Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

The faeries all around them were giggling, uproarious, clutching at each other, and the thought that it was Emma's horror and confusion that was making them chuckle sent spikes of murderous rage through Cristina's veins.

It was one thing to study faeries. One thing to read about how their emotions were not like human emotions. How the Unseelie Court faeries were raised to find pleasure in the pain of others. To wrap you in a net of words and lies and watch smiling while you choked on their tricks.

It was another thing to see it.

There was a sudden commotion. The Unseelie King ran to the opposite edge of the pavilion; he was shouting orders, the knights in sudden disarray.

Julian, Cristina thought. And yes, she could see him, Julian holding Erec in front of him, at the foot of the King's pavilion. He had deliberately drawn the King away from Emma and Cristina.

"It will be easy enough to decide this," Cristina said. She took her balisong from her belt and held it out to the champion. "Take this," she said.

"Cristina, what are you doing--?" Emma said.

"It is cold iron," said Cristina. She took another two steps toward the champion. His face was changing even as she watched, less and less like Emma's, more and more like something else--something grotesque living under the skin. "He's a Shadowhunter. Cold iron shouldn't bother him."

She moved closer--and the champion who had looked like John Carstairs changed completely. His face rippled and his body flexed and changed, his skin growing mottled and gray-green. His lips pushed outward as his eyes sprang horrifyingly wide and yellow, his hair receding to show a slick, lumpy pate.

Where Emma's father had stood was a faerie knight with a squat body and the head of a toad. Emma stared, white-faced. Its wide mouth opened and it spoke in a croaking voice.

"At last, at last, free to slough the illusion of the disgusting Nephilim--"

It didn't finish its sentence. Emma had seized up Cortana and lunged forward, slamming the blade into the knight's throat.

It made a wet, squelching sound. Pus-colored blood sprayed from its wide mouth; it staggered back, but Emma followed, twisting the hilt of the knife. The stench of blood and the sound of wetly tearing flesh almost made Cristina vomit.

"Emma!" Cristina shouted. "Emma!"

Emma drew the sword back and stabbed again, and again, until Cristina grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back. The faerie knight sank to the ground, dead.

Emma was shaking, spattered with foul blood. She swayed on her feet.

"Come on." Cristina grabbed her friend's arm, started to pull her away from the pavilion. Just then the air exploded with a rustling, singing sound. Arrows. They were tipped with fire, lighting the clearing with an eerie, moving glow. Cristina automatically ducked, only to hear a loud clang a few inches from her head. Emma had whipped Cortana to the side and an arrow had struck the blade, crumbling instantly into pieces.

Cristina picked up her pace. "We have to get out of here--"

A flaming arrow shot by them and struck a banner dangling from the King's pavilion. The banner caught alight in crackling flames. It illuminated the princes running from the pavilion, dropping off the edges into shadow. The King still stood before his throne, though, staring down into emptiness. Where was Jules? Where had he and Erec gone?

As they neared the edge of the clearing, the faerie woman in the bone dress loomed up in front of them. Her eyes were fish-green, without pupils, shimmering like oil in the starlight. Cristina brought her foot down hard on the faerie woman's; her screams were drowned in the Court's howls as Cristina elbowed her aside. She crashed into the pavilion, small bones raining down from her gown like misshapen snow.

Emma's hand was in Cristina's. Her fingers felt like ice. Cristina tightened her grip. "Come on," she said, and they plunged back into the trees.

*

Mark didn't dare go far. Julian, Emma, and Cristina were still in the Court. He pulled Kieran behind a thick oak tree and drew him down to sit leaning against it.

"Are you all right? Are you in pain?" Mark demanded.

Kieran looked at him with clear exasperation. Before Mark could stop him, he reached back, grasped the arrow, and yanked it out. Blood came with it, a welter that soaked the back of his shirt.

"Christ, Kieran, what the hell--"

"What foreign gods do you call on now?" Kieran demanded. "I thought you said I wasn't dying."

"You weren't." Mark pulled off his linen vest, wadding up the material to press it to Kieran's back. "Except now I might kill you for being so stupid."

"Hunters heal fast," said Kieran with a gasp. "Mark. It really is you." His eyes were luminous. "I knew you would come for me."

