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

by Cassandra Clare

  “Good,” Julian said, and Ty looked surprised, but he didn’t see it. He was scrambling to hold on, to try to find the right words, the feeling words to say to Ty, who had thought Julian had gone away because he was angry. “I’m sure you have a great plan. I trust you.”

  He let go of Ty and turned toward the door. Better to be done than to risk saying the wrong thing. He would be all right as soon as the spell was off him. He could talk to Ty then.

  “Jules . . . ?” Ty said. He stood uncertainly by the arm of the sofa, fiddling with the cord of his headphones. “Do you want to know . . . ?”

  “It’s great that you’re doing better, Ty,” Julian said, not looking at Ty’s face, his eloquently moving hands.

  It was only a few seconds, but by the time Julian made it out into the hallway he was breathing as hard as if he had escaped from a monster.

  23

  THAT WINDS MAY BE

  Diego was starting to be seriously worried about Jaime.

  It was hard to tell how many days the brothers had been in the Gard’s prisons. They could hear only murmurs from the other cells: The thick stone walls muffled noise deliberately to prevent communication among the prisoners. They hadn’t seen Zara again either. The only people who came to their cell were the guards who brought occasional meals.

  Sometimes Diego would beg the guards—dressed in the dark blue and gold of Gard Watchmen—to bring him a stele or medicine for his brother, but they always ignored him. He thought bitterly that it was exactly Dearborn’s kind of clever to make sure the Watchmen who worked in the Gard were suborned to the Cohort’s cause.

  Jaime moved restlessly on the pile of clothes and straw Diego had managed to cobble together as a bed. He’d donated his own sweater and sat shivering in his light undershirt. Still, he wished there was more he could do. Jaime was flushed, his skin tight-looking and shiny with fever.

  “I swear I saw her last night,” he murmured.

  “Who?” said Diego. He sat with his back to the cold stone wall, close enough to touch his brother if Jaime needed him. “Zara?”

  Jaime’s eyes were closed. “The Consul. She was wearing her robes. She looked at me and she shook her head. Like she thought I shouldn’t be in here.”

  You shouldn’t. You’re barely seventeen. Diego had done what he could to clean Jaime up after Zara had dumped him in the cell. Most of his wounds were shallow cuts, and he had two broken fingers—but there was one deep, dangerous wound in his shoulder. Over the past days, it had puffed up and turned red. Diego felt impotently rageful—Shadowhunters didn’t die of infections. They were healed by iratzes or they died in battle, in a blaze of glory. Not like this, of fever, on a bed of rags and straw.

  Jaime smiled his crooked smile. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said. “You got the worse end of the deal. I got to run all over the world with the Eternidad. You had to romance Zara.”

  “Jaime—”

  Jaime wheezed a cough. “I hope you pulled out one of your famous Diego Rosales moves, like winning her a big stuffed animal at a carnival.”

  “Jaime, we must be serious.”

  Jaime’s wide dark eyes opened. “My dying wish is that we not be serious.”

  Diego sat up angrily. “You are not dying! And we need to talk about Cristina.”

  That got Jaime’s attention. He struggled into a sitting position. “I have been thinking about Cristina. Zara doesn’t know that she has the Eternidad—the heirloom—and there is no reason for her ever to know.”

  “We could try to figure out a way to warn Cristina. Tell her to abandon the heirloom somewhere—give it to someone else—it would give her a head start—”

  “No.” Jaime’s eyes glimmered with fever. “Absolutely not. If we told Zara that Cristina had it, she’d torture Cristina to get the information just like she tortured me. Even if it had been thrown into the depths of the ocean, Zara wouldn’t care—she would torture Cristina regardless. Zara can’t know who has it.”

  “What if we told Cristina to give it to Zara?” Diego said slowly.

  “We can’t. Would you really want the Cohort to get their hands on it? We don’t even understand everything it does.” He reached out and took Diego’s hand in his fever-hot one. His fingers felt as thin as they had when he was ten. “I will be okay,” he said. “Please. Do not do any of these things for me.”

