Queen of Air and Darkness Read online

  It wasn’t really a surprise, but it still felt like a blow. “Don’t tell me. Her trial will be held as soon as the Mortal Sword is ‘reforged,’  ” Diana said bitterly.

  He bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Exactly, exactly.” He set the teapot down. “An unfortunate situation. And one you could find yourself in—unless you’re willing to make a bargain with me.”

  “What kind of bargain?”

  He handed her a teacup; mechanically, Diana took it. “The next Council meeting will be a difficult one, as the Clave is brought to understand that future decisions must be arrived at without the Consul. A transition of power is always difficult, wouldn’t you say?”

  Diana stared at him stonily.

  “Let me be clear,” Horace said, and though his expression was easy and friendly, there was no friendliness in his eyes. “Take my side at the next Council meeting. You have influence over people. The L.A. Institute, the New York Institute—many Institutes will listen to you. If you back me as the next Consul, a replacement for Penhallow, so will they.”

  “People listen to me because I don’t compromise my values,” Diana said. “They know when I say something, I believe it. I could never believe you would make a good Consul.”

  “Is that so?” The false friendliness had vanished from his face. “Do you think I care about your values, Diana Wrayburn? You’ll stand by my side, because if you don’t, I will reveal your secret to the Clave.”

  Diana’s throat tightened. “What secret?”

  Horace rose to his feet, his expression thunderous. “For all your talk of values, I know you have a secret. I know you’ve refused to become head of the Los Angeles Institute all these years—letting a madman run it—I know you carry a shadow with you, Diana Wrayburn, and I know what it is. I know you submitted yourself to mundane medical treatment in Bangkok.”

  Stunned and furious, Diana was silent. How did he know? Her mind raced: The Clave considered a Shadowhunter who let mundane doctors look at their blood, learn their secrets, a traitor. Never mind that Catarina had covered up all her unusual test results. Horace would blame her anyway.

  “And let me tell you this,” said Horace. “I will use that information to the fullest unless you do as I say. You will be torn from those Blackthorns you love so dearly. Imprisoned, perhaps, alongside other traitors.”

  “Unless what?” Diana said dully.

  “Unless you agree to stand by my side at the next meeting and declare that Jia is incompetent and that I should be the next Consul. Do you understand?”

  Diana felt as if she were seeing herself through the wrong end of a telescope, a tiny figure with Horace looming vastly over her. “I understand.”

  “And do you agree to throw your support behind the Cohort?”

  “Yes.” She got to her feet. She was very conscious of her torn and dirty clothes—the Cohort had not been gentle with her or Jia, though they had surrendered quietly.

  Horace opened his mouth, perhaps to call for the guards to take her away. Moving more swiftly than she would have thought possible, Diana seized the Inquisitor’s sword from the belt at his waist and swung it.

  Horace screamed. He staggered back, still screaming, and fell to his knees; there was blood all over his robes. His arm was hanging at a strange angle.

  Guards burst into the room, but Diana had already run to the window and thrown it open. She hurled herself onto the roof, skidding nearly to the edge before she arrested her fall by catching at the slate tiles.

  The guards were at the window. She scrambled to her feet and raced across the roof, looking for an overhang she could swing down from. A shadow passed across the moon, obscuring the demon towers. She heard the sound of hoofbeats, and she knew.

  As the guards crawled through the window, she hurled herself from the roof.

  “Diana!” Gwyn banked Orion, turned, reached out to catch her. She landed awkwardly, hurling her arms around his neck. Strong hands wrapped her waist; she glanced back once and saw the pale faces of the guards watching from the roof of the Gard as they sailed into the night.

  * * *

  Dru flipped off the TV in the middle of The Deadly Bees, which was unusual because it was one of her favorite bad movies. She’d even bought a pair of gold bee earrings at Venice Beach once so she could wear them while she watched the death-by-stinger scenes.

  She was too restless to sit still, though. The excitement she’d felt outside the 101 Coffee Shop still prickled the back of her neck. It had been so much fun being teamed up with Kit and Ty, laughing with them, in on their plans.

