Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

by Cassandra Clare

  Simon and Isabelle moved instinctively closer to her. She hoped they didn’t look too much as if they were huddling, sharing secrets, since that was exactly what was happening.

  “It’s just that I thought they’d be back by now,” Emma said.

  “They’re meant to get back tomorrow.” Isabelle made a cooing noise, and bent down to scoop up Max. She held him in her arms, nuzzling her chin into his hair. “I know—it’s awful. If there had only been a way to get them a message . . .”

  “We couldn’t exactly ask the Clave to delay the funeral,” said Simon. Shadowhunter bodies weren’t embalmed; they were burned as soon as possible, before they began to decay.

  “Jace is going to be wrecked,” said Izzy. She glanced back over her shoulder to where her brother was holding Rafe by the hand, looking up at Magnus as they talked. “Especially not to have been here for Alec.”

  “Grief lasts a long time,” said Emma, her throat tight. “Lots of people are there for you in the beginning, when it first happens. If Jace is there for Alec later, after all the noise of the funeral and all the platitudes from total strangers go away, that’ll be better anyway.”

  Izzy’s eyes softened. “Thanks. And try not to worry about Clary and Jace. We knew we wouldn’t be able to be in touch with them while they were gone. Simon—he’s Clary’s parabatai. He would feel it if anything had happened to her. And Alec would as well, about Jace.”

  Emma couldn’t argue the strength of the parabatai bond. She glanced down, wondering—

  “They’ve come.” It was Magnus, reaching to take Max from Isabelle. He gave Emma an odd sideways look that she couldn’t read. “The Brothers.”

  Emma glanced over. It was true: They had glided almost soundlessly into the crowd, parting it like the Red Sea. Shadowhunters fell back as the biers carrying Livvy and Robert passed among them, and stopped between the pyres.

  Livvy lay pale and bloodless, her body swathed in a white silk dress, white silk binding her eyes. Her gold necklace glittered at her throat. Her long brown hair was scattered with white flowers.

  Livvy dancing on her bed, wearing a pale green chiffon dress she’d bought at Hidden Treasures. Emma, Emma, look at my new dress! Emma struggled against the memory, against the cold truth: This was the last dress she would see Livvy wear. This was the last time she would see her familiar brown hair, the curve of her cheek, her stubborn chin. Livvy, my Livvy, my wise little owl, my sweet little sister.

  She wanted to scream, but Shadowhunters didn’t cry out at death. They spoke the old words instead, handed down through the ages.

  “Ave atque vale.” The murmur went through the crowd. “Ave atque vale, Robert Lightwood. Ave atque vale, Livia Blackthorn.”

  Isabelle and Alec turned to face their father’s bier. Julian and the other Blackthorns were still pinned in by well-wishers. For a moment, Emma was alone with Simon.

  “I talked to Clary before she left,” she said, the words feeling like a hot pressure in the back of her throat. “She was worried something bad was going to happen.”

  Simon looked puzzled. “What kind of bad thing?”

  Emma shook her head. “Just—if she doesn’t come back when she’s supposed to—”

  Simon looked at her with troubled eyes, but before he could say anything, Jia stepped forward and began to speak.

  * * *

  “Shadowhunters die young,” said someone in the crowd. Julian didn’t recognize the man: He was probably in his early forties, with thick black eyebrows. He wore a patch on his gear with the symbol of the Scholomance on it, but little else differentiated him from the dozens of other people who had come up to Julian to tell him they were sorry his sister was dead.

  “But fifteen—” The man shook his head. Gladstone, Julian recalled. His last name was Gladstone. “Robert lived a full life. He was a distant cousin of mine, you know. But what happened to your sister should never have happened. She was only a child.”

  Mark made a strangled noise behind Julian. Julian said something polite to send Gladstone on his way. Everything felt distant, muffled, as if he or the world had been wrapped in cotton padding.

  “I didn’t like him,” said Dru, after Gladstone had gone. The skin under her eyes was shiny and tight where tears had left traces that couldn’t be washed away.

