“If they failed, would it really matter?” the voice said. A male voice with a strong Spanish accent. Livvy could see no one, but she could hear the voice as if the speaker stood beside her. “Then we could fight. I’m tired of this. We’ve been sitting around on our asses for months now, eating basic rations and arguing about the pettiest of goals.”

“Shut up, Manuel,” said a voice that Livvy knew. Zara. And now she recognized Manuel’s voice as well. “We have been told to check the wards, and so we will check the wards. Obedience is a virtue in a Shadowhunter. So is patience.”

“Patience!” Manuel said. “Like you’ve ever practiced patience in your life, Zara.”

Livvy could see nothing but the meadow around her, the far white peaks of the mountain range. But she found that she could feel Idris, warded against her, pressing against her consciousness. Though she couldn’t penetrate the wards, apparently she could eavesdrop through them. They must be standing right there, Livvy on one side of the wards and Zara and Manuel on the other.

“I am practicing enormous patience right now in not killing you,” Zara retorted.

“I wish you would,” Manuel said. “Then I wouldn’t have to suffer through another dinner of dandelion greens and half a parsnip garnished with unseasoned pigeon while your father’s cronies bicker about whether we mark the start of this new age by naming ourselves Raziel’s Chosen Angels or the Birthright or the Glorious Front. Why not just call ourselves Super Amazing People Who Did the Right Thing but Now Have Run Out of Coffee and Staples?”

“You think with your stomach,” Zara said.

Manuel ignored this. “Meanwhile, out there, there are Downworlders having baguettes slathered with Brie, and chocolate chip cookies, and vats and vats of coffee. Do you know how awful it is to spy on people who are eating delicious things like chocolate croissants when you don’t even have a cube of sugar? By the Angel, I never thought I would say this, but I miss the food at the Scholomance. What I would give for olive loaf. Olive loaf!”

Livvy thought, I’m dead and I wouldn’t eat olive loaf. But then, I wouldn’t hang out with Zara, either. She could still see nothing of Idris inside the wards, but as she tried to push through again, glittering symbols she did not recognize appeared, hanging in the air.