Queen of Air and Darkness Read online

  “I’ll show you. Take a clip.”

  She picked one up.

  “Bend it into an L shape,” he instructed. “The straight part is the top part. Okay, good.” Her face was screwed up with concentration. She was wearing a black T-shirt that said FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE on it and featured a cracked tombstone.

  Kit picked up a second clip and straightened it completely. “This is your pick,” he said. “What you’re holding is the tension wrench.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Now how do you pick the lock?”

  He laughed. “Hold your horses. Okay, pick up the padlock—you’re going to take the tension wrench and insert it into the bottom of the keyhole, which is called the shear line.”

  Dru did as he’d instructed. Her tongue poked out one corner of her mouth: She looked like a little girl concentrating on a book.

  “Turn it in the direction that the lock would turn,” he said. “Not left—there you go. Like that. Now take the pick with your other hand.”

  “No, wait—” She laughed. “That’s confusing.”

  “Okay, I’ll show you.” He slid the second clip into the lock itself and began to rake it back and forth, trying to push the pins up. His father had taught him how to feel the pins with his lock pick—this lock had five—and he began to fiddle gently, raising one pin after another. “Turn your wrench,” he said suddenly, and Dru jumped. “Turn it to the right.”

  She twisted, and the padlock popped open. Dru gave a muted scream. “That’s so cool!”

  Kit felt like smiling at her—it had never occurred to him to want a little sister, but there was something nice about having someone to teach things to.

  “Does Ty know how to do this?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Kit said, relocking the padlock and handing it to her. “But he’d probably learn fast.” He handed her the pick next and sat back. “Now you do it.”

  She groaned. “Not fair.”

  “You only learn by doing.” It was something Kit’s father had always said.

  “You sound like Julian.” Dru puffed out a little laugh and started in on the padlock. Her fingernails were painted with chipped black polish. Kit was impressed with the delicacy with which she handled the pick and wrench.

  “I never thought anyone would say I sounded like Julian Blackthorn.”

  Dru looked up. “You know what I mean. Dad-ish.” She twisted the tension wrench. “I’m glad you’re friends with Ty,” she said unexpectedly. Kit felt his heart give a sudden sharp bump in his chest. “I mean, he always had Livvy. So he didn’t need any other friends. It was like a little club and no one could get in, and then you came along and you did.”

  She had paused, still holding the padlock. She was looking at him with eyes so much like Livvy’s, that wide blue-green fringed with dark lashes.

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “Don’t be. I’m too young. Ty would never have let me in, even if you hadn’t showed up.” She said it matter-of-factly. “I love Julian. He’s like—the best father. You know he’ll always put you first. But Ty was always my cool brother. He had such awesome stuff in his room, and animals liked him, and he knew everything—”

  She broke off, her cheeks turning pink. Ty had come in, his damp hair in soft, humid curls, and Kit felt a slow flip inside him, like his stomach turning over. He told himself he probably felt awkward because Ty had walked in on them talking about him.

  “I’m learning how to pick locks,” Dru said.

  “Okay.” Ty spared her a cursory glance. “I need to talk to Kit now, though.”

  Kit slid hastily off the table, nearly knocking over the pile of paper clips. “Dru did really well,” he said.

  “Okay,” Ty said again. “But I need to talk to you.”

  “So talk,” said Dru. She’d put the lock-picking equipment down on the table and was glaring at Ty.

  “Not with you here,” he said.

  It had been pretty obvious, but Dru made a hurt noise anyway and jumped off the table. She stalked out of the library, slamming the door behind her.

  “That wasn’t—she wasn’t—” Kit started. He couldn’t finish, though; he couldn’t scold Ty. Not now.

  Ty unzipped his hoodie and reached brusquely into an inner pocket. “We need to go to the Shadow Market tonight,” he said.

  Kit yanked his brain back to the present. “I’m forbidden from entering the Market. I suspect you are too.”

  “We can petition at the gate,” said Ty. “I read about people doing that. Shadow Markets have gates, right?”

