Valentine's Arrow

15: Dead Promises

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EMMA

The training room was Emma's favorite room in the Institute. It took up almost an entire level, and both the east and the west walls were clear glass. You could see blue sea nearly everywhere you looked. In the center of the highly polished wood floor stood the Blackthorn family's tutor, a commanding woman named Katerina, currently engaged in teaching knife-throwing to the twins. Livvy was following instructions obligingly as she always did, but Ty was scowling and resistant.

Julian, in his loose light training clothes, was lying on his back near the west window, talking to Mark, who had his head stuck in a book and was doing his best to ignore his younger half-brother.

"Don't you think 'Mark' is kind of a weird name for a Shadowhunter?" Julian was saying as Emma approached. "I mean, if you really think about it. It's confusing. 'Put a Mark on me, Mark.'"

Mark sighed theatrically. At sixteen, he was just enough their senior to find everything Emma and Julian did either annoying or ridiculous. "If it bothers you, you can call me by my full name," he said.

"Mark Antony Blackthorn?" Julian wrinkled his nose. "It takes a long time to say. What if we got attacked by a demon? By the time I was halfway through saying your name, you'd be dead."

"In this situation are you saving my life?" Mark asked. "Getting ahead of yourself, don't you think, pipsqueak?"

Julian opened his mouth to retaliate, and suddenly, the floor under them rocked like the deck of a ship. Emma slid forward just as a terrible screaming rose from downstairs – an unearthly howl that sent shivers running down her back.

Livvy gasped and went for Ty, wrapping her arms around him as if she could encircle and protect his body with her own. Mark had risen to his feet already; Katerina was pale under her coils of dark hair.

"You stay here," she said to Emma and Julian, drawing her sword from the sheath at her waist. "Watch the twins. Mark, come with me."

"No!" Julian said, scrambling to his feet. "Mark-"

"I'll be fine, Jules," Mark said, with a reassuring smile; he already had a dagger in each hand. "Stay with Emma," he said, nodding toward both of them, and then he vanished after Katerina, the door of the training room shutting behind them.

And so, Emma sat quietly with Jules, tense as coiled wire, Cortana gripped tightly in her hand. Seconds turned to minutes. Time passed agonizingly slowly. Jules gripped Ty's shoulders, assuring him that everything would be okay. Ty looked mutinous, and a little afraid.

A terrible howl, feral and vicious, ripped through the Institute. It was impossible to guess what it was - it might have been a werewolf, but no - this was something much darker and bone-chilling. There was silence for a moment, and then the sounds of ripping wood and shattering glass echoed through the Institute, occasionally punctuated by screams and oddly, laughter.

Julian's face paled. He whipped around to look at Emma. "We need to get out of here," he said, and stood up, gripping Livvy's hand. "Emma, get Dru and Tavvy, and meet me in the office. And you two-" he turned to Livvy and Ty standing beside him. "You're going to follow me to the office, alright?"

Emma nodded. Working like a well-oiled machine, the four of them split up - Jules heading for the office, with Ty and Livvy in tow, Emma heading for the upstairs rooms, where Dru and Tavvy would be.

With Tavvy in her arms and Dru clinging to her weapons belt, Emma raced down the halls of the Institute, murmuring over and over that they would be alright, it would be alright. She raced past window after window, the sunlight slashing through in bursts and almost blinding her. She was blinded, by panic and the sun; it was the only explanation for the wrong turn she took next. She turned down a corridor, and instead of finding herself in the hallway that she expected, she found herself standing atop the wide staircase that led down to the foyer and the large double doors that were the building's entrance.