  She swung her legs off the sofa and headed barefoot out into the hallway. She’d painted the toenails on one foot acid green, but she didn’t feel like sticking around to do the other one. She felt like finding Livvy and curling up with her on her bed, laughing at out-of-date mundane magazines.

  The pain of remembering Livvy changed from moment to moment; sometimes a dull, aching one, sometimes a sharp flash as of being stuck with a hot needle. If Julian or Emma were here, she could have talked to them about it, or even Mark. As she passed the big staircase leading down to the entryway, she could hear the sound of voices from the Sanctuary. Helen’s, friendly and calm, and Aline’s, sharp and authoritative. She wondered if she would have gone to either of them even if they hadn’t been so busy. Dru couldn’t really imagine it.

  She thought of tonight, though, giggling in the back of the car with Kit and Ty, and the desert wind in her hair. It carried the smell of white oleander even in the center of Hollywood. The night had filled the gnawing urge to do something inside her that she hadn’t even realized was there.

  She reached the twins’ bedrooms. Ty and Livvy had always had bedrooms directly across from each other; the door of Livvy’s room was shut tight and had been since they’d returned from Idris.

  Dru laid her hand on it, as if she could feel her sister’s heartbeat through the wood. Livvy had painted her door red once, and the flaking paint was rough against Dru’s fingers.

  In a horror movie, Dru thought, this was when Livvy would burst out half-rotted, clawing at Dru with her dead hands. The idea didn’t frighten her at all. Maybe that was why she liked horror movies, Dru thought; the dead never stayed dead, and those left behind were too busy wandering unwisely around in the woods to have time to grieve or feel loss.

  She left Livvy’s door and went over to Ty’s. She knocked, but there was music playing in the room and she couldn’t hear a reply. She pushed the door open and froze.

  The radio was on, Chopin blasting, but Ty wasn’t there. The space was freezing. All the windows were wide open. Dru almost tripped getting across the room to slam the largest window shut. She looked down and saw that Ty’s books were scattered over the floor, no longer in neat rows determined by subject and color. His desk chair lay in pieces, his clothes were scattered everywhere, and there were smears of dried blood on his sheets and pillowcases.

  Ty. Oh, Ty.

  Dru closed the door as hastily as she could without slamming it, and hurried off down the hallway as if a monster from one of her old movies were chasing her.

  * * *

  They stopped outside the prison, where the dead body of the guard lay draped over the wooden chest Emma had noticed earlier. Adaon grimaced and used the tip of his boot to shove the guard’s body aside. It hit the bloodstained flagstones with a thump. To Emma’s puzzlement, Adaon knelt and shoved the chest open, the hinges groaning and squeaking.

  Her puzzlement vanished quickly. The chest was full of weapons—longswords, daggers, bows. Emma recognized the sword the Riders had taken from her, and Julian’s as well. She craned her neck to stare, but she didn’t see the medallion anywhere among the confiscated items.

  Adaon seized up a number of swords. Jace held out his hand for one.

  “Come to papa,” he crooned.

  “I can’t believe you have a beard,” Emma noted, momentarily diverted.

  Jace touched his bristly cheek. “Well, it
has been a week, at least. I expect it makes me look manly, like a burnished god.”

  “I hate it,” said Emma.

  “I like it,” said Clary loyally.

  “I don’t believe you,” said Emma. She stuck out her hand toward Adaon. “Give me my sword. Jace can use it to shave.”

  Adaon glared at all of them. “You shall bear no blades. You cannot be armed if you are meant to be prisoners. I will carry the swords.” He swung them up over his shoulder as if they were a bunch of kindling. “Now, come.”

  They marched ahead of Adaon, through the now-familiar dank underground corridors. Julian was silent, lost in thought. What did he feel? Emma wondered. He loved his family, still, but he had said it was different now. Did that mean he wasn’t terrified for Mark?

  Emma moved closer to Cristina. “How did you end up finding Adaon?” she whispered. “Did you just click your ruby heels together and demand to be taken to the Unseelie King’s hottest son?”

  Cristina rolled her eyes. “I saw Adaon in London, with Kieran,” she whispered. “He seemed to care about Kieran. I took a chance.”

  “And how did you get to him?”