  There was a clang as Zara appeared in the corridor, followed by the hunched figure of Anush Joshi. Cortana glimmered at her hip. The sight annoyed Diego: A blade like Cortana should be worn strapped to the back. Zara cared more about showing off the sword than she did about having such a special weapon.

  Anush carried a tray with two bowls of the usual glop on it. Kneeling, he slid it through the low gap in the bottom of the cell door.

  How can someone as wonderful as Divya have such a terrible cousin? Diego thought.

  “That’s right, Anush,” Zara said, prowling around her companion. “This is your punishment for deserting us in the forest—bringing slop to our worst, smelliest prisoners.” She sneered at Diego. “Your brother doesn’t look too good. Feverish, I think. Changed your mind yet?”

  “Nobody’s changed their mind, Zara,” Jaime said.

  Zara ignored him, looking at Diego. He could tell her what she wanted to know and trade Jaime’s safety for the heirloom. The part of him that was a big brother, that had always protected Jaime, entreated him to do it.

  But strangely, in the moment, he remembered Kieran saying: You decide you will find a solution when the time comes, but when the worst happens, you find yourself unprepared.

  He could save Jaime in the moment, but he understood Zara well enough to know that that wouldn’t mean Jaime and Diego would walk free.

  If the Cohort got their way, no one would ever walk free again.

  “Jaime is correct,” Diego said. “No one has changed their mind.”

  Zara rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll see you later.”

  She stalked away, Anush hurrying like a dispirited shadow in her wake.

  * * *

  Emma sat beside Cristina on the office desk and drank in the view. The walls were glass, and through them she could see the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. It felt as if the colors of the world had been restored to her, after the darkness of Thule. The sea seemed to sing blues and silvers, golds and greens. The desert, too, glowed with green bright and dull, rich terra-cotta sand and dirt, and deep purple shadows between the hills.

  Cristina took a small vial out of her pocket, made of thick blue glass. She unstoppered it and held it up to the light.

  Nothing happened. Emma looked at Cristina sideways.

  “It always takes a bit of time,” Cristina said reassuringly.

  “I heard you in the Unseelie Court,” Emma said. “You said that it wasn’t the ley lines—that it was the blight. You figured it out, didn’t you? What was causing the warlocks’ sickness?”

  Cristina turned the vial around. “I suspected it, but I wasn’t totally sure. I knew the blight in Brocelind was the same as the blight in Faerie, but when I realized the King was causing them both—that he wanted to poison our world—I realized it might be what was hurting the warlocks.”

  “And Catarina knows?”

  “I told her when we got back. She said she’d look into it—”

  Smoke began to stream out of the vial, gray-white and opaque. It slowly shaped itself into a slightly distorted scene, wavering at the edges: They were looking at Tessa in a loose blue dress, a stone wall visible behind her.

  “Tessa?” Emma said.

  “Tessa!” Cristina said. “Is Catarina there as well?”

  Tessa tried to smile, but it wavered. “Last night Catarina fell into a sleep that we haven’t been able to wake her from. She is—very ill.”

  Cristina murmured in sympathy. Emma couldn’t stop staring at Tessa. She looked so different—not older or younger, but more alive. She had not realized how much Thule Tessa’s emotion
s had seemed deadened, as if she had long ago given up on having them.

  And this Tessa, Emma remembered, was pregnant. It wasn’t visible yet, though Tessa did rest one hand with light protectiveness on her belly as she spoke.

  “Before Catarina fell into unconsciousness,” Tessa said, “she told me that she thought Cristina was right about the blight. We have some samples of it here, and we’ve been studying them, but I fear we will be too late to save Magnus and Catarina—and so many others.” Her eyes were bright with tears.

  Emma sprang to reassure her. “We think we might have the answer,” she said, and scrambled to tell her story again, ending it on her meeting with Tessa in the cave. There seemed no reason to tell her now what had come after that.

  “I told you this?” Tessa seemed astonished. “A me that you encountered in another world?”

  “I know it sounds hard to believe. You were living in that cave, the big one up by Staircase Beach. You had Church with you.”

  “That does sound right.” Tessa seemed dazed. “What’s the plan? I can help you, though there are few other warlocks well enough to join me—”

  “No, it’s all right,” Cristina said. “Jace and Clary are going.”

