“It . . . ,” Kit began, and trailed off as Ty reached over, yanked the zipper on the bag down, and eyed the cache of stolen daggers, boxes, scabbards, candlesticks, and anything else Kit had scavenged revealed in the moonlight. “. . . might be,” Kit concluded. “What’s that got to do with you, anyway? None of it’s yours.”

“I want to solve crimes,” Ty said. “To be a detective. But nobody here cares about that sort of thing.”

“Didn’t you just all catch a murderer?”

“Malcolm sent a note,” Ty said in a withering tone, as if he were disappointed that Malcolm had ruined crime-solving with his confession. “And then he admitted he did it.”

“That does rather narrow down the list of suspects,” Kit said. “Look, if you need me so you can arrest me for fun, I feel I should point out it’s the sort of thing you can only do once.”

“I don’t want to arrest you. I want a partner. Someone who knows about crimes and people who commit them so they can help me.”

A lightbulb went off in Kit’s head. “You want a—wait, you’ve been sleeping outside my room because you want a sort of Watson for your Sherlock Holmes?”

Ty’s eyes lit up. They still moved restlessly around Kit as if he were reading him, examining him, never quite meeting Kit’s own, but that didn’t dim their glow. “You know about them?”

Everyone in the whole world knows about them, Kit almost said, but instead only said, “I’m not going to be anybody’s Watson. I don’t want to solve crimes. I don’t care about crimes. I don’t care if they’re being committed, or not committed—”

“Don’t think of them as crimes. Think of them as mysteries. Besides, what else are you going to do? Run away? And go where?”

“I don’t care—”

“You do, though,” said Ty. “You want to live. Just like everyone else does. You don’t want to be trapped, is all.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes a depthless almost-white in the witchlight glow. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and it was the only illumination.

“How’d you know I was going to run away tonight?”

“Because you were getting used to it here,” said Ty. “You were getting used to us. But the Centurions, you don’t like them. Livvy noticed it first. And after what Zara said today about you going to the Academy—you must feel like you’re not going to have any choices about what you do, after this.”

It was true, surprisingly so. Kit couldn’t find the words to explain how he’d felt at the dinner table. As if becoming a Shadowhunter meant being shoved into a machine that would chew him up and spit out a Centurion.

“I look at them,” he said, “and I think, ‘I can’t possibly be like them, and they can’t stand anyone different.’ ”

“You don’t have to go to the Academy,” said Ty. “You can stay with us as long as you want.”

Kit doubted Ty had the authority to make a promise like that, but he appreciated it regardless. “As long as I help you solve mysteries,” he said. “How often do you have mysteries to solve, or do I have to wait until another warlock goes crazypants?”

Ty leaned against one of the pillars. His hands fluttered at his sides like night butterflies. “Actually, there’s a mystery going on right now.”

Kit was intrigued despite himself. “What is it?”

“I think they’re not here for the reason they claim they are. I think they’re up to something,” Ty said. “And they’re definitely lying to us.”

“Who’s lying?”

Ty’s eyes sparkled. “The Centurions, of course.”

* * *

The next day was blistering hot, one of those rare days when the air seemed to stand still and the proximity of the ocean offered no relief. When Emma arrived, late, for breakfast in the dining room, the rarely used ceiling fans were whirling full speed.

“Was it a sand demon?” Dane Larkspear was asking Cristina. “Akvan and Iblis demons are common in the desert.”

“We know that,” said Julian. “Mark already said it was a sea demon.”

“It slithered off the moment we shone witchlight upon it,” said Mark. “But it left behind a stink of seawater, and wet sand.”

“I can’t believe there aren’t perimeter wards here,” Zara said. “Why has no one ever seen to it? I ought to ask Mr. Blackthorn—”

“The perimeter wards failed to keep out Sebastian Morgenstern,” said Diana. “They weren’t used again after that. Perimeter wards rarely work.”

She sounded as if she were struggling to keep her temper. Emma couldn’t blame her.

Zara looked at her with a sort of superior pity. “Well, with all these sea demons crawling up out of the ocean—which they wouldn’t be doing if Malcolm Fade’s body wasn’t in there somewhere, you know—I think they’re called for. Don’t you?”

There was a murmur of voices: most of the Centurions, except for Diego, Jon, and Rayan, seemed to be in agreement. As they made plans to set the wards up that morning, Emma tried to catch Julian’s eye to share his annoyance, but he was looking away from her, toward Mark and Cristina. “What were you two doing outside last night, anyway?”

“We couldn’t sleep,” Mark said. “We bumped into each other.”

Zara smiled. “Of course you did.” She turned to whisper something into Samantha’s ear. Both girls giggled.

Cristina blushed angrily. Emma saw Julian’s hand tighten on his fork. He laid it down slowly next to his plate.

Emma bit her lip. If Mark and Cristina wanted to date, she’d give them her blessing. She’d stage some kind of breakup with Mark; their “relationship” had already done a lot of what it needed to do. Julian could barely look at her anymore, and that was what she’d wanted—wasn’t it?

He didn’t seem happy about the idea that she and Mark might be over, though. Not even a little bit. If he was even thinking about that. There had been a time when she could always tell what Julian had on his mind. Now, she could read only the surface of his thoughts: His deeper feelings were hidden.

Diego looked from Mark to Cristina and stood up, shoving back his chair. He walked out of the room. After a moment, Emma dropped her napkin onto her plate and followed.

He had stomped all the way to the back door and out into the parking lot before he noticed she was following him—a sure sign he was upset, given Diego’s level of training. He turned to face her, his dark eyes glittering. “Emma,” he said. “I understand you wish to scold me. You have for days. But this is not a good time.”

“And what would be a good time? You want to pencil it into your day planner under Never Going to Happen?” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I thought. Come on.”

She stalked around the side of the Institute, Diego reluctantly following. They reached a spot where a small mound of dirt rose between cacti, familiar to Emma from long experience. “You stand there,” she said, pointing. He gave her a disbelieving look. “So we won’t be seen from the windows,” she explained, and he grouchily did as she’d asked, crossing his arms across his muscular chest.