Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3) Read online

  Kit Herondale, Dru thought. The thought of Kit reminded her of something else, too. Tavvy was staring round-eyed at all the gleaming weaponry: Diego was sporting an ax, Divya a two-handed bidenhänder, Rayan a Spanish bola. Even Jia was decked out with her favorite sword, a curved dao. “Okay, everyone,” Dru said. “These weapons are Diana’s, and after today, they have to be returned to the store.”

  “No worries,” said Jaime. “I have written out a receipt.”

  “He has not written out a receipt,” said Diego.

  “I considered it,” said Jaime.

  “Sometimes it is not the thought that counts, little brother,” said Diego, and there was a deep warmth in his voice that Dru had never heard before. She sympathized—she knew what it was like to lose a brother and get him back.

  “We have to go,” Tavvy said. “Everyone at the gates is shouting and the Cohort won’t let them out.”

  Jia stepped forward. “They cannot keep us trapped in the city,” she said. “Follow me.”

  Jia seemed to have a mental map of the city in her head. She cut across several bigger streets, through narrow alleys, and behind houses. In what seemed like minutes they came out into Hausos Square.

  “Someone let the prisoners out!” shouted a voice, and then other voices joined in, with many calling Jia’s name.

  “Move aside!” Rayan shouted. He had set himself on one side of Jia, beside Diego. Divya and Jaime were on the other. Dru hurried behind, still holding Tavvy’s hand, along with the others who had escaped the Gard. “Make way for the Consul!”

  That cut through the shouting. The crowd fell silent as Jia carved a path among the throng like a battleship cutting through heavy weather. She walked proudly, the dim sun gleaming on her gray-black hair. She reached the center of the locked gate, where Lazlo Balogh stood, a spear upright at his side.

  “Open the gate, Lazlo,” she said in a quiet voice that nevertheless carried. “These people have a right to join their friends and family in battle.”

  Lazlo’s lip curled. “You are not the leader of the Clave,” he said. “You are under investigation. I am acting on the orders of Horace Dearborn, Inquisitor and temporary Consul.”

  “That investigation is over,” Jia said calmly. “Horace Dearborn came to power unlawfully. He has lied and betrayed us. Everyone here heard the words from his own mouth. He unfairly imprisoned me as he has now imprisoned us in our city while lives are at risk on the Fields. Open the gates.”

  “Open the gates!” shouted a boy with dark hair—Dru saw Divya smile. It was Anush, her cousin.

  “Open the gates!” Divya cried, thrusting her sword into the air. “Open the gates in the name of Raziel!”

  Jaime whistled, his grin infectious. “Abre las puertas!”

  The cry rose into the air. More and more Nephilim joined in—Kadir Safar and Vivianne Penhallow, the cry of “Open the gates!” lifting into a chorus. Tavvy and Dru joined in, Dru losing herself for a moment in the shouting, the feeling of being part of something bigger and stronger than herself alone. She climbed onto a bench, pulling Tavvy up beside her, so she could see the whole scene: the obviously uncomfortable Cohort, the shouting Nephilim, the few Shadowhunters who stood quiet and uncertain.

  “We will not disobey the true Consul!” shouted Lazlo, his face darkening. “We will die here before you force us to betray the Law!”

  The cries faltered; no one had expected that. Tavvy’s eyes widened. “What does he mean?”

  The crowd had frozen. No Nephilim wanted to be forced to harm another Nephilim, especially after the nightmare of the Dark War. Jia seemed to hesitate.

  A Silent Brother stepped forward. Then another, and another, their parchment robes rustling like leaves in the wind. The crowd shrank back to make way for them. Dru couldn’t help but stare. The last time she had looked at a group of Silent Brothers, it had been the day of her sister’s funeral.

  A silent voice echoed across the square. Dru could see by the expressions on the faces of the others in the crowd that everyone could hear it, echoing inside their minds.

  I am Brother Shadrach. We have conferred among ourselves as to what the Law instructs us to do. We have concluded that the true Consul is Jia Penhallow. Brother Shadrach paused. He and the others made a soundless tableau, ranged against the members of the Cohort. Open the gates.

  There was a silence. Balogh’s face worked.

