I Am Ruined (TDA Lord of Shadows Sequel)

[ III ] Secrecy is a Poison

The swirling colors of the portal vanished, taking Jace and Clary along with it. After they had explained what happened, they said they needed to go back to New York and finish their mission. They promised to come back once they got what they needed but Emma found herself missing Clary already. With their surprise visit over, it was back to reality; they had to unpack and come up with a new plan. Not only did their plan not work before, but now things were worse. Disheartened, the Blackthorns and company headed off in different directions. Julian nodded at Emma and she knew to follow him, making their way upstairs and through the hall. Emma watched him, waiting for him to say something, anything, but he remained silent until he reached the library door, twisting the knob and pulling her in with him before shutting the door behind her.

"Emma we need-" Julian started his hands on her shoulders but stopped abruptly when he saw that they were not the only ones in the room. Kit and Ty were standing by the bookshelf and whipped around, looking suspiciously still and wide-eyed. "Ty, Kit, what are you doing?" His voice was laced with the parental tone it often had when he found his siblings breaking rules.

Ty opened his mouth to say something, but Kit just punched him in the shoulder lightheartedly and joked, "Oh you know, Ty here was just showing me some of his favorite books. I never did much reading before I came to the Institute." Ty glared at him sideways, rubbing his shoulder ruefully.

Julian met his gaze and raised an eyebrow, "And his favorite books include the 'Care and Keeping of the American Kitchen?'" Kit clicked his tongue and he could practically feel Ty roll his eyes next to him. "You know what? I don't want to know. Can me and my parabatai talk for a minute?"

"Yeah, yeah of course." They were already making their way out the door as Ty answered but just before the door shut behind him, Julian and Emma could hear Kit's exclamation of surprise as he supposed Ty hit him, Ty's voice quietly carrying through before the door latched, "You have the Herondale charisma, you couldn't lie any better than that?!"

The rest of their words faded into the air and Julian moved to grab a book from the shelf. The Law of the Nephilim. Emma knew this book, massive and bound in red leather. She and Julian had read it over and over again in one particular section – the Parabatai Law. Although she wasn't sure why he was getting it out now; they knew why the parabatai law was there now, what else could they get from it? Only he didn't open it to that familiar place,  instead he flipped the worn pages to another section – Exile. She swallowed to break the constriction in her chest at the thought of it again.

"Julian, why are we reading this?" She could hear how small her voice sounded and cleared her throat.

Brown waves fell down over his brow as he bent over the book and paged through the chapter, "We know that we had a plan. A way to allow you to keep your Nephilim abilities somewhat and then we could fix it. I want to find a way to do that again. Robert was understanding, Lucien may not be. I don't trust him, so we need to do research on Lucien Highsmith and the terms of Exile. See if we want to try this again or not."

"But Magnus knows." She had joined him in poring over the book, their fingers brushing slightly on the table. But even the light brush of his skin couldn't evade her senses. "If we don't come clean again, we don't know what he may do. I trust him, but I also know he will do what he thinks is protecting us, and if he knows about the curse he would find a way to stop it so we didn't end up killing ourselves or others."

Their voices were near whispers but Julian turned to her and brushed a pale gold strand behind her ear, the warmth of his skin calming her. "It will be okay. I promise. But we can't tell anyone about this, research it when you can but keep it secret." Emma nodded and pecked him gently on the cheek.

"I just hate lying to everyone." She sounded exasperated. Tired of hiding, tired of running around and tired of denying the one thing her heart wanted her to truly accept.

Julian's blue green eyes were as restless as the ocean as he looked at her, "I know."

***

"Hey, I'm a new Herondale, they don't have a manual or anything. I panicked and couldn't think of anything else to say!" Kit mused, now rubbing his own shoulder soothingly after Ty had punched him for being a terrible liar. Which, to be fair, was probably well deserved. Kit had been so good at sensing other people's lies and trickery, but he was never good at it himself. Especially looking at Julian, he was intimidated by him and his finesse in the art of persuasion and deception. They were walking down the hall when something struck him as odd. "Hey, Ty?"

"Hm?" He mumbled as a notion to continue.

"Do you think it was weird that Julian stopped talking when he noticed we were there and wouldn't talk if we were in the room?" Kit had stopped halfway down the hall now, looking back over his shoulder at the library door.

Ty simply shrugged and continued walking, "I don't know. I don't have a parabatai, I don't know what sort of things they need to talk about.

The words were like a subtle blow to Kit, knowing that Ty was thinking about how Livvy would never be his parabatai now. Pushing aside the ache of grief, he continued, "Yeah. But with everything going on here, especially after they went to the Faerie realms without telling us, I feel like they're hiding something."

At this, Ty did stop and turn back towards the young Herondale, "Hiding what?"

"Let's go find out." His blue eyes were burning with curiosity as he walked to Ty and pulled the Stele out of his belt. "I know there is a rune for super hearing-"

Ty rolled his eyes, "I mean we don't call it super hearing-"

"Yeah, whatever. It's super hearing." As much as he might have tried, Ty couldn't hide his small smile but Kit continued anyways, "Draw it on both of us, we can listen."

Ty hesitated for a moment but he finally took his stele back from Kit's hand and precisely traced the rune of Kit's forearm and then his own. After a second, Kit's ears felt like they were filling with air, the pressure weighing down on his head until there was a pop and everything was sharp and clear. He focused his thoughts on sounds in the library and one look at Ty showed he was doing the same thing.

Julian's voice was the one he heard first, speaking very quietly. Almost breathily, as if he was trying to whisper. "It will be okay. I promise. But we can't tell anyone about this, research it when you can but keep it secret."

"I just hate lying to everyone." It was Emma's voice this time, void of the normal cheer and sarcasm that Kit had become accustomed to.

Julian's voice was rough and quiet, and he could barely make out the words, "I know."

"You're right." This time it was Ty's voice, quietly coming from right next to him, "They're lying to us. Why don't they trust us with missions? I am almost 16 years old, Jace and Clary were about to save the world by this age."

"Do you think it has something to do with Faerie? They said research- maybe they're trying to go back or find something to help them go back and fight alone."

"Or maybe they already have found something and don't know what it does-" Kit's voice was cut off by the sound of the library doorknob twisting and clicking open further down the hallway. Ty grabbed Kit by the arm and pulled him in an alcove to stay out of sight. Although they didn't know exactly what Emma and Julian were talking about, they were sure they wouldn't have appreciated the fact that they were listening.

Ty had pushed him against a wall and put a hand over Kit's mouth as they stood and waited to hear the footsteps disappear down the other end of the hall. It brought a memory to the surface in Kit's mind- a beautiful boy with grey eyes holding a knife to his throat in his basement. Only this time, he entirely trusted the dark haired boy in front of him. When he finally removed his hand from Kit's mouth and stepped back, he regained his composure, "How did you know they were going to go the other way?"

Without inflection Ty shrugged and said, "I didn't."

Kit couldn't help it, he laughed, his grin spreading wide as she shook his head, "Some Sherlock and Watson we are."