Lady Midnight from Mark's POV

Entry Eleven

I stood beside Kieran on the bluff that led down to the sea as he brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a sound that was achingly familiar. Being near Kieran made everything ache with memories, we had shared great sorrow and great joy, and now there was nothing but a wall between us.

"Why?" Kieran asked, not quite looking at me. "Why come with me?"

"Because you require watching," The words stung my tongue. "I could trust you once. I cannot trust you now."

"That is not the truth." Kieran spit. "I know you, Mark. I know when you lie."

"Fine." I knew I should've said "very well" like the Fae do, but that language wasn't with me anymore. "I'll tell you why-"

I was cut off by a flash of white appearing next to us, it was Windspear; Kieran's steed in the Wild Hunt. She was just as wild and feral and beautiful as I remembered her. I touched her neck as I remembered the hundred times she carried both Kieran and I through the night, the familiarity tugged at my skin like fishhooks. Keiran swung onto her back.

"So tell me," He said.

I swung myself up behind him and my arms went automatically around his waist and my hands looped together like they always did. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder. I wanted to put my hands in Kieran's and lace our fingers together. I wanted to feel what I had once felt living among the Hunt, that with Kieran I was safe, that Kieran was someone who would never leave me. I wanted, but I could never have again.

"Because," I finally answered. "I wished to ride with you one last time."

Kieran flinched under my arms, then moved Windspear into a run; he had no answer for me. As the horse rose into the limitless sky I reached back to touch the fresh runes on my shoulder. They felt so, so normal, like they should always be there. Maybe the marks of Heaven did belong on my skin.

Once we arrived at the Convergence we were swarmed by Mantids, but they were easy pickings on the back of Windspear and with Kieran by my side. It didn't take long to empty the surrounding clearing, and for the Institute's car to pull up right next to us. As the passengers unloaded I noticed Julian's eyes shift to my hands that were still wrapped around Kieran's waist. Suddenly feeling very exposed I let go and slid off Windspear.

I pointed to the opening to the outcropping of rocks. "We'd better go in." I tipped my head up to look at Kieran. "You stand guard."

"But I-" He began.

"This is Blackthorn family business." I said in a tone that meant no argument.

Kieran looked a little crestfallen, but he nodded anyway.

Without a word, Emma turned on her heel and led us all into the opening, I brought up the rear and as I went in I spared a glance at Kieran. The high moon formed a halo around his head from his perch on Windspear's back. He looked as if he was apart of the constellations that I had missed so much at the Institute, where smog from the city had blocked out a great number of stars. It had hurt me to leave those stars, and it hurt me to turn away from Kieran, but steeled my heart and followed my family into the darkness.

The battle was a long, bloody and heartbreaking ordeal that is hard to put into words. Our villain, the one they called Malcolm was a monster and deserved the death he was given, but he had done what he did for a reason. He had loved Annabel Lee, Annabel Blackthorn, and she had loved him too. When her family walled her up in a tomb to die because they would rather see her dead than with a warlock like Malcolm something snapped inside him. At one time I knew he had to have been a loving soul, but her death had killed his that part of him and we were just burying the body. That didn't make his story hurt any less though. Thankfully I remember little of the actual fighting, just the tiny chunks that my brain decided to register. Things like Malcolm's followers being sliced down, then knitting themselves back together again until seraph blades severed their heads from their torsos. Sometimes I think my brain hates me.