  It was as if there were two Julians. One was Julian Before, the Julian who would have reached over to comfort Dru, ruffle her hair. Julian Now didn’t. He remained motionless as the crowd started to surge apart to make way for the funeral procession, and saw Helen lift Tavvy up into her arms.

  “He’s seven,” he said to her. “He’s too old to be carried everywhere.”

  She gave him a half-surprised, half-reproachful look but said nothing. The Silent Brothers were walking between them with their biers, and the Blackthorn family stilled as the air filled with the chant of the Nephilim.

  “Ave atque vale, Livia Blackthorn. Hail and farewell.”

  Dru jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Aline put an arm around her. Julian looked for Ty. He couldn’t stop himself.

  Mark had gone over to Ty and was talking to him; Kit stood beside him, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched, altogether wretched. Ty himself was staring at Livvy’s bier, a spot of red burning on each of his cheeks. On the way down from the city, he had peppered Julian with questions: Who touched her in the Silent City? Did they wash the blood off her? Did they brush her hair? Did they take her necklace? Did they let you have her clothes? Who picked the dress for her to be buried in? Did they close her eyes before they tied the silk over them? until Julian had been exhausted and near snapping.

  Ladders had been placed beside the pyres, each one a massive stack of logs and kindling. A Silent Brother took Livvy’s body and began to climb the ladder. When he reached the top, he laid her body down; at the second pyre, a Silent Brother was doing the same with Robert Lightwood’s corpse.

  Diana had also gone to stand beside Ty. There was a white flower tucked into her collar, pale against her dark skin. She said something quietly to him, and Ty looked up at her.

  Julian ached inside, a physical ache, as if he’d been punched in the stomach and was just now getting his breath back. He could feel the bloody cloth tied around his wrist, like a circle of fire.

  Emma. He looked for her in the crowd, saw her standing beside Simon. Cristina had come to stand with them. The ladders had been drawn away, and the Silent Brothers stepped forward with their lit torches. Their fire was bright enough to illuminate even the daylight scene. Emma’s hair sparked and caught its brilliance as the Silent Brothers took their places around the pyres.

  “These flames, this burning,” said Mark, who had appeared at Julian’s side. “In the Wild Hunt we practiced sky burial.”

  Julian glanced at him. Mark was flushed, his pale curls disordered. His mourning runes had been applied with care and precision, though, which meant he hadn’t done them himself. They were beautiful and delicately done—Cristina’s work.

  “We would leave bodies at the tops of glaciers or high trees, for the birds to pick clean,” Mark said.

  “How about you not suggest that to anyone else at this funeral,” said Julian.

  Mark winced. “I’m sorry, I don’t always know the right thing to say.”

  “When in doubt, don’t say anything,” Julian said. “Literally, it’s better if you don’t talk at all.”

  Mark gave him the same look Helen had before—half hurt and half surprise—but before he could say anything, Jia Penhallow, in ceremonial robes of dazzling snow white, began to speak.

  “Fellow Shadowhunters,” she said, her rich voice carrying across the Imperishable Fields. “A great tragedy has come to us. One of our most faithful servants of the Clave, Robert Lightwood, was slain in the Council Hall, where our Law has always prevailed.”

  “Good job not mentioning he was a traitor,” muttered someone in the crowd.

  It was Zara. A hissing spurt of giggles erupt
ed around her, like a teapot exploding. Her friends, Manuel Villalobos, Samantha Larkspear, and Jessica Beausejours, stood around her in a tight circle.

  “I can’t believe they’re here.” It was Emma. Somehow she had come up beside Julian. He didn’t remember it happening, but reality seemed to be flickering in and out like a camera shutter opening and closing. She looked slightly taken aback when Julian didn’t reply, but she stalked off into the crowd, stiff-arming Gladstone out of the way.

  “Also one of our youngest and most promising Shadowhunters was murdered, her blood spilled in front of us all,” said Jia as Emma reached Zara and her friends. Zara jumped back slightly, then tried to hide her loss of poise with a glare.

  Emma wouldn’t care one way or another, Julian thought, about Zara’s poise. She was gesturing at Zara, and then at the Blackthorns and Ty, as Jia’s voice rang out over the meadow:

  “We will not let these deaths go unpunished. We will not forget who was responsible. We are warriors, and we will fight, and fight back.”

