Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices 2)

There was a knock on the door. It was Robert Lightwood, the Inquisitor. He was pulling riding gloves from his hands. "What Miss Wrayburn says is true," he said, without preamble. "There is a blighted space in the center of the forest, perhaps a mile from Herondale Manor. Sensors confirm no demon presence."

"Were you alone when you went to look at it?" Diana demanded.

Robert looked faintly surprised. "A few others were with me. Patrick Penhallow, some of the younger Centurions."

"Let me guess," said Diana. "Manuel Villalobos."

"I didn't realize this was meant to be a confidential mission," said Robert, raising his eyebrows. "Does it matter if he was there?"

Diana said nothing, only looked at Jia, whose dark gaze was weary.

"I hope you took some samples, Robert," Jia said.

"Patrick has them. He's taking them to the Silent Brothers now." Robert stuffed his gloves in his pocket and glanced sideways at Diana. "For what it's worth, I considered your request, and I believe a Council meeting regarding the issues of the Cohort and the faerie messenger would be useful."

He inclined his head toward Diana and left the room.

"It's better that he took Manuel and the others along," said Jia in a low voice. "They cannot deny what they have seen, should it come to that."

Diana rose from her chair. "What do you think they've seen?"

"I don't know," said Jia candidly. "Did you attempt to use your seraph blade, or a rune, when you were in the forest?"

Diana shook her head. She hadn't told Jia what she'd been doing in Brocelind at dawn--certainly not that she'd been there on a semi-date with a faerie in her pajamas.

"You are going to argue this is a sign of the Unseelie Court's incursion into our lands," said Jia.

"Kieran said the Unseelie King would not stop at his own lands. That he would come for ours. That is why we need the Seelie Queen's help."

Which was contingent on finding the Black Volume, Diana knew, though she had not told Jia that. Getting rid of the Cohort was too important.

"I read the file you gave me," Diana added. "I think you may have forgotten to remove some papers regarding Zara's history from it."

"Oh, dear," said Jia, without inflection.

"You gave me those papers because you know it's true," said Diana. "That Zara has lied to the Council. That if she is considered a hero, it is because of those lies."

"Can you prove that?" Jia had moved to the window. The harsh sunlight illuminated the lines in her face.

"Can you?"

"No," Jia said, still looking through the glass. "But I can tell you something that I should not tell you. I spoke of Aline and Helen and their knowledge. Some time ago, they reported that they had seen something troubling the maps of Alicante, in the area of Brocelind. Something very odd, dark spots as if the very trees had been practicing evil magic. We rode out but saw nothing--perhaps the patches had not yet grown large enough to be visible. It was put down to a malfunction of equipment."

"They'll have to double-check," Diana said, but her heart was pounding in excitement. Another piece of proof that the Unseelie King was a threat. A clear and present danger to Idris. "If their dark spots match up to the areas of blight, then they must come testify--show the Clave--"

"Slow down, Diana," said Jia. "I've been thinking a great deal about you. I know there are things you are not telling me. Reasons you are so sure Zara didn't kill Malcolm. Reasons you know so much about the Unseelie King's plans. Since the first time I invited Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs into my office, they have confounded me and hidden things from the Clave. As you are hiding things now." She touched her fingers to the glass. "But I am weary. Of the Cold Peace that keeps my daughter from me. Of the Cohort and the climate of hate they breed. What you offer me now is a thin thread on which to tie all our hopes."

"But it is better than nothing," said Diana.

"Yes." Jia turned back to her. "It is better than nothing."

When Diana stepped out of the Gard some minutes later into the gray-white daylight, her blood was singing. She'd done it. There was going to be a meeting; Kieran would testify; they would have their chance to win the Institute back, and perhaps crush the Cohort.

She thought of Emma and Julian and the Black Volume. So much weight on shoulders too young to be forced to bear it. She remembered the two of them as children in the Accords Hall, their swords out as they ringed the younger Blackthorns, ready to die for them.

At the edge of her vision, a bright glint shone momentarily. Something tumbled to the ground at her feet. There was a flutter overhead, a disturbance among the heavy clouds. As Diana bent down and quickly pocketed the small, hollowed acorn, she already knew who the message was from.

