Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

Emma flipped Livvy’s flashlight on and darted through the entrance of the City, Julian beside her, Cameron and Diana taking the rear. The noise of the street above vanished almost immediately, muffled by the fog and the heavy stone walls. The Silent City was more silent than it had ever been, she thought. The beam of the flashlight bounced off the walls, illuminating chipped stone, and, as they made their way deeper underground, polished white and yellow bone.

Livvy had been right. The architecture of the Silent City was the same here. Julian walked alongside Emma, reminding her of the last time they’d been to this place together, at their parabatai ceremony. The city had smelled old then, like bones and dust and stone, but it had been a living and inhabited place. Now it smelled of stale air, disuse, and death.

It was not her City of Bones, of course. But she had been taught from childhood that all Cities were one City; there were different entrances but only one stronghold. As they passed through the arched rooms of mausoleums, Emma could not help but think: Never will more warriors be added to this army; never will more ashes help to build the City of Bones.

They ducked through a tunnel that opened into a square pavilion. Spires of carved bone occupied each corner. Squares of marble like a checkerboard, bronze and red, made up the floor; in the center was the mosaic that gave the room its name, a parabolic design of silver stars.

A black basalt table ran along one wall. Laid out atop it were two objects: a cup and a sword. The Cup was gold, with a ruby-studded rim; the sword was a heavy dark silver, with a hilt in the shape of angel wings.

Emma knew them both. Every Shadowhunter did, from a thousand paintings and tapestries and illustrations in history books. She noticed, with a strange detached surprise, that neither the Cup nor the Sword had gathered any dust.

Cameron inhaled sharply. “I never thought I’d actually see them again. Not after the War.”

“Give me the flashlight,” Diana said, reaching out her hand to Emma. “Go on, you two.”

Emma handed over the light, and she and Julian approached the table. Julian picked up the Cup and tucked it through the strap of the Sam Browne belt across his chest, then zipped his jacket up over it. It took Emma a moment longer to steel herself to pick up the sword. Her last sight of it had been in Annabel’s hand as Annabel had cut down Robert Lightwood and plunged the shards of the sword into Livvy’s chest.

But this was another sword: unbloodied, unbroken. She took hold of the grip and switched it with the longsword on her back; the Mortal Sword was a heavy weight against her spine, and she remembered what the Queen had said: that the Nephilim had once been giants on the earth, with the strength of a thousand men.

“We’d better go,” Diana said. “Like the warlock said, better not to leave this place open too long.”

Cameron looked around with a shiver of distaste. “Can’t get out of here too soon for me.”

As they passed through the City, the beam of the flashlight danced off the semiprecious stones embedded in the archways of bone. They gleamed in a way that made Emma sad: What was the point of beauty nobody saw? They reached a tunnel and she realized with relief they must be getting close to the stairs and the surface: She could hear the wind, the sound of a car backfiring—

She stiffened. Nobody drives in the fog.

“What’s that noise?” she said.

They all jerked to attention. The sound came again, and this time Cameron paled.

“Gunshots,” Diana said, sliding a gun out of the holster on her hip.

“Livvy.” Cameron began to run; he’d gone a few feet when figures loomed up out of the shadows, figures of smoke and scarlet. A silver blade slashed out of the darkness.

“Endarkened!” Julian shouted.

Emma’s longsword was already in her left hand; she raced forward, seizing a bo-shuriken out of her belt and hurling it toward one of the figures in red. They staggered back, a spray of blood painting the wall behind them.

An Endarkened woman with long brown hair lunged toward her. Cameron was struggling with one at the foot of a set of stairs. A shot rang out, echoing in Emma’s ears; the Endarkened fell like a rock. Emma glanced back to see Julian lowering a pistol, his expression stony. Smoke still curled from the muzzle.

“Go!” Diana dropped the flashlight, shoved Emma from behind, and took aim. “Get to Livvy! Get to the others!”

The implication was clear: Get the Cup and Sword away from the Endarkened. Emma took off, longsword in hand, laying about her in double arcs of slashing blows; she saw Cameron struggling with an Endarkened she recognized as Dane Larkspear. Rotten in one world, rotten in another, she thought, as Cameron kicked Dane’s legs out from under him.

