Queen of Air and Darkness

by Cassandra Clare

  “What did she say?” Kieran’s black and silver eyes were worried.

  “She said that it was perhaps not the choice she would have made for me,” said Cristina, “but that what mattered was that I was happy. She also said she wasn’t surprised it took two men to fill Diego’s shoes.” She grinned.

  “Because Diego saved my life, I will absorb that slight without retort,” said Kieran.

  “And I’ll tie his shoelaces together the next time I see him,” said Mark. “Can you believe they found Manuel hiding under Horace’s dead body?”

  “I am only surprised he did not cut Horace’s body open and hide inside it,” said Kieran dourly.

  Mark punched him lightly in the shoulder.

  “Why do you strike me?” Kieran protested. “It has been done before in Faerie. Once a cowardly warrior hid inside a kelpie for a week.”

  Something white fluttered down from the sky. A moth, who deposited an acorn in Kieran’s lap and winged away.

  “A message?” Mark said.

  Kieran unscrewed the acorn’s top. He looked darkly serious, probably because he was now clad in the raiment of an Unseelie King. It still gave Mark a jolt to see him, all in black—black boots, black breeches, and a black waistcoat sewed with embroidered waves of gold and green to symbolize Kieran’s nixie heritage. “From Winter,” Kieran said. “All the Shadowhunters and Downworlders are now returned from the Unseelie Lands to their homes.”

  Kieran had opened the hospitality of the Unseelie Court to those who had fled the battle on the Fields. Alec had said he thought the gesture would go a long way toward rolling back the laws of the Cold Peace. A meeting to discuss how the Clave would go forward was scheduled for the next day, and Mark was anxious for it.

  Kieran had not stayed long in the Unseelie Court. He had returned to Mark and Cristina the day after the battle, and they had been glad to have him back.

  “Look!” Cristina cried. She sat up, pointing: One of the windows of the Basilias had opened and Dru had poked her head out. She was waving down at them, gesturing for them to come inside. “Emma and Julian are awake!” she called. “Come up!”

  Cristina scrambled to her feet and the others followed. Julian and Emma. And Dru had been smiling. Now, Mark thought, now he was perfectly happy.

  He started toward the Basilias, Cristina beside him. They were nearly there when they realized Kieran hadn’t followed.

  Mark turned. “Kieran—” He frowned. “Is the iron too difficult?”

  “It is not that,” Kieran said. “I should return to Faerie.”

  “Now?” Cristina said.

  “Now and forever,” said Kieran. “I shall not come back from there.”

  “What?” Mark strode back toward Kieran. The white letter from Winter fluttered in Kieran’s hand like the wing of a bird. “Speak sense, Kieran.”

  “I am speaking sense,” Kieran said softly. “Now that we know Emma and Julian will live, I must go back to Faerie. It is the bargain I made with Winter.” He glanced down at the letter. “My general summons me. Without a King the Land is at risk of falling into chaos.”

  “They have a King!” Cristina had run to Kieran’s side. She wore a light blue shawl; she drew it around herself tightly in agitation, shaking her head. “You are their King, whether you are there or here.”

  “No.” Kieran closed his eyes. “The King is linked to the Land. Every moment that the King is in the mortal world, the Land weakens. I cannot stay here. I did not want to be King—I did not ask to be King—but I am King, and I cannot be a bad one. It would not be right.”

  “We could come with you, then,” said Mark. “We could not stay in Faerie all the time, but we could visit—”

  “I thought that as well. But after even a short time as King in the Court, I know otherwise now,” Kieran said. His hair had gone entirely black under the slim gold circlet that now encircled his brow. “The King is not permitted to have a mortal consort—”

  “We know that,” said Cristina, remembering her words in Brocelind. Even then she had believed Kieran might not become King. That a way would be found. “But your father had mortal consorts, didn’t he? Isn’t there some way around the rules?”