Still, she waited until she was halfway down the path to Alicante to read it. To bring her a message in the middle of the day, even under cloud cover, Gwyn must have something serious to say.

Inside the acorn was a tiny piece of paper on which was written: Come to me now, outside the city walls. It is important. The Blackthorn children are in danger.

Flinging the acorn aside, Diana bolted down the hill.

*

The rain started up as Julian and Emma made their way back from Porthallow Church in silence. Julian seemed to remember the way perfectly, even cutting across the headlands on a path that led them directly down into the Warren.

The sunbathers on the dock and out by the pools under Chapel Rock were hurrying to gather up their things as the first drops of rain splashed down, mothers yanking clothes back onto their unwilling, swimsuited toddlers, bright towels being folded up, beach umbrellas put away.

Emma remembered the way her own father had loved storms on the beach. She recalled being held in his arms as thunder rolled out over the Santa Monica Bay, and he had told her that when lightning struck the beach, it fused sand into glass.

She could hear that roaring in her ears now, louder than the sound of the sea as it rose and began to pound against the rocks on either side of the harbor. Louder than her own breathing as she and Jules hurried up the slippery-wet path to the cottage and ducked inside just as the sky opened up and water came down like the spill through a breaking dam.

Everything inside the cottage seemed almost terrifying in its ordinariness. The kettle silent on the stove. Teacups and coffee mugs and empty plates scattered around the rag rug in front of the fireplace. Julian's sweatshirt on the floor, where Emma had wadded it up and made a pillow out of it the night before.

"Emma?" Julian was leaning against the kitchen island. Water droplets had spattered his face; his hair was curling the way it always did in the humidity and damp. He had the expression of someone who was braced for something, some kind of awful news. "You haven't said anything since we left the church."

"You're in love with me," Emma said. "Still."

Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn't been that. He had been moving to unzip his jacket. His hands froze in midmotion, fingers reaching. She saw his throat move as he swallowed. He said, "What are you talking about?"

"I thought you didn't love me a

nymore," she said. She pulled off her coat, reached to hang it on the peg by the door, but her hands were shaking and it fell to the floor. "But that isn't true, is it?"

She heard him inhale, slow and hard. "Why are you saying that? Why now?"

"Because of the church. Because of what happened. We burned a church down, Julian, we melted stone."

He yanked the zipper on his jacket down with a vicious jerk and threw it. It bounced off a kitchen cabinet. Underneath, his shirt was wet with sweat and rain. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with--" She broke off, her voice shaking. "You don't understand. You can't."

"You're right." He stalked away from her, turned in the middle of the room, and kicked out suddenly, violently, at one of the mugs on the floor. It flew across the room and shattered against a wall. "I don't understand. I don't understand any of it, Emma, I don't understand why you suddenly decided you didn't want me, you wanted Mark, and then you decided you didn't want him either and you dropped him like he was nothing, in front of everyone. What the hell were you thinking--"

"What do you care?" she demanded. "What do you care how I feel about Mark?"

"Because I needed you to love him," Julian said. His face was the color of the ashes in the grate. "Because if you threw me away and everything we had, it had better be for something that meant more to you, it had better be for something real, but maybe none of this is ever real to you--"

"Not real to me?" Emma's voice tore out of her throat with such force it hurt. Her body felt as if electric sparks were running under her veins, shocking her, pushing her rage higher and higher, and she wasn't even angry at Jules, she was angry at herself, she was angry at the world for doing this to them, for making her the only one who knew, the guardian of a poisonous, poisoning secret. "You don't know what you're talking about, Julian Blackthorn! You don't know what I've given up, what my reasons are for anything, you don't know what I'm trying to do--"

"What you're trying to do? How about what you did do? How about breaking my heart and breaking Cameron's and breaking Mark's?" His face twisted. "What, am I missing someone else, some other person whose life you want to wreck forever?"

"Your life isn't wrecked. You're still alive. You can have a good life! You kissed that faerie girl--"