  “I’ll tell you later. And he is not the hottest Unseelie prince. Kieran is the hottest,” Cristina said, and blushed beet red.

  Emma eyed Adaon’s muscles, which were bunching spectacularly under his tunic as he balanced the swords. “I thought Kieran was at the Scholomance?”

  Cristina sighed. “You missed a lot. I will tell you everything, if we—”

  “Survive?” Emma said. “Yeah. I have a lot to tell you, too.”

  “Be quiet!” snapped Adaon. “Enough chatter, prisoners!”

  They had emerged from the underground tunnels into the lower levels of the tower. Seelie and Unseelie faeries streamed by, hurrying to and fro. A passing redcap gave Adaon a broad wink.

  “Good work, Prince,” he growled. “Round up those Nephilim!”

  “Thank you,” said Adaon. “They’re very rowdy.”

  He glared at Cristina and Emma.

  “Still think he’s hot?” Cristina muttered.

  “Possibly more so,” whispered Emma. She felt an insane urge to giggle, despite the awful situation. She was just so happy to see Cristina again. “We’re going to get through this, and we’re going to get back home, and we’re going to tell each other everything.”

  “That is enough. The two of you, move apart,” Adaon snapped, and Emma sheepishly went to walk next to Clary. They had reached the less crowded, more residential part of the tower, with its rows of richly decorated doors.

  Clary looked exhausted, her clothes stained with blood and dirt.

  “How did you get caught?” Emma murmured, keeping a weather eye on Adaon.

  “The Riders of Mannan,” said Clary in a low voice. “They’ve been set the task of guarding Ash. We tried to fight them off, but they’re more powerful here than they are in our world.” She glanced sideways at Emma. “I heard you killed one of them. That’s pretty impressive.”

  “I think it was Cortana, not me.”

  “Don’t underestimate the power of the right blade,” said Clary. “I miss Heosphoros sometimes. I miss the feel of it in my hand.”

  Heosphoros, like Cortana, had been forged by the legendary weapon-maker Wayland the Smith. Every schoolchild knew Clary had carried the sword into Edom and slain Sebastian Morgenstern with it, and that it had been destroyed in the resulting conflagration.

  Was Clary thinking about Sebastian? Without being able to stop herself, Emma whispered, “I don’t think Ash has to be like his father. He’s still a little kid. He could grow up better—kinder.”

  Clary’s smile was sad. “So he got to you, too.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘A perfect leader, inspiring of perfect loyalty,’ ” Clary said. “The King has already done things to Ash, using his blood, I think, to make him like the First Heir. When you talked to him, you wanted to follow him and protect him, didn’t you?”

  Emma blanched. “I did, but—”

  “Prince Adaon!” called a rough voice. Emma looked up to see that they stood in front of the rows of redcaps guarding the throne room. The leader of them—the one with the bloodiest, reddest cap and uniform—was looking at Adaon with some surprise. “What is this?”

  “Prisoners for the King,” Adaon barked.

  “These were caught a week hence.” The redcap pointed at Jace and Clary.

  “Aye, but I discovered these others in the prison, attempting to free them.” Adaon indicated Cristina, Julian, and Emma. “They are Nephilim spies. They claim they have information for the King, which they would trade for their miserable, wormlike lives.”

  “Wormlike?” Julian muttered. “Really?”

  “Hold here a moment,” said the redcaps’ leader. He ducked through the archway. A moment later he had returned, a faint smirk on his face. “Prince Adaon, pass through. Your father would see you, and prayed me give you the expectation of a familial reunion.”

  A familial reunion. The King could just mean himself, of course. But he could also mean Kieran—and Mark.

  Julian had reacted too, if silently. His hand tightened as if he could grip an imaginary blade, and his eyes fixed on the dark archway.

  “Thank you, General Winter,” said Adaon, and began to lead them all forward.

  This time they weren’t walking into the throne room invisible to all eyes. This time they would be seen. Emma’s throat was dry, her heart pounding.

  Unlike the Seelie Queen’s ever-changing throne room, the inner sanctum of the King was unaltered. The massive Portal still covered one wall. It showed a blowing desert landscape, where trees poked out of the ground like skeleton hands clawing for air. The yellow-bright desert light lent an unnatural tint to the room, as if they stood in the light of invisible flames.

