Queen of Air and Darkness

by Cassandra Clare

And so she’d avoided him, and Kit by consequence since they were always together. They didn’t own the roof, though. She stomped over to where they were standing, making plenty of noise so she wouldn’t surprise them.

  They didn’t seem bothered to see her. “Gwyn and Diana are here,” said Kit. When he’d come to them, he had looked a bit pale, as if he’d spent most of his time indoors and at night markets. Now he had color—the beginnings of a tan and flushed cheeks. He looked more like Jace, especially as his hair had grown out and started to curl.

  “I know.” She joined them at the roof’s edge. “They’re going to Idris. They’re going to get the water from Lake Lyn.”

  She filled them in quickly, pleased to be the one who had news for a change. Kieran had come out of the Institute and was walking across the grass toward Diana and Gwyn. His back was very straight, the sun bright on his blue-black hair.

  Kieran inclined his head to Diana and turned to Gwyn. Kieran had changed, Dru thought. She remembered the first time she’d seen him, bloody and furious and bitterly angry at the world. She had regarded him as an enemy of Mark, of all of them.

  She had seen different sides of him since then. He had fought alongside them. He had watched bad movies with her. She thought of him complaining about his love life the night before, and laughing, and looked down at him now: Gwyn had laid a hand on his shoulder and was nodding, clear respect in his gestures.

  People were made up of all sorts of different bits, Dru thought. Funny bits and romantic bits and selfish bits and brave bits. Sometimes you saw only a few of them. Maybe it was when you saw them all that you realized you knew someone really well.

  She wondered if there would ever be anyone besides her family that she knew like that.

  “We should go downstairs,” Ty said, his gray eyes curious. “Find out what’s going on.”

  He headed for the trapdoor that led to the stairs. Kit had just started to follow him when Drusilla tapped him on the shoulder.

  Kit turned to look at her. “What is it?”

  “Ty,” she said in a low voice. Dru glanced over at her brother automatically as she said his name; he’d already disappeared down the steps. “I want to talk to you about him, but not with anyone else around, and you have to promise not to tell him. Can you promise?”

  * * *

  “Have a good watch,” Jace said, ruffling Clary’s hair. Diana and Gwyn had departed for Idris. Emma had watched them vanish until they were a speck on the horizon, disappearing into the haze of the Los Angeles air. Alec had gone to be with Magnus, and the rest of them had agreed to take turns at patrolling the perimeter of the Institute.

  “We need to be alert,” Julian had said. “This message from the Cohort is a loyalty test. They’re going to be watching Institutes to see who races to Alicante to pledge themselves to the fight against Faerie. They know we’ll delay as long as possible”—he gestured at Mark and Helen—“but I wouldn’t put it past them to move on us first.”

  “That wouldn’t be very clever,” Mark had said, frowning. “All they have to do is wait, and they can declare us traitors soon enough.”

  “They’re not that smart,” Julian had agreed grimly. “Vicious, but not smart.”

  “Unfortunately, Manuel is pretty smart,” said Emma, and though everyone had looked grimmer than ever, no one had disagreed.

  Clary and Emma had the second watch after Jace and Helen; Helen had already gone inside to check on Aline, and Emma was trying to look off into the distance while Clary and Jace kissed and made cutesy noises at each other.

  “I hope everything’s all right in Alicante,” she said eventually, more to determine if they were still kissing than anything else.

  “It can’t be,” said Jace, breaking away from Clary. “They all think I’m dead. There had better be a mourning parade. We should find out who’s sending flowers.”

  Clary rolled her eyes, not without affection. “Maybe Simon or Izzy can make a list. Then when we come back from the dead, we can send them flowers.”

  “Women will be in mourning to hear of my passing,” Jace said, bounding up the steps. “Garments will be rent. Rent, I tell you.”

  “You’re taken,” Clary called up at him. “It’s not like you’re a single dead hero.”

  “Love knows no bounds,” said Jace, and sobered. “I’m going to go check on Alec and Magnus. I’ll see you two later.”

  He waved and vanished. Clary and Emma, both in gear, started to cut across the grass toward the path that led around the Institute.

