Also by Cassandra Clare

pounding through her veins like a spring torrent. “It’s okay,” she breathed.
Julian caught her and hugged her fiercely, his bitten-nailed hands digging into her shoulders. He
gripped her so tightly she could barely breathe.
Then he let go. He did it as if he was forcing himself, as if he were starving and he was putting
aside the last piece of food he had. But he did it.
“We’d better go,” he said.
Back in her bedroom, Emma showered and changed as quickly as she could. She slid on jeans and
couldn’t help a wince as her T-shirt came down over her head, scraping against the bandages on her
back. She was going to need new ones soon, and probably another iratze.
She headed out, only to discover that the hallway was already occupied.
“Emma,” Mark said, unhitching himself from the wall. His voice sounded tired. “Julian said you
were all right. I—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Mark,” she said.
“It is,” he said. “I trusted Kieran.”
“You trusted him because you loved him.”
He glanced at her, surprised. He looked off-kilter, and not just because of his eyes: It was as if
someone had reached inside him and shaken the roots of his beliefs. She could still hear him
screaming as Iarlath whipped first Julian and then her. “It was that clear?”
“You looked at him like—” Like I look at Julian. “Like you look at someone you love,” she said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize it before. I thought you . . .” Liked Cristina, maybe? Kieran sure seemed
jealous of her. “Liked girls,” she finished. “Teach me to make assumptions.”
“I do,” he said quizzically. “Like girls.”
“Oh,” she said. “You’re bisexual?”
“Last time I checked, that’s what you call it,” he said with a brief look of amusement. “There are no
real words for these things in Faerie, so . . .”
She winced. “Double sorry on the assumptions.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “You are correct about Kieran. He was all I had for a long time.”
“If it makes any difference, he does love you,” said Emma. “I could see it on his face. I don’t think
he expected any of us to be hurt. I think he thought they’d bring you back to Faerie, where you could
be with him. He would never have thought—”
But at that, at the memory of the whip coming down not just on her back but on Julian’s, her throat
closed.
“Emma,” Mark said. “The day that I was taken by the Hunt—the last thing I said to Julian was that
he should stay with you. I thought of you, even when I was gone, as this delicate girl, this little thing
with blond braids. I knew if anything happened to you, even then, Julian would be heartbroken.”
Emma felt her own heart skip a beat, but if Mark meant anything out of the ordinary by
“heartbroken,” it wasn’t evident.
“Today, you protected him,” Mark said. “You took the whipping that was meant for him. It was not
easy to watch what they did to you. I wish it had been me. I wish it a thousand times. But I know why
my brother wanted to protect me. And I am grateful to you for protecting him in turn.”
Emma breathed past the tightness in her throat. “I had to do it.”
“I will always owe you,” Mark said, and his voice was the voice of a prince of Faerie, whose
promises were more than promises. “Anything you want, I will give it to you.”
“That’s quite a promise. You don’t have to—”