Mark said nothing. He was concentrating on holding the cloth against Kieran's wound, but a sense of anxiety pressed against the inside of his rib cage. He and Kieran had hardly ended things on good terms. Why would Kieran think Mark would come for him, when Mark very nearly hadn't?

"Kier," he said. He moved the vest away; Kieran was right about the healing. The blood had slowed to a sluggish trickle. Mark dropped the blood-wet linen and touched the side of Kieran's face. It was furnace hot. "You're burning up." He reached up to sling the elf-bolt necklace back around Kieran's throat, but the other boy stopped him.

"Why do I have your necklace?" he said, frowning. "It should be yours."

"I gave it back to you," Mark said.

Kieran gave a hoarse laugh. "I would remember that." His eyes went wide then. "I don't remember killing Iarlath," he said. "I know that I did. They told me that much. And I believe it; he was a bastard. But I don't remember it. I don't remember anything after I saw you through the window of the Institute, in the kitchen, talking to that girl. Cristina."

Mark went cold all over. Automatically, he slung the elf-bolt necklace over his head, feeling it thump against his chest. Kieran didn't remember?

That meant he didn't remember betraying Mark, telling the Wild Hunt that Mark had shared faerie secrets with Nephilim. He didn't remember the punishment, the whippings Julian and Emma had borne.

He didn't remember that Mark had broken things off between them. Given him his necklace back.

No wonder he'd thought Mark would come for him.

"That girl Cristina is right here," said a voice above them. Cristina had joined them in the shadows. She looked disheveled, though not nearly as much as Emma, who was splattered with faerie blood and bleeding from a long scratch on her cheek. Mark sprang up.

"What's going on? Are either of you hurt?"

"I--I think we're all right," Emma said. She sounded bewildered and worryingly blank.

"Emma killed the King's champion," said Cristina, and then closed her mouth. Mark sensed there was more to it, but didn't press.

Emma blinked, slowly focusing on Mark and Kieran. "Oh, it's you," she said to Kieran, sounding more like her old self. "Weasel Face. Committed any acts of monstrous personal betrayal lately?"

Kieran looked stunned. People didn't usually talk to Unseelie princes that way, and besides, Mark thought, Kieran no longer remembered why Emma might be angry with him or accuse him of betrayal. "You brought her here with you to rescue me?" he said to Mark.

"We all came to rescue you." It was Julian, only partly visible behind Erec, who he was shoving ahead of him. Emma exhaled, an audible sound of relief. Julian looked over at her quickly, and they shared a glance. It was what Mark had always thought of as the parabatai glance: the quick once-over to make sure the other person was all right, that they were beside you, safe and living. Though now that he knew of Julian's true feelings for Emma, he couldn't help but wonder if there was a layer more to what they shared.

Erec's throat was bleeding where the dagger had likely slipped; he was glaring out from beneath black brows, his face contorted into a snarl.

"Blood traitor," he said to Kieran. He spat past the knife. "Kin-slayer."

"Iarlath was no kin of mine," said Kieran, in an exhausted voice.

"He w

as more your kin than these monsters," said Erec, glaring around at the Shadowhunters surrounding him. "Even now, you betray us for them."

"As you betrayed me to the King our father?" said Kieran. He was huddled among the tree roots, looking surprisingly small, but when he tipped his face back to look at Erec, his eyes were hard as gems. "You think I do not know who told the King I killed Iarlath? You think I do not know at whose feet I can lay the blame for my exile to the Hunt?"

"Arrogant," said Erec. "You have always been arrogant, whelp, thinking you belonged in the Court with the rest of us. I am the King's favorite, not you. You earned no special place in his heart or the hearts of the Court."

"Yet they liked me better," Kieran said quietly. "Before--"

"Enough," Julian said. "The Court is on fire. Knights will be coming after us as soon as the chaos dies down. It's madness to stay here and gossip."

"Important Court business is not gossip," snarled Erec.

"It is to me." Julian peered through the woods. "There must be a quick way out of here, toward Seelie Lands. Can you lead us?"

Erec was silent.

"He can," said Kieran, rising unsteadily to his feet. "He can't lie and say it's not possible; that's why he's not talking."