Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

Emma swallowed bitter rage. “I’m not going to ask you anything except to get off our property. Now.”

“Really?” Zara cooed. “Your property? This is an Institute, Emma. Clave property. I know you and the Blackthorns treat it like it’s yours. But it isn’t. And you won’t be living here much longer.”

Emma tightened her grip on her longsword. “What do you mean?”

“You were sent a message,” Zara said. “Don’t pretend you don’t know about it. Most of the other Institutes have shown up in Idris to prove their support. Not you guys, though.” She twirled Cortana inexpertly. “You haven’t even replied to the summons. And the names in your registry were a joke. Did you think we were too stupid to get it?”

“Yes,” Emma said. “Also, it seems like it took you a week to figure it out, at least. Who got it in the end? Manuel?”

Zara flushed angrily. “You think it’s cute, not taking anything seriously? Not taking the Downworlder threat seriously? Samantha’s dead. She hurled herself out the window of the Basilias. Because of your faerie friend—”

“I already know what really happened,” Emma said, with a feeling of immense sadness for Samantha. “Kieran pulled Samantha out of the pool. He tried to help her. You can twist things and twist things, Zara, but you can’t just make facts whatever you want them to be. You stood around and laughed when Samantha fell into that water. And the cruelty she saw—the terrible pain she’d caused—that was because of you and what you made her do. And that’s the truth.”

Zara stared at her, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“You don’t deserve Cortana,” Emma said. “You don’t deserve to have it in your hand.”

“I don’t deserve it?” Zara hissed. “You were given it because you’re a Carstairs! That’s all! I worked and worked to get respect, and people just gave it to you like you’re special because your parents died in the Dark War. A lot of people died in the Dark War. You’re not special at all.” She took a step toward Emma, Cortana shaking in her grip. “Don’t you get it? None of this is yours. Not the Institute. Not this sword. Not the Blackthorns, who aren’t your family. Not the reputation for being a great warrior. You didn’t earn any of it.”

“How lucky for you that your reputation as a bigoted asshole is totally justified,” said Emma.

Zara’s flush had faded. Her eyes glittered angrily. “You have twenty-four hours to come to Idris and swear loyalty to the Cohort. If you are even five minutes late you will be considered deserters and I will strike down every deserter myself. Starting with you.”

Emma raised her sword. “Then strike me down now.”

Zara took a step backward. “I said you had twenty-four hours.”

Rage sizzled through Emma’s nerves. “And I said strike me down now.” She jabbed the sword toward Zara; it caught the edge of Zara’s cloak and sliced through it. “You came here. You challenged me. You threatened my family.”

Zara gaped. Emma suspected Zara had rarely ever had to engage in a fight that wasn’t on her terms.

“You’re a liar, Zara,” she said, advancing with her sword drawn. Zara stumbled back, almost tripping over the grass. “You’ve never accomplished anything. You’ve taken credit for what other people do and used it to prop yourself up, but people can see through you. You pick on those who have less power than you to make yourself look strong. You’re a bully and a thief and a coward.”

Zara snarled, raising Cortana. “I am not a coward!”

“So fight me!” Emma swung her sword; Zara barely got Cortana up in the air and it clanged hard against Emma’s blade, the awkward angle turning Zara’s wrist back on itself. She yelped in pain and Emma slammed Cortana again—it felt beyond wrong to be fighting against Cortana, as if the world had been turned inside out.

She ought to feel sympathy for Zara’s pain, Emma thought. But she didn’t. She felt only a savage anger as she drove the other girl panting and gasping back and back across the tufted grass until they were at the edge of the bluffs, until the sea was below them.

Zara dug her heels in then and fought back, but when she raised Cortana and wheeled it through the air at Emma, the blade turned aside at the last moment, seeming to bend like a live thing in her hand. Zara shrieked, almost overbalancing; Emma kicked out and swept Zara’s legs out from under her. Zara thumped to the ground, her body half-dangling over the edge of the bluff.

Emma stalked toward her, longsword in hand. A surge of power went through her like electricity coursing through a wire. She felt almost dizzy with it, as if she were rising above Zara to an immense height—looking down at her with the indifference of an avenging angel, a being of light gifted with power so great it had rendered them nearly inhuman.

I could bring my blade down and cut her in half. I could take Cortana back.

She raised her longsword. She could see herself as if from the outside, a massive figure towering over Zara.

Their runes began to burn like fire, as if they had fire in their veins instead of blood. People said that the blades of those who fought them shattered in their hands. Black lines spread over their bodies and they became monstrous—physically monstrous.

Emma stumbled back, Diana’s voice echoing in her head. She stood without moving as Zara, gasping, scrambled back from the edge of the cliff, rolling onto her knees.

