Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices 3)

“My sandwiches are not terrible.” Mark leaned back against the counter with an easy grace. In blue jeans and a T-shirt, he looked entirely human—if you didn’t note his sharply pointed ears. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

“About Kieran?” Cristina felt her pulse speed up: with nerves and with closeness to Mark. They had spoken only of surface things for days. The intimacy of discussing their actual feelings was making her heart race. “Yes. I—I mean, you know that, don’t you?” She felt herself blush. “You saw us kiss.”

“I did,” Mark said. “I did not know what it meant to you, nor to Kieran, either.” He looked thoughtful. “It is easy to be carried away in Faerie. I wanted to reassure you I was not angry or jealous. I am truly not, Cristina.”

“All right,” she said awkwardly. “Thank you.”

But what did it mean that he wasn’t angry or jealous? If what had happened with her and Kieran in Faerie had happened among Shadowhunters, she would have considered it a declaration of interest. And would have worried that Mark was upset. But it hadn’t been, had it? It might have meant nothing more to Kieran than a handshake.

She trailed a hand along the smooth top of the counter. She could not help but remember a conversation she had had with Mark once, here in the Institute. It felt so long ago. It came back to her like a lucid dream:

There was nothing rehearsed about the look Mark gave her then. “I meant it when I said you were beautiful. I want you, and Kieran would not mind—”

“You want me?”

“Yes,” Mark said simply, and Cristina looked away, suddenly very aware of how close his body was to hers. Of the shape of his shoulders under his jacket. He was lovely as faeries were lovely, with a sort of unearthliness, as quicksilver as moonlight on water. He didn’t seem quite touchable, but she had seen him kiss Kieran and knew better. “You do not want to be wanted?”

In another time, the time before, Cristina would have blushed. “It is not the sort of compliment mortal women enjoy.”

“But why not?” said Mark.

“Because it makes it sound like I am a thing you want to use. And when you say Kieran would not mind, you make it sound as if he would not mind because I do not matter.”

“That is very human,” he said. “To be jealous of a body but not a heart.”

“You see, I do not want a body without a heart,” she said.

A body without a heart.

She could have both Mark and Kieran now, in the way that Mark had suggested so long ago—she could kiss them, and be with them, and bid them good-bye when they left her, because they would.

“Cristina,” Mark said. “Are you all right? You seem—sad. I would have hoped to reassure you.” He touched the side of her face lightly, his fingers tracing the shape of her cheekbone.

I don’t want to talk about this, Cristina thought. They had spent three days speaking of nothing important save Emma and Julian. Those three days and the peace of them felt delicate, as if too much discussion of reality and its harshness might shatter everything.

“We don’t have time to talk now,” she said. “Perhaps later—”

“Then let me say one thing.” Mark spoke quietly. “I have been long torn between two worlds. I thought I was a Shadowhunter, told myself I was only that. But I have realized my ties to Faerie are stronger than I thought. I cannot leave half my blood, half my heart, in either world. I dream it might be possible to have both, but I know it cannot be.”

Cristina turned away so as not to see the look on his face. Mark would choose Faerie, she knew. Mark would choose Kieran. They had their history together, a great love in the past. They were both faeries, and though she had studied Faerie and yearned toward it with all her heart, it was not the same. They would be together because they belonged together, because they were beautiful together, and there would be pain for her when she lost them both.

But that was the way for mortals who loved the folk of Faerie. They always paid a heavy price.

* * *

It was, Emma discovered, not actually possible to hate a doughnut sandwich. Even if her arteries might pay for it someday down the line. She ate three.

Mark had placed them with care on platters, which sat in the middle of one of the big library tables—something about the desire to please in the gesture touched Emma’s heart.

Everyone else was crowded around the long table, including Kieran, who sat quietly, his face blank, beside Mark. He wore a simple black shirt and linen pants; he looked nothing like he had the last time Emma had seen him, in the Unseelie Court, covered in blood and dirt, his face twisted with rage.

