Queen of Air and Darkness Read online

  Nene stood in the center of Fergus’s room, wearing a long green dress and a heavy green cloak over it trimmed in green and blue feathers. She flicked the hood back with impatient fingers and faced them.

  “The Queen has betrayed you,” she said again. “Even now she prepares to leave for the Unseelie Court with the Black Volume.”

  Emma started. “The Unseelie Court? But why?”

  Nene gave them a hard glance. “You understand I am betraying my Court and my lady by speaking to you like this,” she said. “If I am found out, it will go worse for me than you can imagine.”

  “You came to us,” Julian pointed out. He was himself again, calm, measured. Maybe that was what being without your emotions meant; maybe you never really lost yourself in anything. “We didn’t come to you.”

  “I came because I owe the Blackthorns,” she said. “Because of the wrong my sister Celithe did to Arthur in torturing him, in shattering his mind with magic so that he might never be cured. And because I do not want the Unseelie King to have the Black Volume of the Dead.”

  “But he might well already have it,” Emma said. “He took Annabel—and Annabel has the book.”

  “We have spies in the Court, of course,” said Nene. “He does have Annabel. But she will not give him the Black Volume, and because she knows his true name, he cannot make her.”

  “So why is she staying in the Court?” Julian demanded.

  “That I cannot tell you,” Nene said. “Only what the Queen is doing. She does not consider any promises she made to you binding, because the book you brought her is a copy and not the original.”

  “That’s a ridiculous technicality,” said Emma.

  “Faerie turns on ridiculous technicalities,” said Nene. “The Queen will do what the Queen wishes to do. That is the nature of Seelie.”

  “But why does she want to give the book to the King? She hates the King! She said she wanted to keep it out of his hands—” Emma started.

  “She did say she wanted to keep it out of his hands,” Julian said. He was pale. “But she didn’t say she wouldn’t give it to him anyway.”

  “No,” said Nene. “She did not.”

  The Queen’s words echoed in Emma’s head. The Black Volume is more than necromancy. It contains spells that will allow me to retrieve the captive from the Unseelie Court. “She’s going to trade the book for the captive in the Unseelie Court, whoever he is,” said Emma. “Or she.”

  “He,” said Nene. “It is her son who is captive.”

  Julian sucked in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell us that before? If I’d known that—”

  Nene glared at him. “Betraying my Queen is no light thing to me! If it were not for my sister’s children, I would never—”

  “I expected the Queen to betray us,” Julian said. “But not for her to do it so soon, or like this. She must be desperate.”

  “Because she’s trying to save her child,” said Emma. “How old is he?”

  “I do not know,” Nene said. “Ash was always hidden from us. I would not recognize him if I saw him.”

  “The King can’t have the book. The Queen said that he was blighting the Lands of Faerie with dark magic and filling the rivers with blood. Imagine what he’d do if he had the Black Volume.”

  “If we can believe the Queen,” said Julian.

  “It is the truth as far as I know it,” said Nene. “Since the Cold Peace, the Land of Unseelie has been bleeding evil. It is said that a great weapon resides there, something that but needs the spells of the Black Volume to bring its powers to life. It is something that could wipe out all angelic magic.”

  “We have to get to the Unseelie Court,” said Emma. “We have to stop the Queen.”

  Julian’s eyes glittered. Emma knew what he was thinking. That in the Unseelie Court was Annabel, and with Annabel lay revenge for Livvy’s death. “I agree with you,” he said. “We can follow the Queen—”

  “You cannot travel as fast as a procession of fey horses,” she said. “Not even Nephilim can run like that. You must intercept the Queen before she reaches the tower.”

  “The tower?” echoed Emma.

  “It is the one permanent stronghold of Unseelie, the place they retreat when under siege. Its fortifications are unmatched in Faerie; none can scale the walls or brave the thorns, and the throne room at the top of the tower is guarded by redcaps. You must join the procession so that you might reach the Queen before she is inside the tower, and it is too late.”

  “Join the procession? We’ll be noticed!” Emma exclaimed, but Nene was already seizing up a hooded cloak that had been hung by the door and tossing it to Julian.