  “No. He had mortal lovers.” The word sounded ugly. “A consort is an official position. Mortal companions are playthings to be toyed with and tossed aside. He cared not how they were treated, but I do care. If I brought you to the Court as such, you would be treated with contempt and cruelty, and I could not stand to see it.”

  “You’re the King,” Cristina said. “They’re your people. Can’t you order them not to be cruel?”

  “They have had years of a cruel reign,” said Kieran. “I cannot teach them overnight. I did not know it myself. I had to learn kindness from both of you.” His eyes glittered. “My heart is breaking and I cannot see a way out. You are all I want, but I must do what is best for my people. I cannot weaken my Land by coming here, and I cannot hurt you by bringing you there. We would never have peace in either place.”

  “Please, Kieran,” said Mark. He caught at Kieran’s wrist: I am holding the arm of the Unseelie King, he thought. It was perhaps the first time he had thought of Kieran as the King and not simply his Kieran. “We can find a solution.”

  Kieran pulled Mark to him and kissed him, hard and suddenly, his fingers digging into Mark’s wrist. When he let him go, he was pale, his cheeks burning with color. “I have not slept for three days. This is why I wanted Adaon to be King. Others want the throne. I do not. I only want you.”

  “And you will be a great King because of it,” said Cristina, her brown eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “What if it was only you and Mark? Mark is half-faerie—surely that must mean something—”

  “He is a Shadowhunter to them,” said Kieran, releasing Mark’s hand. He strode over to Cristina. His eyes were smudged with tiredness. “And I love you both, my brave Cristina. Nothing can change that. Nothing ever will.”

  The tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks as Kieran cupped her face gently. “You’re truly leaving? There must be another way!”

  “There is no other way.” Kieran kissed her, swiftly and hard, as he had kissed Mark; Cristina closed her eyes. “Know that I will always love you no matter how far away I am.”

  He let her go. Mark wanted to protest, but more than Cristina, he understood the cruel realities of Faerie. The thorns among the roses. What it would mean to be a toy and plaything of the King of a faerie Court; he could stand it for himself but not for Cristina.

  Kieran leaped onto Windspear’s back. “Be happy with each other,” he said, his eyes averted as if he could not bear to look at them. “It is my wish as King.”

  “Kieran—” Mark said.

  But Kieran was already riding away with thunderous speed. The flagstones trembled with Windspear’s retreating hoofbeats; within seconds, Kieran was out of sight.

  * * *

  Kit hated it in the Silent City, even though his room was fairly comfortable, at least compared to the rest of the Silent City, which was all sharp-edged objects made out of human skeletons. Once you’d picked up three or four skulls and muttered “Alas, poor Yorick,” to them, the novelty wore off quickly.

  He suspected his rooms were a Silent Brother’s chambers. There were a lot of books on a wooden shelf, all of them about history and glorious battles. There was a comfortable bed and a bathroom down the hall. Not that he wanted to think about the bathroom conditions in the Silent City. He hoped to forget them as soon as possible.

  He had been left with little to do but heal and think about what had happened on the battlefield. He remembered over and over the surge of power that had gone through him when he’d struck the Riders and made their horses disappear. Was it dark magic? Was that why he was locked up? And how was it possible he had faerie blood? He could touch iron and rowan wood. He’d lived his whole life surrounded by technology. He didn’t look anything like a faerie and no one in the Shadow Market had
ever whispered at the possibility.

  It was more than enough to occupy his mind and keep him from thinking about Ty. At least, it should have been.

  He was lying on the bed staring at the stone ceiling when he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway outside his room. His first thought was food—a Silent Brother brought him a tray of plain, nourishingly boring food three times a day.

  But the footsteps clicked on the stone. Heels. He frowned. The Consul? Diana, even? He’d play it cool and explain that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He sat up, running his fingers through his hair and wondering how the Silent Brothers ever got anything done without owning mirrors. How did they know their robes weren’t on backward?

  The door opened and Tessa Gray came in. She wore a green dress and a hairband like Alice in Wonderland. She smiled at him affectionately.