  “No!” It was Paige Ashdown. There was a high, angry note in her voice—the same sharp and mean tone she’d always used when she called Ty names, when she sneered at Dru’s clothes and weight. “You can’t tell us what to do—”

  Brother Shadrach raised his right hand. So did each of the other Brothers. There was a sound like something enormous tearing in half, and the gates blew open, slamming into the Cohort members as if they had been smacked by a gigantic hand. The air was full of the sound of their yells as they were knocked aside; the gates yawned open, and beyond them, Dru could see the Imperishable Fields, green under a gray sky and overrun with fighting.

  “Nephilim!” Jia had drawn her dao; she lowered it to point directly ahead at the raging battle. “Nephilim, go forth!”

  Roaring with the desire to fight, Shadowhunters began to pour out of the open gates of the city. Most of them stepped over the fallen Cohort as they rolled on the ground, groaning in pain. Only Cameron Ashdown, visible thanks to his red hair, paused to help his sister Paige to her feet.

  Diego and the others began to move toward the gates. Dru saw Jaime reach over and tap his brother on the shoulder; Diego nodded, and Jaime peeled off from the group and ran toward Dru. She stood frozen in surprise on her bench as he flew through the crowd toward her. He was graceful as a thrown knife, his smile as bright as the edge of its flashing blade.

  He reached her; with her standing on the bench, they were the same height. “We could not have done this without you,” he said. “You are the one who set us free.” He kissed her on the forehead, his lips light and quick. “On the battlefield, I will think of you.”

  And he was gone, running toward his brother as Dru wished she were running toward hers.

  She had dreamed that she might fight too, alongside the others. But she could not leave Tavvy. She sat down on the bench and pulled him into her lap, holding him as they watched Diego and Jaime, Rayan and Divya, even Cameron Ashdown, vanishing into the crowd surging through the gates onto the Fields.

  31

  A REDDER GLOW

  “I can’t believe Magnus did this to us,” said Ty. He and Kit were sitting in the hollow below the oak tree, near the half-destroyed campsite. Kit was chilled from sitting on the ground for so long, but it wasn’t as if he could go anywhere. Before heading out to the battlefield with the others, Magnus had fastened both Ty and Kit to the roots of the oak tree with flickering chains of light.

  “Sorry, guys,” he’d said, blue sparks dancing from his fingers. “But I promised Julian you’d stay safe, and the best way to make sure that happens is to make sure you stay right here.”

  “If he hadn’t, you’d be following Julian and the others to the Imperishable Fields,” said Kit. “You can see his reasoning.” He kicked at the chain around his ankle. It was made of glimmer—there was no real substance to it, just shining loops of light, but it held him in place as tightly as if it had been made of adamas. When he touched the light itself, he got a faint shock, like the shock of static electricity.

  “Stop fighting it,” said Ty. “We haven’t been able to break out yet; we’re not going to be able to now. We’ll have to find another solution.”

  “Or we could just accept that we have to wait for them to get back,” said Kit, sinking back against the roots. He suddenly felt very tired—not physically, but deep down.

  “I don’t accept that,” said Ty, poking at the glimmering chain around his ankle with a stick.

  “Maybe you should learn to accept things that can’t be changed.”

  Ty looked up, his gray eyes flashing
in his thin face. “I know what you’re really talking about,” he said. “You are mad at me.”

  “Yeah,” Kit said. “I’m mad at you.”

  Ty threw the stick aside; Kit jumped. “You knew I was going to raise Livvy,” he said. “You knew it all along and you told me it was fine. You went along with it until the very last minute and then you told me not to do it. I thought you cared, but you lied to me. Just like everyone else.”

  Kit gasped with the unfairness of it. I thought you cared? He’d told Ty how much he cared and Ty had treated it like nothing. The humiliation of the night before flooded back over him in a hot wave, sparking a bitter rage. “You only care about what’s best for you,” he said between his teeth. “You raised Livvy for you, not for her or anyone else. You knew the damage it might do. You only thought of yourself. I wish— I wish I’d never known you—”

  Ty’s eyes filled with sudden tears. Shocked, Kit fell silent. Ty was Ty; he didn’t weep easily, but he was wiping tears from his face with shaking hands. Kit’s rage vanished; he wanted to crawl across the hollow toward Ty, who was shaking his head, saying something under his breath in a low voice—

  “I’m here.”