  “Wear this,” she said. “It’s Fergus’s. Pull up the hood. No one will be looking that closely.” She drew off her own cloak and handed it to Emma. “And you will be disguised as me.” She eyed Emma critically as Emma put the cloak on, fastening it at the throat. “At least the blond hair is right.”

  Julian had disappeared up the steps; when he returned, he was carrying his weapons belt and Emma’s. Fergus’s cloak—black, with raven wings shimmering like oil on the breast and hood—covered him completely. “We’re not going without these.”

  “Keep them beneath your cloaks,” Nene said. “They are clearly of Shadowhunter make.” She looked them up and down. “As are you. Ah well. We will do the best we can.”

  “What if we need to flee from Faerie?” said Emma. “What if we get the Black Volume and need to go back to Idris?”

  Nene hesitated.

  “You’ve already betrayed faerie secrets,” said Julian. “What’s one more?”

  Nene narrowed her eyes. “You have changed,” she said. “I can only hope it is grief.”

  Grief. Everyone in Alicante had thought it was grief that had altered Julian’s behavior, his reactions. Emma had thought it herself at first.

  “Make your way to Branwen’s Falls,” said Nene. “Beneath the falls you will find a path back to Alicante. And if you ever speak of this secret to another soul besides each other, my curse will be on your heads.”

  She pushed open the door, and they crept out into the corridor.

  * * *

  Tavvy had never been satisfied with sandcastles. They bored him. He liked to build what he called sand cities—rows of square sand structures shaped by empty milk cartons turned upside down. They were houses, stores, and schools, complete with signs made with the torn-off fronts of matchbooks.

  Dru scuffed her way up and down the beach barefoot, helping Tavvy find sticks, rocks, and seashells that would become lampposts, walls, and bus stops. Sometimes she’d find a piece of sea glass, red or green or blue, and tuck it into the pocket of her overalls.

  The beach was empty except for her and Tavvy. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye as he knelt on the wet sand, shaping a massive wall to surround his city—after what had happened with Malcolm, she didn’t plan to take her gaze off him again. But most of her mind was filled up with thoughts of Mark and Emma and Julian. Mark was going to Faerie, and he was going because Julian and Emma were in trouble. Mark hadn’t said, but Dru was pretty sure it was bad trouble. Nothing good came from going to Faerie, and Mark and Cristina and Kieran wouldn’t be running to save them if they thought they’d be all right on their own.

  People are leaving me one by one, she thought. First Livvy, then Julian and Emma, now Mark. She stopped to glance out at the ocean: sparkling blue waves rolling over and under. Once she’d watched that ocean thinking that somewhere across it was Helen on her island, protecting the wards of the world. She had remembered her sister’s laugh, her blond hair, and imagined her as a sort of Valkyrie, holding up a spear at the entrance to the world, not letting the demons pass her by.

  These days, she could tell that every time Helen looked at her she was sad that Dru wasn’t more friendly, more open to sisterly bonding. Dru knew it was true, but she couldn’t change it. Didn’t Helen understand that if Dru let herself love her older sister, Helen w
ould just be another person for Dru to lose?

  “Someone’s coming,” Tavvy said. He was looking down the beach, his blue-green eyes squinted against the sun.

  Dru turned and stared. A boy was walking down the empty beach, consulting a small object in his hand as he went. A tall, rail-thin boy with a mop of black hair, brown skin that shone in the sun, and bare, runed arms.

  She dropped the seashells she was holding. “Jaime!” she screamed. “Jaime!”

  He glanced up and seemed to see her for the first time. A wide grin spread across his face and he started to run, loping across the sand until he reached her. He grabbed her up in a hug, whooping and spinning her around.

  She still remembered the odd dream she’d had before Jaime left the London Institute, in which she’d been somewhere—it had felt like Faerie, but then how would she know what Faerie felt like? She’d dismissed it, but the faint memory came back now that he was here—along with other memories: of him sitting and watching movies with her, talking to her about her family, listening to her.

  “It’s good to see you again, friend,” he said, setting her down on the sand and ruffling her hair. “It’s very good.”

