Lady Midnight (59 page)

The warlock’s hands clenched at his sides. He turned and spat
a few words in Greek, and the remaining Followers began to fall, crumpling to the ground. Diego and Cristina dashed over to Dru; Kieran brought Windspear to a halt and the faerie steed stood still as the dead fell dead once again.

Malcolm charged toward the table. Emma ran the length of it, sprang off the end, and landed lightly on the floor. Then she kept running.

She ran toward the rows of chairs that had been set up for the Followers, down the aisle between them, and into the shadows. The faint glow of Cortana gave enough light that she could see a dark corridor between rocks, snaking away into the hill.

She plunged into it. Only the glowing moss on the walls gave any illumination. She thought she could see a glimmer in the distance and pressed on, though running with the heavy candelabra was making her arm ache.

The corridor forked. Hearing footsteps behind her, Emma plunged to the left. She had only been running for a few yards when a glass wall loomed up in front of her.

The porthole. It had grown larger, filling nearly a whole wall. The massive lever Emma remembered protruded from the stone beside it. The porthole glowed from within, like an enormous aquarium.

Behind the glass she could see the ocean—it was radiant, a deep blue-green. She could see fish and drifting seaweed and strange lights and colors beyond the glass.

“Oh, Emma, Emma,” said Malcolm’s voice behind her. “You took the wrong path, didn’t you? But one could say that about so much of your life.”

Emma spun and jabbed the candelabra toward Malcolm. “Get away from me.”

“Do you have any idea how precious those hands are?” he demanded. “For the fullest potency, they had to be severed just
after the murder was performed. Setting up the killings was a feat of skill and daring and timing. You can’t believe how annoyed I was when you took Sterling from me before I could collect his hand. Belinda had to bring me both of them so I could discern which was the murdering instrument. And then Julian calling me for help—a stroke of luck, I have to say.”

“It wasn’t luck. We trusted you.”

“And I trusted Shadowhunters once,” said Malcolm. “We all make mistakes.”
Keep him talking
, she thought.
The others will follow me.

“Johnny Rook said you told him to tell me about the body dump at the Sepulchre,” she said. “Why? Why set me on your trail?”

He moved a step forward. She jabbed the candelabra toward him. He held his hands up as if to placate her. “I needed you distracted. I needed you focused on the victims, not the murderers. Besides, you had to learn about the situation before the faerie convoy arrived on your doorstep.”

“And asked us to investigate the murders you were committing? What did you get out of
that
?”

“I got the absolute promise that the Clave would stay out of it,” said Malcolm. “Individual Shadowhunters don’t frighten me, Emma. But the whole mess of them could be a mess indeed. I’ve known Iarlath a long time. I knew he had connections to the Wild Hunt and I knew the Wild Hunt had something that would make you move Heaven and earth to keep information from the Clave and the Silent Brothers. Nothing against the boy personally; at least his Blackthorn stock is diluted by some good, healthy Downworlder blood. But I know Julian. I knew what he’d prioritize, and it wasn’t the Law or the Clave.”

“You underestimated us,” Emma said. “We figured it out. We realized it was you.”

“I thought they might send a Centurion, but I never guessed
he’d be someone you knew. Trusted enough to take into your confidence despite Mark. When I saw the Rosales boy, I realized I didn’t have much time. I knew I’d have to take Tavvy right away. Thankfully, I had Iarlath’s help, which has been invaluable. Oh,” he added. “I heard about the whipping. I’m very sorry about that. Iarlath has his own ways of having fun, and they aren’t mine.”

“You’re sorry?” Emma stared in disbelief. “You killed my parents, and you’re
apologizing
? I’d rather be whipped a thousand times and have my parents back.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You Shadowhunters all think alike. But I need you to
understand
—” Malcolm broke off, his face working. “If you understood,” he said, “you wouldn’t blame me.”

“Then tell me what happened,” Emma said. She could see the corridor behind him, over his shoulder, thought she could see shapes, shadows in the distance. If she could keep him distracted and the others could attack from behind . . . “You went to Faerie,” she said. “When you found out that Annabel wasn’t an Iron Sister. That she’d been murdered. Is that how you know Iarlath?”

