Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

"He's fine," she said. "I promise you."

"It's more than that." His gaze was steady. "When you were together, at least I could feel like you were both with someone I cared about and could trust. You loved someone I loved too. Is that likely to happen again?"

"I don't know what's likely to happen," she said. I know you have nothing to worry about. I wasn't in love with Mark. I'll never be in love with anyone again who isn't you. "Just that there are things we can and can't control."

"Em," he said. "This is me we're talking about."

She turned away from the window, pressed her back to the cold glass. She was looking at Julian directly, not just his reflection. And though his face betrayed no anger, his eyes at least were open and honest. It was real Julian, not pretend Julian now. "So you admit you're a control freak?"

He smiled, the sweet smile that went straight to Emma's heart because it recalled for her the Julian of her childhood. It was like sun, warmth, the sea, and the beach all rolled up in one punch to the heart. "I admit nothing."

"Fine," she said. She didn't have to say she forgave him and knew he forgave her; they both knew it. Instead she sat down in the seat opposite him and gestured toward his art supplies. "What are you drawing?"

He picked up the sketchbook, turning it so she could see his work--a gorgeous rendition of a stone bridge they'd passed, surrounded by the drooping boughs of oak trees.

"You could sketch me," said Emma. She flung herself down onto her seat, leaning her head on her hand. " 'Draw me like one of your French girls.' "

Julian grinned. "I hate that movie," he said. "You know I do."

Emma sat up indignantly. "The first time we watched Titanic, you cried."

"I had seasonal allergies," Jules said. He'd started to draw again, but his smile still lingered. This was the heart of her and Julian, Emma thought. This gentle joking, this easy amusement. It almost surprised her. But this was what they always returned to, the comfort of their childhood--like birds returning and returning in migratory patterns toward their home.

"I wish we could get in touch with Jem and Tessa," Emma said. Green fields flashed by the window in a blur. A woman was pushing a refreshment cart up and down the narrow train corridor. "And Jace and Clary. Tell them about Annabel and Malcolm and everything."

"The whole Clave knows about Malcolm's return. I'm sure they have their ways of finding out, too."

"But only we really know about Annabel," said Emma.

"I drew her," Julian said. "I thought somehow if we could look at her, it might help us find her."

He turned his sketch pad. Emma suppressed a small shudder. Not because the face looking out was hideous--it wasn't. It was a young face, oval and even-featured, almost lost in a cloud of dark hair. But an air of something haunted and almost feral burned in Annabel's eyes; she clutched her hands at her throat, as if trying to wrap herself in a covering that had vanished.

"Where could she be?" Emma wondered aloud. "Where would you go, if you were so sad?"

"Do you think she looks sad?"

"Don't you?"

"I thought she seemed angry."

"She did kill Malcolm," said Emma. "I don't understand why she'd do that--he brought her back. He loved her."

"Maybe she didn't want to be brought back." He was still looking down at the sketch. "Maybe she was happy where she was. Strife, agony, loss--those are things the living experience." He closed the sketchbook as the train pulled into a small white station whose sign read LISKEARD. They had arrived.

*

"Was this planned?" Kieran said. His expression was stony. "It cannot be a coincidence."

Mark raised his eyebrows. Cristina was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the infirmary, her wrist bandaged; Mark's injury was hidden by the sleeve of his sweater. There was no one else in the room. Tavvy had been upset by the sight of blood on Mark and Cristina, and Dru had taken him away to calm him down. Livvy and the other two boys had left for Blackthorn Hall while Cristina was at the train station.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Mark said. "You think Cristina and I planned to spray blood all over London for fun?"

Cristina looked at him in surprise; he sounded more human than she'd ever heard him.

"Such a binding spell," said Kieran. "You must have held your wrists out for it. You would have to have remained still while you were bound."

He sounded bewildered, hurt. He looked enormously out of place in his breeches and linen shirt, now very crumpled, in the heart of the Institute. All around them were hospital-style beds, glass and copper jars of tinctures and powders, stacks of bandages and runed medical tools.

