Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

Kieran stood frozen, staring from Mark to Cristina. "Do not listen!" he cried. "The Riders are wild magic--they can lie."

"We don't have the book," Julian said steadily. "We've never had it. Nothing has changed."

He looked calm, but Emma could see beneath the surface of him, behind his eyes. She could hear the noise of his thundering heart. He was looking at her, at Mark, at Ty and Livvy, and he was mortally terrified.

"You are asking for something we cannot do," said Julian. "But maybe we can make a deal. We can swear to you that we will bring you the book when we find it--"

"Your oaths mean nothing," snarled Ethna. "Let us kill them now and send a message to the Queen, that her tricks will not be countenanced!"

Karn laughed. "Wise words, sister," he said. "Ready your blades--"

Emma's hand clamped down on Cortana. Her mind whirled--she couldn't kill them all, couldn't prevent what they were going to do, but by the Angel she'd take some of them with her--

The gates of the courtyard burst open. They hadn't been locked, but they were flung wide now with such force that despite their weight, they flew to the sides, slamming into the stone walls of the yard, rattling like sundered chains.

Beyond the gate was fog--thick and incongruous on such a sunny day. The violent tableau in the courtyard remained still, arrested in shock, as the fog cleared and a woman stepped into the yard.

She was slight and of medium height, her hair a deep brown, falling to her waist. She wore a torn shift over a long skirt that didn't fit her well, and a pair of low boots. The bare skin of her arms and shoulders proclaimed her a Shadowhunter, with a Shadowhunter's scars. The Voyance rune decorated her right hand.

She held no weapons. Instead she hugged a book to herself--an old volume, bound in dark leather, scuffed and worn. A folded piece of paper was stuck between two pages, like a bookmark. She raised her head and looked steadily before her at the scene in the courtyard; her expression was unsurprised, as if she'd expected nothing else.

Emma's heart began to thump. She'd seen this woman before, though it had been a dark night in Cornwall. She knew her.

"I am Annabel Blackthorn." The woman spoke in a clear, even tone, slightly accented. "The Black Volume is mine."

Eochaid swore. He had a fine-boned, cruel face, like an eagle. "You lied to us," he snarled at Emma and the rest. "You told us you had no idea where the book was."

"Nor did they," said Annabel, still with the same composure. "Malcolm Fade had it, and I took it from his dead body. But it is mine and always has been mine. It belonged in the library of the house I grew up in. The book has always been Blackthorn property."

"Nevertheless," said Ethna, though she was looking at Annabel with a dubious respect. One due the undead, Emma suspected. "You will give it to us, or face the wrath of the Unseelie King."

"The Unseelie King," murmured Annabel. Her face was placid in a way that chilled Emma--surely no one could be placid in this situation, no one who wasn't insane? "Give him my regards. Tell him I know his name."

Delan blanched. "His what?" The true name of a faerie gave anyone who knew it power over them. Emma couldn't imagine what it would mean for the King to have his name revealed.

"His name," Annabel said. "Malcolm was very close to him for many years. He learned your monarch's name. I know it too. If you do not clear off now, and return to the King with my message, I will tell it to everyone on the Council. I will tell every Downworlder. The King is not loved. He will find the results most unpleasant."

"She lies," said Airmed, his hawk's eyes slitted.

"Risk it with your King, then," she said. "Let him find out you are the ones responsible for the revelation of his name."

"It would be easy enough to silence you," said Etarlam.

Annabel did not move as he strode toward her, raising his free hand as if he meant to strike her across the face. He swung, and she caught his wrist, as lightly as a debutante taking her waltz partner's arm during a dance.

And she flung him. He sailed across the courtyard and slammed into a wall with the clang of armor. Emma gasped.

"Etar!" Ethna cried. She started toward her brother, abandoning Jules--and froze. Her curved sword was rising out of her hand. She reached for it, but it was floating above her head. More cries came from the other Riders--their swords were being jerked out of their grasps, gliding into the air above their heads. Ethna glared at Annabel. "You fool!"

