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

by Cassandra Clare

  “Now that we know where she is, anyone can borrow my bike and bring her a message,” said Diana. “It’s no problem.”

  “We should do this during the day. Too many demons at night,” Livvy added.

  “I guess that gives us a little time,” Diana said.

  Cameron put his hand on Livvy’s shoulder. It gave Julian an odd feeling—he had been so jealous of Cameron in their own world, of the way that he and Emma behaved together when they were dating. They had everything he and Emma never would—the ability to casually touch one another, to kiss in public. Now this Cameron was Livvy’s boyfriend, sparking Julian’s protectiveness rather than his jealousy. He had to admit grudgingly, though, that it seemed like Cameron had been a pretty good boyfriend. He was kind, despite his awful family, and obviously thought the sun rose and set on Livvy.

  As well he should.

  “Come look at the map,” said Maia, and they all gathered around. She ran a bronze-ringed finger across the paper, indicating their location. “Here’s us. Here’s the entrance to the Silent City. It’s just a few blocks away, so we can walk over, but we probably ought to pose as Endarkened.”

  “We’ll go at dawn for the lowest demonic activity,” said Livvy. “As for Tessa Gray—”

  “All we have to do is let her know when and she’ll meet us at the Silent City entrance,” said Julian. “Is it where it is in our world? Angels Flight?”

  Bat looked surprised. “Yeah. It’s the same.”

  Angels Flight was a narrow-gauge railway that climbed Bunker Hill in downtown L.A., its track seeming to reach up into the sky. Julian had visited it only in its capacity as the entrance to the Silent City once.

  “Okay.” Maia clapped her hands together. “Everyone’s going to be in the mess hall for dinner, so let’s go put together some teams.”

  “You get to argue with Raphael,” said Bat.

  Maia rolled her eyes. “Sure. He always says he’s not going to cooperate and then coughs up a bunch of vamp fighters at the last minute.”

  “I’ll handle the wolf contingent,” said Bat.

  Diana threw up her hands. “And I’ll rally everybody else. How many do we need? Thirty, maybe? Too big a crowd will bring attention we don’t need—”

  “Guys,” Livvy said, looking across the map table at Julian. “I’d like to talk to my brother alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, sure,” Maia said. “No problem. See you in a couple.”

  She headed out with Bat. Cameron kissed Livvy on the cheek. “See you later.”

  “I’ll be on weapons,” Diana said, heading for the door.

  Emma met Julian’s eyes. “Weapons sound great,” she said. “I’ll go with Diana.”

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Livvy went over to one of the long couches and sat down. She looked at Julian with her direct gaze, so much like his Livvy’s, save for the scar across her eye. “Jules,” she said. “What are you not telling me? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Julian leaned back against the long table. He spoke carefully. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you told us how to break into the Silent City and get the Mortal Instruments, but you didn’t say you’d found out how to destroy them. I know you wouldn’t suggest we keep them—once we have them, we’ll be major targets for Sebastian.”

  “We’re planning to take them back to our world,” Julian said. “Sebastian won’t find them there.”

  “Okay,” Livvy said slowly. “So Tessa Gray can open a Portal for you to get back home?”

  “No.” Julian flexed his hands; his skin felt tight. “Not exactly.”

  Livvy snapped her fingers. “And here’s the part you were leaving out. What?”

  “Do you know a woman named Annabel?” Julian asked. “She’s from our world, but you might have seen her with Sebastian here. Long dark hair—?”

  “That necromancer who showed up with Sebastian’s kid? Her name is Annabel?” Livvy whistled. “They don’t call her that here. The Legion of the Star calls her the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

  “That’s from an old poem,” Julian said, looking thoughtful.

  “So that means Ash Morgenstern is from your world too,” said Livvy.

  “Yes. In fact, he’s from Faerie in our world. We all came through the same Portal, but it delivered them here about five years ago, I’m guessing. Two years after the Battle of the Burren. I suspect they went straight to Sebastian. She knew he was Sebastian’s son, and since Sebastian’s alive here, and in charge . . .”

