Queen of Air and Darkness Page 25

  “You guys are really incentivizing me to let you use the Eternidad to get to Faerie,” said Jaime.

  “Stop bickering.” Helen’s voice rang out. “Earlier I sent word to my aunt Nene in the Seelie Court. She just returned my message. She said that Emma and Julian were there—but they’ve gone. They just set forth from the Seelie Court to the Unseelie Court.”

  Kieran’s eyes darkened. Cristina said, “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen said. “But it means that we have a specific location where we know they’ll be.”

  Kieran touched the sword at his waist. “I know a place along the road that leads between Seelie and Unseelie where we can waylay them. But once they pass it, we may be too late. If we are going to go, we should go now.”

  Jaime leaped down off the table with the lightness of a cat. “I’ll get the heirloom.” He began to rummage through his pack. “Cristina, only you can use it, because whoever uses it must have Rosales blood.”

  Cristina and Jaime exchanged a significant look, indecipherable to Kit.

  “You can use it to get to Faerie, and also back,” said Jaime. “Your passage in and out of the Lands will be undetectable. But it cannot protect you while you are there.” He handed something to Cristina; Kit could only catch a glimpse of it. It looked like smooth wood, twisted into an odd shape.

  Kieran and Mark were strapping their packs on. Dru had gone over to Helen, who looked as if she’d like to put an arm around her younger sister, but Dru wasn’t standing close enough for that.

  Something about the sight of them made Kit put his hand on Ty’s shoulder. He was aware of the warmth of the other boy’s skin through his T-shirt. Ty glanced at him sideways. “You better go say good-bye, or good trip,” Kit said awkwardly.

  Ty hesitated a moment, and then went, Kit’s hand sliding off his shoulder as if Ty had never noticed it there. Kit hung back during the good-byes, the tearful hugs, the whispered promises, the ruffling of hair. Helen held fiercely to Mark as if she never wanted to let him go, while Aline went to get Tavvy, who was playing in his room.

  Jaime hung back too, though he did watch Kit out of the corner of his eye, with a curious look, as if to say, Who is that guy?

  When Aline came back, Tavvy dutifully hugged everyone who was leaving—even Kieran, who looked startled and touched. He dropped his hand to touch Tavvy’s hair lightly. “Worry not, little one.”

  And then it was time for Ty and Mark to say farewell, and Mark touched Ty lightly on each cheek, once—a faerie good-bye.

  “Don’t die,” Ty said.

  Mark’s smile looked painful. “I won’t.”

  Helen reached for Ty, and the small group of remaining Blackthorns gathered as Cristina held the Eternidad against her chest. It was definitely a piece of polished wood, Kit saw now, twisted somehow into the infinity symbol—no beginning and no end.

  “Gather together, all of you who are going to Faerie,” said Jaime. “You must be touching each other.”

  Mark and Kieran each put a hand on one of Cristina’s shoulders. She looked quite small between them. Mark rubbed the back of her neck with his thumb: a soothing, almost absent gesture; the intimacy of it startled Kit.

  Jaime seemed to notice it as well; his gaze sharpened. But all he said was, “You must tell the artifact where to take you. You don’t want to let it choose.”

  Kieran turned to Cristina. “We go to Bram’s Crossroads.”

  Cristina lowered her gaze, her hands brushing lightly over the artifact. “Take us to Bram’s Crossroads,” she said.

  Faerie magic was quiet, Kit thought. There was no noise, no tumult, no flashing warlock lights. In between one breath and another, Mark, Kieran, and Cristina simply disappeared.

  * * *

  Another meeting, Diana thought. And an emergency one at that: She’d been woken early in the morning by a fire-message summoning her to a Council meeting at the Gard.

  Gwyn had tried to coax her back into bed, but Diana was too worried. Worried for Jia. Worried for Emma and Julian. She knew Horace was making an example out of them with this house arrest, but they were just children. How long was this punishment meant to last? And how long would Julian be all right separated from his siblings?

  She’d left Gwyn with a kiss and hurried to the Gard, where she’d discovered Shadowhunters from all over—not just the usual Alicante crowd—pouring into the Gard through doors guarded by Centurions. She’d barely gotten a seat toward the front, next to Kadir Safar of the New York Conclave.