There were more Endarkened coming, though, from one of the other tunnels. She heard Julian shout, and then they were rocketing up the stairs, Emma with her sword and Julian with his gun. They burst out of the entrance to the Silent City—

And into the middle of a horrible tableau.

Fog was still curling everywhere, white strands like the web of an enormous spider. But Emma could see what she needed to see. Dozens of Livvy’s rebels knelt in silence, hands behind their heads. Behind them stood long rows of Endarkened armed with bayonets and machine guns. Tessa was still slumped against the pillar of the archway, but it was Raphael holding her now, and with surprising care.

Livvy was on her feet, in the center of the group of Endarkened and rebels. She was on her feet because Julian—a taller, older, bigger Julian, with a bleak, deadly grin, dressed all in red—was standing behind her, one arm lashed around her throat. His free hand held a pistol to her temple.

Behind him stood Sebastian, in another expensive dark suit, and with Sebastian, flanking him, were Jace and Ash. Ash was weaponless, but Jace carried a sword that Emma recognized: Heosphoros, which in her world had been Clary’s. It was a beautiful sword, its cross-guard gold and obsidian, the dark silver blade stamped with black stars.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl. Emma heard Julian’s breath rattle in his throat; he stopped dead, as if he had been turned to stone.

“Julian Blackthorn,” Sebastian said, and the white mist curling around him was the color of his hair, of Ash’s hair. Two winter princes. “Did you really think I’d be fooled by your poor performance in the nightclub?”

“Annabel,” Julian said, his voice hoarse, and Emma knew what he was thinking: Annabel must have betrayed them, Annabel, who knew who they really were.

Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “What about Annabel?”

Ash shook his head slightly. It was a tiny movement, a minuscule negation, but Emma saw it, and she was fairly sure Julian had seen it too. No, he was saying. Annabel didn’t betray you.

But why would Ash—?

“Drop your gun,” Sebastian said, and Julian did, tossing it into the fog. Sebastian had barely looked at Emma; now he turned his lazy, contemptuous gaze in her direction. “And you. Drop that cheap sword.”

Emma dropped the longsword with a clang. Had he not seen the Mortal Sword strapped across her back?

“You have the sun in your skin,” Sebastian said. “That alone would have told me you weren’t from Thule. And thanks to Ash, I know the story of your world. I knew of the Portal. I’ve been wondering all this time if one of you would stumble through it. I knew you’d go straight for the Mortal Instruments to hide them from me. All I had to do was post some guards here and wait for the tip-off.” He grinned like a jaguar. “Now hand over the Mortal Instruments, or Julian here will blow your sister’s head off.”

The real Julian looked at Livvy. Emma was screaming inside: He can’t watch her die again, not again, nobody could live through that twice.

Livvy’s gaze was steady on her brother’s. There was no fear in her expression.

“You won’t let her live,” Julian said. “No matter what I do, you’ll kill her.”

Sebastian grinned a little wider. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“All right,”

Julian said. His shoulders slumped. “I’m reaching for the Cup,” he said, holding up one hand as the other unzipped his jacket. Emma watched him in dismay as he reached inside. “I’m going to hold it out to you—”

He drew his hand out from his jacket; he was holding a throwing knife, small and sharp with red stones in the hilt; Emma barely had time to recognize it before he had flung it. It whipped through the air, grazing Livvy’s cheek and sinking deeply into the eye of the Endarkened Julian who held her.

He didn’t even scream. He fell back, hitting the pavement with a thud, his pistol rolling out of his open hand; Sebastian shouted but Livvy was already gone, ducking and rolling into the mist.

Emma drew the Mortal Sword and charged, directly at Sebastian.

The world exploded into chaos. Sebastian yelled for his Endarkened and they came running, abandoning the rebels to throw themselves between Emma and their leader. Jace lunged at Emma, pushing Ash behind him, but Julian was already there; he had caught up the fallen longsword and it clanged, hard, against Heosphoros as he drove Jace back, away from Emma.

Emma slashed out at the nearest Endarkened with the Mortal Sword. Its heaviness had turned to light in her grip; it sang as she wielded it as only Cortana had sung in her hand before, and suddenly she remembered its name: Maellartach. An Endarkened with close-cropped blond hair aimed a pistol at her; the bullet clanged off the blade of Maellartach. The Endarkened gaped at her and Emma drove the Mortal Sword into his chest, flinging him backward with such force that he took another Endarkened down with him as he fell.