“I hope this isn’t about the balloons,” said Mark. “I don’t have much training.”
“It’s not about the balloons,” said Alec. He reached around to rub the back of his neck. “I know we haven’t really had much of a chance to talk, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Helen and Aline. And I remembered you for a long time after we met you in Faerie. When you joined the Hunt.”
“You told me if I went to Edom with you, I’d die,” Mark recalled.
Alec looked faintly embarrassed. “I was trying to protect you. But I thought about you a lot after that. How tough you were. And how wrong it was, the way the Clave treated you, just because you were different. I always wished you were around to join the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance. Working with it has been something I’m really going to miss.”
Mark was startled. “You’re not going to work with the Alliance anymore?”
“I can’t,” Alec said. “I can’t do that and be Consul—it’s too much, for anyone. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but the government is setting itself up in New York City. Partly because of me—I can’t be too far from Magnus and the kids. And it has to be somewhere.”
“You don’t need to apologize about it,” said Mark, wondering where this was all going.
“There’s so much we have to do,” said Alec. “We have connections all over the world, with every religious organization, with secret societies that know about demons. They’ll all have to decide who they tithe to—us, or the government in Alicante. We have to face that we’re going to lose at least some of our allies. That we’ll be struggling—for funds, for credibility. For so much.”
Mark knew that Shadowhunters survived on the money they were given by organizations—religious, spiritual, mystic—who knew of demons and valued the guarding of the world. He’d never thought about what would happen without those funds. He didn’t envy Alec.
“I wondered if you’d want to join the Alliance,” said Alec. “Not just join it but help us head it up. You could be an ambassador to Faerie, now that the Cold Peace is being dissolved. It’s not going to be a short process. We have a lot of reconnecting to do with the fey, and we need to help them understand that the government in Idris no longer represents the majority of Shadowhunters.” He hesitated. “I know things have been crazy for your family, but you would truly be a valuable asset.”
“Where would I need to live?” Mark asked. “I don’t want to be too far from my family or Cristina.”
“We were going to ask Cristina to join us as well,” said Alec. “Her knowledge of faeries will be helpful, and her family’s relationship with them as well. You can both have a place in the New York Institute, and you’re welcome to Portal back to see your family whenever you want.”
Mark tried to wrap his head around the idea. New York seemed far away, but then, he hadn’t paused at all to consider what he might want to do now that the crisis seemed to be over. He had no interest in anything like the Scholomance. He could remain in Los Angeles, of course, but if he did, he’d be away from Cristina. He already missed Kieran, as did she; he couldn’t bear to miss her, too. But what would his purpose be, if he followed her to Mexico? What did Mark Blackthorn want to do with his life?
“I need to think about it,” Mark said, surprising himself.
“All right,” said Alec. “Take all the time you need.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got something important I have to do.”
* * *
Cristina sat with her legs tucked up under her, gazing out to sea. She knew she should join the rest of the party—her mother had always scolded her for hanging back in her room during social occasions—but something about the sea was comforting. She would miss it when she went home: the steady drumbeat of the tide, the ever-changing surface of the waves. Always the same yet always new.
If she turned her head a bit she could see Emma with Julian, Mark talking to Alec. That was enough for now.
A shadow fell across her view. “Hello, friend.”
It was Diego. He sat down beside her on the large, flat-topped rock she’d found. He looked more casual than she’d seen him in a long time, in a T-shirt and rolled-up cargo pants. The brutal, vicious scar across his face was healing quickly, as Shadowhunter scars did, but it would never fade to invisibility. He would never quite be Perfect Diego again on the outside. But he had changed so much for the better on the inside, she thought. And that was what truly mattered.
“En qué piensas?” It was the same question he’d always asked her, so common it was an inside joke between them. What are you thinking about?
