Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

“You guys are really incentivizing me to let you use the Eternidad to get to Faerie,” said Jaime.

“Stop bickering.” Helen’s voice rang out. “Earlier I sent word to my aunt Nene in the Seelie Court. She just returned my message. She said that Emma and Julian were there—but they’ve gone. They just set forth from the Seelie Court to the Unseelie Court.”

Kieran’s eyes darkened. Cristina said, “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “But it means that we have a specific location where we know they’ll be.”

Kieran touched the sword at his waist. “I know a place along the road that leads between Seelie and Unseelie where we can waylay them. But once they pass it, we may be too late. If we are going to go, we should go now.”

Jaime leaped down off the table with the lightness of a cat. “I’ll get the heirloom.” He began to rummage through his pack. “Cristina, only you can use it, because whoever uses it must have Rosales blood.”

Cristina and Jaime exchanged a significant look, indecipherable to Kit.

“You can use it to get to Faerie, and also back,” said Jaime. “Your passage in and out of the Lands will be undetectable. But it cannot protect you while you are there.” He handed something to Cristina; Kit could only catch a glimpse of it. It looked like smooth wood, twisted into an odd shape.

Kieran and Mark were strapping their packs on. Dru had gone over to Helen, who looked as if she’d like to put an arm around her younger sister, but Dru wasn’t standing close enough for that.

Something about the sight of them made Kit put his hand on Ty’s shoulder. He was aware of the warmth of the other boy’s skin through his T-shirt. Ty glanced at him sideways. “You better go say good-bye, or good trip,” Kit said awkwardly.

Ty hesitated a moment, and then went, Kit’s hand sliding off his shoulder as if Ty had never noticed it there. Kit hung back during the good-byes, the tearful hugs, the whispered promises, the ruffling of hair. Helen held fiercely to Mark as if she never wanted to let him go, while Aline went to get Tavvy, who was playing in his room.

Jaime hung back too, though he did watch Kit out of the corner of his eye, with a curious look, as if to say, Who is that guy?

When Aline came back, Tavvy dutifully hugged everyone who was leaving—even Kieran, who looked startled and touched. He dropped his hand to touch Tavvy’s hair lightly. “Worry not, little one.”

And then it was time for Ty and Mark to say farewell, and Mark touched Ty lightly on each cheek, once—a faerie good-bye.

“Don’t die,” Ty said.

Mark’s smile looked painful. “I won’t.”

Helen reached for Ty, and the small group of remaining Blackthorns gathered as Cristina held the Eternidad against her chest. It was definitely a piece of polished wood, Kit saw now, twisted somehow into the infinity symbol—no beginning and no end.

“Gather together, all of you who are going to Faerie,” said Jaime. “You must be touching each other.”

Mark and Kieran each put a hand on one of Cristina’s shoulders. She looked quite small between them. Mark rubbed the back of her neck with his thumb: a soothing, almost absent gesture; the intimacy of it startled Kit.

Jaime seemed to notice it as well; his gaze sharpened. But all he said was, “You must tell the artifact where to take you. You don’t want to let it choose.”

Kieran turned to Cristina. “We go to Bram’s Crossroads.”

Cristina lowered her gaze, her hands brushing lightly over the artifact. “Take us to Bram’s Crossroads,” she said.

Faerie magic was quiet, Kit thought. There was no noise, no tumult, no flashing warlock lights. In between one breath and another, Mark, Kieran, and Cristina simply disappeared.

* * *

Another meeting, Diana thought. And an emergency one at that: She’d been woken early in the morning by a fire-message summoning her to a Council meeting at the Gard.

Gwyn had tried to coax her back into bed, but Diana was too worried. Worried for Jia. Worried for Emma and Julian. She knew Horace was making an example out of them with this house arrest, but they were just children. How long was this punishment meant to last? And how long would Julian be all right separated from his siblings?

She’d left Gwyn with a kiss and hurried to the Gard, where she’d discovered Shadowhunters from all over—not just the usual Alicante crowd—pouring into the Gard through doors guarded by Centurions. She’d barely gotten a seat toward the front, next to Kadir Safar of the New York Conclave.