  When the doors had been closed, they had all been left staring at a dais that was empty except for a single chair with a tall wooden back, and a black-draped table. The drapery looked as if it were covering something—lumpy—that sent a chill up Diana’s spine. She told herself it couldn’t possibly be what it looked like. Perhaps it was a pile of weapons.

  As the Council slowly settled into their places, a silence fell over the room. Horace Dearborn, fully decked out in his Inquisitor robes, was striding onto the dais, followed by Manuel and Zara in Centurion garb, each carrying a long spear etched with the words primus pilus.

  “First spears,” Kadir translated. Diana had met him before: an often silent man who had been Maryse’s second-in-command for years, and still headed up the New York Conclave. He looked tired and tense, a sallowness to his dark skin that hadn’t been there before. “It means they have been promoted to Centurions who personally guard the Inquisitor and Consul.”

  “Speaking of the Consul,” Diana whispered back, “where is Jia?”

  Her murmur caught, like a spark in dry tinder, and soon the whole Council was muttering. Horace held up a placating hand.

  “Greetings, Nephilim,” he said. “Our Consul, Jia Penhallow, sends regards. She is at the Adamant Citadel, consulting with the Iron Sisters about the Mortal Sword. It will soon be reforged, allowing trials to begin again.”

  The noise subsided to a mutter.

  “It is an unfortunate coincidence that both meetings had to be held at the same moment,” Horace continued, “but time is of the essence. It will be difficult to have this meeting without Jia, but I know of her positions and will be representing them here.”

  His voice echoed through the room. He must be using an Amplification rune, Diana thought.

  “The last time we met here we discussed stricter laws that would codify accountability among Downworlders,” Horace said. “Our Consul, in her kindness and generosity, wished us to put off the decision to implement these laws—but these people do not respond to kindness.” His face had gone red under his thinning blond hair. “They respond to strength! And we must make Shadowhunters strong again!”

  A murmur spread through the Hall. Diana looked around for Carmen, who had spoken so bravely at the last meeting, but could find her nowhere in the crowd. She whispered to Kadir, “What is this about? Why did he bring us here to rant at us?”

  Kadir looked grim. “The question is, what’s he leading up to?”

  Diana studied the faces of Manuel and Zara but could read nothing on them except smugness on Zara’s. Manuel was as blank as a piece of new paper.

  “With all respect for our Consul, I was willing to go along with the delay,” said Horace, “but events have now transpired that make waiting impossible.”

  A murmur of expectation ran through the room—what was he talking about?

  He turned to his daughter. “Zara, let them see the atrocity the Fair Folk have committed against us!”

  With a look of grim delight, Zara crossed the dais to the table and whipped the black sheet away as if she were a magician performing in front of a crowd.

  A moan of horror went through the crowd. Diana felt her own gorge rise. Beneath the sheet were the remains of Dane Larkspear, splayed out on the table like a corpse ready to be autopsied.

  His head was tilted back, his mouth open in a silent scream. His rib cage had been torn to shreds, bits of white bone and yellow tendon peeking through the grotesqu
e slashes. His skin looked withered and ashen, as if he had been dead some time.

  Horace’s voice rose to a shout. “You see before you a brave young man who was sent on a mission of peace to Faerie, and this is what they return to us. This savaged corpse!”

  A terrible scream rent the silence. A woman with Dane Larkspear’s dark hair and bony face was on her feet, howling. Elena Larkspear, Diana realized. A bulky man whose features seemed to be collapsing in on themselves with shock and horror had her in his arms; as the crowd stared openly, he dragged her screaming from the room.

  Diana felt sick. She hadn’t liked Dane Larkspear, but he was just a child, and his parents’ grief was real. “This is how the family found out?”

  There was bitterness in Kadir’s tone. “It makes for better theater. Dearborn has always been less a politician than a performer.”

  Across the aisle, Lazlo Balogh shot them both a dirty look. He wasn’t an official member of the Cohort, as far as Diana knew, but he was definitely a sympathizer.

