“The bodies?” Emma said. “Did the bodies dissolve when they tried to move them, like my parents’ bodies?”

“Emma!” Diana rose to her feet. Her hair was a dark, lovely cloud around her face. “We don’t interfere with what happens to the fey, not anymore. That’s what the Cold Peace means. The Clave hasn’t just suggested we don’t do this. It’s forbidden to interfere with faerie business. If you involve yourself, it could have consequences not just for you but for Julian.”

It was as if Diana had picked up one of the heavy paperweights from the desk and smashed it into Emma’s chest. “Julian?”

“What does he do every year? On the anniversary of the Cold Peace?”

Emma thought of Julian, sitting here, in this office. Year after year, from the time he was twelve and all scraped elbows and torn jeans. He would sit patiently with pen and ink, writing his letter to the Clave, petitioning them to let his sister Helen come home from Wrangel Island.

Wrangel Island was the seat of all the world’s wards, a set of magical spells that had been set up to protect the earth from certain demons a thousand years ago. It was also a tiny ice floe thousands of miles away in the Arctic Sea. When the Cold Peace had been declared, Helen had been sent there; the Clave had said it was in order that she study the wards, but no one believed it was anything other than an exile.

She had been allowed a few trips home since then, including the one to Idris when she had married Aline Penhallow, the daughter of the Consul. But even that powerful connection couldn’t free her. Every year Julian wrote. And every year he was denied.

Diana spoke in a softer voice. “Every year the Clave says no because Helen’s loyalty might be to the Fair Folk. How will it look if they think we’re investigating faerie killings against their orders? How would it affect the chance that they might let her go?”

“Julian would want me to—” Emma started.

“Julian would cut off his hand if you asked him to. That doesn’t mean you should.” Diana rubbed her temples as if they ached. “Revenge isn’t family, Emma. It isn’t a friend, and it’s a cold bedfellow.” She dropped her hand and moved toward the window, glancing back over her shoulder at Emma. “Do you know why I took this job, here at the Institute? And don’t give me a sarcastic answer.”

Emma looked down at the floor. It was made up of alternating blue and white tiles; inside the white tiles were drawings: a rose, a castle, a church spire, an angel wing, a flock of birds, each one different.

“Because you were there in Alicante during the Dark War,” said Emma, a catch in her voice. “You were there when Julian had to—to stop his father. You saw us fight, and you thought we were brave and you wanted to help. That’s what you’ve always said.”

“I had someone when I was younger who helped me become who I really am,” said Diana. Emma’s ears perked. Diana rarely spoke about her life. The Wrayburns had been a famous Shadowhunter family for generations, but Diana was the last. She never talked about her childhood, her family. It was as if her life had started when she’d taken over her father’s weapons shop in Alicante. “I wanted to help you become who you really are.”

“Which is?”

“The best Shadowhunter of your generation,” said Diana. “You train and fight like no one I’ve ever seen. Which is exactly why I don’t want to see you throw your potential away in the pursuit of something that won’t heal your wounds.”

Throw my potential away? Diana didn’t know, didn’t understand. None of her family had died in the Dark War. And Emma’s parents hadn’t died fighting; they’d been murdered, tortured and mutilated. Crying out for her, maybe, in those moments, short or long or endless, between life and death.

There was a sharp knock on the door. It swung open to reveal Cristina. She wore jeans and a sweater and her cheeks were pink, as if she was embarrassed to be interrupting. “The Blackthorns,” she said. “They’ve come home.”

Emma completely forgot whatever she’d been about to say to Diana and spun toward the door. “What? They’re not supposed to get here until tomorrow!”

Cristina shrugged helplessly. “It could be a different huge family that just Portaled into the entryway.”

Emma put her hand to her chest. Cristina was right. She could feel it: That faint pain that had existed behind her ribs ever since Julian had gone had become suddenly both better and worse—less painful, more like a butterfly wildly flapping its wings under her heart.

She darted out of the office, her bare feet slapping against the polished hardwood of the corridor. She hit the stairs and took them two at a time, swinging around the landings. She could hear voices now too. She thought she heard Dru’s high, soft voice raised in a question, and Livvy answering.

And then she was there, on the second-floor gallery overlooking the foyer. The space was lit up as if it were daytime by a myriad of swirling colors, remnants of a vanishing Portal. In the center of the room stood the Blackthorns: Julian towering over the fifteen-year-old twins, Livvy and Ty. Beside them was Drusilla, holding the hand of the youngest, Tavvy. He looked asleep on his feet, his curly head against Dru’s arm, his eyes closed.

“You’re back!” Emma cried.

They all looked up at her. The Blackthorns had always been a family with a strong resemblance to each other: They shared the same wavy dark-brown hair, the color of bitter chocolate, and the same blue-green eyes. Though Ty, with his gray eyes, skinny frame, and tousled black hair, looked as if he’d wandered in from another branch of the family.

Dru and Livvy were smiling, and there was welcome in Ty’s grave nod, but it was Julian who Emma saw. She felt the parabatai rune on her upper arm throb as he looked up at her.

She darted down the stairs. Julian was bending to say something to Dru. Then he turned and took several quick strides toward Emma. He filled up her vision; he was all she could see. Not just Julian as he appeared now, walking toward her across the Angel-patterned floor, but Julian handing her seraph blades he’d named, Julian always giving her the blanket when it was cold in the car, Julian standing opposite her in the Silent City, white and gold fire rising up between them as they said their parabatai vows.

They collided in the middle of the foyer, and she threw her arms around him. “Jules,” she said, but the sound was muffled against his shoulder as he hugged her back. She could hear the parabatai vows in the back of her mind as she breathed in the familiar scent of him: cloves, soap, salt.

Whither thou goest, I will go.

For a moment his arms were so tight around her that she could barely breathe. Then he let her go and stepped back.

Emma nearly unbalanced. She hadn’t expected either quite such a tight hug or such a quick shove away.

He looked different too. Her mind couldn’t quite take it in.

“I thought you were coming tomorrow morning,” Emma said. She tried to catch Julian’s eye, to get him to return her welcoming smile. Instead, he was looking at his brothers and sisters as if counting to make sure they were all there.

“Malcolm showed up early,” he said to her, over his shoulder. “Suddenly appeared in Great-Aunt Marjorie’s kitchen, wearing pajamas. Said he’d forgotten the time difference. She screamed the house down.”