  “Yeah, there are gates. They’re marked off. They don’t keep people out or in; they’re more like meeting points. And yeah, you can petition the head of the Market, except in this case it’s Barnabas and he hates me.”

  Ty picked up a paper clip from the table and looked at it with interest. There were bruises on his neck, Kit noticed suddenly. He didn’t remember them, which struck him as strange, but then, who noticed every bruise on someone else’s skin? Ty must have gotten them when they’d fought the Riders in London. “We just have to convince him it’s in his interest to let us in.”

  “How do you plan to do that? We’re not exactly master negotiators.”

  Ty, who had been straightening the paper clip, gave Kit one of his rare sunrise-over-the-water smiles. “You are.”

  “I—” Kit realized he was grinning, and broke off. He’d always had a sarcastic edge to his tongue, never been someone to take a compliment gracefully, but it was as if there was something about Ty Blackthorn that reached into him and untied all the careful knots of protection holding him together. He wondered if that was what people meant when they said they felt undone.

  Ty frowned as if he hadn’t noticed Kit’s stupid smile. “The problem is,” he said, “neither of us drive. We have no way of getting to the Market.”

  “But you have an iPhone,” said Kit. “In fact, there’s several in the Institute. I’ve seen them.”

  “Sure,” said Ty, “but—”

  “I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful invention called Uber,” said Kit. “Your life will be changed, Ty Blackthorn.”

  “Ah, Watson,” said Ty, shoving the clip into his pocket. “You may not yourself be luminous, but you are an extraordinary conductor of light.”

  * * *

  Diego had been surprised that Gladstone wanted to lock them in the library. He’d never thought of it as a particularly secure room. Once they were both inside, Diego stripped of his weapons and stele, and the solid oak door had been locked behind them, Diego began to realize the advantages the library had as a prison.

  The walls were thick and there were no windows save for the massive glass ceiling many feet up. The sheer walls made it impossible to climb up and break it, and nothing in the room yielded a useful weapon—they could throw books, Diego supposed, or try to flip the tables, but he didn’t figure that would do much good.

  He stalked over to where Kieran sat slumped at the foot of the massive tree that grew up out of the floor. If only it reached up high enough to get to the ceiling, Diego thought.

  Kieran was hunched against the trunk. He had jammed the palms of his hands into his eyes, as if he could blind himself.

  “Are you all right?” Diego said.

  Kieran dropped his hands. “I am sorry.” He looked up at Diego, who could see the marks of Kieran’s palms against his cheekbones.

  “It’s fine. You were injured. I can look for ways out by myself,” Diego said, deliberately misunderstanding him.

  “No, I mean I am sorry,” Kieran choked out. “I cannot.”

  “You cannot what?”

  “Get away from it. I feel guilt like a curtain of thorns in which I am entangled. Every which way I turn I am pierced again.”

  The pool makes you feel every hurt you have ever caused others. “We are none of us without guilt,” said Diego, and he thought of his family, of Cristina. “Every one of us has hurt another, inadvertently or not.”
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  “You do not understand.” Kieran was shaking his head. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, silver darkening to blue. “When I was in the Hunt, I was a straw floating in wind or water. All I could do was clutch at other straws. I believed I had no effect in the world. That I mattered so little I could neither help nor harm.” He tensed his hands into fists. “Now I have felt the pain that was Emma’s and the sorrow that was Mark’s, the pain of everyone I harmed in the Hunt, even Erec’s pain as he died. But how could I have been the person who caused such pain when I am someone whose actions are written in water?”

  His eyes, black and silver, were haunted. Diego said, “Kieran. You have not only caused pain in this world. It is just that the pool does not show good, only hurt.”

  “How do you know?” Kieran cried. “We are but barely acquainted, you and I—”

  “Because of Cristina,” said Diego. “Cristina had faith in you. True faith, unblemished and unbroken. Why do you think I agreed to hide you here? Because she believed you were good, and I believed in her.”

  He stopped before he could say too much, but Kieran had already winced at the mention of Cristina. His next question puzzled Diego. “How can I face her again?” he said.

  “Do you care that much what she thinks?” Diego said. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kieran might. Surely he couldn’t know Cristina that well.

