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

She passed through a familiar room with a high, domed ceiling. Marble of all colors flowed together in patterns too intricate for the eye to follow. On the floor were two interlocking circles: This was where she and Julian had become parabatai.

Beyond that room was the Star Chamber. The parabolic stars glimmered on the floor; the Mortal Sword hung point-down behind the basalt Judges’ Bar, as if waiting for her. She took hold of it and found it featherlight. Crossing the room, she stepped into the square of the Speaking Stars.

“Emma! Emma, it’s me, Cristina.” A cool hand was holding hers. She was tossing and turning; there was a searing pain at her throat.

“Cristina,” she whispered, her lips dry and cracked. “Hide the Sword. Please, please, hide it.”

There was a click. The floor beneath her opened along an invisible seam, two slabs of marble rolling smoothly apart. Revealed beneath them was a square compartment containing a stone tablet, on which was painted a crude parabatai rune. It was neither fine work nor beautiful, but it radiated power.

Gripping the hilt of Maellartach, Emma brought it down, point first. The blade split the tablet apart and Emma staggered back in a cloud of dust and power.

It is severed, she thought. The bond is severed.

She felt no joy and no relief. Only fear as a whispering voice called her name: “Emma, Emma, how could you?”

She turned to see Jem in his Silent Brother robes. A red stain was spreading slowly across his chest. She cried out as he fell. . . .

“Emma, talk to me. You’re going to be all right. Julian’s going to be all right.” Cristina sounded on the verge of tears.

Emma knew she was in a bed, but it felt as if huge manacles had chained down her arms and legs. They were so heavy. Voices rose and fell around her: She recognized Mark’s voice, and Helen’s.

“What happened to them?” Helen said. “They appeared just a few moments after you, but in totally different clothing. I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Mark sounded wretched. Emma felt his hand brush her hair. “Emma, where have you been?”

Emma stood before the silver mirror. She saw herself reflected back: pale hair, runed skin, all familiar, but her eyes were the dull red of the moon in Thule.

Then she was falling, falling through the water. She saw the great monsters of the deep, shark-finned and serpentine-toothed, and then she saw Ash rise up through the water with his black wings gleaming silver and gold, and the monsters fell back from him in fear. . . .

She woke with a hoarse cry, struggling against the seaweed that dragged her down, into deeper water—she realized she was struggling against sheets that were wound around her, and sagged back, gasping for breath. Hands were on her shoulders, then brushing back her hair; a soft voice was saying her name.

“Emma,” Cristina said. “Emma, it’s all right. You’ve been dreaming.”

Emma opened her eyes. She was in her room in the Institute; blue paint, familiar mural on the wall of swallows in flight over castle towers, sunlight spilling through an open window. She could hear the sounds of the sea, of music playing in another room.

“Cristina,” Emma whispered. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

Cristina made a hiccuping noise and threw her arms around Emma, hugging her tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry we left Faerie without you, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. I should never, never have left you—”

As if from a great distance, Emma remembered the Unseelie Court. How the flames had cut them off from Cristina and the others, how she had nodded at her, giving her permission to save herself, the others. “Tina!” she exclaimed, patting her friend on the back. Her voice was hoarse, her throat oddly sore. “It’s all right, I told you to go.”

Cristina sat back, her nose and eyes pink. “But where did you go? And why did you keep calling me the Rose of Mexico?” She wrinkled up her forehead in puzzlement.

Emma made a noise that was half laugh, half gasp. “I have a lot to tell you,” she said. “But first, I just have to know”—she caught Cristina’s hand—“is everyone alive? Julian, all the others—”

“Of course!” Cristina looked horrified. “Everyone’s alive. Everyone.”

Emma squeezed Cristina’s hand and let go. “What has the blight done to Magnus? Are we too late?”

“It’s odd that you should ask. Alec and Magnus arrived here yesterday.” Cristina hesitated. “Magnus isn’t doing well at all. He’s very ill. We’ve been in contact with the Spiral Labyrinth—”

“But they still think it’s the ley lines.” Emma started to swing her legs out of the bed. A wave of dizziness swamped her, and she braced herself against the pillows, breathing hard.

“No, no, they don’t. I realized it was the blight in Faerie. Emma, don’t try to get up—”

“What about Diana?” Emma demanded. “She was in Idris—”

“She isn’t anymore.” Cristina looked grim. “That’s another long story. But she’s fine.”

“Emma!” The door burst open and Helen flew in, all disarrayed fair hair and anxious eyes. She flew to hug Emma, and Emma felt another wave of dizziness go over her: She thought of Thule, and how Helen had been separated from her family forever there. She would never forgive the Clave for exiling Helen to Wrangel Island, but at least she was back. At least this was a world where it was possible to be lost and then return.

Helen hugged Emma until she waved her arms to indicate that she needed oxygen. Cristina fussed as Emma once against tried to get up and succeeded in propping herself against the pillows just as Aline, Dru, Tavvy, Jace, and Clary crowded in.

“Emma!” Tavvy exclaimed, having no time for sickroom protocols, and jumped up onto the bed. Emma hugged him gently and ruffled his hair while the others gathered around; she heard Jace ask Cristina if Emma had been talking and whether she seemed coherent.

“You shaved,” she said, pointing at him. “It’s a big improvement.”

There was a scrum of hugging and exclaiming; Clary came last and smiled down at Emma the same way she’d once smiled at her outside the Council Hall, the first time they’d ever met, when Clary had helped dispel the fears of a terrified child.

“I knew you’d be all right,” Clary said, her voice pitched so low only Emma could hear her.

There was a knock on the door, which barely opened into the crowded room. Emma felt a flare like a match tip against her left arm, and realized with a shock of joy what it was, just as Julian stepped into the room, leaning on Mark’s shoulder.

Her parabatai rune. It felt like forever since it had sparked with life. Her eyes met Julian’s and for a moment she was unaware of anything else: just that Julian was there, that he was all right, that there were bandages on his left arm and visible under his T-shirt but it didn’t matter, he was alive.

“He just woke up about an hour ago,” Mark said as the others beamed at Julian. “He’s been asking for you, Emma.”

Aline clapped her hands together. “Okay, now that we’ve gotten the hugging and stuff out of the way, where were you two?” She indicated Emma and Julian with an accusatory wave of her hand. “Do you know how terrified we were when Mark and Cristina and the others suddenly appeared and you weren’t with them, and then you suddenly popped out of nowhere all beaten up and wearing strange clothes?” She gestured to Emma’s night table, where her Thule clothes lay neatly folded.

“I . . . ,” Emma began, and broke off as Aline marched out of the room. “Is she mad?”

“Worried,” Helen said diplomatically. “We all were. Emma, you had a broken collarbone, and Julian had broken ribs. They should be better now—it’s been three days.” The exhaustion and worry of those three days told in the dark circles beneath her eyes.

“And you were incoherent,” said Jace. “Julian was out cold at first, but you kept shouting about demons and black skies and a dead sun. Like you’d been to Edom.” Jace’s eyes were narrowed. He wasn’t far off, Emma thought; Jace could be silly when he felt like it, but he was smart.