Magnus looked different than he had the last time she’d seen him, too. And not in a good way. He had come down to the library leaning heavily on Alec, his face gray and tight, sharply drawn with pain. He lay on a long couch by the table, a blanket around his shoulders. Despite the blanket and the warm weather, he shivered often. Every time he did, Alec would bend down over him and smooth his hair back or draw the blankets up more tightly over his shoulders.

And every time Alec did, Jace—sitting across the table, beside Clary—would tense, his hands curling into useless fists. Because that was what being parabatai meant, Emma knew. Feeling someone else’s pain as if it was your own.

Magnus kept his eyes closed while Emma told the story of Thule, Julian interjecting quietly when she forgot a detail or glossed over something he thought was necessary. He didn’t push her, though, at the harder parts—when she had to talk about how Alec and Magnus had died or about Isabelle’s last stand with the Mortal Sword. About Clary’s death at Lilith’s hands.

And about Jace. His eyes widened incredulously when Emma spoke of the Jace who lived in Thule, who had been bound to Sebastian for so long he would never be free. Emma saw Clary reach over to grip his hand tightly, her eyes shining with tears the way they hadn’t when her own death had been described.

But the worst, of course, was describing Livvy. Because while the other stories were horrors, knowing about Livvy in Thule reminded them that there was a horror story in this world that they could neither change nor reverse.

Dru, who had insisted on sitting at the table with everyone else, said nothing when they described Livvy, but tears streaked silently down her cheeks. Mark went ashen. And Ty—who looked thinner than Emma remembered him, bitten down like a ragged fingernail—made no sound either. Kit, who was sitting beside him, tentatively put his hand over Ty’s where it lay on the table; Ty didn’t react, though he didn’t draw away from Kit either.

Emma went on, because she had no choice but to go on. Her throat was aching badly by the time she finished; gray-faced, Cristina pushed a glass of water toward her and she took it gratefully.

A silence had fallen. No one seemed to know what to say. The only sound was the faint tinny chime of the music coming from Tavvy’s headphones as he played with a train set in the corner—they were Ty’s headphones, really, but he’d put them gently on Tavvy’s head before Emma had started talking.

“Poor Ash,” Clary said. She was very pale. “He was—my nephew. I mean, my brother was a monster, but . . .?

?

“Ash saved me,” said Emma. “He saved my life. And he said it was because he liked something I said about you. But he stayed because he wanted to stay in Thule. We offered to bring him back. He didn’t want to come.”

Clary smiled tightly, her eyes sparkling with tears. “Thank you.”

“Okay, let’s talk about the important part.” Magnus turned to Alec with a furious look on his face. “You killed yourself? Why would you do that?”

Alec looked startled. “That wasn’t me,” he pointed out. “It’s an alternate universe, Magnus!”

Magnus grabbed Alec by the front of his shirt. “If I die, you are not allowed to do anything like that! Who would take care of our kids? How could you do that to them?”

“We never had kids in that world!” Alec protested.

“Where are Rafe and Max?” Emma whispered to Cristina.

“Simon and Isabelle are looking after them in New York. Alec checks in every day to see if Max is getting sick, but he seems fine so far,” Cristina whispered back.

“You are not allowed to hurt yourself, under any circumstances,” Magnus said, his voice gruff. “Do you understand that, Alexander?”

“I would never,” Alec said softly, stroking Magnus’s cheek. Magnus clasped Alec’s hand against his face. “Never.”

They all looked away, letting Magnus and Alec have their moment in privacy.

“I see why you clawed at me when I tried to lift you up,” Jace said to Emma. His golden eyes were dark with a regret she could only begin to understand. “When you first came through the Portal. You were lying on the ground, and I—you were bleeding, and I thought I should carry you to the infirmary, but you clawed at me and screamed like I was a monster.”

“I don’t remember it,” Emma said honestly. “Jace, I know you’re a completely different person than him, even if he did look like you. You can’t feel bad or responsible for what someone who wasn’t you did.” She turned to look at the rest of the table. “The Thule versions of us aren’t really us,” she added. “If you think of them as copies of you, it’ll drive you crazy.”