Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

Crowded around them were other Shadowhunters, young and old. Cristina recognized quite a few Centurions—Manuel Casales Villalobos, Jessica Beausejours, and Samantha Larkspear among them—as well as many other Nephilim who had been carrying Cohort signs at the meeting. There were quite a few, though, who as far as she knew were not members of the Cohort. Like Lazlo Balogh, the craggy head of the Budapest Institute, who had been one of the main architects of the Cold Peace and its punitive measures against Downworlders. Josiane Pontmercy she knew from the Marseilles Institute. Delaney Scarsbury taught at the Academy. A few others she recognized as friends of her mother’s—Trini Castel from the Barcelona Conclave, and Luana Carvalho, who ran the Institute in São Paulo, had both known her when she was a small girl.

They were all Council members. Cristina said a silent prayer of thanks that her mother wasn’t here, that she’d been too busy dealing with an outbreak of Halphas demons in the Alameda Central to attend, trusting Diego to represent her interests.

“There is no time to lose,” Horace said. He exuded a sense of humorless intensity, just like his daughter. “We are without an Inquisitor, now, at a critical time, when we are under threat from outside and inside the Clave.” He glanced around the room. “We hope that after today’s events, those of you who have doubted our cause will come to be believers.”

Cristina felt cold inside. This was more than just a Cohort meeting. This was the Cohort recruiting. Inside the empty Council Hall, where Livvy had died. She felt sick.

“What do you think you’ve learned, exactly, Horace?” said a woman with an Australian accent. “Be clear with us, so we’re all understanding the same thing.”

He smirked a little. “Andrea Sedgewick,” he said. “You were in favor of the Cold Peace, if I recall correctly.”

She looked pinched. “I don’t think much of Downworlders. But what happened here today . . .”

“We were attacked,” said Dearborn. “Betrayed, attacked, inside and out. I’m sure you all saw what I saw—the sigil of the Unseelie Court?”

Cristina remembered. As Annabel had disappeared, borne away through the shattered window of the Hall as if by unseen hands, a single image had flashed on the air: a broken crown.

The crowd murmured their assent. Fear hung in the air like a miasma. Dearborn clearly relished it, almost licking his lips as he gazed around the room. “The Unseelie King, striking at the heart of our homeland. He sneers at the Cold Peace. He knows we are weak. He laughs at our inability to pass stricter Laws, to do anything that would really control the fey—”

“No one can control the fey,” said Scarsbury.

“That’s exactly the attitude that’s weakened the Clave all these years,” snapped Zara. Her father smiled at her indulgently.

“My daughter is right,” he said. “The fey have their weaknesses, like all Downworlders. They were not created by God or by our Angel. They have flaws, and we have never exploited them, yet they exploit our mercy and laugh at us behind their hands.”

“What are you suggesting?” said Trini. “A wall around Faerie?”

There was a bit of derisive laughter. Faerie existed everywhere and nowhere: It was another plane of existence. No one could wall it off.

Horace narrowed his eyes. “You laugh,” he said, “but iron doors at all the entrances and exits of Faerie would do a great deal to prevent their incursions into our world.”

“Is that the goal?” Manuel spoke lazily, as if he didn’t have much invested in the answer. “Close off Faerie?”

“There is not only one goal, as you well know, boy,” said Dearborn. Suddenly he smiled, as if something had just occurred to him. “You know of the blight, Manuel. Perhaps you should share your knowledge, since the Consul has not. Perhaps these good people should be aware of what happens when the doors between Faerie and the world are flung wide.”

Holding her necklace, Cristina seethed silently as Manuel described the patches of dead blighted earth in Brocelind Forest: the way they resisted Shadowhunter magic, the fact that the same blight seemed to exist in the Unseelie Lands of Faerie. How did he know that? Cristina agonized silently. It had been what Kieran was going to tell the Council, but he hadn’t had the chance. How did Manuel know?

She was only grateful that Diego had done what she had asked him to do, and taken Kieran to the Scholomance. It was clear there would have been no safety for a full-blood faerie here.

“The Unseelie King is creating a poison and beginning to spread it to our world—one that will make Shadowhunters powerless against him. We must move now to show our strength,” said Zara, cutting Manuel off before he was finished.