  “I think I’m getting a headache.” Livvy rubbed her temples. “Faerie, huh? I guess that explains why Ash is so close in age to his ‘father.’  ”

  Julian nodded. “Time in the Undying Lands is superweird. I don’t pretend to understand it.” He raked a hand through his hair. “The thing is—Annabel offered me a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?” said Livvy warily.

  “She’s a powerful magician,” Julian said. He spoke with immense deliberation. There was no need to tell Livvy that Annabel was a Blackthorn. It would bring more questions—ones he didn’t want to answer. “Because she took the Black Volume from our world, she can open a Portal to get back to it. She offered to open one for us.”

  “Why would she offer to do that for you if she’s one of Sebastian’s minions?”

  “She doesn’t care about Sebastian. She only cares about Ash, and she’s afraid for him. She’s offering to send us back if we take him with us.”

  “She probably isn’t wrong to be worried. Sebastian ruins everyone close to him.” Livvy pulled her legs up under her. “Do you trust this Annabel?”

  “I hate her,” Julian said, before he could stop himself. He saw Livvy’s eyes widen and forced himself to go on more calmly. “But I trust her feelings for Ash are real. He has a certain influence over people.”

  “That’s interesting.” Livvy’s gaze was slightly unfocused. “Dru saw him a couple years ago. At an execution, like the one you saw on the beach. She kept talking about him afterward, about how he didn’t seem like he really wanted to be there.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Did you—if you go through the Portal, do you still want me to come with you?”

  “Of course I do,” Julian said. “It’s part of the reason I didn’t turn Annabel down. I want to get you out of here.”

  Livvy bit her lip. “What about the me that exists in your world? Won’t that get confusing?”

  Julian said nothing; he had expected this, and yet he still had no answer. He watched her face change, settling into lines of certainty and resignation, and felt a piece of his heart wither.

  “I’m dead, aren’t I?” Livvy’s voice was steady. “I’m dead in your world. I can tell by the way you look at me.”

  “Yeah.” Julian was shivering as if he were cold, though the air was hot and still. “It was my fault, Livs. You—”

  “Don’t.” She stood up and crossed the room to him, placing her hands flat against his chest as if she meant to push him. “You didn’t do anything to hurt me, Jules. I know you too well for you to convince me of that. You forget, in this world, you sacrificed yourself for me.” Her Blackthorn eyes were wide and shimmering and tearless. “I’m sorry we lost each other in your world. I’d like to think somewhere we’re intact. All of us together.” She took a step back from him. “Let me show you something.”

  His throat was too raw for him to speak. He watched as she turned around, her back to him, and pulled off her sweatshirt. Under it she wore a white tank top. It did nothing to hide the massive tattoo that stretched across her back like wings: a mourning rune, spreading from the base of her neck to the middle of her spine, its edges touching her shoulders.

  His voice cracked. “For Ty.”

  She bent down and retrieved her sweatshirt, pulling it back on to hide the rune. When she turned back to look at him, her eyes were glittering. “For all of you,” she said.

  “Come back home with me
,” Julian whispered. “Livvy—”

  She sighed. “I can tell you want my permission to make this deal with the necromancer, Jules. I can tell you think it would make this an easier and better choice. But I can’t do that.” She shook her head. “In Thule, terrible choices are all we have. This one is yours to make.”

  * * *

  At the weapons supply closet, Emma waded in happily; she’d never been that interested in guns—they didn’t work on demons, so Shadowhunters didn’t use them—but there were plenty of other items of localized destruction. She thrust a handful of throwing knives through her belt and headed for a table of daggers.

  Diana leaned against the wall and watched her with weary amusement. “In your world,” she said, “you were parabatai?”

  Emma paused, a blade in her hand. “We were.”

  “I wouldn’t mention that too much if I were you,” said Diana. “People here don’t really like to think about parabatai.”