  “And savaged it was!” Zara cried, her eyes glittering. “Behold the bite marks—the work of kelpies! Perhaps even helped by vampires, or werewolves—”

  “Stop it, Zara,” Manuel muttered. No one seemed to have noticed Zara’s ranting, though. There was too much chaos in the crowd. Shadowhunters were cursing and swearing in a dozen different languages. Diana felt a cold despair settle over her.

  “This is not all—more Downworlder crimes have come to light in just these past days,” said Horace. “A group of brave Centurions, loyal to their Shadowhunter heritage, discovered an Unseelie prince hiding at the Scholomance.” He turned to Zara and Manuel. “Bring forth the traitors!”

  “This is not how we do things,” Diana whispered. “This is not how Shadowhunters comport themselves, nor how we hold our own accountable—”

  She broke off before Kadir could reply. Zara and Manuel had disappeared into one of the corridors beside the dais; they returned with Timothy Rockford by their side. Between them marched a line of students familiar to Diana—Diego Rosales, Rayan Maduabuchi, and Divya Joshi.

  Their hands were bound behind them, their mouths closed with runes of Quietude, runes that usually only Silent Brothers bore. Diana’s eyes met Diego’s: She saw the raw fear behind them.

  “Runes of Quietude,” said Kadir in disgust, as the Hall erupted into screams. “Imagine being treated like this, and silenced—unable to protest.”

  Diana bolted to her feet. “What are you doing, Horace? These are just children! Shadowhunter children! It is our job to protect them!”

  Horace’s amplified voice made his hiss of annoyance echo through the room. “Yes, they are our children, our hope for the future! And our sympathy toward Downworlders has made them easy prey for deceit. These misguided souls smuggled a faerie ‘prince’ out of the Scholomance after his vicious attack on another one of our most promising young minds.”

  The room fell silent. Diana exchanged a bewildered look with Kadir. What was Horace talking about?

  Manuel’s eyes flicked to the left. He was smirking. A second later Gladstone appeared, half-carrying a girl in a ragged dress, a Centurion cloak thrown over her shoulders.

  It was Samantha Larkspear. Her black hair hung down over her face in strings and her eyes darted back and forth like trapped insects. Her hands were crooked into claws at her sides: She held one out, batting it toward the audience as if she were swatting away flies.

  Diana felt as if she might throw up.

  Manuel stalked toward her, his hands looped carelessly behind his back. “Samantha Larkspear,” he said. A groan rippled around the crowd as people realized that this was the sister of the dead and maimed boy on the table. “Tell us of Prince Kieran!”

  Samantha began to whip her head back and forth, her hair swinging. “No, no! Such terrible pain!” she moaned. “Don’t make me think of Prince Kieran!”

  “That poor girl,” Lazlo Balogh announced loudly. “Traumatized by Downworlders.”

  Diana could see Diego shaking his head, Rayan trying to speak, but no sound or words coming out. Divya merely stared stonily at Manuel, hatred clear in her every flicker of expression.

  “Perhaps you would like to talk to the prisoners,” Manuel suggested to Samantha, his tone like an oily caress. “The ones who let Prince Kieran free?”

  Samantha shied away from Diego and the others, her face contorted. “No! Keep them away from me! Don’t let them look at me!”

  Diana sank back in her seat. Whatever had happened to Samantha, she knew it was no fault of Kieran’s or the others’, but she could feel the mood of the crowd: stark horror. No one would want to hear a defense of them now.

  “My God, what’s he going to do?” she whispered, half to herself. “What’s Horace going to do to Diego and the others?”

  “Put them in jail,” said Kadir bleakly. “Make an example of them. They cannot be tried now, while the Mortal Sword is broken. Horace will leave them there to inspire hatred and fear. A symbol to point to whenever his policies are questioned. Look what happened.”

  On the dais, Samantha was sobbing. Manuel had taken her into his arms, as if to comfort her, but Diana could see the force with which he held the wailing girl. He was restraining her as the crowd roared for Horace to speak.

  Horace stepped forward, his amplified voice carrying over the din as Zara looked on with proud pleasure. “We cannot allow any more young Shadowhunters to suffer and die!” he yelled, and the crowd exploded with agreement.

  As if Diego and Divya and Rayan weren’t young Shadowhunters. As if they weren’t suffering.