  Ty’s expression changed completely. There were still tears on his cheeks, but his lips had parted in amazement. In wonder.

  She knelt at the edge of the hollow, half-transparent. The wind didn’t lift the edges of her brown hair, nor did she shiver in her long white dress. The dress he had wondered about the night before, thinking she would never have chosen it.

  Only now did Kit realize that she hadn’t: The dress was what she had been burned in, a Shadowhunter funeral dress.

  “Livvy,” Ty said. He tried to stand, but the cord of light around his ankle jerked him back down. He tumbled onto some moss.

  The ghost of Livvy Blackthorn smiled. She came down into the hollow—not climbing or falling, but drifting, like a feather on the wind.

  “What are you doing?” asked Ty as she knelt down beside him.

  “I shouldn’t have been so angry with you last night,” said Livvy. “You meant well.”

  “You came to apologize?” said Kit.

  Livvy turned to look at him. The gold locket gleamed at her throat. It was strange to see two of it—the one Ty wore, real and shining, and the one that flickered on Livvy’s neck. A whisper of her memories? Death’s way of projecting an image of what people expected Livvy to look like?

  “I forgot,” Livvy said. “You can see ghosts, Herondale.”

  She sounded like Livvy. But not like Livvy. There was a cool distance in her tone, and real Livvy would have called him Kit.

  Still, she bent to touch Ty’s ankle gently, and at her touch, Magnus’s chain of light flickered and vanished. Ty struggled to his knees. “Why did you do that? Because you’re sorry?”

  “No,” said Livvy. “Ghosts don’t really do things because they’re sorry.” She touched Ty’s cheek, or at least she tried—her fingers passed through the outline of his body. Ty shivered but kept his gaze locked on her. “Julian and Mark and Helen and Emma are at the Imperishable Fields,” said Livvy, her eyes unfocused, as if she were seeing what was happening elsewhere. “You must go to help them. You must fight in the battle. They need you on their side.”

  As if it were an afterthought, she turned and touched Kit’s chain. It vanished—and so did Livvy. She bent her head and was gone, not even a wisp of mist to show she had ever been there.

  Devastation passed across Ty’s face and Kit felt a stab of pity. What would it be like for him, even if Livvy came and went as a ghost? She would never stay long, and there was no way to be sure that if she did go, she would return. It would be like losing her again and again and again.

  Ty got to his feet. Kit knew he would say nothing about Livvy. “You don’t have to come to the battle,” Ty said. “You can stay here.”

  He began to scramble out of the hollow. Wordlessly, Kit followed.

  * * *

  Cristina knew her Shadowhunter history better than most. As she raced across the green grass, she thought of the past: that here on the Imperishable Fields was where Jonathan Shadowhunter had battled a legion of demons. As she ran, slashing out with her sword, she followed in his footsteps.

  Mark was at her side. He was armed with a bow, lighter and smaller than Alec’s, but capable of shooting with speed and precision. The Unseelie army surged toward them as they pushed their way toward Kieran, and Mark’s hand went to his bow over and over, felling trolls and ogres with elf-bolts to the throat and chest. Cristina swung at the smaller, faster redcaps, hacking and slashing, noting with a distant horror that their own blood vanished against their already bloodstained uniforms.

  A roar went up from behind them. “What’s that?” Mark demanded, wiping blood and sweat from his eyes.

  “Reinforcements coming to join Horace and the others,” Cristina said grimly. “They were on guard around the city.”

  Mark swore under his breath. “We have to get to Kieran.”

  Cristina imagined Mark was having the same panic she was—there was only one of Kieran, and a mass of redcaps and Unseelie foot soldiers, from kelpies to goblins, who had sworn loyalty to Oban. In whatever direction she glanced, she saw Unseelie folk locked in battle with Downworlders and Shadowhunters: Simon and Isabelle were holding off imps with sword and whip, Alec felling ogres one after another with his bow, Maia and Bat tearing at trolls with claws and teeth. In the distance, she saw Emma and Julian fighting back-to-back, and Jace, locked in a fight with Timothy Rockford—but why was Jace using the flat of his blade . . . ?

