Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

Divya and Rayan were the only people Diego had told about Kieran, mostly because they were the only people currently at the Scholomance that he trusted. There was only one professor in residence—Professor Gladstone, who was currently in Idris for the Inquisitor’s funeral. Besides, while there’d been a time that Diego would have trusted a professor without a second thought, that time was past.

“Have you heard anything from Idris?” said Kieran, looking down at his book.

“You mean Mark,” said Diego, “and I haven’t heard anything from him. I am not his favorite person.”

Kieran glanced up. “Are you anyone’s?” Somehow he managed to ask it as if it weren’t an insulting question, but something he merely wished to know.

Diego, who sometimes wondered the same thing himself, didn’t answer.

“I thought you might have heard from Cristina.” Kieran closed the book, marking his place with his finger. “About whether she is all right, and Mark—I thought the funerals were today.”

“They were,” Diego said. He also thought he might have heard from Cristina; he knew she’d been fond of Livia Blackthorn. “But funerals for us are very busy times. There is a great deal of ceremony, and a lot of people who visit and express condolences. She might not have much time.”

Kieran looked pained. “That seems as if it would be annoying. In Faerie we know to leave those who are grieving to themselves.”

“It’s annoying, but also not,” Diego said. He thought of the death of his grandfather, how the house had been full of velas, candles that burned with a beautiful light. How visitors had come and brought gifts of food, and they had eaten and drunk together and remembered his abuelo. Everywhere there had been marigolds and the cinnamon smell of atole and the sound of laughter.

It seemed cold to him, and lonely, to grieve by yourself. But faeries were different.

Kieran’s eyes sharpened, as if he had seen something revealing in Diego’s expression. “Is there a plan for me?” he asked. “Where am I to be sent, when my time hiding here is over?”

“I had thought you might want to return to Los Angeles,” said Diego, surprised.

Kieran shook his head. Locks of his hair had turned white; his hair color seemed to change with his mood. “No. I will not go back to where Mark is.”

Diego was silent—he hadn’t really had a plan. Cristina had asked him to hide Kieran but had never said for how long. He had wanted to do this for her because he knew he owed her; he had thought of Zara—had remembered the hurt on Cristina’s face when she’d first met Zara.

It had been his fault. He hadn’t told her about Zara because he’d been desperately hoping something would happen that would get him out of the engagement before it was necessary. It was the Dearborns who had insisted on the marriage contract. They had threatened to expose the Rocio Rosales family’s secrets if Diego didn’t do something to prove to them that he was truthful when he said he didn’t know where his brother was and didn’t know where the artifact was that Jaime had taken.

There had never been a question of him loving Zara, nor of her loving him. She seemed to feel it was a feather in her cap to be engaged to the son of an important family, but there was no passion in her except passion for the horrible causes her father espoused.

Kieran’s eyes widened. “What’s that?”

That was a bright light, like a will-o’-the-wisp, over Diego’s shoulder. A fire-message. He caught it out of the air and the paper unrolled in his hand: He recognized the handwriting immediately. “Cristina,” he said. “It’s a message from Cristina.”

Kieran sat up so fast the book tumbled out of his lap to the floor. “Cristina? What does she say? Is she all right?”

Odd, Diego thought; he would have imagined Kieran would have asked if Mark was all right. But the thought flew from his mind almost immediately, scrawled over by the words he was reading.

Feeling as if he had been kicked in the gut, Diego handed the message over to Kieran and watched the other boy turn ashen as he read that Horace Dearborn had been made the new Inquisitor.

“This is a slap in the Blackthorns’ face,” said Kieran, his hand shaking. “They will be heartbroken, as will Cristina. And he is a dangerous man. A deadly man.” He looked up at Diego, his eyes night black and storm gray. “What can we do?”

“It is clear I know nothing of people,” Diego said, thinking of Zara, of Jaime, of all the lies he had told and how none of them had accomplished what he had wanted, but had only made everything worse. “No one should ask me how to solve anything.”

As Kieran looked at him, astonished, he dropped his face into his hands.

* * *

“I know these words must seem empty at this point,” said Jia, “but I’m so sorry about Livia.”

“You’re right,” Julian said. “They do.”

It was as if grief had plunged Julian into a bath of ice, Emma thought. Everything about him was cold—his eyes, his expression, the tone of his voice. She tried to remember the boy who’d clung to her with such passion the night before, but it felt a million miles away.

It was late afternoon, and the demon towers were strung across the skyline of Alicante like a row of jagged diamonds. Emma looked around, remembering the last time she’d been in this room—she’d been twelve, and she’d been so impressed at how plush it was, with thick rugs underfoot and a desk of gleaming mahogany. She, Julian, and Diana were all seated in wingback armchairs before Jia’s desk. Diana looked furious. Julian just looked blank.

“These kids are tired and grief-stricken,” Diana said. “I respect your judgment, Jia, but does this have to be now?”

“It does,” she said, “because Horace Dearborn wants to interrogate Helen and Mark, and any other Downworlders or part Downworlders in Alicante. Magnus and Alec are already packing their things to Portal out tonight. Evelyn Highsmith returned to the London Institute, so they can go home to New York.” Jia pressed her fingers against her forehead. “I would have thought you would have wanted Helen and Mark to leave as well.”

“He wants to what?” Emma sat up straight, indignant. “You can’t let him.”

“I don’t have a choice. He was elected by a majority vote.” Jia frowned. “Interrogating people is what the Inquisitor does—the decision is at his discretion.”

“Horace Dearborn has no discretion,” said Diana.

“Which is why I’m giving you advance notice,” said Jia. “I suggest that Helen and Mark—and Aline, since she won’t leave Helen—be Portaled to Los Angeles tonight.”

There was a moment of silence. “You’re offering to send Helen to Los Angeles?” said Julian finally. “Not Wrangel Island?”

“I’m suggesting Helen and Aline temporarily run the Los Angeles Institute,” said Jia, and Emma actually felt her mouth fall open. “As the Consul, that is within my power, and I believe I can make it happen now, while Dearborn is distracted.”

“So you’re saying we should all Portal back?” Emma said. “And Helen and Aline can come with us? That’s great, that’s—”

“She doesn’t mean all of us,” said Julian. His hands were both bandaged. He’d gotten most of the splinters out himself, with the tip of a sharp knife, and there was blood on the bandages. He didn’t seem to have felt it—Emma had felt the pain herself, watching his skin split under the blade, but he had never wavered. “She means Diana, you, and I are going to stay here, in Idris.”

“You’ve always been clever, Julian,” said Jia, although not as if she admired the quality all that much.

“If Helen and Mark aren’t here, he’ll interrogate us,” said Julian. “Isn’t that true?”

“No,” Diana said sharply. “They’re children.”

“Yes,” said Jia. “And one of them broke the Mortal Sword. The Inquisitor, like everyone else, is desperate to know how. Cortana is a legendary sword, but still just a sword. It should not have been able to shatter Maellartach.”

“He can ask me, but I don’t know why it was broken,” Emma said. “I swung at Annabel because she was trying to kill me. It was self-defense—”

“People are terrified. And fear isn’t logical,” said Jia. “Thank the Angel that the Cup and Mirror are unaffected.” She sighed. “This was the worst possible time for the Mortal Sword to be broken, at a time of serious instability and on the eve of a possible war with faeries. And after the Unseelie King snatched Annabel from the Council Hall—don’t you understand how aware the Clave is that you brought her here?”