  “More than you might imagine or guess,” Kieran said. “How did you ever face her again, after you engaged yourself to Zara and broke her heart?”

  “Really?” Diego was stung. “We need to bring this up now?”

  Kieran looked at him with wild eyes. Diego sighed. “Yes, I disappointed Cristina and I lost her regard—you must understand what that is like. To have let down someone you loved. To have disappointed yourself.”

  “Maybe not exactly,” said Kieran, with a shadow of his old wryness. “Nobody calls me Perfect Kieran.”

  “I don’t call myself Perfect Diego!” Diego protested, feeling that the conversation had degenerated. “Nobody would call themselves that!”

  There was a noise at the door. Both of them turned, poised for danger, but as it swung open Diego was shocked to see Divya on the threshold.

  She looked as if she’d been in a fight. Scratched and bloody, she held up the key. “I got it from Gladstone in the infirmary chaos,” she said. “I doubt we have much time before he notices it’s gone.”

  Diego stalked past her and opened the library door a crack. The corridor was empty. “What’s happening? Where’s Rayan?”

  “Trying to see what the others know, the ones who came from Alicante and aren’t in the Cohort. Everyone’s steles have been confiscated. Zara Portaled back to Idris right after you took Kieran away. And Gladstone’s in the infirmary with Samantha,” said Divya. “She won’t stop screaming.” She bit her lip. “It’s really bad.”

  Kieran had risen to his feet, though he was still using the tree to support himself. “You two should run,” he said. “Get out of here. It’s me they want, and you have put yourselves in enough danger on my account.”

  Divya gave him a wry look. “By the Angel, he’s all self-sacrificing now he fell in that pool. Faerie, you haven’t caused me any harm. We’re fine.”

  “I made you worry and feel fear,” said Kieran, gazing at her with a look both haunting and haunted. “You were afraid of what might happen to you and the others, retaliation for hiding me. You feared for Rayan.” He glanced at Diego. “And you—”

  “No.” Diego held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear about my feelings.”

  “Said every man ever,” Divya quipped, but her eyes were overly bright. “Look, there’s more I need to tell you. And you should both hear it. I heard Zara laughing with Gladstone in the infirmary before they brought Samantha in. The Inquisitor sent two Shadowhunters on a suicide mission to Faerie to find the Black Volume.”

  “Jace and Clary?” said Diego, puzzled. “That’s not a suicide mission.”

  “Not them. Emma and Julian Blackthorn. They left yesterday.”

  “They would never agree to a suicide mission,” said Kieran. “Julian would not leave his brothers and sisters. Never.”

  “They don’t know it’s a suicide mission—Dearborn sent someone to follow them and kill them before they can come back.”

  “That’s against the Law.” It was all Diego could think of to say, and he immediately felt ridiculous.

  “Horace Dearborn doesn’t care about your Laws,” said Kieran. His cheeks were flushed darkly with color. “He cares for nothing beyond furthering his own purpose. To him a Nephilim who doesn’t agree with him is no better than a Downworlder. They are all vermin to be destroyed.”

  “Kieran’s right,” said Divya. “He’s the Inquisitor, Diego. He’s going to change all the Laws—change them so he can do whatever he wants.”

  “We must go,” said Kieran. “There is not a moment to lose. We must tell the Blackthorns—Mark and Cristina—”

  “All the exits are guarded,” said Divya. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but we’re going to need Rayan and Gen and the others. We can’t fight the Cohort alone. Especially not without steles. We’ll need to plan—”

  “We do not have time to plan—” Kieran began.

  Diego thought suddenly of Cristina, of the way she’d written about Kieran in her letter asking Diego to hide him. The fascination she’d had with faeries even when she was a little girl, the way she’d cried when the Cold Peace was passed, telling Diego over and over the faeries were good, their powers part of the blessed magic of the world.

  “Kieran,” Diego said sharply. “You are a prince of Faerie. Be a prince of Faerie.”

  Kieran gave him a wild, dark look. His breath was ragged. Divya glanced at Diego as if to say what are you doing? just as Kieran reached up to seize a branch of the tree.