  Clary sighed. “Jace hates being away from Alec at times like this. There isn’t anything he can do, but I understand wanting to be with your parabatai when they’re suffering. I’d want to be with Simon.”

  “It’s not like he’s there just for himself,” Emma said. The sky was dark blue and chased with fading clouds. “I’m sure it’s better for Alec, having him there. I mean, I think part of what was so awful for the Alec in Thule was that he must have felt so alone when he lost Magnus. So many of his friends were already dead, and his parabatai was worse than dead.”

  Clary shuddered. “We should talk about something more cheerful.”

  Emma tried to think about cheerful things. Julian getting the spell taken off him? Not a topic she could discuss. Zara being squished by a boulder made her seem vengeful.

  “We could discuss your visions,” she said carefully. Clary looked at her in surprise. “The ones you told me about, where you said you saw yourself die. In the Unseelie Court, when you looked through the Portal—”

  “I realized what I’d been seeing, yes,” Clary said. “I was seeing me, and I was dead, and I was also seeing the dream I’d been having.” She took a deep breath. “I haven’t had it since we came back from Faerie. I think the dreams were actually trying to tell me about Thule.”

  They had reached the place where grass turned into desert and scrub; the ocean was a thick line of blue paint in the distance. “Did you tell Jace?” Emma asked.

  “No. I can’t do it now. I feel so stupid, and like he might never forgive me—and besides, Jace needs to focus on Alec and Magnus. We all do.” Clary kicked a small stone out of her path. “I’ve known Magnus since I was a little girl. The first time I met him, I pulled his cat’s tail. I didn’t know he could have turned me into a frog or a mailbox if he wanted.”

  “Magnus will be okay,” Emma said, but she knew she didn’t sound sure. She couldn’t be.

  Clary’s voice shook. “I just feel like, if the warlocks are lost—if the Cohort succeeds in pitting Shadowhunters against Downworlders in war—then everything I ever did was useless. Everything I gave up during the Dark War. And it means I’m not a hero. I never was.”

  Clary stopped walking to lean against a massive boulder, one that Ty liked to climb. She was clearly struggling not to cry. Emma stared at her in horror.

  “Clary,” she said. “You’re the one who taught me what being a hero means. You said heroes don’t always win. That sometimes they lose, but they keep fighting.”

  “I thought I had kept fighting. I guess I thought I had won,” Clary said.

  “I’ve been to Thule,” Emma said fiercely. “That world was the way it was because you weren’t in it. You were the crisis point, you made all the difference. Without you, Sebastian would have won the Dark War. Without you, so many people would be dead, and so much goodness would be gone from the world forever.”

  Clary took a deep breath. “We’re never done fighting, are we?”

  “I don’t think so,” Emma said.

  Clary pushed away from the rock. They rejoined the path, curving through the desert among the shrubs, deep green and chalky violet. The sun was low over the horizon, lighting the desert sand to gold.

  “In Thule,” Emma said as they rounded the corner of the Institute, “Jace was under Sebastian’s mind control. But there was something I didn’t say in the library. Sebastian was able to control Jace only because he lied about his involvement in your death. He
was afraid that even under a spell, no matter how strong the spell was, Jace would never forgive him for letting you be hurt.”

  “And you’re telling me this because?” Clary eyed Emma sideways.

  “Because Jace would forgive you for anything,” said Emma. “Go tell him you were being a butt for a good reason, and ask him to marry you.”

  Clary burst out laughing. “That’s romantic.”

  Emma grinned. “That’s just my suggestion about the sentiment. The actual proposal is up to you.”

  * * *

  Helen had given Magnus and Alec one of the largest rooms. Jace suspected it had probably belonged to the Blackthorns’ parents at one time.

  It was odd, actually, even to think of Blackthorn parents and not to think of Julian—quiet, competent, secretive Julian—as the one who took care of the children. But people became what they had to be: Julian probably hadn’t wanted to become a parent at age twelve, any more than Jace had wanted to leave Idris and lose his father at age nine. He would not have believed it if someone had told him he would gain a new and better family in New York, just as Julian would not have believed that he would love his siblings so fiercely it would all be worth it. Or so Jace suspected, at least.