  The King was upon his throne, his one eye blazing red. In front of him were Mark and Kieran, surrounded by redcaps. Mark’s hands were manacled together; Kieran knelt, his bound wrists connected to a metal chain sunk into the stone floor. When they jerked around to see who had come in, shock and relief flooded across Mark’s face, followed by horror. There was a bloody cut across Kieran’s forehead.

  His lips formed a single word. Cristina.

  Cristina gave a ragged gasp. Emma reached to catch her friend’s wrist, but she was frozen in place.

  It was Julian who bolted forward, his gaze fixed on Mark. Adaon caught him with his free arm and yanked him back. Emma remembered what Julian had said about the atavistic need to protect Ty. It seemed he felt it for his other siblings too: He was still struggling as Adaon turned and said something to Jace. The Strength rune on Jace’s forearm flashed as he flung an arm around Julian’s chest, immobilizing him.

  “Keep him back!” Winter, the redcap general, pointed the tip of his pikestaff at Julian. More redcaps had streamed in to stand between Adaon’s captives and the King, a thin crimson line.

  Julian’s body was a taut line of tension and hate as he stared at the King, who was grinning his odd, half-skeletal grin. “Well done, Adaon,” the King said. “I hear you foiled an attempt to escape our prisons.”

  Mark’s shoulders slumped. Kieran gazed at his father with loathing.

  “Look your fill, my son,” the King said to Kieran. “Your friends are all my prisoners. There is no hope for you.” He turned. “Let me see them, Adaon.”

  With the tip of his sword, Adaon urged Emma and the others closer to the throne. Emma felt her chest tighten, remembering the last time she had stood before the King of Unseelie, how he had looked into her heart somehow and seen what she had most wanted, and given it to her as a dose of poison.

  “You,” said the King, his eyes on Emma. “You fought my champion.”

  “And she won,” said Cristina proudly, her back straight.

  The King ignored her. “And you slew a Rider, my Fal. Interesting.” He turned to Julian. “You disrupted my Court and took my son hostage. His blood
is on your hands.” Lastly, he gazed at Jace and Clary. “Because of you we suffer the Cold Peace.”

  Adaon cleared his throat. “Then why are they still alive, Father? Why have you not killed them?”

  “Not helpful,” Jace muttered. He had let go of Julian, who stood poised like a runner waiting for the starting gun.

  “Leverage against the Clave,” said the King, caressing the arm of his throne. The stone was carved with a pattern of screaming faces. “To us they are enemies. To the Clave, they are heroes. It is ever the way with war.”

  “But do we not seek an end to the Cold Peace?” said Adaon. “If we return these prisoners to the Clave, we could reopen negotiations. Find common ground. They will see that we are not all bloodthirsty murderers, as they believe.”

  The King was silent for a moment. He was expressionless, but there was a look of apprehension on Kieran’s face that Emma didn’t like.

  At last the King smiled. “Adaon, you are truly the best of my sons. In your heart you long for peace, and peace we shall have—when the Nephilim realize we have a weapon that can destroy them all.”

  “Ash,” Emma whispered.

  She hadn’t even meant to speak aloud, but the King heard. His ghastly face turned toward her. In the depths of his cavernous eye sockets, pinpoint lights gleamed.

  “Come here,” he said.

  Julian made a noise of protest—or maybe it was something else; Emma couldn’t tell. He was biting his lip hard, blood running down his chin. He didn’t seem to notice, though, and he did nothing to stop her as she turned to go toward the King. She wondered if he even knew about the blood.

  She approached the throne, moving past the line of redcaps. She felt utterly naked without a weapon in her hand. She hadn’t felt so vulnerable since Iarlath had whipped her against the quickbeam tree.

  The King thrust out a hand. “Stop,” he said, and Emma stopped. There was enough adrenaline coursing through her that she felt a little drunk. She wanted nothing more than to fling herself at the King, tear at him, punch and kick him. But she knew that if she tried, she would be dead in an instant. The redcaps were everywhere.