“Despite not being born gentry, he was the right hand of the Unseelie King back then,” said Malcolm. “When I went, I knew the King might have me murdered. They don’t much like warlocks. But I didn’t care. And when the King asked me a favor, I did it. In return, he gave me the rhyme. A spell custom made to raise my Annabel. Blackthorn blood. Blood for blood, that’s what the King said.”

“So why didn’t you just raise her right then? Why wait?”

“Faerie magic and warlock magic are very different,” said Malcolm. “It was like translating something from another language. It took me years to decipher the poem. Then I realized it was telling me to find a book. I almost went out of my mind. Years of translation and all I got was a riddle about a book—” His eyes bored into hers, as if he were willing her to understand. “It was just chance that it was your parents,” he said. “They returned to the
Institute while I was there. But it didn’t work. I did everything the spell book said, and Annabel didn’t stir.”

“My parents—”

“Your love for them wasn’t greater than my love for Annabel,” Malcolm said. “I was trying to make things
fair.
It was never about hurting
you.
I don’t hate the Carstairs. Your parents were sacrifices.”

“Malcolm—”

“They would have sacrificed themselves, wouldn’t they?” he asked reasonably. “For the Clave? For you?”

A rage so great it was numbing washed through Emma. It was all she could do to stay still. “So you waited five years?” She choked out the question. “Why five years?”

“I waited until I thought I’d gotten the spell right,” said Malcolm. “I used the time to learn. To build. I took Annabel’s body from her tomb and moved it to the convergence. I created the Followers of the Guardian. Belinda was the first murderer. I followed the ritual—burned and soaked the body, carved the markings onto it—and I felt Annabel move.” His eyes shone, an unholy blue-violet. “I knew I was bringing her back. After that nothing could have stopped me.”

“But why those markings?” Emma pressed herself back against the wall. The candelabra was heavy; her arm was throbbing. “Why the Unseelie King’s poem?”

“Because it was a message!” Malcolm cried. “Emma, for someone who’s talked so much about revenge, who’s lived it and breathed it, you don’t seem to understand much about it. I needed the Shadowhunters to know. I needed the Blackthorns to know, when the youngest of them lay dead, whose hand had dealt them that blow. When someone has wronged you, it isn’t enough that they suffer. They need to look at your face and know why they suffer. I needed the Clave to decipher that poem and learn exactly who would be their destruction.”

“Destruction?” Emma couldn’t help her incredulous echo. “You’re insane. Killing Tavvy wouldn’t destroy the Nephilim—and none of them who are alive even know about Annabel—”

“And how do you think that feels?” he shouted. “Her name forgotten? Her fate buried? The Shadowhunters turned her into a story. I think several of her kinsmen went mad—they couldn’t bear what they’d done, couldn’t bear the weight of the secret.”

Keep him talking,
Emma thought. “If it was such a secret, how did Poe know? The poem, ‘Annabel Lee’—”

Something flashed across the backs of Malcolm’s eyes, something secretive and dark. “When I heard it, I thought it was a sickening coincidence,” he said. “But it obsessed me. I went to talk to the poet, but he had died. ‘Annabel’ was his last work.” His voice was bleak with memory. “Years went by, and I believed her to be in the Adamant Citadel. It was all that comforted me. That she was alive somewhere. When I found out, I wanted to deny it, but it was the poem that proved the facts of it—Poe had learned the truth from Downworlders, learned it before I did—how Annabel and I had loved as children, how she would have left the Nephilim for me, but her family heard of it and decided death was preferable to life with a warlock. They’d walled her up in a tomb by the Cornwall sea, walled her up alive. Later, when I moved her body, I kept it near the ocean. She always loved the water.”

His breath was coming in sobs now. Emma, unable to move, stared. His grief was as raw and real as if what he were talking about had happened yesterday.

“They told me she’d become an Iron Sister. All of them lied to me—Magnus, Catarina, Ragnor, Tessa—corrupted by Shadowhunters, drawn in by their lies! And I, oblivious, grieving for her, until finally I found out the truth—”

Sudden voices echoed in the hall; Emma heard the sound of running feet. Malcolm snapped his fingers. Violet light shimmered
in the tunnel behind them, its iridescence fading as it grew dimmer and more opaque, solidifying into a wall.

The sound of voices and footsteps vanished. Emma stood inside a sealed cave with Malcolm.