  Jace looked over at Alec, the brother he had gained. Alec sat propped on one side of the big wooden bed in the room’s center: Magnus lay beside him, curled on his side, his black hair stark against the white pillow.

  Jace hadn’t seen Alec this drained and exhausted-looking since Magnus had vanished into Edom five years ago. Alec had gone to get him back: He would have gone anywhere for Magnus.

  But Jace was afraid—worse than afraid—that Magnus was going somewhere that Alec couldn’t follow.

  He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Magnus went; the story of Thule had sent icy needles through his veins. He suspected he knew what would happen to him if he lost Clary. He couldn’t bear to think of Alec in such insupportable pain.

  Alec bent over and kissed Magnus’s temple. Magnus stirred and murmured but didn’t wake. Jace hadn’t seen him awake since the night before.

  Alec looked over at Jace, his eyes deeply shadowed. “What time is it?”

  “Sunset,” said Jace, who never carried a watch. “I can go find out if you need to know.”

  “No. It’s probably already too late to call the kids.” Alec rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Besides, I keep hoping I can call them with good news.”

  Jace stood up and went to the window. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Take this pain away from Alec, he prayed to the Angel Raziel. Come on, we’ve met. Do this for me.

  It was something of an unorthodox prayer, but it was heartfelt. Alec raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re praying?”

  “How did you know?” Out of the window, Jace could see the grass in front of the Institute, the highway and the ocean beyond. The whole world going on in its ordinary way, not caring about the problems of Shadowhunters and warlocks.

  “Your lips were moving,” said Alec. “You hardly ever pray, but I appreciate the thought.”

  “I don’t usually have to pray,” said Jace. “Usually when things go wrong, we come to Magnus and he fixes them.”

  “I know.” Alec picked at a stray thread on his cuff. “Maybe we should have gotten married,” he said. “Magnus and me. We’ve been unofficially engaged all this time, but we wanted to wait for the Cold Peace to be over. For Downworlders and Shadowhunters to be able to be properly married.”

  “In Shadowhunter gold and warlock blue,” said Jace. He’d heard this before, the explanation for why Alec and Magnus hadn’t married yet, but planned to someday. He’d even gone with Alec to pick out rings for the day Alec and Magnus would finally tie the knot—simple gold bands with the words Aku Cinta Kamu etched on them. He’d known the rings were a secret from Magnus, because Alec wanted to surprise his partner, but he hadn’t known there were fears and worries behind something they seemed so sure would happen all in due time.

  It was always hard to tell the truth of other people’s relationships.

  “Then Magnus would at least know how much I love him,” Alec said, leaning forward to brush a stray hair from Magnus’s forehead.

  “He knows,” Jace said. “You should never doubt he knows.”

  Alec nodded. Jace glanced back out the window. “They just switched over watch,” he said. “Clary said she’d come see how Magnus was doing when she was done with this shift.”

  “Should I take a turn at watch?” Alec asked. “I don’t want to let anyone down.”

  The lump in Jace’s throat ached. He sat down next to his parabatai, who he had sworn to follow, to live beside, to die with. Surely that also encompassed the sharing of burdens and grief.

  “This is your watch, brother,” he said.

  Alec exhaled softly. He put one hand on Magnus’s shoulder, the lightest of touches. He reached out with his other hand and Jace took it, lacing their fingers together. They held fast to each other in silence as the sun went down over the ocean.

  * * *

  “So what happens?” Aline said. They stood at the edge of the bluffs, overlooking the highway and the sea. “If Magnus starts turning into a demon. What happens?”

  Her eyes were red and swollen but her back was straight. She had talked to her father, who had told her only what he knew: That guards had come in the early morning to take Jia to the Gard. That Horace Dearborn had promised no harm would come to her, but that “a show of good faith” was necessary to reassure those who had “lost confidence.”