  “There he is,” Mark said. They had crested a hill; down the slope was Kieran. He carried the sword Nene had given him and was facing off against a broad-shouldered redcap in massive iron boots. Mark swore. “They call him General Winter because he can wipe out a whole village faster than a deadly frost.”

  “I remember him.” Cristina shivered—she recalled the fierce fighting of the redcaps in the throne room of the Unseelie Court. “But—he’ll kill Kieran. I’ve read about redcaps. Mark, this is bad.”

  Mark didn’t disagree. He was gazing at Kieran with worried eyes. “Come on.”

  They made their way down the slope, running past a number of Unseelie soldiers who were racing for the thick of the battle. Oban was still surrounded by a circle of goblins, protecting him: A few redcaps had formed a loose group around Winter and Kieran. They seemed to have congregated to enjoy the fight.

  The redcaps cheered as Winter lunged with his swordstaff, landing a glancing blow against Kieran’s shoulder. Kieran’s white shirt was already striped with blood. His hair was white, the color of snow or ash, his cheekbones blazing with color. He parried the next blow of the swordstaff and lunged for Winter’s torso; the redcap general barely slid aside in time to avoid the thrust.

  Winter laughed. “What a pity! You fight like a King,” he said. “In a hundred years you might have been good enough to face me.”

  “Bastard,” Mark hissed. “Cristina—”

  She was already shaking her head. “If we go for Winter now, the other guards will fall on us,” she said. “Quick—signal Gwyn. He’ll attack Oban. It might give us a chance.”

  Mark’s eyes flashed with realization. He cupped a hand around his mouth and whistled, the low, humming, Wild Hunt whistle that seemed to vibrate inside Cristina’s bones.

  A shadow passed across the sky. It wheeled and returned: Gwyn on the back of Orion. He flew low over the field; Cristina saw Diana turn and reach up her arms. A moment later Gwyn had swung her up beside him on Orion. They soared back up into the air, Diana and the leader of the Wild Hunt.

  Together, they flew low over the goblins surrounding Oban. Diana, her dark hair flying behind her, bent low from the horse’s back, swinging her sword down, slicing across the chest of a goblin guard. The others yelled and began to scatter as Diana harried them from the sky, Gwyn grinning beneath his helmet.

  But Kieran was still in d
esperate trouble. He was barely holding off Winter, whose swordstaff rang again and again against his blade. As Cristina watched in horror, one of Winter’s blows knocked Kieran to the ground; he rolled aside and sprang to his feet, barely missing a second, deadly strike.

  Mark and Cristina took off running toward him, but a redcap guard who had been watching the fight swung around to block their path. At this close range, Mark’s bow was of less use; he drew a shortsword from his belt and flung himself at the guard, hacking fiercely at the redcap as he tried to reach Kieran. Another guard rose up in front of Cristina; she dispatched him with a slashing blow, rolling under the stabbing path of another spear. A metal boot crashed into her side and she cried out, feeling her ribs break. Agonizing pain seared through her as she crumpled to the ground.

  Meanwhile, Oban’s goblin guard had had enough. Dropping their weapons in their haste to escape, they fled away from Oban into the thick of the battle, Diana and Gwyn following. Oban, abruptly alone in the field, looked around in furious panic before seizing up a goblin’s sword. “Come back, you bastards!” he shouted. “Come back here! I order you!”

  Gasping in agony, Cristina tried to push herself to her feet. The sear of broken bones made her jackknife against the ground; she saw two redcaps above her and thought: This is the end.

  They fell, one on either side of her, both dead. A blood-covered Mark leaned over her, his face white. “Cristina! Cristina!”

  Cristina caught at Mark, gasping in pain. “Iratze.”

  Mark fumbled for his stele as Winter shouted aloud. “King Oban!”

  Cristina turned her head to the side. Winter stood over Kieran, who was crumpled on the ground, his sword lying shattered at his side. Cristina’s heart sank even as Mark drew a swift iratze on her skin.

  She barely noticed the pain depart. Oh, Kieran.

  “General Winter!” Oban cried, waving his hands at the redcap standing over Kieran as if he were swatting at a fly. Stained lace flew from his sleeves and his velvet breeches were crushed beyond repair. “I command you to kill the traitor!”