“As you moved against Malcolm?” said Lazlo. There were titters, and Zara flushed—she had proudly claimed to have slain Malcolm Fade, a powerful warlock, though it had later turned out she had lied. Cristina and the others had hoped the fact would discredit Zara—but now, after what had happened with Annabel, Zara’s lie had become little more than a joke.

Dearborn rose to his feet. “That’s not the issue now, Balogh. The Blackthorns have faerie blood in their family. They brought a creature—a necromantic half-dead thing that slew our Inquisitor and filled the Hall with blood and terror—into Alicante.”

“Their sister was killed too,” said Luana. “We saw their grief. They did not plan what happened.”

Cristina could see the calculations going on inside Dearborn’s head—he would have dearly liked to blame the Blackthorns and see them all tossed into the Silent City prisons, but the spectacle of Julian holding Livvy’s body as she died was too raw and visceral for even the Cohort to ignore. “They are victims too,” he said, “of the Fair Folk prince they trusted, and possibly their own faerie kin. Perhaps they can be brought around to see a reasonable point of view. After all, they are Shadowhunters, and that is what the Cohort is about—protecting Shadowhunters. Protecting our own.” He laid a hand on Zara’s shoulder. “When the Mortal Sword is restored, I am sure Zara will be happy to lay any doubts you have about her accomplishments to rest.”

Zara flushed and nodded. Cristina thought she looked guilty as sin, but the rest of the crowd had been distracted by the mention of the Sword.

“The Mortal Sword restored?” said Trini. She was a deep believer in the Angel and his power, as Cristina’s family was too. She looked anxious now, her thin hands working in her lap. “Our irreplaceable link to the Angel Raziel—you believe it will be returned to us?”

“It will be restored,” Dearborn said smoothly. “Jia will be meeting with the Iron Sisters tomorrow. As it was forged, so can it be reforged.”

“But it was forged in Heaven,” protested Trini. “Not the Adamant Citadel.”

“And Heaven let it break,” said Dearborn, and Cristina suppressed a gasp. How could he claim such a brazen thing? Yet the others clearly trusted him. “Nothing can shatter the Mortal Sword save Raziel’s will. He looked upon us and he saw we were unworthy. He saw that we had turned away from his message, from our service to angels, and were serving Downworlders instead. He broke the sword to warn us.” His eyes glittered with a fanatic light. “If we prove ourselves worthy again, Raziel will allow the Sword to be reforged. I have no doubts.”

How dare he speak for Raziel? How dare he speak as if he were God? Cristina shook with fury, but the others seemed to be looking at him as if he offered them a light in darkness. As if he were their only hope.

“And how do we prove ourselves worthy?” said Balogh in a more somber voice.

“We must remember that Shadowhunters were chosen,” said Horace. “We must remember that we have a mandate. We stand first in the face of evil, and therefore we come first. Let Downworlders look to their own. If we work together with strong leadership—”

“But we don’t have strong leadership,” said Jessica Beausejours, one of Zara’s Centurion friends. “We have Jia Penhallow, and she is tainted by her daughter’s association with faeries and half-bloods.”

There was a gasp

and a titter. All eyes turned toward Horace, but he only shook his head. “I will not utter a word against our Consul,” he said primly.

More murmurs. Clearly Horace’s pretense of loyalty had won him some support. Cristina tried not to grind her teeth.

“Her loyalty to her family is understandable, even if it may have blinded her,” said Horace. “What matters now is the Laws the Clave passes. We must enforce strict regulations on Downworlders, the strictest of all on the Fair Folk—though there is nothing fair about them.”

“That won’t stop the Unseelie King,” said Jessica, though Cristina got the feeling she didn’t so much doubt Horace as desire to prompt him to go further.

“The issue is preventing faeries and other Downworlders from joining the King’s cause,” said Horace. “That is why they need to be observed and, if necessary, incarcerated before they have a chance to betray us.”

“Incarcerated?” Trini echoed. “But how—?”

“Oh, there are several ways,” said Horace. “Wrangel Island, for instance, could hold a host of Downworlders. The important thing is that we begin with control. Enforcement of the Accords. Registration of each Downworlder, their name and location. We would start with the faeries, of course.”

There was a buzz of approval.

“We will, of course, need a strong Inquisitor to pass and enforce those laws,” said Horace.