Also by Cassandra Clare

“Nothing has happened.” Cristina pushed her back gently. “You are tired and weak; you need food
and runes. A whipping like that . . . You can whip someone to death, you know that, Emma?”
“Yes,” Emma whispered. “Will my back be scarred forever?”
“Probably,” Cristina said. “But it won’t be bad—the iratzes closed the wounds quickly. They
couldn’t quite heal them all. There will be marks, but they will be light.” Her eyes were red. “Emma,
why did you do it? Why? You really think your body is so much stronger than Mark’s or Julian’s?”
“No,” Emma said. “I think everyone is strong and weak in different ways. There are things I’m
terrified of that Mark isn’t. Like the ocean. But he’s been tortured enough—what it would have done
to him, I don’t even know. And Julian . . . I felt it when they whipped him. In my body, in my heart. It
was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt, Cristina. I would have done anything to stop it. It was selfish.”
“It was not selfish.” Cristina caught Emma’s hand and squeezed it. “I have thought now for a while
that I would never want a parabatai,” she said. “But I would feel differently, I think, if that parabatai
could have been you.”
I wish you were my parabatai, too, Emma thought, but she couldn’t say it—it felt disloyal to Julian,
despite everything.
Instead she said, “I love you, Cristina,” and squeezed the other girl’s hand back. “But the
investigation—I should go with you—”
“To where? The library? Everyone has been reading and searching all day for more information
about Lady Midnight. We will find something, but we have plenty of people to look at pages.”
“There are other things to do besides look at pages—”
The door opened, and Julian was on the threshold. His eyes widened and for a moment they were
all Emma could see, like blue-green doors to another world.
“Emma.” His voice sounded rough and cracked. He was wearing jeans and a loose white shirt and
beneath it the outline of a bandage, wrapping around his chest, was visible. His eyes were red, his
hair tousled, and there was a faint sprinkling of stubble along his chin and cheeks. Julian never went
without shaving, ever since the first time he’d shown up with stubble and Ty had told him, without
preamble, “I don’t like it.”
“Julian,” Emma said, “are you all ri—”
But Julian had thrown himself across the room. Without seeming to see anything but Emma, he
dropped to his knees and flung his arms around her, burying his face against her stomach.
She reached down with a shaking hand and stroked his curls, raising her eyes in alarm to meet
Cristina’s. But Cristina was already rising to her feet, murmuring that she would tell the others that
Julian was looking after Emma. Emma heard the lock click as she closed the bedroom door behind
her.
“Julian,” Emma murmured, her hand tangling in his hair. He wasn’t moving; he was entirely still.
He breathed in shakily before lifting his head.
“By the Angel, Emma,” he said in a cracked whisper. “Why did you do it?”
She winced, and he was suddenly on his feet. “You need more healing runes,” he said. “Of course,
I’m so stupid, of course you need them.” It was true: She did hurt. Some places ached dully, others
with a sharper pain. Emma breathed in as Diana had taught her—slowly, steadily—as he retrieved his
stele.
He dropped down on the bed beside her. “Hold still,” he said, and put the instrument to her skin.
She felt the pain ebb until it was a dull ache.
“How long—when did you wake up?” Emma asked.
He was in the act of putting his stele back on the table. “If you mean did I see them whip you, no,”