Lady Midnight from Mark's POV

Entry Nine

Sleep was out of my reach tonight, like it was most nights, but that didn't really matter because I couldn't help but watch the sun rise. It came up slow over mountains that looked as if they had been cut out of dark paper, sharp and distinct in the lightening sky. For just a moment I imagined I could reach out and touch them, that I could simply fly out the window and brush the highest peaks.

Then the moment passed and I could see the distance between myself and the mountains. Ever since I returned to the Institute I had these moments when it was almost like I was struggling to see through a glamour. Most of the time I could see the Institute for what it was, but there were times when all I could see was a bare sky and the fires of the Wild Hunt burning in the distance. Sometimes I would turn to speak to Kieran only to discover that he wasn't by my side, this happened the most in the early mornings when I was fresh out of dreams and barely in the waking world. I would roll over to say good morning and a jolt of panic would sear through me when he wasn't there, until my brain reminded me I was in the Institute. Speaking of Kieran, he was supposed to visit me the night I watched the children in the kitchen, yet he never turned up. Not even a note in an acorn to tell me he was alright. I knew it was irrational to worry about Kieran, but that didn't quell the anxiety building inside me.

I turned away from the window just as the sound rung out over empty sky, my hearing had been sharpened due to year with the hunt so I knew that no one else could've possibly heard it, but that didn't stop me from hearing it and stopping dead in tracks. It was a single, piercing note, the sound of Gwyn's horn: sharp and harsh, as lonely as the mountains themselves. My blood ran cold, it wasn't a greeting or even a call to the Hunt. It was the note Gwyn blew when they searched out a deserter, it was the sound of betrayal. It was a sound that he meant for me.

I moved with stumbling speed down the stairs, stuffing my feet into shoes and praying to whatever god would listen that this wasn't what I thought it was. They couldn't be here to take me back, not yet.

When I made it the stone steps I realized I was late, Emma and Julian were already staring down the three Faeries on horses that were waiting for me. I glanced across the faces of the Faeries, in front of me was Gwyn, the leader of the Wild Hunt, Iarlath of the Unseelie Court, and... Kieran?

"I'm here." I tried to stand tall, but I felt so young in front of them, so un-Fae. "But my time isn't up. We're still trying to find out what is going on, and we're nearly there. The deadline-"

"Deadline?" Kieran echoed. "Listen to yourself. You sound like one of them."

I didn't understand his malice, he couldn't expect me to be unchanged after my time among pureblood humans. "But Kieran-"

"Mark Blackthorn," said Iarlath, his tone like I always knew it; ice cold. "You stand accused of sharing secrets of Faerie with a Shadowhunter, despite being forbidden to do so."

My hands were shaking at my sides and I laced them together behind my back to hide them from the Faeries. " I don't know what you mean, I haven't told my family anything forbidden."

"Not your family." Kieran had an ugly sneer in his voice. "Her."

Cristina. He meant Cristina. My world began to crumble around me.

"You didn't expect us to leave you unobserved, did you, Mark?" Kieran said. His black and silver eyes were shining like daggers. "I was outside the window when I heard you speaking with her. You told her how Gwyn could be deprived of his powers."

I paled. "I didn't-"

"There is no point lying." Iarlath smiled and his mouth looked like a sickle. "Kieran cannot lie, he is a Faerie, it is against our very life to speak untruths. You know that. If he says he overheard this, then he did."