  He closed his black and silver eyes. His face was a pale mask. His jaw tightened even as the leaves on the tree began to rustle, as if in a high wind. It was as if the tree were calling out.

  “What’s happening?” whispered Divya.

  Light crackled up and down the tree—not lightning, but pure bright sparks. It circled Kieran as if he were outlined in gold paint. His hair had turned an odd gold-green, something Diego had never seen before.

  “Kieran—” Diego started.

  Kieran threw his hands up. His eyes were still closed; words poured from his mouth, a language Diego had never heard. He wished Cristina were here. Cristina could translate. Kieran was shouting; Diego thought he heard the word “Windspear” repeated.

  Windspear? thought Diego. Isn’t that—?

  “There are people coming!” Divya cried. She ran to the door of the library, slammed it closed, and locked it, but she was shaking her head. “There are way too many of them. Diego—”

  The glass ceiling exploded. Both Diego and Divya gasped.

  A white horse crashed through the ceiling. A flying white horse, proud and beautiful. Glass sprayed and Diego dived under a nearby table, dragging Divya with him. Kieran opened his eyes; he reached up in welcome as Windspear sliced through the air, swift as an arrow, light as thistledown.

  “By the Angel,” Divya whispered. “God, I used to love ponies when I was little.”

  Kieran vaulted himself up onto Windspear’s back. His hair had gone back to its more normal blue-black, but he was still crackling with energy. His hands threw sparks as he moved. He reached out toward Diego, who scrambled out from under the table, Divya beside him, their boots crunching on shattered glass.

  “Come with me,” Kieran called. The room was full of wind and cold, the smell of the Carpathians and lake water. Above them, the broken window opened out onto a sky full of stars. “You will not be safe here.”

  But Divya shook her head. Crushing down the longing to escape that rose inside him, Diego did the same. “We will stay and fight,” he called. “We are Shadowhunters. We cannot all flee and leave only the worst of us to seize power. We m
ust resist.”

  Kieran hesitated, just as the library door burst open. Gladstone and a dozen Cohort members swarmed in, their eyes widening.

  “Stop him!” Gladstone shouted, throwing an arm out toward Kieran. “Manuel—Anush—”

  “Kieran, go!” Diego roared, and Kieran seized Windspear’s mane; they exploded into the air before Manuel could do more than take a step forward. Diego thought he saw Kieran look back at him once before Windspear cleared the ceiling and they shimmered into a white streak across the sky.

  Diego heard someone step up behind him. Across the room, Divya was looking at him. There were tears in her eyes. Behind her, her cousin Anush was cuffing her hands.

  “You’re going to be so sorry you did this,” Manuel said, his delighted whisper rasping in Diego’s ear. “So very sorry, Rocio Rosales.”

  And then there was only darkness.

  * * *

  Emma was taken up behind Nene on her gray palfrey, while Julian rode behind Fergus, so there was no chance to talk. Frustration churned in Emma as they rode along under the green trees, the golden spears of light that drove down through the gaps in the trees turning to a deeper bronze as the day wore on.

  She wanted to talk to Julian, wanted to make a plan for what they were going to do when they reached the Seelie Court. What would they say to the Queen? How would they get out again? What did they want from her?

  But part of her was also too angry to talk to Julian—how dare he keep a massive part of their plan from her? Let her walk blind into Faerie, believing they had one mission when apparently they had another? And a smaller, colder part of her said: The only reason he wouldn’t tell you was if he knew you’d refuse to go along with his plan. Whatever the plan was, Emma wasn’t going to like it.

  And down even deeper, where she barely had the words for what she felt, she knew that if it weren’t for the spell, Julian would never have done this, because she had never been one of the people Julian manipulated and lied to. She was family, inside the protected circle, and because of that she had forgiven the lies, the plans, because they hadn’t been directed at her. They’d been directed at the enemies of the family. The Julian who had to lie and manipulate was a persona created by a frightened child to protect the people he loved. But what if the spell had made the persona real? What if that was who Julian was now?