  He looked tired, inexpressibly tired, as if he hadn’t hit the ground except for running since the last time she’d seen him. There were dark circles under his eyes. Tavvy was running over to see who he was, and Jaime was asking if she still had the knife he’d given her, and she couldn’t help smiling, her first real smile since Livvy.

  He came back, Dru thought. Finally, someone didn’t leave—they came back instead.

  * * *

  They crept along the corridors with Nene, keeping to the shadows. Both Emma and Julian kept their hoods drawn up; Nene had tucked her hair under a cap and, in breeches and a loose shirt, looked like a page boy at first glance.

  “What about Fergus?” Emma said.

  Nene smiled grimly. “Fergus has been waylaid by a dryad of the sort he most admires. A young sapling.”

  “Ouch,” said Julian. “Splinters.”

  Nene ignored him. “I’ve known Fergus a long time, I know all about his inclinations. He’ll be busy for a good long time.”

  They had reached a sloping hallway familiar to Emma. She could smell night air coming from one end of the corridor, the scent of leaves and sap and fall. She wondered if it was the same season in Faerie as it was at home. It felt later, as if autumn had already touched the Lands of Faerie with an early frost.

  The corridor ended abruptly, opening into a clearing full of grass and stars. Trees stood around in a tall circle, shaking down leaves of gold and russet on a crowd of faerie courtiers and their horses.

  The Queen herself sat sidesaddle on a white mare at the head of the procession. A white lace veil covered her face and her shoulders, and white gloves covered her hands. Her red hair streamed down her back. Her courtiers, in gold silk and bright velvet, rode behind her: most on horses, but some on massive, pad-pawed cats and narrow-eyed wolves the size of small cars. A green-skinned dryad with a mass of leaves for hair rode tucked into the branches of a walking tree.

  Emma couldn’t help looking around herself in wonder. She was a Shadowhunter, used to magic; still, there was something so alien at the heart of the Courts of Faerie that it still made her marvel.

  Nene led them through the shadows to where her horse and Fergus’s waited, already in the procession’s line, between a sprite riding a winged toadstool and two faerie girls in russet dresses with identical black hair, who sat one in front of the other on a bay mare. Emma pulled herself up into the saddle of Nene’s gray palfrey.

  Nene patted the horse’s neck fondly. “Her name is Silvermane. Be kind to her. She knows her own way home.”

  Emma nodded as Julian mounted Fergus’s bay stallion. “What’s his name?” he asked as the horse pawed the ground and snorted.

  “Widowmaker,” said Nene.

  Julian snorted under his hood. “Does he make widows out of the people who ride him or people he takes a dislike to?”

  “Both,” said Nene. She reached into her cloak and drew out two crystal vials, each looped on a golden chain. She handed one to Julian and the other to Emma. “Wear these around your throats,” she said in a low voice. “And keep them close.”

  Emma looped the chain obediently around her throat. The vial was about the size of her thumb. Pale gold liquid was visible inside it, glimmering as the vial moved. “What are these for?”

  “If you are in danger in the King’s Court, break the top and drink the liquid,” said Nene.

  “Is it poison?” Julian sounded curious as he fastened the chain around his throat. The vial fell against his chest.

  “No—it will make you invisible to Unseelie faeries, at least for a time. I don’t know how long the magic lasts. I have never had cause to use it.”

  A squawking goblin with a piece of parchment and a massive quill pen was running along the side of the procession, marking off names. He cast a quick glance at Emma and Julian. “Lady Nene, Lord Fergus,” he said. “We are about to depart.”

  “We?” said Julian in a bored voice. Emma blinked, astonished by how much he sounded like a faerie. “Are you accompanying us, goblin? Would you enjoy a holiday in the Court of Unseelie?”

  The goblin squinted. “Are you well, Lord Fergus? You sound different.”

  “Perhaps because I pine for goblin heads to decorate my bower,” said Julian. “Off with you.” He aimed a kick at the goblin, who made a hissing sound of fright and skittered away from them, hurrying down the line.

  “Be careful what masks you wear, child,” Nene said, “lest you lose your true face forever.”