  “Why not?”

  Diana sighed. “As Sebastian gained control of the world, and it became darker and more desperate, parabatai changed. It happened overnight, unlike the change of the warlocks. One day the world awoke to find that those who were parabatai had become monsters.”

  Emma almost dropped the knife. “They became evil?”

  “Monsters,” repeated Diana. “Their runes began to burn like fire, as if they had fire in their veins instead of blood. People said that the blades of those who fought them shattered in their hands. Black lines spread over their bodies and they became monstrous—physically monstrous. I never saw it happen, mind you—I heard this all thirdhand. Stories about ruthless, massive shining creatures, tearing cities apart. Sebastian had to release thousands of demons to take them down. A lot of mundanes and Shadowhunters died.”

  “But why would that happen?” Emma whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

  “Probably the same reason the warlocks turned into demons. The world turning twisted and demonic. No one knows, really.”

  “Are you worried that’ll happen to us?” Emma asked. She was blindly picking up more weapons, not really looking at what she was taking anymore. “That we could change here?”

  “No chance of that,” Diana said. “Once the angelic magic had stopped working completely, the few parabatai who’d survived were fine. Their bonds broke and they didn’t change.”

  Emma nodded. “I can feel that my bond with Julian is broken here.”

  “Yeah. There are no more Shadowhunters, so there are no more parabatai. Still, like I said, I wouldn’t mention it to people. Your runes will end up fading soon enough. You know. If you stay here.”

  “If we stay here,” Emma echoed, a little faintly. Her head was spinning. “Right. I think I should go back now. Julian might be wondering where I am.”

  * * *

  “I see you’ve been decorating,” Julian said when he came into the bedroom. He looked tired but alert, his chocolate-brown hair still tousled from the bike ride.

  Emma glanced around—she’d liberated a startling number of weapons from the supply closet downstairs. There was a pile of daggers and throwing knives in one corner, one of swords in another, and another of LAPD-issue guns: Glocks and Berettas, mostly. “Thanks,” she said. “The theme is Stuff That Can Kill You.”

  Julian laughed and went into the bathroom; she heard the sink water running as he brushed his teeth. She’d borrowed one of the men’s button-down shirts they’d given Julian and was wearing it like a nightshirt over her underwear: not, she thought, the sexiest of all pajama options, but it was comfortable.

  Emma curled her legs up under her and resisted the urge to ask Julian if he was all right. After she’d gotten back from her expedition with Diana, she’d waited for Julian with growing anxiety. This was a world that could hurt them in a lot of ways. They could be slaughtered by demons or hunted down by Endarkened. And if they’d arrived earlier, apparently, they could have turned into monsters and destroyed a city.

  There is a corruption at the heart of the bond of parabatai. A poison. A darkness in it that mirrors its goodness. There is a reason parabatai cannot fall in love, and it is monstrous beyond all you could imagine.

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t listen to the lying words of the Queen. Everything in Thule was twisted and monstrous—of course the parabatai bond would not have been spared.

  More real and dangerous was the shadow of heartbreak around every corner. She knew how badly Julian wanted this Livvy to come back to their world with them, but she had seen Livvy’s expression when he’d asked, and she wondered.

  When he came back to the bedroom, his hair and T-shirt were damp, and he looked slightly more awake. She guessed he’d splashed water on his face. “Did they have crossbows?” he asked, examining the pile of swords. He picked one up and examined it, the blade refracting light as he turned it this way and that.

  Butterflies fluttered in Emma’s stomach. Only a few, but there was something about watching Julian be a Shadowhunter, be the warrior she had watched him grow into. The muscles moved smoothly in his arm and shoulder as he manipulated the blade and set it back down again, a considering look on his face.

  Emma hoped her cheeks weren’t pink. “I got you one. It’s in the wardrobe.”

  He went to check. “If we make it to the Silent City without any Endarkened or demons noticing, we might not have to use any of these.”