She backed up, clutching the candelabra. “I’ll destroy the hands,” she warned, her heart pounding. “I’ll do it.”

Dark fire sparked at his fingertips. “I could let you go,” he said. “Let you live. Swim away through the ocean like you did before. You could carry my message back for me. My message to the Clave.”

“I don’t need you to let me go.” She was breathing hard. “I’d rather fight.”

His smile was twisted, almost sorrowful. “You and your sword, no matter its history, are no match for a warlock, Emma.”

“What do you want from me?” she demanded, her voice rising, echoing off the walls of the cave. “What do you want, Malcolm?”

“I want you to understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “I want someone to tell the Clave what they’re responsible for, I want them to know the blood on their hands, I want them to know
why.
”

Emma stared at Malcolm, a thin, stretched figure in a stained white jacket, sparks dancing along the edges of his fingertips. He frightened her and made her sad, all at the same time.

“Your why doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “Maybe you did what you did in the name of love. But if you think that makes any difference, you’re no better than the Clave.”

He moved toward her—and Emma flung the candelabra at him. He ducked away and it missed, hitting the rock floor with a clang. The fingers of the severed hands seemed to curl in as if to protect themselves. Emma planted her feet apart, remembering Jace Herondale, years ago in Idris, showing her how to stand so you’d never be knocked down.

She gripped the hilt of Cortana in a two-fisted grip, and this time she remembered Clary Fairchild, and the words she’d said to
Emma in Idris, when Emma had been twelve years old.
Heroes aren’t always the ones who win. They’re the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don’t give up. That’s what makes them heroes.

Emma sprang toward Malcolm, Cortana upraised. He reacted with a second’s delay—flinging his hand toward her, light bursting from his fingers. It sizzled toward her, a streak of gold-and-violet light.

The delay gave her time to duck. She spun and raised Cortana over her head. Magic slid off the blade. She threw herself at Malcolm again and he ducked away, though not before she had slashed open his sleeve, just above the elbow. He barely seemed to notice.

“The death of your parents was necessary,” he said. “I had to see if the book worked.”

“No, you didn’t,” Emma snarled, brandishing Cortana. “You should know better than to try to raise the dead.”

“Because if Julian died, you wouldn’t try to bring him back?” said Malcolm with a delicate rise of his eyebrows, and Emma recoiled as if he’d slapped her. “You wouldn’t bring your mother and father back? Oh, it’s so easy for you, as it is for all Shadowhunters, standing there, making your moral pronouncements, as if you’re better than the rest of us—”

“I am better,” Emma said. “I’m better than you. Because I’m not a murderer, Malcolm.”

To Emma’s shock, Malcolm recoiled—a true recoil of surprise, as if he hadn’t imagined being called a murderer before. Emma lunged, Cortana outstretched. The sword drove into Malcolm’s chest, splitting his blazer—and rammed to a stop, as if she’d stabbed it into a boulder.

She shrieked with pain as what felt like a bolt of electricity went up her arm. She heard Malcolm laugh, and a wave of energy shot from his outstretched fingers, slamming into her body. She was
lifted and hurled backward, magic tearing through her like a bullet ripping a hole through a paper screen. She hit the uneven stone ground on her back, Cortana still gripped in her nerveless hand.

Red pain misted behind her eyelids. Through the fog, she saw Malcolm standing over her. “Oh, that was precious.” He grinned. “That was amazing. That was the hand of God, Emma!” He yanked his blazer open, and Emma saw what Cortana had struck—the Black Volume, tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Cortana dropped from her hand, the metal hitting stone. Wincing, Emma shoved herself up onto her elbows, just as Malcolm bent down and seized the dropped candelabra. He looked at it and then down at her, his grin still slashed across his face.

“Thank you,” he said. “These Hands of Glory would have been very hard to replace. Now, Blackthorn blood, that’ll be easy.”

“Stay away from the Blackthorns,” Emma said, and was horrified to hear the weakness of her own voice. What had the Black Volume done to her? Her chest felt as if something heavy had been rolled onto it, and her arm burned and ached.

“You don’t know anything,” Malcolm snarled. “You don’t know the monsters they are.”

“Have you,” Emma said in a near whisper, “have you always hated them? Julian and the rest?”