  “We cannot allow our world to be taken from us,” Horace shouted, as Manuel’s fingers bit into Samantha’s shoulders. “We must be strong enough to protect our children and our homeland. The time has come to put Nephilim first!” Horace raised his triumphantly clenched fists. “Who will join me in voting for the registration of all Downworlders?”

  The howl of the answering crowd was like a river roaring out of control, sweeping away all of Diana’s hopes.

  13

  BABYLON

  There was only a sliver of moon, but the multicolored stars of Faerie lit the sky like bonfires, illuminating the Queen’s procession as it wound through silent countryside, over green hills and wide fields.

  Sometimes they passed through blood-filled rivers, the scarlet fluid splashing up to stain the horses’ legs. Sometimes they passed areas of blight, ghostly moonscapes of gray and black. The Seelie faeries whispered and chittered to each other nervously every time another dead patch of land came into view, but Emma could never make out exactly what they were saying.

  By the time they started to hear the noise, Emma was half-asleep on Silvermane’s back. Distant music woke her, and the sound of people crying out. She blinked, half-awake, pulling her hood back into place.

  They were approaching a crossroads, the first she’d seen that night. Heavy mist hung over the road, obscuring the path ahead. Clusters of tall trees grew at the X where the roads met, and empty iron cages swung from the branches. Emma shivered. The cages were big enough to hold a human being.

  She glanced toward Julian. He sat alert on Widowmaker, his dark hair hidden by the hood of Fergus’s cloak. She could see only a sliver of his skin, like the moon overhead. “Music,” he said in a low voice, drawing his horse up beside hers. “Probably a revel coming up.”

  He was right. They passed the crossroads, and the thick mist parted immediately. The music grew louder, pipes and fiddles and sweet flutelike instruments Emma didn’t recognize. The field north of the road was dominated by a massive pavilion draped with silk and hung with the broken-crown banner of the Unseelie King.

  Wildly dancing figures surrounded the pavilion. Most seemed naked, or nearly so, dressed in diaphanous rags. It wasn’t much of a dance—they appeared to be mostly writhing together, giggling and splashing in and out of a massive pool of water ringed with silvery rocks. White mist rose off the water, obscuring b
ut not covering a number of half-naked bodies.

  Emma blushed, mostly because Julian was there, and looked away. The girls—they had to be sisters—on the bay mare behind her giggled, toying with the ribbons at their throats.

  “Prince Oban’s revel,” said one. “It could be no other.”

  Her sister looked wistful. “Would that we could go, but the Queen would not approve.”

  Emma glanced back toward the revel. She had listened to Mark speak of faerie revels before as if they were more than massive wild parties. They were a way of calling down wild magic, he’d said. They had a terrifying undercurrent, a barely leashed power. Looking out at the field, Emma couldn’t help but feel as if some of the laughing faces she saw were actually screaming in agony.

  “Up ahead,” said Julian, snapping her out of her reverie. “It’s the Unseelie Court’s tower.”

  Emma looked, and for a moment, a dizzying memory assaulted her: the mural on Julian’s bedroom wall showing a castle surrounded by thorned hedges. Ahead of them a dark gray tower rose out of the hills and shadows. Only the top of the tower was visible. Growing up all around it, their sharp spikes visible even from this distance, was a massive wall of thorns.

  * * *

  “Well, that’s that,” Helen said in a curiously flat voice. She sat down at the head of the library table. Aline frowned and put her hand on Helen’s back. “They’re gone.”

  Dru tried to catch Jaime’s eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. He’d glanced curiously at Kit and Ty and was now fastening up the straps of his pack.

  “You can’t go,” she said to him a bit desperately. “You must be so tired—”

  “I’m all right.” He still didn’t look at her. Dru felt wretched. She hadn’t meant to lie to Jaime. She’d just never mentioned her age, because she’d been afraid he’d think she was a stupid kid. And then Mark had yelled at him about it.

  “No, Dru is right.” Helen smiled with some effort. “Let us at least give you dinner.”

  Jaime hesitated. He stood twisting the ties of his pack irresolutely as Kit and Ty pushed past him, and Ty said something about going up on the roof. Kit waved and the two of them slipped out of the library. Back to their private world, Dru thought. Ty would never let her in—he’d never let anyone take Livvy’s place.