  Tessa frowned. “That seems dangerous.”

  “Aline found a time tomorrow when she thinks there won’t be guards at Lake Lyn,” said Cristina. “They’re going to leave at dawn.”

  “I suppose danger can never be avoided for Nephilim,” said Tessa. She glanced at Cristina. “Could Emma and I speak for a moment alone, please?”

  Cristina blinked in surprise, then hopped down from the desk. “Of course.” She bumped Emma’s shoulder companionably as she headed out the door, and then Emma was alone in the office with a wavering but determined-looking Tessa.

  “Emma,” Tessa said as soon as the door had shut behind Cristina. “I wanted to talk to you about Kit Herondale.”

  * * *

  Kit picked his way across the sand, his sneakers already wet where the incoming tide had caught him unawares.

  It was the first time he’d been down to the beach near the Institute without Ty. He felt almost guilty, though when he’d told Ty he was taking a walk, Ty had just nodded and said he’d see him later—Kit knew Ty wanted to talk to Julian, and he didn’t want to interrupt anyway.

  There was something restful about this space, where the sea met the shore. Kit had learned long ago in the Shadow Market that there were “in-between” spaces in the world where it was easier to do certain kinds of magic: the middle of bridges, caves between the earth and the underworld, borderlands between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. And the Shadow Market itself, between Downworld and the mundane.

  The tide line was a place like that, and because of that it felt like home. It reminded him of an old song he remembered someone singing to him. It must have been his father, though he always remembered it in a woman’s voice.

  Tell him to buy me an acre of land,

  Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

  Between the salt water and the sea sand,

  Then he shall be a true love of mine.

  “That’s a very, very old song,” said a voice. Kit almost tumbled off the rock he’d been clambering over. The sky was deep blue, studded with white clouds, and standing above him on a heap of rocks was Shade. He wore a ragged navy suit with a stitched collar and cuffs, his green skin a stark contrast. “How do you know it?”

  Kit, who hadn’t even realized he’d been humming the tune, shrugged. Shade had left off his usual hood. His green face was lined and good-humored, his hair curly and white. Small horns protruded from his temples, curling inward like seashells. Something about him struck Kit as a little odd. “Heard it in the Market.”

  “What are you doing out and about without your shadow?”

  “Ty’s not my shadow,” said Kit crossly.

  “My apologies. I suppose you’re his.” Shade’s eyes were solemn. “Have you come to tell me of the progress you’ve made in your foolish plan to raise his sister from the dead?”

  It wasn’t why Kit had come down here, but he found himself telling Shade anyway, about Emma and Julian’s return (though he made no mention of Thule) and the visits they’d made to the Shadow Market in the ensuing chaos, no one noticing they were gone. Julian, usually the most eagle-eyed older brother in the world, had been unconscious, and even today he’d seemed unfocused and groggy.

  “You’ve done better than I thought you would,” Shade said grudgingly, looking out to sea. “Still. You’ve mostly gotten the easy stuff. There’s still some objects that ought to trip you up.”

  “You sound like you want us to fail,” said Kit.

  “Of course I do!” Shade barked. “You shouldn’t be messing around with necromancy! It never does anyone any good!”

  Kit backed up until his heels hit the surf. “Then why are you helping us?”

  “Look, there’s a reason I’m here,” said Shade. “Yeah, Hypatia passed on Tiberius’s message to me, but I was headed to the cave anyway to keep an eye on you.”

  “On me?”

  “Yes, you. Did you really think I was sticking around and helping you with your dumb necromancy just as a favor to Hypatia? We’re not that close. Jem’s the one who asked me to look out for you. The whole Carstairs owe the Herondales business. You know.”

  It was weird to Kit, the idea that someone would be worried about protecting him just because of his last name. “Okay, but why are you helping us with the spell stuff?”

  “Because I said I would protect you, and I will. Your Ty is stubborn like the Blackthorns are all stubborn, and you’re even stubborner. If I didn’t help you two, some other warlock would, someone who didn’t care if you both got hurt. And no, I haven’t told anyone about it.”