“The world seems so strange to me now,” she said, gazing at her toes in their sandals. “I can’t quite fathom that Alicante is lost to us. The Shadowhunter homeland is our home no longer.” She hesitated. “Mark and I are happy to be together but also sad; Kieran being gone feels like a wedge cut out of our relationship. It’s like having Idris cut out of the world of the Shadowhunters. A piece that’s missing. We can still be happy but we won’t be whole.”
It was the first time she had spoken to Diego about the odd nature of her relationship. She had wondered how he would react. He only nodded. “There is no perfect world,” he said. “What we have now is a wound, but it’s still better than the Cold Peace was, and better than the Cohort was. Very few people have the opportunity to reach out and change the injustices they see in the world, but you did, Cristina. You always wanted to end the Cold Peace, and now it’s over.”
Oddly touched, she smiled at him. “Do you think that we’ll ever hear anything from Idris?”
“Ever is a long time.” He folded his arms on his knees. There had been no communication so far. Alec—the Consul—had sent a fire-message to Idris the day the Cold Peace was officially dissolved, but there had been no response. They couldn’t even be sure it had been received; the wards around Idris now were thicker and stronger than any wards seen before. The Shadowhunter homeland had become both prison and fortress. “Zara is very stubborn. It could be a long time.” Diego paused. “Alec offered me the position of Inquisitor. Of course there has to be a vote, but—”
Cristina flung her arms around his wide shoulders. “Congratulations! That’s wonderful!”
But Diego didn’t look entirely happy. “I feel as if I do not deserve to be Inquisitor,” he said. “I knew the Council guards, the ones who work in the Gard, were under the sway of the Cohort. I said as much to Jaime when they came in escorting Zara and the other prisoners. But I did not raise an objection. I believed it could not be possible that I alone saw a potential problem.”
“No one could have foreseen what happened,” said Cristina. “No one would have imagined that suicide gambit, and nothing else would have worked, even if they did have the guards on their side. Besides, being the Inquisitor isn’t a favor or reward. It is a service you give. It’s a way of paying back the world.”
He started to smile. “I suppose so.”
She winked. “Also, I’m happy to know that if I need someone to bend the Law in my favor, I will have a powerful friend.”
“I see you have learned way too much from the Blackthorns,” Diego said darkly.
A shadow passed over them—darker than a cloud, and too large to be a seagull. Drawing back from Diego, Cristina tipped her head back. A flying figure soared through the sky, shimmering white against the dark blue. It circled, and then began to descend, preparing to alight on the sand.
Cristina bolted to her feet and began to scramble down the rocks toward the beach.
* * *
The sun had dipped to touch the edge of the horizon. It was a massive glowing ball of orange and red now, illuminating the ocean with bands of metallic gold.
Julian stood at the high-water mark, a defined darker stripe on the sands. Emma was beside him, her pale gold hair escaping the clip she’d put in to hold it back; secretly, he was pleased. He loved her hair. He loved being able to stand next to her like this, to take her hand and have no one blink. In fact, nearly everyone they
knew seemed so extremely fine with it that he wondered if many of them hadn’t already had suspicions.
Maybe they had. He didn’t mind.
He’d been painting again—Emma, when he could get her to sit still and be a model. He had painted her for so long in secret, the paintings his only outlet for his feelings, that painting her moving and laughing and smiling, a blur of golds and blues and ambers, was almost more than his heart could take.
He painted Ty, down by the water’s edge, and Dru looking thoughtful or scowling, and Helen and Aline together, and Mark with his eyes raised to the sky as if he were always looking for the stars.
And he painted Livvy. He painted the Livvy he had always known and loved, and sometimes he painted the Livvy in Thule who had helped heal his heart from the wound of his sister’s loss.
It would never be entirely healed. It would always hurt, as his mother’s death did, as his father’s death did. As Arthur’s death did. He would be as everyone was, especially Shadowhunters: a patchwork of love and grief, of gains and losses. The love helped you accept the grief. You had to feel it all.
He knew that now.
“Can I talk to you, Jules?”