  Zara and her friends were looking mulish—all but Manuel, who was smiling a sideways smile that under other circumstances would have given Julian the creeps. Emma turned and walked away from them. Her expression was grim.

  Still, Zara had stopped talking, which was something.

  “They are gone,” said Jia. “The Nephilim have lost two great souls. Let Raziel bless them. Let Jonathan Shadowhunter honor them. Let David the Silent remember them. And let us commend their bodies to the necropolis, where they will serve forever.”

  The Consul’s voice had softened. Everyone was looking toward her, even the children like Tavvy, Rafe, and Max, so everyone saw her expression change and darken. She spoke the next words as if they tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “And now, our new Inquisitor wants to say a few words.”

  Horace Dearborn stepped forward; Julian hadn’t noticed him until that moment. He wore a white mourning robe and a suitably grave expression, though there seemed to be a sneer behind it, like a shadow behind glass.

  Zara was grinning openly, and more of her friends from the Scholomance had gathered near her. She gave her father a little wave, still grinning, and Manuel’s smirk spread until it covered most of his face.

  Julian saw the nausea in Isabelle’s and Simon’s expressions, the horror on Emma’s face, the anger on Magnus’s and Alec’s.

  He strained to feel what they felt, but he couldn’t. He felt nothing at all.

  * * *

  Horace Dearborn took a long moment to survey the crowd. Kit had gleaned enough from the others to know that Zara’s father was an even worse bigot than she was and that he’d been named the new Inquisitor by a majority of the Council, all of whom seemed more scared of the Unseelie Court and the threat of Downworlders than they were of investing a clearly evil man with power.

  Not that Kit found any of this surprising. Just depressing.

  Ty, beside him, didn’t seem to be looking at Horace at all. He was staring up at Livvy, or the little of her they could see—she was a scrap of white at the top of a tall pile of kindling wood. As he looked at his sister, he drew his right index finger across the back of his left hand, over and over; otherwise he was motionless.

  “Today,” Horace said finally, “as the Consul says, may indeed be a day for grief.”

  “Nice of him to acknowledge,” murmured Diana.

  “However!” Horace’s voice rose, and he stabbed a finger out into the crowd, as if accusing them all of a terrible crime. “These deaths did not come from nowhere. There is no question who was responsible for these murders—though foolish Shadowhunters may have allowed them to occur, the hand of the Unseelie King and all faeries, and all Downworlders by connection, were behind this act!”

  Why would that be? Kit thought. Horace reminded him of politicians shouting on TV, red-faced men who always seemed angry and always wanted you to know there was something you needed to be afraid of.

  The idea that if the Unseelie King was responsible for Livvy’s and Robert’s deaths, all Downworlders were guilty, made no sense to Kit, but if he was hoping for a protest from the crowd, he was disappointed. The gathering was strangely quiet, but Kit didn’t get the sense that they were against Horace. Rather they seemed as if they felt it would be impolite to cheer. Magnus looked on with no expression at all, as if it had been wiped from his face with an eraser.

  “Death serves as a reminder,” said Horace, and Kit glanced over at Julian, whose dark brown hair was blowing in the rising wind. Kit doubted this was a reminder Julian had needed. “A reminder that we have only one life and we must live it as warriors. A reminder that we have only one chance to make the correct choices. A reminder that the time is coming soon when all Shadowhunters will have to decide where they stand. Do they stand with traitors and Downworlder-lovers? Do they stand with those who would destroy our way of life and our very culture? Do they—young man, what are you doing? Get down from there!”

  “Oh, by the Angel,” Diana whispered.

  Ty was climbing up the side of his sister’s pyre. It didn’t look easy—the wood had been piled up for maximum-efficiency burning, not for clambering, but he was finding handholds and footholds anyway. He was already high enough off the ground that Kit felt a bolt of fear go through him at the thought of what would happen if one of the logs of wood came free and he fell.

  Kit started after him without thinking, only to feel a hand close on his collar. He was jerked back by Diana. “No,” she said. “Not you.” Her face was set in grim lines.

