Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

They had forgotten, reaching for each other in the abyss of grief, as they had always reached for each other all their lives. But it couldn’t happen, Julian told himself, biting down hard on his lip, tasting his own blood. There could be no more destruction.

It had begun to rain outside. He could hear the soft patter on the roof of the house. He bent down and tore a strip of material from the shirt he’d worn at the Council meeting. It was stiff and dark with his sister’s dried blood.

He tied it around his right wrist. It would stay there until he had vengeance. Until there was justice for Livvy. Until all this bloody mess was cleared up. Until everyone he loved was safe.

He went back out into the bedroom and began to hunt for clean clothes and shoes. He knew exactly where he needed to go.

* * *

Julian ran through the empty streets of Idris. Warm summer rain plastered his hair to his forehead and soaked his shirt and jacket.

His heart was pounding: He missed Emma already, regretted leaving her. And yet he couldn’t stop running, as if he could outrun the pain of Livvy’s death. It was almost a surprise that he could grieve his sister and love Emma at the same time and feel both, neither diminishing the other: Livvy had loved Emma too.

He could imagine how thrilled Livvy would have been to know he and Emma were together; if it were possible for them to get married, Livvy would have been wild with delight at the idea of helping plan a wedding. The thought was like a stabbing blow to the midsection, the twist of a blade in his guts.

Rain was splashing down into the canals, turning the world to mist and water. The Inquisitor’s house loomed up out of the fog like a shadow, and Julian ran up the front steps with such force that he nearly crashed into the front door. He knocked and Magnus opened it, looking pinched and unusually pale. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans with a blue silk robe thrown over them. His hands were bare of their usual rings.

When he saw Julian, he sagged a little against the doorframe. He didn’t move or speak, just stared, as if he were looking not at Julian but at something or someone else.

“Magnus,” Julian said, a little alarmed. He recalled that Magnus wasn’t well. He’d nearly forgotten it. Magnus had always seemed the same: eternal, immutable, invulnerable. “I—”

“I’m here on my own account,” Magnus said, in a low and distant voice. “I need your help. There is absolutely no one else that I can ask.”

“That’s not what I . . .” Julian pushed sopping-wet hair out of his eyes, his voice trailing off in realization. “You’re remembering someone.”

Magnus seemed to shake himself a little, like a dog emerging from the sea. “Another night, a different boy with blue eyes. Wet weather in London, but when was it anything else?”

Julian didn’t press it. “Well, you’re right. I do need your help. And there isn’t anyone else I can ask.”

Magnus sighed. “Come in, then. But be quiet. Everyone’s asleep, and that’s an achievement, considering.”

Of course, Julian thought, following Magnus into a central drawing room. This was also a house of grief.

The interior of the house was grand in its scope, with high ceilings and furniture that looked heavy and expensive. Robert seemed to have added little in terms of personality and decoration. There were no family pictures, and little art on the wall besides generic landscapes.

“I haven’t seen Alec cry in a long time,” Magnus said, sinking onto the sofa and staring into the middle distance. Julian stood where he was, dripping onto the carpet. “Or Isabelle. I understand what it’s like to have a father who’s a bastard. He’s still your bastard. And he did love them, and tried to make amends. Which is more than you can say for mine.” He flicked a glance at Julian. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t use a drying spell on you. I’m trying to conserve energy. There’s a blanket on that chair.”

Julian ignored the blanket and the chair. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said.

Magnus’s gaze dropped to the bloody cloth tied around Julian’s wrist. His expression softened. “It’s all right,” he said. “For the first time in a long time, I’m feeling despair. It makes me lash out. My Alec lost his father, and the Clave has lost a decent Inquisitor. But you, you lost your hope of salvation. Don’t think I don’t understand that.”

“My rune started to burn,” Julian said. “Tonight. As if it had been drawn on my skin with fire.”