When the doors had been closed, they had all been left staring at a dais that was empty except for a single chair with a tall wooden back, and a black-draped table. The drapery looked as if it were covering something—lumpy—that sent a chill up Diana’s spine. She told herself it couldn’t possibly be what it looked like. Perhaps it was a pile of weapons.

As the Council slowly settled into their places, a silence fell over the room. Horace Dearborn, fully decked out in his Inquisitor robes, was striding onto the dais, followed by Manuel and Zara in Centurion garb, each carrying a long spear etched with the words primus pilus.

“First spears,” Kadir translated. Diana had met him before: an often silent man who had been Maryse’s second-in-command for years, and still headed up the New York Conclave. He looked tired and tense, a sallowness to his dark skin that hadn’t been there before. “It means they have been promoted to Centurions who personally guard the Inquisitor and Consul.”

“Speaking of the Consul,” Diana whispered back, “where is Jia?”

Her murmur caught, like a spark in dry tinder, and soon the whole Council was muttering. Horace held up a placating hand.

“Greetings, Nephilim,” he said. “Our Consul, Jia Penhallow, sends regards. She is at the Adamant Citadel, consulting with the Iron Sisters about the Mortal Sword. It will soon be reforged, allowing trials to begin again.”

The noise subsided to a mutter.

“It is an unfortunate coincidence that both meetings had to be held at the same moment,” Horace continued, “but time is of the essence. It will be difficult to have this meeting without Jia, but I know of her positions and will be representing them here.”

His voice echoed through the room. He must be using an Amplification rune, Diana thought.

“The last time we met here we discussed stricter laws that would codify accountability among Downworlders,” Horace said. “Our Consul, in her kindness and generosity, wished us to put off the decision to implement these laws—but these people do not respond to kindness.” His face had gone red under his thinning blond hair. “They respond to strength! And we must make Shadowhunters strong again!”

A murmur spread through the Hall. Diana looked around for Carmen, who had spoken so bravely at the last meeting, but could find her nowhere in the crowd. She whispered to Kadir, “What is this about? Why did he bring us here to rant at us?”

Kadir looked grim. “The question is, what’s he leading up to?”

Diana studied the faces of Manuel and Zara but could read nothing on them except smugness on Zara’s. Manuel was as blank as a piece of new paper.

“With all respect for our Consul, I was willing to go along with the delay,” said Horace, “but events have now transpired that make waiting impossible.”

A murmur of expectation ran through the room—what was he talking about?

He turned to his daughter. “Zara, let them see the atrocity the Fair Folk have committed against us!”

With a look of grim delight, Zara crossed the dais to the table and whipped the black sheet away as if she were a magician performing in front of a crowd.

A moan of horror went through the crowd. Diana felt her own gorge rise. Beneath the sheet were the remains of Dane Larkspear, splayed out on the table like a corpse ready to be autopsied.

His head was tilted back, his mouth open in a silent scream. His rib cage had been torn to shreds, bits of white bone and yellow tendon peeking through the grotesqu

e slashes. His skin looked withered and ashen, as if he had been dead some time.

Horace’s voice rose to a shout. “You see before you a brave young man who was sent on a mission of peace to Faerie, and this is what they return to us. This savaged corpse!”

A terrible scream rent the silence. A woman with Dane Larkspear’s dark hair and bony face was on her feet, howling. Elena Larkspear, Diana realized. A bulky man whose features seemed to be collapsing in on themselves with shock and horror had her in his arms; as the crowd stared openly, he dragged her screaming from the room.

Diana felt sick. She hadn’t liked Dane Larkspear, but he was just a child, and his parents’ grief was real. “This is how the family found out?”

There was bitterness in Kadir’s tone. “It makes for better theater. Dearborn has always been less a politician than a performer.”

Across the aisle, Lazlo Balogh shot them both a dirty look. He wasn’t an official member of the Cohort, as far as Diana knew, but he was definitely a sympathizer.