"That wasn't her," came a drawling voice from the doorway. It was Magnus, leaning heavily on Dru's shoulder. She seemed to be half-supporting him. Blue fire sparked from the fingers of his free hand. "Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, at your service."

The Riders exchanged glances. Emma knew they could make new weapons easily, but what good would it do them if Magnus just snatched them out of their hands? Their eyes narrowed; their lips curled.

"This is not finished," said Karn, and he looked across the courtyard directly at Emma as he said it. This is not finished between us.

Then he vanished, and the remaining Riders followed. One moment they were there, the next gone, winking out of existence like vanishing stars. Their swords crashed to the ground with the loud clang of metal against stone.

"Hey," muttered Kit. "Free swords."

Magnus gave a low grunt and sagged backward; Dru caught at him, worry in her wide eyes. "Get inside, now. All of you."

They scrambled to obey, the intact pausing to help those who had been injured, though none of the injuries were serious. Emma found Julian without even needing to look for him--her parabatai senses were still humming, her body's interior knowledge that he had been cut, would need healing. She slid her arm around him as gently as she could, and he winced. His eyes met hers, and she knew he was feeling her own wound, the cut at the top of her shoulder.

She wanted to throw her arms around him, wanted to wipe the blood from his face, kiss his closed eyes. But she knew how that would look. She held herself back with a control that hurt more than her injury did.

Julian squeezed her hands and drew away reluctantly. "I have to go to Annabel," he said in a low voice.

Emma started. She'd nearly forgotten Annabel, but she was still there, in the center of the courtyard, the Black Volume hugged to her chest. The others stood around her uncertainly--after all the time spent looking for Annabel, it was clear no one had ever imagined she'd come to them.

Even Julian paused before he reached her, hesitating as if deciding how t

o break the silence. Near him, Ty stood between Livvy and Kit, all of them staring at Annabel as if she were an apparition and not really there at all.

"Annabel." It was Magnus. He had limped down the steps to the bottom; he had only a light hand on Dru's shoulder now, though there were dark crescents of exhaustion below his eyes. He sounded sad, that depthless sort of sadness that came out of a time, a life, that Emma could not even imagine. "Oh, Annabel. Why did you come here?"

Annabel drew the folded piece of paper from the Black Volume. "I received a letter," she said, in a voice so soft it was barely audible. "From Tiberius Blackthorn."

Only Kit didn't look surprised. He put his hand on Ty's arm as Tiberius scanned the ground furiously.

"There was something in it," she said. "I had thought the world's hand turned against me, but as I read the letter, I imagined there was a chance it was not so." She raised her chin, that characteristic, defiant Blackthorn gesture that broke Emma's heart every time. "I have come to speak with Julian Blackthorn about the Black Volume of the Dead."

*

"There is an undead person in our library," said Livvy. She was sitting on one of the long beds in the infirmary. They'd all gathered there--all but Magnus, who had closed himself into the library with Annabel. They were in various stages of being runed and patched up and cleaned. There was a small pile of bloody cloths growing on the counter.

Ty was on the same bed as Livvy, his back to the headboard. As always after a battle, Emma noticed, he had withdrawn a bit, as if he needed time to recuperate from the clang and shock of it. He was twisting something between his fingers in regular rhythmic motions, though Emma couldn't see what it was. "It's not our library," he said. "It's Evelyn's."

"Still strange," Livvy said. Neither she nor Ty had been injured in the fight, but Kit had, and she was finishing an iratze on his back. "All done," she said, patting his shoulder, and he drew his T-shirt down with a wince.

"She isn't undead, not exactly," said Julian. Emma had given him an iratze, but some part of her had become afraid of drawing runes on him, and she'd stopped there, bandaging the wound instead. He'd had a long cut running down his upper arm, and even after he'd pulled his shirt back on, the bandages were visible through the fabric. "She's not a zombie or a ghost."