Magnus hunched forward and rubbed wearily at his face. Lines of pain and tiredness were etched beside his mouth. His eyes looked sunken. “I wish I knew more about it,” he said. “What destruction this will bring to you, to Emma. To others.” He paused. “I should be kinder to you. You’ve lost a child.”

“I thought it would wipe everything else out,” Julian said, his voice scraped raw. “I thought there wouldn’t be anything else in my heart but agony, but there’s room in there for me to be terrified for Ty, and panicked about Dru, and there’s room for more hate than I ever thought anyone could feel.” The pain in his parabatai rune flared, and he felt his legs give out.

He staggered and went down on his knees in front of Magnus. Magnus didn’t seem surprised that he was kneeling. He only looked down at Julian with a quiet, rarefied patience, like a priest hearing a confession.

“What hurts more,” Magnus asked, “the love or the hate?”

“I don’t know,” Julian said. He dug wet fingers into the carpet on either side of his knees. He felt as if he were having a hard time catching his breath. “I still love Emma more than I ever thought was possible. I love her more every day, and more every time I try to stop. I love her like I’m being ripped in half. And I want to cut the throats of everyone in the Cohort.”

“There’s an unconventional love speech,” Magnus said, leaning forward. “What about Annabel?”

“I hate her, too,” said Julian, without emotion. “There’s plenty of room for me to hate them all.”

Magnus’s cat eyes glittered. “Don’t think I don’t know what you feel,” he said. “And there is something I could do. It would be a stopgap. A harsh one. And I wouldn’t do it lightly.”

“Please.” Kneeling on the ground in front of the warlock, Julian looked up; he had never begged for anything in his life, but he didn’t care if he was begging now. “I know you’re sick, I know I shouldn’t even ask, but I have nothing else I can do and nowhere else I can go.”

Magnus sighed. “There would be consequences. Have you ever heard the expression ‘the sleep of reason brings forth monsters’?”

“Yes,” Julian said. “But I’m going to be a monster either way.”

Magnus stood up. For a moment he seemed to tower

over Julian, a figure as tall and dark as the grim reaper in a child’s nightmare.

“Please,” Julian said again. “I don’t have anything left to lose.”

“Yes, you do,” said Magnus. He raised his left hand and looked at it quizzically. Cobalt sparks had begun to burn at the tips of each of his fingers. “Oh yes, you do.”

The room lit with blue fire, and Julian closed his eyes.

3

ETERNAL REST

The funeral was set for noon, but Emma had been tossing and turning since three or four in the morning. Her eyes felt dry and itchy and her hands shook as she brushed her hair and wound it carefully into a knot on the back of her head.

After Julian had left, she’d run to the window, wrapped in a sheet, and stared out in mingled shock and disbelief. She’d seen him come out of the house and run into the drizzling rain, not even bothering to slow down to zip his jacket.

After that, there hadn’t seemed like much she could do. It wasn’t like Julian was in danger in the streets of Alicante. Still, she’d waited until she heard his step on the stairs, returning, and heard his bedroom door open and close.

She’d gotten up then and gone to check on Ty, who was still asleep, Kit beside him. She’d realized Livvy’s duffel bag was still in the room and taken it, afraid that it would hurt Ty to see it when he woke up. In her room, she’d sat on the bed and unzipped it briefly. There hadn’t been much to Livvy’s scant belongings—some shirts and skirts, a book, carefully packed toothbrush and soap. One of the shirts had dirt on it, and Emma thought maybe she should wash Livvy’s clothes, maybe that would be helpful, and then she’d realized exactly why it wouldn’t be helpful and didn’t matter and she’d curled up over the bag, sobbing as if her heart would crack in half.

In the end, she’d fallen into a fitful sleep full of dreams of fire and blood. She’d been woken up by the sound of Cristina knocking on her door with a mug of tea and the unpleasant news that Horace had been elected the new Inquisitor in an emergency vote that morning. She’d already told the rest of the family, who were awake and readying themselves for the funeral.