"It happened at a revel," said Mark. "We couldn't expect it--we didn't expect it. And no one would want this, no one would set it up on purpose, Kieran."

"A faerie would," Kieran said. "It is just the sort of thing one of us would do."

"I am not a faerie," said Mark.

Kieran flinched, and Cristina saw the hurt in his eyes. She felt a wave of sympathetic pain for him. It must be horrible to be so alone.

Even Mark looked stricken. "I didn't mean that," he said. "I am not only a faerie."

"And how glad you are," said Kieran, "how you brag of it at every opportunity."

"Please," said Cristina, "please, don't fight. We need to be on the same side in this."

Kieran turned puzzled eyes on her. Then he stepped close to Mark; he put his hands on Mark's shoulders. They were nearly the same height. Mark didn't avert his gaze. "There is only one way I know that you cannot lie," Kieran said, and kissed Mark on the mouth.

A pulse of pain went through Cristina's wrist. She had no idea if it was random or some reflection of the intensity of what Mark was feeling. There was no way he could reject the kiss, not without rejecting Kieran and severing the delicate chain of lies that kept the faerie prince bound here.

If, indeed, Mark didn't want to kiss Kieran back. Cristina couldn't tell; he returned the kiss with a fierceness like the fierceness Cristina had seen in him the first time she'd glimpsed him with Kieran. But there was more anger in it now. He gripped Kieran's shoulders, his fingers digging in; the force of the kiss angled Kieran's head back. He sucked at Kieran's bottom lip and bit it, and Kieran gasped.

They broke apart. Kieran touched his mouth; there was blood on his lip, and hot triumph in his eyes. "You did not look away," he said to Cristina. "Was it that interesting?"

"It was for my benefit." Cristina felt odd and shivery and hot, but refused to show it. Sh

e sat with her hands in her lap and smiled at Kieran. "It would have seemed rude not to watch."

At that Mark, who had been looking furious, laughed. "She understands you, Kier."

"It was very well-done kissing," she said. "But we should talk practically now, about the spell."

Kieran was still staring at Cristina. He looked at most people with disgust or fury or consideration, but when he looked at Cristina, he seemed bewildered, as if he were trying to put her together like a puzzle and couldn't.

Abruptly, he spun on his heel and stalked out of the room. The door slammed behind him. Mark looked after him, shaking his head.

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone aggravate him like that," he said. "Not even me."

*

Diana had hoped to see Jia the moment she arrived in Idris, but the bureaucracy of the Clave was worse than she had recalled. There were forms to fill out, messages to be given and carried up the chain of command. It didn't help that Diana refused to state her business: For the delicate matter of Kieran and what was happening in Faerie, Diana didn't dare trust the information to anyone other than the Consul herself.

Her small apartment in Alicante was above the weapons shop on Flintlock Street that had been in her family for years. She'd closed it up when she went to live in Los Angeles with the Blackthorns. Impatience jittering her nerves, she went downstairs into the store and threw open the windows, letting in light, making the dust motes dance in the bright summer air. Her sore arm still ached, though it had nearly healed.

The shop was musty inside, dust on the formerly bright blades and rich leather of sheaths and ax handles. She took down a few of her favorite weapons and put them aside for the Blackthorns.

The children deserved new weapons. They'd earned them.

When a knock came on the door, she'd successfully managed to distract herself and was sorting sword blades by the hardness of the metal. She set down one of her favorites--a weapon of Damascus steel--and went to open the door.

Smirking on the doorstep was Manuel, who Diana had last seen fighting sea demons on the front lawn of the Institute. He was out of his Centurion gear, wearing a fashionable black sweater and jeans, his hair gelled into curls. He smiled sideways at her.

"Miss Wrayburn," he said. "I've been sent to bring you up to the Gard."

Diana locked up the store and fell in beside Manuel as he made his way up Flintlock Street toward the northern part of Alicante. "What are you doing here, Manuel?" she asked. "I thought you'd be in Los Angeles."