  If he thought it was all lies, he didn’t say so, but Aline knew it was and had called Dearborn every name in the book to Helen the minute she had hung up the phone. Aline had always known an impressive number of curse words.

  “We do have the Mortal Sword,” said Helen. “The one from Thule. It’s hidden, but Jace knows where, and what to do. He won’t let Alec do it himself.”

  “Couldn’t we—I don’t know—try to capture the demon? Turn it back into Magnus?”

  “Oh, honey, I don’t know,” Helen said wearily. “I don’t think there’s any coming back from being turned into a demon, and Magnus wouldn’t want to live like that.”

  “It’s not fair.” Aline kicked a good-size rock. It sailed off the edge of the bluffs; Helen could hear it tumbling down the slope toward the highway. “Magnus deserves better than this garbage. We all do. How did everything get like this—so bad, so fast? Things were all right. We were happy.”

  “We were in exile, Aline,” Helen said. She wrapped her arms around her wife and rested her chin on Aline’s shoulder. “The cruelty of the Clave tore me from my family, because of my blood. Because of what I cannot help. The seeds of this poison tree were planted long ago. We are only now watching it begin to flower.”

  * * *

  The sun had set by the time Mark and Kieran began their watch. Mark had hoped to be paired up with Julian, but for some reason Emma had wanted to go with Clary and they’d ended up oddly matched.

  They walked for a while in silence, letting the dusk settle into darkness around them. Mark hadn’t talked to Kieran about anything significant since they’d come back from Faerie. He had wanted to, ached to, but he had been afraid of making a confusing situation even worse.

  Mark had started to wonder if the problem was him: if his human half and his faerie half held contradictory ideas about love and romance. If half of him wanted Kieran and the freedom of the sky and the other half wanted Cristina and the grandeur and responsibility of earthbound angels.

  It was enough to make someone go out into the statue garden and bang their head repeatedly against Virgil.

  Not that he’d done that.

  “We might as well talk, Mark,” Kieran said. A bright moon was rising; it illuminated the dark ocean, turned it to a sheet of black-and-silver glass, the colors of Kieran’s eyes. The night desert was alive with the sound of cicadas. Kieran was walking beside Mark with his hands looped behind
him, deceptively human-looking in his jeans and T-shirt. He had drawn the line at donning any gear. “It does us no good to ignore each other.”

  “I have missed you,” Mark said. There seemed no point in not being honest. “Nor did I intend to ignore you, or to hurt you. I apologize.”

  Kieran looked up with a surprised flash of silver and black. “There is no need to apologize, Mark.” He hesitated. “I have had, as you say here in the mortal world, a lot on my mind.”

  Mark hid a smile in the dusk. It was irritatingly cute when Kieran used modern phrases.

  “I know you have as well,” Kieran went on. “You were fearful for Julian and for Emma. I understand. And yet I cannot keep myself from selfish thoughts.”

  “What kind of selfish thoughts?” Mark said. They were near the parking lot, among the statues Arthur Blackthorn had paid to have shipped here years ago. Once they had stood in the gardens of Blackthorn House in London. Now Sophocles and the others inhabited this desert space and looked out on a sea far from the Aegean.

  “I believe in your cause,” Kieran said slowly. “I believe the Cohort are evil people, or at least power-hungry people who seek evil solutions to the problems their fears and prejudices have created. Yet though I may believe, I cannot help but feel that no one is looking out for the welfare of my homeland. For Faerie. It was—it is—a place that possesses goodness and marvels among its dangers and trials.”

  Mark turned to Kieran in surprise. The stars were brilliant overhead, the way they only ever were in the desert, as if they were closer to the earth here.

  The stars will go out before I forget you, Mark Blackthorn.

  “I have not heard you talk about Faerie that way before,” Mark said.

  “I would not speak of it that way to most.” Kieran touched the place at his throat where once his elf-bolt necklace had rested, then dropped his hand. “But you—you know Faerie in a way others do not. The way the water tumbles blue as ice over Branwen’s Falls. The taste of music and the sound of wine. The honey hair of mermaids in the streams, the glittering of will-o’-the-wisps in the shadows of the deep forests.”