  “False or true, it is all the same,” said Julian, and picked up the reins as the procession began to move forward into the night.

  * * *

  Before Kit could answer Ty, a commotion in the library drew them out from behind the shelves.

  Dru had returned to the library and was hanging back by the door, looking shy but smiling. A good-looking dark-eyed boy who resembled a narrower version of Diego Rocio Rosales was hugging Cristina. Mark and Kieran were both looking at him with uneasy expressions. As soon as Cristina let him go, Helen strode over to shake his hand. “Welcome to the Los Angeles Institute, Jaime,” she said. “Thanks so much for coming on such short notice.”

  “Jaime Rocio Rosales,” said Ty to Kit, under his breath.

  “I found him on the beach and brought him straight up,” Dru said proudly.

  Helen looked puzzled. “But how did you recognize him?”

  Dru exchanged a look with Jaime, part panic and part resignation.

  “He stayed with me for a few days when we were at the London Institute,” Dru said.

  Everyone looked astonished, though Kit wasn’t exactly sure why. The relationships between different Shadowhunter families were endlessly confusing: some, like Emma, Jace, and Clary, were treated almost like Blackthorn family; some weren’t. He had to hand it to Dru, though, for managing to conceal the fact she had someone in her room in London from everyone else. It indicated a talent for deception. Along with her lock-picking skills, she definitely had a criminal bent he admired.

  “You mean he was in your room?” Mark demanded incredulously. He turned to Jaime, who had backed up against one of the long tables. “She’s only thirteen!”

  Jaime looked incredulous. “I thought she had to be at least sixteen—”

  Helen sucked in her breath. Mark handed his pack to Kieran, who took it, looking baffled. “Stay where you are, Jaime Rosales.”

  “Why?” said Jaime suspiciously.

  Mark advanced. “So I can rain blows down upon you.”

  Like an acrobat, Jaime flipped himself backward, landing squarely atop the table. He glared down at Mark. “I don’t know what you think happened, but nothing did. Dru is my friend, whatever her age. That is all.”

  Ty turned to whisper in Kit’s ear. “I don’t get it—why is Mark angry?”

  Ki
t thought about it. It was one of the great things about Ty, actually—he made you consider the threads of subconscious logic that wove beneath the surface of ordinary conversations. The suppositions and assumptions people made without ever considering why, the implications of certain words and gestures. Kit didn’t think he’d take those things for granted again. “You know how knights in stories defend a lady’s honor?” he whispered. “Mark thinks he has to defend Drusilla’s honor.”

  “That table is going to break,” Ty said.

  He was right. The legs of the table Jaime was standing on were wobbling dangerously.

  Dru leaped in between Mark and Jaime, arms spread wide. “Stop,” she said fiercely. “I didn’t tell Jaime how old I was because he was my friend. He listened to me and he watched horror movies with me and he acted like what I said was important and I didn’t want him to treat me like a little kid.”

  “But you are only a child,” Mark said. “He should not treat you as an adult.”

  “He treated me like a friend,” said Dru. “I might be young, but I’m not a liar.”

  “She is telling you that you have to trust her, Mark,” said Kieran. He rarely said much around the Blackthorns; Kit was surprised, but couldn’t disagree.

  Cristina stepped around Mark and moved to stand next to Dru. They couldn’t have looked more different—Cristina in her white dress, Dru in overalls and a black T-shirt—but they wore identical stubborn expressions.

  “Mark,” said Cristina. “I understand you feel you have not been here to protect your family for so many years. But that does not mean mistrusting them now. Nor would Jaime hurt Dru.”

  The door of the library opened; it was Aline. No one but Kit watched as she crossed the room and whispered in Helen’s ear. No one but Kit saw Helen’s expression change, her lips whiten.

  “Dru is like a little sister to me,” said Jaime, and Dru winced almost imperceptibly.

  Mark turned to Dru. “I’m sorry, sister. I should have listened to you.” He looked up at Jaime, and his eyes flashed. “I believe you, Jaime Rocio Rosales. But I can’t speak for what Julian will do when he finds out.”