  “A lot of the other warlocks are sick,” Kit said, realizing that this was what had seemed odd about Shade. He didn’t look even a little bit ill.

  “And I might get sick too, eventually, but there will always be unscrupulous magic-users—what are you looking all cross-eyed about, boy?”

  “I guess I was thinking that you didn’t know they found a cure for the warlock plague,” said Kit. “Up at the Institute.”

  It was the first time he had ever seen the warlock look genuinely surprised. “The Nephilim? Found a cure for the warlock illness?”

  Kit thought back on the way he’d been introduced to the idea of Shadowhunters. Not as people but as a vicious, holier-than-thou army of true believers. As if they were all like Horace Dearborn, and none were like Julian Blackthorn or Cristina Rosales. Or like Alec Lightwood, patiently holding a glass of water with a straw in it so his sick warlock boyfriend could drink.

  “Yes,” he said. “Jace and Clary are going to retrieve it. I’ll make sure you get some.”

  Shade’s face twisted, and he turned so Kit couldn’t see his expression. “If you insist,” he said gruffly. “But make sure Catarina Loss gets it first, and Magnus Bane. I’ve got some protections. I’ll be fine for a good long while.”

  “Magnus will be the first to get it, don’t worry,” said Kit. “He’s at the Institute now.”

  At that Shade spun back around. “Magnus is here?” He glanced up at the Institute where it gleamed like a legendary castle on a hill. “When he’s well, tell him I’m in the Staircase Beach cave,” he said. “Tell him Ragnor says hello.”

  Ragnor Shade? Whatever force blessed people with good names had passed this poor guy over, Kit thought.

  He turned to head back up the path from the beach to the highway. The sand stretched out before him in a shimmering crescent, the tide line touched with silver.

  “Christopher,” said Shade, and Kit paused, surprised at the sound of the name hardly anyone ever called him. “Your father,” Shade began, and hesitated. “Your father wasn’t a Herondale.”

  Kit froze. In that moment, he had a sudden terror that it had all been a mistake: He wasn’t a Shadowhunter, he didn’t belong here, he would be tak
en away from all of it, from Ty, from everyone—

  “Your mother,” said Shade. “She was the Herondale. And an unusual one. You want to look into your mother.”

  Relief punched through Kit like a blow. A few weeks ago he would have been delighted to have been told he wasn’t Nephilim. Now it seemed like the worst fate he could imagine. “What was her name?” he said. “Shade! What was my mother’s name?”

  But the warlock had jumped down from his rock and was walking away; the sound of the waves and tide swallowed up Kit’s words, and Shade didn’t turn around.

  * * *

  * * *

  Killer dolls, sinister woodsmen, eyeless ghouls, and graveyards full of mist. Dru would have listed those as her top favorite things about Asylum: Frozen Fear, but they didn’t seem to interest Kieran much. He sprawled on the other side of the couch, gazing moodily into space even when people on screen started screaming.

  “This is my favorite part,” said Dru, part of her mind on nibbling popcorn, the other part on whether or not Kieran was imagining himself in a different, peaceful place, maybe a beach. She didn’t quite know how she’d inherited him after the meeting, just that they seemed to be the two people who hadn’t been given a task to do. She’d escaped to the den, and a few moments later Kieran had appeared, flopped down on the sofa, and picked up a calendar of fluffy cats that someone—okay, her—had left around. “The bit where he steps on the voodoo doll and it explodes into blood and—”

  “This manner of marking the passage of time is a marvel,” said Kieran. “When you are done with one kitten, then there is another kitten. By the next winter solstice, you will have seen twelve full kittens! One of them is in a glass!”

  “In December there are three kittens in a basket,” Dru said. “But you should really watch the movie—”

  Kieran set the calendar down and gazed at the screen in some puzzlement. Then he sighed. “I just don’t understand,” he said. “I love them both, but it seems as if they cannot understand that. As if it is a torment or an insult.”

  Dru hit the mute button and put down the remote. Finally, she thought, someone was talking to her like an adult. Admittedly, Kieran wasn’t making a lot of sense, but still.