  “Diana always said the best weapons were kept in great shape for use but never needed to be used,” said Emma. “Of course I never really knew what she was talking about.”

  “Obviously.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Emma, I need to tell you something.”

  She pushed herself upright against the headboard of the bed. Her heart skipped a beat, but she tried to keep her expression calm and welcoming. Julian wasn’t great at opening up even when he had emotions; still, she’d missed their sharing of each other’s secrets and burdens more than anything else when he’d been under the spell.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t tell Livvy about Tessa asking us to kill Sebastian,” he said.

  “Sure,” Emma said. “If we can’t get into the Silent City and get the Mortal Instruments, it’ll never matter anyway. Why freak her out early?”

  “But I did tell her that if we got the Sword and the Cup, we’d bring them back with us. To protect them.”

  Emma waited. She wasn’t sure where Julian was going with this.

  “When we were in the Seelie Court,” Julian said, “just this last time—when I talked to the Queen—she told me how it would be possible to break all parabatai bonds at once.”

  Emma gripped the covers. “Yes. And you told me it was impossible.”

  His eyes were windows to an ocean that no longer existed in this world. “We did what she asked,” he said. “We brought her the Black Volume. So she told me, because she thought it would be funny. You see, there’s only one way to do it. You have to destroy the first recorded parabatai rune, which is kept in the Silent City. And you have to do it with the Mortal Sword.”

  “And in our world, the Sword is shattered,” Emma said. It made sense, in a twisted way: She could imagine the Queen’s delight in delivering that news.

  “I didn’t tell you because I thought it didn’t matter,” he said. “It was never going to be possible. The Sword was broken.”

  “And you didn’t tell me because of the spell,” she said, gently. “You didn’t feel like you had to.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He took a shuddering breath. “But now we’re talking about bringing this sword back to our world, and I know it’s a million-in-one shot, but it could be possible—I mean, we could be looking at that choice. I could be.”

  There were a million things Emma wanted to say. You promised you wouldn’t and it would be a terrible thing to do trembled on the tip of her tongue. She remembered the moral surety she’d felt when Julian had first told her the Queen had dangled this t
emptation in front of him.

  But it was hard after Livvy’s death to have moral surety about anything.

  “I asked Magnus to put that spell on me because I was terrified,” Julian said. “I imagined us turning into monsters. Destroying everything we loved. I still had Livvy’s blood under my fingernails.” His voice shook. “But there’s something else I’m just as afraid of, and that’s why the Queen’s voice keeps echoing in my mind.”

  Emma looked at him, waiting.

  “Losing you,” he said. “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved like this, and I know you’re the only person I ever will. And I’m not myself without you, Emma. Once you dissolve dye in water, you can’t take it back out. It’s like that. I can’t take you out of me. It means cutting out my heart, and I don’t like myself without my heart. I know that now.”

  “Julian,” Emma whispered.

  “I’m not going to do it,” he said. “I’m not going to use the Sword. I can’t cause other people pain like the pain I’ve felt. But if we do get home, and we have the Sword, I think we need to trade it to the Inquisitor for exile. I think we don’t have another choice.”

  “True exile?” Emma said. “They’ll separate us from the kids, Julian, they’ll separate you—”

  “I know,” he said. “There was a time I thought there could be nothing worse. But I realize now I was wrong. I held Livvy while she died, and that was worse. What happened to Livvy here—losing all of us—that’s unimaginably worse. I asked myself whether I would rather go through what Mark went through—being cut off from his family but thinking of them as well and happy—or what Livvy went through here, knowing her brothers and sisters were dead. It’s no question. I’d rather they were safe and alive even if I couldn’t be with them.”

  “I don’t know, Julian—”

  His expression was nakedly vulnerable. “Unless you don’t feel that way about me anymore,” he said. “If you’d stopped loving me while I was under the spell, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I guess that would solve our problem,” she said without thinking. Julian flinched.