  “Please break me out of here,” said Kit. “I don’t want to be trapped here forever. I didn’t do anything wrong, especially not any necromancy.”

  Tessa’s smile faded. She came over to sit down at the foot of the bed, her gray eyes worried. So much for playing it cool, Kit thought.

  “Christopher,” she said. “I’m sorry for having left you here for so long.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, though he wasn’t sure it was. “But don’t call me Christopher. No one does.”

  “Kit,” she said. “I’m so sorry that we left you here. We were looking after Julian and Emma, so we couldn’t leave the city. It was touch and go for a while, but they just woke up.” She smiled. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  Kit was glad to hear it. And yet—“What about the others, are they okay? What about Ty?”

  “Ty and the others are fine. And Emma is all right in part thanks to you. You saved her life.”

  Kit slumped back against the metal headboard of the bed, relief coursing through him. “So I’m not in trouble for what I did on the battlefield?”

  “No,” Tessa said slowly. “But you need to know what it means. There is a story. One shrouded in mystery and misdirection. One that very few people alive know.”

  “Something about faerie blood,” Kit said. “The Rider . . . He said, ‘Kit is the child. The descendant of the First Heir.’ But I don’t see how that would be possible.”

  Tessa smoothed her skirt out over her legs. “Long ago, the King of Unseelie and the Seelie Queen formed an alliance to unite the faerie Courts. They brought magicians from all over Faerie to cast spells ensuring that the child they had would be the perfect heir. Not all the magic was good magic. Some of it was dark. The King dreamed of a son who would unite the realms, inspire perfect loyalty and perfect love, who would be braver than any faerie knight that had gone before.”

  “Sure sounds like me,” muttered Kit.

  Tessa flashed him a sympathetic smile. “But when the child was born, she was a girl, Auraline.”

  “Plot twist,” said Kit.

  “The King had expected a male heir and was . . . upset. In his eyes, the child was flawed, and eventually he set a faerie knight the task of having her killed, though the King had the tale put around that she had been kidnapped, and that is the story most believe.”

  “The King planned to kill his own daughter?”

  “Indeed, and he has had every daughter of his killed since, in bitterness over Auraline. For she defied him—she was still the Heir. She called upon the knight’s loyalty to her and he let her go. That is what the King tried to hide. He pretended Auraline’s death was the fault of another, even when Auraline fled to the mortal world. There she met a magician who became her husband—a magician who was descended from a line of Shadowhunters who had left the Clave.”

  “The Lost Herondales,” Kit guessed.

  “Correct. They were your ancestors; their line led to your mother. Through all the past decades, the Unseelie King has hunted those he thought were descended from his daughter, and so the Herondales have hidden, concealed by false names and powerful magic.”

  “Why would the King do that?” said Kit.

  “Auraline inherited a great deal of magic. The spells done on her before and after she was born were powerful. She is called the First Heir because she was the first faerie born who was heir to the Seelie and Unseelie Court both. And so are all her descendants. Your blood gives you claim to the High Kingship of Faerie.”

  “What?” said Kit. “But—I don’t want it. I don’t want to be High King of Faerie!”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want, not to them,” Tessa said sadly. “Even if you never went near the throne of Faerie, there are warring factions who would love to get hold of you and use you as a pawn. An army with you at the head of it could take down the King or Queen or both.”

  Goose bumps flooded along Kit’s arms. “But doesn’t everyone know who I am now? Because of what happened with the Riders? Are they hunting me?”

  Tessa put her hand on his wrist. It was a gentle, motherly touch. Kit could not remember such a touch in all his life. Only the memory of light blond hair and the sound of a lilting voice singing to him. The story that I love you, it has no end.

