Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

Ty took an eager step forward. “We have everything. All the ingredients for the spell.”

Shade’s gaze flicked to Kit quickly and then away. He looked grim. “All of them?”

Ty nodded. “Incense, blood, and bone—”

“An object from another world?”

“We have that, too,” said Kit as Ty drew the folded letter from his pocket. “It’s from a place called Thule.”

Shade stared at the letter, the color draining from his face, leaving it the sickly hue of lettuce. “Thule?”

“You know that world?” Ty said.

“Yes.” Shade’s voice was toneless. “I know many other worlds. It is one of the worst.”

Kit could see that Ty was puzzled: He hadn’t expected Shade to react this way. “But we have everything,” he said again. “All the ingredients. You said you would give us a power source.”

“Yes, I did say that.” Shade sat down at the rickety wooden table. “But I won’t.”

Ty blinked disbelievingly. “But you said—”

“I know what I said,” Shade snapped. “I never intended you to find all the ingredients, you foolish child. I thought you would give up. You didn’t.” He threw his arms into the air. “Don’t you understand this would be the worst thing you could possibly do? That its effects would follow you all your life? Death is the end for a reason.”

“But you’re immortal.” Ty’s eyes were huge and pale gray, silver coins against his stark face.

“I have a long life, but I won’t live forever,” said Shade. “We all have the life that’s been allotted to us. If you pull Livvy to you from where she belongs, you leave a hole in the universe to be filled by black sorrow and miserable grief. That’s not something you can walk away from unscathed. Not now. Not ever.”

“So you lied to us,” Ty said.

Shade stood up. “I did. I would again. I will never help you to do this thing, do you understand me? And I will spread the word. No warlock will help you. They will face my wrath if they do.”

Ty’s hands were working themselves into fists, his fingers scrabbling at his palms. “But Livvy—”

“Your sister is dead,” said Shade. “I understand your grief, Tiberius. But you cannot break the universe to get her back.”

Ty turned and ran for the tunnel. Kit stared at Shade.

“That was too brutal,” he said. “You didn’t have to talk to him like that.”

“I did,” Shade said. He slumped back into his chair. “Go after your friend. He needs you now, and God knows I don’t.”

Kit backed up, then spun and ran, following Ty’s witchlight. He spilled out onto the beach to find Ty already there, bent over and gasping for breath.

Dru leaped to her feet, spilling a meowing Church onto the ground. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

Kit put his hand on Ty’s back, between his shoulder blades. He was a little startled to find Ty’s back more solid and lightly muscled than he would have thought. He always thought of Ty as fragile, but he didn’t feel fragile. He felt like iron hammered thin: flexible but unbreakable.

Kit remembered hearing somewhere that it was soothing to rub circles on someone’s back, so he did that. Ty’s breaths began to regulate.

“It isn’t going to work,” Kit said, looking firmly at Dru over Ty’s back. “We aren’t going to be able to see Livvy’s ghost.”

“I’m sorry,” Dru whispered. “I would have liked to have seen her too.”

Ty straightened up. His eyes were wet; he rubbed them fiercely. “No—I’m sorry, Dru.”

Kit and Dru exchanged a startled look. It hadn’t occurred to Kit before that Ty might feel not just disappointed but as if he had let others down.

“Don’t be sorry,” Dru said. “Some things aren’t possible.” She put her hand out, a little shyly. “If you feel bad, I’ll watch movies all night with you in the TV room. I can make cookies, too. That always helps.”

There was a long pause. Ty reached out to take Dru’s hand. “That would be nice.”

Kit felt a wash of relief so enormous he almost staggered. Ty had remembered he had a sister. Surely that was something. He had expected much worse: a disappointment he couldn’t calculate, a hurt so deep nothing he could have said would touch it.

“Come on.” Dru tugged on Ty’s hand, and together they started back toward the Institute.

Kit followed, pausing as they began to scramble up the first of the rock walls that blocked the way across the beach. As Ty and Dru climbed, he looked back over his shoulder and saw Shade watching them from the darkness of his cave entrance. He shook his head at Kit once before vanishing back into the shadows.

* * *

The wind was blowing from the desert; Cristina and Mark sat near the statues Arthur Blackthorn had imported from England and placed among the cacti of the Santa Monica Mountains. The sand was still warm from the sunlight of the day, and soft under Mark, like the deep pile of a carpet. In the Wild Hunt, he and Kieran would have found this a very fine bed.

“I am worried,” Cristina said, “that we hurt Kieran earlier today.”

She was barefoot in the sand, wearing a short lace dress and gold earrings. Looking at her made Mark’s heart hurt, so he glanced up at the statue of Virgil, his old friend of frustrated nights. Virgil stared back impassively, without advice.

“His worries are my worries too,” said Mark. “It is difficult to ease his fears when I cannot ease my own.”

“You don’t have to ease other people’s fears to share yours, Mark.” Cristina was playing with her medallion, her long fingers caressing the etching of Raziel. Mark wanted badly to kiss her; instead, he dug his fingers into the sand.

“I could say the same to you,” he said. “You have been tense as a bowstring all day. You are fearful too.”

She sighed and poked his leg lightly with her bare foot. “Fine. You tell me, and I’ll tell you.”

“I have been worried about my sister,” Mark said.

Cristina looked puzzled. “That isn’t what I thought you would say.”

“My sister was exiled because of her faerie blood,” said Mark. “You know the story—all of it. You know it better than most.” He couldn’t help it; he put his hand over hers in the sand. “All of my family has suffered because we have faerie parentage. Our loyalty has always been questioned. How much worse would it be for her and for Aline if I were with Kieran and he were the King of the Unseelie Court? It sounds so strange to say, and so selfish—”

“It is not selfish.”

They both looked up; Kieran stood in the space between two statues, pale as a statue himself. His hair was black raven wings in the darkness, which washed all the blue from its color.

“You are worried about your family,” said Kieran. “That is not selfish. It is what I have learned from you and from Julian. To want to protect others more than you want your own happiness—” He glanced sideways. “Not that I wish to assume that being with me would bring you happiness.”

Mark was speechless, but Cristina stretched out her arms. Gold bracelets shimmered against her brown skin as she beckoned to Kieran. “Come and sit with us.”

Kieran was also barefoot; faeries often were. He prowled like a cat through the sand, his steps kicking up no dust, his movements silent as he sank to his knees opposite Cristina and Mark.

“It would make me happy,” Mark said. “But as you said—” He took a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers. “There are other considerations.”

“I might not become King,” said Kieran.

“But you might,” said Cristina. “I, too, am afraid. I spoke to my mother today. Someone had said something nasty to her about me. That I was involved with faeries. That I was a—a dirty girl, besmirched by Downworlders. You know I don’t care what anyone says about me,” she added hastily. “And my mother could withstand it as well, but—it is a bad time to be a Rosales. Our history of friendship with faeries has already brought us troub

le. Jaime and Diego are in jail. What if I bring further trouble on them?”

“Now I will tell you something selfish,” Kieran said. “I was afraid you both regretted what happened last night. That you both regretted—me.”

Mark and Cristina looked at each other. She shook her head, the wind lifting her dark hair.

“There is no regret,” said Mark. “Only—”