Bitter of Tongue
my head in enemy territory! Now I’m a chump.”
    Simon reached out for one of Isabelle’s hands, and after a moment Isabelle let him peel the hand off her face and link her fingers with his. “We can be two chumps in a cage together.”
    “You’re definitely a chump,” Isabelle snapped. “Remember, you’re still a mundane.”
    “How could I forget?”
    “Did it never occur to you that I might be a faerie wearing a strong glamour, sent to deceive you?”
    Do you remember the name of your heart?
    “No,” said Simon. “I’m a chump, but I’m not that much of a chump. I don’t remember everything about our past, but I remember enough. I haven’t learned everything about you now that we have another chance, but I have learned enough. I know you when I see you, Isabelle.”
    Isabelle looked at him for a long moment, and then smiled her lovely defiant smile.
    “We’re two chumps going to a wedding,” she said. “I hope you noticed that I let him think I busted my way into this cage myself. Of course, I secured the key before I ever stepped into the cage.” She pulled the key out of the front of her dress and held it up, glittering in the light of Faerie. “I may be a chump, but I’m not an idiot.”
    She leaped to her feet, her lace skirts swaying around her like a bell, and let them out of the cage. She picked up her weapons and stele from where they were lying in the dirt, and once her weapons were secured, she took Simon’s hand.
    They were only a few steps into the faerie forest when a shadow swooped down and upon them. Isabelle went for her knives, but it was only Mark.
    “You have not escaped yet?” Mark demanded, looking harried. “And you stopped to acquire a paramour?”
    Isabelle stopped dead. She, unlike Simon, recognized him right away. “Mark Blackthorn?” she asked.
    “Isabelle Lightwood,” Mark noted, mimicking her tone of voice.
    “We met earlier,” said Simon. “He helped me get that key.”
    “Oh now,” said Mark, tilting his head in a birdlike movement. “It was no uneven bargain. You gave me some very interesting information about the Shadowhunters, and the great loyalty they have shown one of their own.”
    Isabelle’s back straightened as it did at any challenge, black hair flying like a flag as she took a step toward him. “You have been done a terrible wrong,” she said. “I know you are a true Shadowhunter.”
    Mark took a step back. “Do you?” he asked softly.
    “For what it’s worth, I disagree with the Clave’s decision.”
    “That’s the Clave, isn’t it? I mean, I like Jia Penhallow okay, and it’s not that I  . . . dislike your dad,” Simon, who did not actually like Robert Lightwood, said awkwardly. “But the Clave, basically assholes, am I right? We all know that.”
    Isabelle held her hand out, palm down, and rocked it back and forth in a gesture that said You’ve got a point but I refuse to agree with it out loud.
    Mark laughed. “Yeah,” he said, and he sounded a little more sane, a little more human, as if the laugh had grounded him somehow. There was an accent to his words that made Simon think not faerie but: LA boy. “Basically assholes.”
    There was a rustle in the trees, a rising of the wind. Simon thought he could hear laughter and calling voices, hoofbeats upon the cloud and the currents of the air, the baying of hounds. The sounds of a hunt, the Hunt, the most remorseless hunt in this or any world. Faint, but not far enough away, and coming closer.
    “Come with us,” said Isabelle suddenly. “Whatever price there is to be paid, I will pay it.”
    Mark gave her a look that was equal parts admiring and disdainful. He shook his fair head, leaves quivering and light lancing through the bright locks.
    “What do you think would happen if I did? I would go home  . . . home  . . . and the Wild Hunt would follow me there. Do you imagine I have not dreamed of running home a thousand times? Every time, I see gentle Julian

Similar Books

Hot and Bothered

Serena Bell

Chasing Justice

Danielle Stewart

Ancient of Days

Michael Bishop

the Riders Of High Rock (1993)

Louis - Hopalong 0 L'amour

Night Magic

Lynn Emery