city of heavenly fire - cassandra clare

16THE TERRORS OF THE EARTHNight had fallen over Alicante, and the stars shone down like bright sentinels, making thedemon towers, and the water in the canals—half ice now—shimmer. Emma sat on the windowsill ofthe twins’ bedroom and looked out over the city.Emma had always thought she would come to Alicante for the first time with her parents, that hermother would show her the places she had known growing up, the now-closed Academy where hermother had gone to school, her grandparents’ house. That her father would show her the monument tothe Carstairs family he always spoke of proudly. She’d never imagined she would first look on thedemon towers of Alicante with her heart so swelled up with grief that sometimes it felt like it waschoking her.Moonlight spilled in through the attic windows, illuminating the twins. Tiberius had spent the dayin a vicious tantrum, kicking the bars of the baby’s crib when he was told he couldn’t leave the house,shrieking for Mark when Julian tried to calm him down, and finally smashing his fist through a glassjewelry box. He was too young for healing runes, so Livvy had wrapped her arms around him to keephim still while Julian picked the glass out of his younger brother’s bloody hand with tweezers, andthen carefully bandaged it.Ty had collapsed into bed finally, though he hadn’t slept until Livvy, as calm as always, had laindown beside him and put her hand over his bandaged one. He was asleep now, head on the pillow,turned toward his sister. It was only when Ty was sleeping that you could see how uncommonlybeautiful a child he was, with his head of dark Botticelli curls and delicate features, anger anddespair smoothed away by exhaustion.Despair, Emma thought. It was the right word, for the loneliness in Tavvy’s screaming, for theemptiness at the heart of Ty’s anger and Livvy’s eerie calm. No one who was ten should feel despair,but she supposed there was no other way to describe the words that pulsed through her blood whenshe thought of her parents, every heartbeat a mournful litany: Gone, gone, gone.“Hey.” Emma looked up at the sound of a quiet voice from the doorway, and saw Julian standing atthe entrance to the room. His own dark curls, shades lighter than Ty’s black, were tousled, and hisface was pale and tired in the moonlight. He looked skinny, thin wrists protruding from the cuffs ofhis sweater. He was holding something furry in his hand. “Are they . . .”Emma nodded. “Asleep. Yeah.”Julian stared at the twins’ bed. Up close Emma could see Ty’s bloody handprints on Jules’s shirt;he hadn’t had time to change his clothes. He was clutching a large stuffed bee that Helen had retrievedfrom the Institute when the Clave had gone back to search the place. It had been Tiberius’s for as longas Emma could remember. Ty had been screaming for it before he’d fallen asleep. Julian crossed theroom and bent down to tuck it against his little brother’s chest, then paused to gently untangle one ofTy’s curls before he drew back.Emma took his hand as he moved it, and he let her. His skin was cold, as if he’d been leaning out