Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare Read Free Book Online Page B

with whimsical fabric decorated with a pattern of teacups. Bright costume jewelry hung from screens nailed to the wall. Books about computers and programming languages were stacked in careful rows by her bed.
    “Programming languages,” Cristina exclaimed. “Does she like computers?”
    “She and Ty,” said Emma. “Ty likes computers, he likes the way they organize patterns so that he can analyze them, but he’s actually not great at math. Livvy does the math and they tag team.”
    The next room was Ty’s. “Tiberius Nero Blackthorn,” said Emma. “I think his parents may have gone a little overboard with the name. It’s like naming someone Magnificent Bastard.”
    Cristina giggled. Ty’s room was neat, with books lined up not in alphabetical order but by color. Colors that Ty liked the most, like blue and gold and green, were at the front of the room and near the bed. Colors he didn’t like—orange and purple—were relegated to nooks and spaces by the window. It might have looked haphazard to someone else, but Emma knew that Ty was aware of the location of every volume.
    On the bedside table were his most beloved books: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Beside them were a collection of small toys. Julian had made them for Ty years before whenhe found that having something in his hand calmed Ty down and helped him focus. There was a squiggly ball of pipe cleaners, and a black plastic cube made up of clicking parts that could be twisted into different patterns.
    Cristina cast a look at Emma’s wry-fond expression and said, “You’ve talked about Tiberius before. He’s the one who loves animals.”
    Emma nodded. “He’s always outside, bothering lizards and squirrels.” She waved her arm to indicate the desert that spread out behind the Institute—unspoiled land, without houses or human occupation, that stretched to the ridge of mountains that separated the beach from the Valley. “Hopefully he’s having fun in England, collecting tadpoles and frogs and toads-in-the-hole. . . .”
    “That’s a kind of food!”
    “Can’t be,” Emma said, moving down the hall.
    “It’s pudding!” Cristina objected as Emma found the next door and opened it. The room inside was painted almost the exact same blue as the sea and sky outside. During the day it looked as if it were part of them, floating in a blue forever. Murals covered the walls—intricate patterns, and along the whole wall that faced the desert, the outline of a castle wrapped by a high wall of thorns. A prince rode toward it, his head down, his sword broken.
    “ La Bella Durmiente ,” said Cristina. Sleeping Beauty . “But I did not remember it being so sad, or the prince so defeated.” She glanced at Emma. “Is he a sorrowful boy, Julian?”
    “No,” Emma said, only half paying attention. She hadn’t come into Jules’s room since he’d gone. It looked like he hadn’t cleaned up before he left, and there were clothes on the floor, half-done sketches scattered over the desk, even a mug on the nightstand that probably held coffee that had long since molded. “Not depressed or anything like that.”
    “Depressed is not the same as sad,” Cristina observed.
    But Emma didn’t want to think about Julian being sad, not now,not when he was so close to coming home. Now that it was past midnight, he was technically coming home tomorrow. She felt a shiver of excitement and relief.
    “Come on.” She went out of the room and across the hall, Cristina following. Emma put her hand against a closed door. It was wood, like the others, the surface chipped as if no one had cleaned or sanded it in a long time.
    “This was Mark’s room,” she said.
    Every Shadowhunter knew Mark Blackthorn’s name. The half-faerie, half-Shadowhunter boy who had been taken during the Dark War and made a part of the Wild Hunt, the most vicious of the fey. The ones who rode through the sky once a month, preying on humans, visiting the scenes of battle,