She smiled. Her blue T-shirt matched her eyes, and the sunlight found the red and copper threads in her dark brown hair and made them shine. At first Kit had been a little unnerved by how much the Blackthorns all looked like each other--except Ty, of course--but he had to admit, if you had to share family traits, luminous blue-green eyes and wavy dark hair weren't bad ones. The only things he shared with his father were moodiness and a penchant for burglary.
As for his mother--
"Ty!" Livvy called. "Ty, get down from there!"
They had moved far enough away from the house that they were now in real chaparral desert. Kit had only been in the Santa Monica Mountains a few times, on school trips. He remembered drinking in the air, the mix of salt and sagebrush, the soft breathless heat of the desert. Hasty green lizards bloomed like sudden leaves in between the scrub cactus, and disappeared just as quickly. Large rocks were tumbled everywhere--the castoffs of some fast-moving glacier, a million years ago.
"I will when I'm done with this." Ty was busy climbing one of the largest rocks, expertly finding handholds and footholds. He hauled himself up to the top, totally unself-conscious, arms out to keep his balance. He looked as if he were getting ready to launch himself into flight, his hair blowing back like dark wings.
"Is he going to be all right?" Kit asked, watching him climb.
"He's a really good climber," said Livvy. "It used to freak me out when we were younger. He didn't have any kind of realistic sense of when he was in danger or wasn't. I thought he was going to fall off the rocks at Leo Carillo and smash in his head. But Jules went with him everywhere and Diana showed him how, and he learned."
She looked up at her brother and smiled. Ty had raised himself up on the balls of his feet and was looking down at the ocean. Kit could almost imagine him on a desolate plain somewhere, with a black cloak flapping around him like a hero in a fantasy illustration.
Kit took a deep breath. "You didn't really believe what you told Diana," he said to Livvy. She whipped around to stare at him. "About not being worried about Julian and the others."
"Why do you think that?" Her tone was carefully neutral.
"I've been watching you," he said. "All of you."
"I know." She looked up at him with her bright eyes, half-amused. "It's like you've been taking mental notes."
"Habit. My dad taught me everyone in the world was divided into two categories. Those you could trick and cheat and the ones you couldn't. So you observe people. Try to figure out what they're about. How they tick."
"How do we tick?"
"Like a very complicated machine," said Kit. "You're all intertwined--one of you moves a little and that drives the others. And if you move the other way, that directs what they do too. You're more connected than any family I've seen. And you can't tell me you're not worried about Julian and the others--I know you are. I know what you people think about the Fair Folk."
"That they're evil? It's a lot more complicated than that, believe me."
Livvy's blue gaze darted away, toward her brother. Ty was lying down on his back on the rock now, barely visible. "So why would I lie to Diana?"
"Julian lies to protect all of you," said Kit. "If he's not around, then you'll lie to protect the younger ones. Nothing to worry about, Julian and Mark are off to the Unseelie Court, hope they send a postcard, wish we were there."
Livvy seemed poised between irritation and relief--angry that Kit had guessed the truth, relieved there was someone with whom she didn't have to pretend. "Do you think I convinced Diana?" she said finally.
"I think you convinced her you weren't worried," said Kit. "She's still worried. She's probably pulling whatever strings she's got to pull to figure out how to find them."
"We're pretty low on strings here, you might have noticed," Livvy said. "As Institutes go, we're a weird one."
"I don't really have a lot of points of reference. But I believe you."
"So you didn't actually tell me." Livvy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Are we the kind of people you can trick and cheat, or not?"
"Not," said Kit. "But not because you're Shadowhunters. Because you genuinely seem to care about each other more than you care about yourselves. Which makes it hard to convince you to be selfish."
She took a few steps away, reaching out to touch a small red flower blooming on a silvery-green hedge. When she turned back to Kit, her hair was blowing around her face, and her eyes were unnaturally bright. For a moment, he worried she might be about to cry, or yell at him.
"Kiss me," she said.
Kit didn't know where he'd thought the conversation was going, but definitely not there. He just managed not to start coughing. "What?"