Julian turned, still holding Emma’s hand; it was Mark. The gold light of the sun made his golden eye shine brighter; Julian knew he was still mourning Kieran’s loss, but at least now, on the beach with his family, he was smiling.
“No worries,” Emma said with a smile. She kissed Julian’s cheek and headed down the beach to talk to Clary, who was standing with Jace.
Mark shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Jules,” he said again. “Alec has offered me a job—helping run the Alliance—and I’m not sure whether I should take it. I feel like I should stay here and help Helen and Aline while you have your travel year so you don’t have to worry. You took care of everything for so long. I should be taking care of things now.”
Julian felt a rush of love for his brother—if there had ever been any jealousy, it was gone. He was only glad to have Mark back.
He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Take the job,” he said.
Mark looked surprised. “Take it?”
“You don’t need to worry. Things aren’t the way they were anymore,” Julian said, and for the first time, as he said the words aloud to his brother, he truly believed them. “In the past, I had to take care of things because there was no one else who could do it. But now Helen and Aline are home. They want to take care of the Institute, the kids—it’s all they wanted for years.” He dropped his voice. “You’ve always been part of two worlds. Faerie and Nephilim. This sounds like a way you can make having both a strength. So do it. I want you to be happy.”
Mark pulled him into a fierce hug. Julian held his brother, with the tide crashing over both their feet, held him as tightly as he had imagined clinging to him during all the years he was away.
“Mark! Mark!”
The brothers drew away from each other; Julian turned in surprise to see Cristina racing toward them along the beach, zigzagging between the startled partygoers. Her cheeks were bright red with excitement.
She reached them and seized hold of Mark’s hand.
“Mark, mira,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “Look!”
Julian craned his head back—everyone was, the whole party transfixed by the sight of a Faerie horse circling over them. A white horse with scarlet eyes, two gold hooves and two silver. It was Windspear, and Kieran was on his back.
The sun was setting in a final blaze as Windspear landed on the beach, sand puffing up around his hooves. Max yelled in delight at the sight of the pony, and Magnus grabbed him back hastily as Kieran leaped down from the horse’s back. He was all in dark blue, the sort of elaborate costume Julian could only barely begin to understand—there was definitely velvet and silk involved, and some kind of dark blue leather, and rings on all his fingers, and his hair, too, was dark blue. He looked ethereal and startling and a little bit alien.
He looked like a King of Faerie.
His eyes roved restlessly around the group of partygoers and locked in on Mark and Cristina. Slowly, Kieran began to smile.
“Remember,” Mark said, his hand in Cristina’s, whispering in a voice so low Julian wondered if he was supposed to hear it at all. “Remember that all of this is real.”
He and Cristina began to run. Windspear took off into the air, circling happily overhead. Julian saw Emma, standing near the chocolate fountain, clasp her hands together in delight as Mark, Kieran, and Cristina threw themselves into each other’s arms.
* * *
“So,” Alec said. He and Magnus had found shelter in the lee of a large rock, its surface worn to a granular texture by years of salt and wind. Magnus, leaning against it, looked young in a way that made Alec’s heart break with a mixture of love and nostalgia. “Since I’m the Consul now, I guess I make the rules.”
Magnus raised an eyebrow. In the distance, Alec could hear the sounds of the party: people laughing, music, Isabelle calling to Max and Rafe. She’d been put in charge of watching them while Alec and Magnus took a moment to themselves. Alec knew that by the time they got back, both kids would be covered in glittery eyeliner, but some sacrifices were worth the makeup remover.
“Was that flirting?” Magnus said. “Because I have to tell you I’m more in than I thought I would be.”
“Yes,” said Alec. He paused. “No. A little bit.” He laid a hand over Magnus’s heart, and Magnus looked at him with thoughtful green-gold eyes, as if sensing that Alec was serious. “I mean I make all the rules. I’m in charge now.”
“I told you already I was in,” Magnus said.
Alec slid his hand up to cup his boyfriend’s jaw. There was light stubble on Magnus’s skin, which Alec always loved. It made him think of the way Magnus looked when he first woke up, before the rest of the world saw him, before he put on his clothes like armor, when he was just Alec’s.
