𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘 | 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝

𝟔: 𝐊.

"𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝑰 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒐𝒆."

♛

Dahlia had been given a pair of twin swords, Daisho, they were called. She had them on her gear belt facing upwards. She was thankful she had put her hair in a bun earlier, so her hair wouldn't get in her face if they had to fight Tatiana.

She kept wondering where Chris was. He ought to have been back by now.

"So you think that she would go to Bedford Square?" Anna said as they set off through the darkened streets. James had brought them out of the Institute through a back way and looped around the narrow streets carefully so as to minimize the chance of running into an Enclave patrol. They could not afford to be immediately sent back. "To my parents' house?"

The note of fear in her voice made Dahlia's heartache. Not that Anna would show her fear. She usually lounged like a purring cat, but she was stalking along the streets now like a tiger in the Odisha forests, elegant and deadly.

"Yes," said Jesse. He had armed himself with the Blackthorn sword. It was strapped to his back in a tooled leather sheath and made him look as if he had been a practicing Shadowhunter for years, rather than days. "I can't be absolutely certain, but it is my instinct, after years of knowing her, of listening to her."

"How can you not know—" Anna began, but Ari caught her hand.

"He is being honest, Anna," she said. "That is better than false hope."

"But why?" said Thomas. He shifted his shoulders; the gear jacket he wore was too small, but there had not been one in the weapons room to fit him. "Why Uncle Gabriel's house? Wouldn't she expect to be caught there?"

"Not before—" Jesse broke off, but Thomas could guess at what he had almost said. Not before she kills Alexander. "Not immediately," Jesse said. "I doubt anyone is going to look there first, other than us."

They were on High Holborn; it was quiet at this hour, though no street in London was ever entirely deserted, no matter how late it became. At night, the damp patches on the pavement froze, and their boots crunched on ice as they walked. Hansom cabs rolled by, spraying them with filthy gutter-ice; they tried to stay well back from the curbs, since they were invisible to drivers.

Jesse said, "My mother will want to inflict the most hurt possible. She'll want her revenge symbolic and visible."

"So she's going to bring Alexander to his own house?" Lucie said.

"Everything that happened to me when I was a child," said Jesse, "happened in my own house. That was where my mother gave me to Belial. Where the rune ceremony almost killed me. She spoke often to me of how she had been violated in her own home, my father and grandfather killed on the grounds of the house she grew up in. It will seem, to her, to have a certain awful kind of balance."

"It is not your fault," said Alastair. He was walking beside Thomas. Alastair had not bothered to change into gear, though he wore gauntlets on his hands, and his favorite spears were secured inside his coat. "None of this is your fault. Benedict Lightwood brought down vileness upon his own family, and Tatiana could not accept either his culpability or her own."

"You sound very wise," Thomas said.

"Guilt is one of the most sickening feelings there is," Alastair said. "Most people will do anything to avoid feeling it. I know I—" He took a deep breath. "One can either refuse to accept it, push it away and blame others, or one can take responsibility. One can bear the unbearable weight."