"You heard me." She moved back toward him, pacing slowly and deliberately. He tried not to stare at her legs again. "I asked you to kiss me."
"Why?"
She was starting to smile. Behind her, Ty was still balanced on his rock, gazing out to sea. "Haven't you ever kissed anyone before?" she inquired.
"Yes. I'm not sure how that's relevant, though, to you wanting me to kiss you right now, right here."
"Are you sure you're a Herondale? I'm pretty sure a Herondale would lunge at this kind of opportunity." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Is there some reason you don't want to kiss me?"
"For one, you have a terrifying older brother," said Kit.
"I do not have a terrifying older brother."
"That's true," Kit said. "You have two."
"Fine," Livvy said, dropping her arms and turning away. "Fine, if you don't want to--"
Kit caught her shoulder. It was warm under his grasp, the heat of her skin tactile through the thin material of her T-shirt. "I do, though."
To his surprise, he meant it. His world was sliding away from him; he felt as if he were falling toward something, a dark unknown, the ragged edge of unwanted choices. And here was a pretty girl offering him something to cling to, a way to forget, something to catch and hold, even if only for a moment.
The pulse fluttered lightly in her neck as she half-turned her head, her hair brushing his hand. "All right," she said.
"But tell me one thing. Why me? Why do you want to kiss me?"
"I've never kissed anyone," she said in a low voice. "In my whole life. I hardly ever meet anyone. It's us alone, against the whole world, and I don't mind that, I'd do anything for my family, but I feel like I'm missing all the chances I should have. You're my age, and you're a Shadowhunter, and you don't get on my nerves. I don't have that many options."
"You could kiss a Centurion," Kit suggested.
She turned around completely at that, his hand still on her shoulder, her expression indignant.
"Okay, I guess that suggestion was a little out of bounds," he admitted. The urge to kiss her had become overwhelming, so he gave up trying not to, and curved his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Her eyes widened, and then she tilted her head back, her mouth angle
d toward his and their mouths slanted together surprisingly gently.
It was soft and sweet and warm, and she moved into the circle made by his arm, her hands coming to rest at first hesitantly and then with greater purpose on his shoulders. She gripped tightly, pulling him in, his eyes shutting against the blue dazzle of the ocean in the distance. He forgot the ground under his feet, the world around him, everything but the sense of being comforted by someone holding him. Someone caring.
"Livvy. Ty! Kit!"
It was Diana's voice. Kit snapped out of his daze and let Livvy go; she moved away from him looking surprised, one hand rising to touch her lips.
"All of you!" Diana called. "Get back here, now! I need your help!"
"So how was it?" Kit asked. "Okay for your first?"
"Not bad." Livvy lowered her hand. "You really put your back into it. I didn't expect that."
"Herondales don't do perfunctory kisses," said Kit. There was a brief flurry of movement, and Ty was down from the rock he'd climbed, picking his way toward them through the desert scrub.
Livvy gave a short, soft laugh. "I think that's the first time I've heard you call yourself a Herondale."
Ty joined them, his pale oval face unreadable. Kit couldn't tell anything from his expression--whether he'd seen Kit and Livvy kiss or not. Though what reason would he have to care if he had?
"Looks like it's going to be clear tonight," he said. "No clouds coming in."
Livvy said something about better weather for following suspicious Centurions, and she was already moving to walk next to Ty, like she always did. Kit followed after them, hands in the pockets of his jeans, though he could feel the Herondale ring, heavy on his finger, as if he had only now remembered the weight.
*
The Land Under the Hill. The Delightful Plain. The Place Beneath the Wave. The Lands of the Ever-Young.
As the hours wore on, all the names Emma had ever heard for Faerieland ran through her head. Conversation between the four of them had grown quieter and fallen eventually into an exhausted silence; Cristina trudged along beside Emma wordlessly, her pendant glimmering in the moonlight. Mark led the way, checking their path against the stars every short while. In the distance the Thorn Mountains became clearer and closer, rising stark and unforgettable against a sky the color of blackened sapphire.