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New York City, 2000

Every world contains other worlds within it People wander through all the worlds they can find, searching for their homes

Soht their world was the only world there was Little did they know of other worlds as close to their own as a rooh to them, and the Shadowhunters who barred those doors Still less did they know of the Doorld, the coical creatures who shared their world and carved out their own little space therein

Every community needs a heart There had to be a cooods and secrets, to find love and riches There were Shadow Markets, where Doorlders and those with the Sight met, all over the world Usually they were held outside

Even ic was a little different in New York

The abandoned theater on Canal Street had stood since the 1920s, silent witness to but not part of the blaze of activity that was the city Huht passed by its terracotta facade in a hurry about their own affairs If they spared the theater a look, they thought it as dark and still as ever

They could not see the haze of faerie light that turned the gutted aold Brother Zachariah could

He walked, a creature of silence and darkness, through halls with sunshine yellow tiles, panels of gold and red blazing on the ceiling above hi the walls, but for tonight faeries had coaxed flowers and ivy to twine around the the htness to the decayed red curtains still hanging in the arched frames There were lamps with caseo, when he and all the world had been different In one vast echoing theater roo a chandelier that had not worked in years, but tonight warlock ic had enco jewels, aht created a private world that seemed both new and old, and restored the theater to all its forht

If the Market had the power to lend hiht, Brother Zachariah would have taken it

A persistent faerie woman had tried to sell him a love charm four times Zachariah wished such a charm would work on him Creatures as inhuman as he did not sleep, but so like peace It never cah his fingers,

Brother Zachariah did not belong to the Doorld He was a Shadowhunter, and not only a Shadowhunter but one of the cloaked and hooded brotherhood dedicated to arcane secrets and the dead, sworn and runed to silence and withdrawal from any world Even his own kind often feared the Silent Brothers, and Doorlders usually avoided any Shadowhunter, but the Doorlders were used to the presence of this particular Shadowhunter at Markets now Brother Zachariah had been co quest that even he had begun to believe would be fruitless Yet he continued searching Brother Zachariah had little enough, but one thing he did have was time, and he had always tried to be patient

Tonight, though, he had already been disappointed The warlock Ragnor Fell had no word for hiathered over the decades, had attended this Market He was lingering not because he was enjoying this Shadow Market, but because he re Markets once

They had felt like an escape, but Brother Zachariah hardly remembered the wish to escape froed Always in the back of his s aere the voices of his brothers

They were urging him home

Brother Zachariah turned under the glitter of dia his way through the laughing, bargaining crohen he heard a wo his name

"Tell ain ant this Brother Za

chariah The norel in the veins, stick up the butts, and I bet with Silent Brothers it's a whole staff We definitely can't take him out for karaoke"

The wolish, but a boy's voice replied to her in Spanish: "Quiet I see him"

It was a pair of vampires, and as he turned, the boy lifted a hand to attract Zachariah's attention The vampire with his hand up looked fifteen years old atwo Zachariah still looked young too

It was unusual for a strange Doorlder to want his attention

"Brother Zachariah?" asked the boy "I came here to meet you"

The woht want him Helloooo, Brother Mackariah"

Did you? Brother Zachariah asked the boy He felt ould once have been surprise, and noas at least intrigue Can I be of any use to you?

"I certainly hope so," said the vao, second in command of the New York clan, and I dislike useless people"

The woman waved her hand "I'm Lily Chen He's always this way"

Brother Zachariah studied the pair with new interest The woman had hair streaked neon yellow and wore a scarlet qipao that suited her, and despite her own re at her companion's words The boy's hair was curly, his face sweet, and his air disdainful There was a burn scar at the base of his throat, where a cross ht lie

I believe we have a mutual friend, said Brother Zachariah

"I don't think so," said Raphael Santiago "I don't have friends"

"Oh, thank you very much," said the woman at his side

"You, Lily," said Raphael coldly, "are my subordinate" He turned back to Brother Zachariah "I assuue who always has s with Shadowhunters than I approve of"

Zachariah wondered if Lily spoke Mandarin The Silent Brothers, speaking e, but sohts--in the Silent City it was always night--when he could not remember his own name, but he could remember the sound of hisMandarin His betrothed had learned soht he would live to er, but he did not particularly like her companion's attitude

Since you do not appear to care for Shadowhunters, and you have little interest in our mutual connection, Brother Zachariah observed, why approach me?

"I wished to talk to a Shadowhunter," said Raphael

Why not go to your Institute?

Raphael's lips curled back fros in a sneer Nobody sneered like a vampire, and this vampire was particularly adept "My Institute, as you call it, belongs to people who arehow do I put this tactfullybigots and murderers"

A faerie selling ribbons with gla blue and purple banners

The way you put that was not particularly tactful, Brother Zachariah felt bound to point out

"No," said Raphael thoughtfully "I aifted in that arena New York has always been a place of heightened Doorlder activity The lights of this city work on people as if we are all olves howling for an electric moon A warlock tried to destroy the world here once, before my time The leader of ainst round The olves' fatal struggles for leadership are far more frequent in New York than anywhere else The Whitelaws of the New York Institute understood us, and we the Doorlders from the people who now occupy their Institute Of course the Clave did not consult us when they htwoods We do not have any dealings with the New York Institute now"

Raphael's voice was uncoht he should be concerned He had fought in the Uprising when a band of renegade youths rose up against their own leaders, and against peace with the Doorld He had been told the story of Valentine's Circle hunting olves in New York City, and the Whitelaws getting in their way, resulting in a tragedy that even that group of angry Doorlder-hating youths had not intended He had not approved of the Lightwoods and Hodge Starkweather being banished to the New York Institute, but the as that the Lightwoods had settled doith their three children and were truly remorseful for their past actions