Emma’s vision of herself as an avenging angel was gone. In its place, a cool and reasonable voice whispered in the back of her head, unmistakably Julian’s, telling her that Horace Dearborn surely knew where his daughter was, would know who to blame when she went missing, that either hurting Zara or taking Cortana would bring the Clave down on the Los Angeles Institute.

“Get up,” Emma said, her voice edged with contempt. Zara scrabbled to her feet. “And get out of here.”

Zara was panting, her face smeared with dirt. “You little pervert,” she hissed, all pretense at smirking gone. “My father told me about you and your parabatai—you’re disgusting—I guess you want to be like Clary and Jace, huh? Wanting what’s forbidden? And nasty?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Zara, Clary and Jace weren’t related.”

“Yeah, well, they thought they were, and that’s the same!” Zara screamed, a tower of howling illogic. “And they’re dead now! That’s what’ll happen to you and Julian! We’ll leave your corpses on the battlefield and the crows will pick out your eyes, I’ll make sure of it—”

“What battlefield?” Emma said quietly.

Zara blanched. Her mouth worked, spittle flecking her lips. At last she raised Cortana between herself and Emma, as if she were warding off a vampire with a crucifix. “Twenty-four hours,” she breathed. “If you’re not at the gates of Alicante then, there won’t be a single one of you left alive.”

She turned and stalked away. It took every ounce of Emma’s self-control not to follow her. She forced herself to turn away from Zara. To turn back to the Institute.

She raced across the lawn and up the stairs. By the time she reached the front door, her anger was turning into anticipation: She would need to talk to Julian. She had to tell him about Zara.

She yanked the front door open, already picturing what Julian would say. He would tell her not to worry. He would have an idea about what they should do. He might even make her laugh—

There was a flare of sharp pain against her arm.

Her rune. She gasped and flinched; she was in the entryway of the Institute. It was deserted, thank the Angel. She pulled up the sleeve of her shirt.

The parabatai rune there glowed on her upper arm like a brand, red against her skin.

She sagged back against the wall. If even thinking of Julian did this, then how much time did they have left? How much time before she had to go to Magnus and have her runes stripped forever?

* * *

Slumped against the wall of the Gard cell, Diego held his brother in his arms.

Jaime had fallen asleep at some point during the night before, or at least Diego a

ssumed it was night—it was hard to tell when there was no way to measure the passage of time except for meals, and those were served irregularly. There was only sleeping, eating, and trying to conserve Jaime’s strength.

Jaime breathed against him, low irregular breaths; his eyes were closed. Some of Diego’s earliest memories were of holding his brother. When he was five and Jaime was three, he had carried him everywhere. He’d been afraid that otherwise Jaime, toddling around on his short little legs, would miss out on all the things in the world Diego wanted him to see.

Sometimes at the end of a long day, his baby brother would fall asleep in his arms, and Diego would carry him to bed and tuck him in. Diego had always taken care of his brother, and the helplessness he felt now filled him with rage and despair.

For so long, he had thought of Jaime as a little boy, quick and mischievous. Even when he’d run off with the Eternidad, it seemed like another of his games, one where he was always slipping out of trouble and playing tricks. But in these past few days, as Jaime had grown weaker but refused to speak a word to Zara about the heirloom, Diego had seen the steel beneath his brother’s playful attitude, his commitment to their family and their cause.

He kissed Jaime on the top of the head; his black hair was ragged, messy and dirty. Diego didn’t care. He was filthy himself. “Siempre estuve orgulloso de ti,” he said.

“I’ve always been proud of you, too,” Jaime murmured without opening his eyes.

Diego gave a rough chuckle of relief. “You’re awake.”

Jaime didn’t move. His brown cheeks were red with fever, his lips chapped and bleeding. “Yes. I’m awake, and I’m going to hold this over you forever.”

Forever. Most likely neither of them had forever. Diego thought of the heirloom, its optimistic infinity symbol looping over and over, promising a never-ending future. Eternidad.

There was nothing to say. He stroked Jaime’s hair in silence and listened to his brother breathe. Every breath a struggle, in and out like rough water through a broken dam. Diego’s desperation for a stele was like a silent scream, rising in the back of his throat.

They both looked up as a familiar clanking sound announced the arrival of what Diego guessed was breakfast. Surely it had to be morning. He blinked at the dim light coming from the open door of the prison. A figure came closer to their cell; it was Anush Joshi, carrying a tray.

Diego looked at Anush without speaking. He’d given up begging any of the guards for help. If they were monstrous enough to sit back and watch Jaime slowly die, then there was no point asking them for anything. It only made Jaime feel worse.

Anush knelt down with the tray. He wore the livery of the Council guard, his dark hair tangled, his eyes red-rimmed. He set the tray on the ground.