And our sympathy toward Downworlders has made them easy prey for deceit. These misguided souls smuggled a faerie ‘prince’ out of the Scholomance after his vicious attack on another one of our most promising young minds.”
The room fell silent. Diana exchanged a bewildered look with Kadir. What was Horace talking about?
Manuel’s eyes flicked to the left. He was smirking. A second later Gladstone appeared, half-carrying a girl in a ragged dress, a Centurion cloak thrown over her shoulders.
It was Samantha Larkspear. Her black hair hung down over her face in strings and her eyes darted back and forth like trapped insects. Her hands were crooked into claws at her sides: She held one out, batting it toward the audience as if she were swatting away flies.
Diana felt as if she might throw up.
Manuel stalked toward her, his hands looped carelessly behind his back. “Samantha Larkspear,” he said. A groan rippled around the crowd as people realized that this was the sister of the dead and maimed boy on the table. “Tell us of Prince Kieran!”
Samantha began to whip her head back and forth, her hair swinging. “No, no! Such terrible pain!” she moaned. “Don’t make me think of Prince Kieran!”
“That poor girl,” Lazlo Balogh announced loudly. “Traumatized by Downworlders.”
Diana could see Diego shaking his head, Rayan trying to speak, but no sound or words coming out. Divya merely stared stonily at Manuel, hatred clear in her every flicker of expression.
“Perhaps you would like to talk to the prisoners,” Manuel suggested to Samantha, his tone like an oily caress. “The ones who let Prince Kieran free?”
Samantha shied away from Diego and the others, her face contorted. “No! Keep them away from me! Don’t let them look at me!”
Diana sank back in her seat. Whatever had happened to Samantha, she knew it was no fault of Kieran’s or the others’, but she could feel the mood of the crowd: stark horror. No one would want to hear a defense of them now.
“My God, what’s he going to do?” she whispered, half to herself. “What’s Horace going to do to Diego and the others?”
“Put them in jail,” said Kadir bleakly. “Make an example of them. They cannot be tried now, while the Mortal Sword is broken. Horace will leave them there to inspire hatred and fear. A symbol to point to whenever his policies are questioned. Look what happened.”
On the dais, Samantha was sobbing. Manuel had taken her into his arms, as if to comfort her, but Diana could see the force with which he held the wailing girl. He was restraining her as the crowd roared for Horace to speak.
Horace stepped forward, his amplified voice carrying over the din as Zara looked on with proud pleasure. “We cannot allow any more young Shadowhunters to suffer and die!” he yelled, and the crowd exploded with agreement.
As if Diego and Divya and Rayan weren’t young Shadowhunters. As if they weren’t suffering.
“We cannot allow our world to be taken from us,” Horace shouted, as Manuel’s fingers bit into Samantha’s shoulders. “We must be strong enough to protect our children and our homeland. The time has come to put Nephilim first!” Horace raised his triumphantly clenched fists. “Who will join me in voting for the registration of all Downworlders?”
The howl of the answering crowd was like a river roaring out of control, sweeping away all of Diana’s hopes.
13
BABYLON
There was only a sliver of moon, but the multicolored stars of Faerie lit the sky like bonfires, illuminating the Queen’s procession as it wound through silent countryside, over green hills and wide fields.
Sometimes they passed through blood-filled rivers, the scarlet fluid splashing up to stain the horses’ legs. Sometimes they passed areas of blight, ghostly moonscapes of gray and black. The Seelie faeries whispered and chittered to each other nervously every time another dead patch of land came into view, but Emma could never make out exactly what they were saying.
By the time they started to hear the noise, Emma was half-asleep on Silvermane’s back. Distant music woke her, and the sound of people crying out. She blinked, half-awake, pulling her hood back into place.
They were approaching a crossroads, the first she’d seen that night. Heavy mist hung over the road, obscuring the path ahead. Clusters of tall trees grew at the X where the roads met, and empty iron cages swung from the branches. Emma shivered. The cages were big enough to hold a human being.
She glanced toward Julian. He sat alert on Widowmaker, his dark hair hidden by the hood of Fergus’s cloak. She could see only a sliver of his skin, like the moon overhead. “Music,” he said in a low voice, drawing his horse up beside hers. “Probably a revel coming up.”
He was right. They passed the crossroads, and the thick mist parted immediately. The music grew louder, pipes and fiddles and sweet flutelike instruments Emma didn’t recognize. The field north of the road was dominated by a massive pavilion draped with silk and hung with the broken-crown banner of the Unseelie King.
Wildly dancing figures surrounded the pavilion. Most seemed naked, or nearly so, dressed in diaphanous rags. It wasn’t much of a dance—they appeared to be mostly writhing together, giggling and splashing in and out of a massive pool of water ringed with silvery rocks. White mist rose off the water, obscuring b
ut not covering a number of half-naked bodies.
Emma blushed, mostly because Julian was there, and looked away. The girls—they had to be sisters—on the bay mare behind her giggled, toying with the ribbons at their throats.
“Prince Oban’s revel,” said one. “It could be no other.”
Her sister looked wistful. “Would that we could go, but the Queen would not approve.”
Emma glanced back toward the revel. She had listened to Mark speak of faerie revels before as if they were more than massive wild parties. They were a way of calling down wild magic, he’d said. They had a terrifying undercurrent, a barely leashed power. Looking out at the field, Emma couldn’t help but feel as if some of the laughing faces she saw were actually screaming in agony.
“Up ahead,” said Julian, snapping her out of her reverie. “It’s the Unseelie Court’s tower.”
Emma looked, and for a moment, a dizzying memory assaulted her: the mural on Julian’s bedroom wall showing a castle surrounded by thorned hedges. Ahead of them a dark gray tower rose out of the hills and shadows. Only the top of the tower was visible. Growing up all around it, their sharp spikes visible even from this distance, was a massive wall of thorns.
* * *
“Well, that’s that,” Helen said in a curiously flat voice. She sat down at the head of the library table. Aline frowned and put her hand on Helen’s back. “They’re gone.”
Dru tried to catch Jaime’s eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. He’d glanced curiously at Kit and Ty and was now fastening up the straps of his pack.
“You can’t go,” she said to him a bit desperately. “You must be so tired—”
“I’m all right.” He still didn’t look at her. Dru felt wretched. She hadn’t meant to lie to Jaime. She’d just never mentioned her age, because she’d been afraid he’d think she was a stupid kid. And then Mark had yelled at him about it.
“No, Dru is right.” Helen smiled with some effort. “Let us at least give you dinner.”
Jaime hesitated. He stood twisting the ties of his pack irresolutely as Kit and Ty pushed past him, and Ty said something about going up on the roof. Kit waved and the two of them slipped out of the library. Back to their private world, Dru thought. Ty would never let her in—he’d never let anyone take Livvy’s place.