  “Part of the reason we kept you here these last few days was to reach out into Downworld to see if anyone has been talking about you,” said Tessa. “We have many connections, many ways of following gossip in the Markets. But with the chaos of the battle, all the talk is of the death of the Riders, what happened with Emma and Julian, and Kieran’s ascension. There have been words of a warlock who made the great horses of the Riders vanish, but we have spread the word that it was Ragnor Fell.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I thought his name was Ragnor Shade?”

  “It is Ragnor Fell,” she said, and smiled in a way that made her look nineteen. “He is a scamp, and has been in hiding for some years. He resurfaced in grand style during the battle, and now everyone knows Ragnor Fell is back—and that he defeated the Riders, to boot.” She chuckled. “He will be insufferable.”

  “He didn’t actually do it,” said Kit.

  “That will not make a difference to Ragnor,” said Tessa gravely.

  “So . . . I’m safe?” Kit said. “I could go back to the Institute in Los Angeles?”

  “I don’t know.” A line of worry had appeared between Tessa’s brows. “We felt nervous enough before, leaving you, even with you in the Institute and Ragnor nearby to protect you. He even followed you when you went to the Shadow Market.”

  “Did he say why we were going to the Shadow Market?” Kit said, forgetting, in his sudden fear for Ty, not to act suspicious.

  “Of course not,” said Tessa. “He wasn’t there to tattle on you, just protect you.” She patted his shoulder absently while Kit mused on the strange loyalty of people you barely knew. “The thing is—before, we didn’t realize you’d manifest any of the powers of the Heir. Few of your ancestors have before, save Auraline. We thought if we kept you away from things that might trigger the powers . . .”

  “No faeries,” Kit recalled. “No battles.”

  “Exactly. If it happens again, word might spread. Besides, faeries have long memories, and we want to make you as safe as possible.”

  “Does that mean leaving me in the Silent City? Because I don’t like it here,” Kit said. “I’m not good at Silent. And I don’t want to talk about the bathroom situation.”

  “No,” Tessa said. She took a deep breath, and Kit realized she was actually nervous. “What I’m saying is that you should come and live with me and Jem and the child we’re going to have. After all our wandering, we’ve decided to settle down and build a home. We want you to—to build it with us. To be part of our family.”

  Kit was almost too stunned to speak, not the least at the revelation that Tessa was pregnant. “But—why?”

  Tessa looked at him forthrightly. “Because a long time ago the Herondales gave both Jem and me a home, and we want to do the same for you.”

  “But am I actually a Herondale?” he asked. “I thought my father was a Herondale and my
mother was a mundane, but it looks like they were both Shadowhunters. So I don’t even know what my name should be.”

  “Your father’s real last name isn’t known,” Tessa said. “He did have a small amount of Shadowhunter blood. It allowed him to have the Sight.”

  “I thought Shadowhunter blood bred true?”

  “It does, but over the course of many generations it can become diluted. Still, your father could have trained and Ascended had he wanted. He never did. It was your mother who bore runes. It was your mother who has made you the Lost Herondale we searched for for so long. It is your choice, of course. You can bear any name you wish. We would still welcome you in our family whether you were called Kit Herondale or not.”

  Kit thought of Jace and of the mother he had never known, who he remembered now only in the songs she had sung him once. The mother who had given up her own life for his.

  “I’ll be a Herondale,” he said. “I like the family ring. It’s classy.”

  Tessa smiled at him.

  “Anyway,” Kit said. “Where are you planning to live?”

  “Jem owns a house in Devon. A big old pile. We’ll be going there. We know you care about the Blackthorns, so we’ll understand if you want to stay with them,” she added quickly. “We would be sad, but we would do whatever we can to protect you. Ragnor would help, and Catarina—we’d have to tell the Blackthorns why you needed the protection, of course—”

  She was still talking, but Kit had stopped hearing her. The words spilled around him in a meaningless rush as all the memories he’d been trying to push back flew at him like sharply pecking birds. The Institute, the beach, the Blackthorns, always kind to him; Emma saving his life, Julian driving him to the Market and listening to him talk about Ty—even then, he’d wanted to talk about Ty.