  Not you. Kit saw what she meant in a moment: Julian Blackthorn was already running, shoving past the Inquisitor—who squawked indignantly—and leaping for the pyre. He began to climb after his brother.

  * * *

  “Julian!” Emma called, but she doubted he could hear her. Everyone was shouting now—the Council guards, the mourners, the Consul and Inquisitor. Zara and her friends were hooting with laughter, pointing at Ty. He had nearly reached the top of the pyre and didn’t seem to hear anyone or anything around him: He was climbing with a dogged intensity. Julian, below him, climbing more carefully, couldn’t match his speed.

  Only the Blackthorns were utterly silent. Emma tried to push forward, but Cristina held on to her wrist, shaking her head. “Don’t—it’s not safe, better not to distract Julian—”

  Ty had reached the platform atop the pyre. He sat down there, perched beside his sister’s body.

  Helen gave a little whimper in her throat. “Ty.”

  There was no protection from the wind at the top of the pyre. Ty’s hair whipped around his face as he bent over Livvy. It looked as if he were touching her folded hands. Emma felt a wave of empathic sorrow like a punch to the gut, followed by another wave of anxiety.

  Julian reached the platform beside Ty and Livvy. He knelt beside his brother. They looked like two pale chess pieces, only the color of their hair—Ty’s a little darker—differentiating them in color.

  Emma felt her heartbeat in her throat. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, not to run to the pyre and climb it. Everything else but Julian and Ty seemed distant and far off, even when she heard Zara and her friends giggle that the Silent Brothers should light the pyre, should burn Ty and Julian along with Livvy if they wanted to be with her so badly.

  She felt Cristina stiffen beside her. Mark was walking across the grass, toward the two pyres. Zara and her friends were muttering about him now, about his pointed ears, his faerie blood. Mark walked with his head down, determined, and Emma couldn’t stand it anymore: She broke away from Cristina and ran across the grass. If Mark was going to go after Julian and Ty, then she was too.

  She caught a glimpse of Jia, beside Maryse and Jocelyn, all of them motionless, a horrified tableau. Shadowhunters didn’t do this sort of thing. They didn’t make a spectacle of their grief. They didn’t scream or rage or collapse or break down or climb to the tops of pyres.

  Julian had bent and taken his brother’s fac
e in his hands. It made for a peculiarly tender portrait, despite their location. Emma could imagine how difficult this was for him: He hated showing emotion in front of anyone he couldn’t trust, but he didn’t seem to be thinking about that; he was murmuring to Ty, their foreheads almost touching.

  “The ladders,” Emma said to Mark, and he nodded without asking anything further. They pushed past a knot of onlookers and grabbed one of the heavy ladders the Silent Brothers had carried to the Field, propping it against the side of Livvy’s pyre.

  “Julian,” Emma called, and she saw him glance down at her as she and Mark held the ladder steady. Somewhere Horace was shouting at them to leave it alone and for the Council guards to come and drag the boys down. But nobody moved.

  Julian touched Ty once on the cheek and Ty hesitated, his arms coming up to hug himself briefly. He dropped them and followed Julian as they climbed down the ladder, Julian first. When he hit the ground he didn’t move, just looked up, poised to catch his brother if he fell.

  Ty reached the ground and walked away from the pyre without stopping to catch his breath, heading across the grass toward Kit and Diana.

  Someone was shouting at them to move the ladder: Mark hoisted it and carried it over to the Silent Brothers, while Emma took hold of Julian’s wrists and drew him gently away from the site of the pyres.

  He looked stunned, as if he’d been hit with enough force to make him dizzy. She stopped some distance from any other people and took both his hands in hers.

  No one would think anything odd of it; that was a normal sort of affection between parabatai. Still, she shivered, at the combination of touching him and the horror of the situation and the blank look on his face.

  “Julian,” she said, and he winced.

  “My hands,” he said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t feel it.”

  She glanced down and sucked in her breath. His palms were a crazy quilt of bloody splinters from the kindling wood. Some were small dark lines against his skin, but others were bigger, snapped-off toothpicks of wood that had gone in at an angle, oozing blood.