“We could get married,” he said. “In warlock blue and Shadowhunter gold. The way we always wanted.”
An incredulous smile spread over Magnus’s face. “You’re really asking me . . . ?”
Alec took a deep breath and knelt down in the sand. He looked up at Magnus, watching his face go from amused to something else. Something soft and serious and tremulously vulnerable.
“I almost lost you,” Alec said. “I’ve gotten so used to thinking of you as immortal. But none of us are.” He tried to keep his hands from shaking; he was more nervous than he thought he would be. “None of us are forever. But at least I can do everything I can to let you know how much I love you with every day that we do have.” He took a deep breath. “I wish I could promise you a completely uneventful, peaceful life at my side. But I have a feeling we’ll always be surrounded by adventure and chaos.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Magnus.
“When I found you, I didn’t know what I was finding,” Alec said. “Words about things that are beautiful and precious to me don’t come easily. You know that. You know me better than anyone.” He licked his dry lips. “And when one day people look back on me and what my life meant, I don’t want them to say, ‘Alec Lightwood fought in the Dark War’ or even ‘Alec Lightwood was Consul once.’ I want them to think, ‘Alec Lightwood loved one man so much he changed the world for him.’ ”
Magnus’s eyes shone bright as stars. He gazed at Alec with eyes full of joy, of a feeling so profound Alec felt humbled to be a part of it. “You know you’ve already changed the world for me.”
“Will you marry me?” Alec whispered. His heart was beating like a frantic bird’s wings. “Right now? Tonight?”
Magnus nodded wordlessly and pulled Alec to his feet. They wrapped their arms around each other, and Alec leaned up just that little bit, since Magnus was just that little bit taller, which he had always loved.
And they kissed for a long time.
* * *
The beach was a hive of activ
ity. The sun had gone down, but the sky still glowed an opaline blue. Simon and Jace were setting out a wooden platform on the sand, where the view of the coastline was best. Julian and Emma were lighting candles around the platform, Clary, who had changed into a blue dress, was scattering flowers, Ragnor and Catarina were arguing while plates of delicious-looking food were summoned up to weigh down the already creaking tables. Isabelle was stuffing Max and Rafe into adorable outfits trimmed in gold and blue while Max wailed and Rafe looked resigned.
Helen and Aline were helping the younger Blackthorns place their golden runes of commitment and love, faith and grace. Cristina, runed at her wrists and throat, had volunteered to help line the beach with torches. She hummed as she worked, surrounded by Shadowhunters and Downworlders laughing together. She knew there would be difficult times coming, that the Clave-in-exile would have no simple time of it. Alec would have difficult decisions in front of him; they all would. But this one moment, these preparations, felt like a moment of happiness enclosed in a bubble, safe from the harshness of reality.
“Take this.” With a smile, Kieran pressed a torch into her hand; he had set himself to work alongside all the others as if he were not the King of the Unseelie Court. In the dusk, his hair looked as black as his clothes.
“And I have more.” Mark, barefoot and starlight-haired, placed several more torches in the sand opposite Cristina’s. As they settled, they began to burn with a dim light that would soon grow stronger: they were weaving a path of fire across the beach, to the sea.
“Kieran,” Cristina said, and he glanced at her through the torches, his expression curious. She wasn’t sure if she should ask him, but she couldn’t help it. “I sent our message to Adaon ages ago and we didn’t hear anything back. Did it take you a long time to decide what to do?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Adaon did not tell me immediately that you had sent him a message. I was unaware you had contacted him. I was trying to forget the two of you—I was trying to be a good King, and to learn how to live a meaningful life without you.” A stripe of his hair turned silver-blue. “It was awful. I hated every minute of it. Finally, when I could stand it no more, I went to Adaon and asked if he would be willing to trade places with me. He refused, but that was when he offered me the cottage.”
Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3) Page 82