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

Light broke through the trees suddenly. Emma looked up, thinking the clouds had parted, and realized they had reached the edge of the forest. The trees thinned out, the sky arching overhead in shades of pearlescent gray and smoky blue.

They had left the forest. In front of them stretched the green field, all the way to the far walls of Alicante. In the distance, she could see dark figures, small as beetles, approaching the center of the Imperishable Fields. The Cohort? The Unseelie? Even with Farsight runes, they were too distant to tell.

“Emma,” Julian said. “Are you ready?”

She looked at him. For a moment it was as if no one was there but the two of them, as if they faced each other across the floor of the parabatai chamber in the Silent City, the connection between them shimmering with its force. Julian’s face was pale above the black of his gear; his blue-green eyes burned as he looked at her. She knew what he was thinking. He had come this far, to the edge of where there was no turning back. He needed her to take the last step with him.

She lifted her chin. “We choose to rise up,” she said, and, stepping onto the grass of the Fields, they began to march toward the walls of Alicante.

*

And the sky was full of angels.

Dru stood by the side of the canal in front of the Graymark house, holding Tavvy’s hand. All through Alicante, Shadowhunters old and young lined the streets, gazing up at the sky.

Dru had to admit that what Horace had done was impressive. It was like looking at a massive movie screen, an IMAX or something bigger. When they had first come out of the house, Maryse shooing Rafe and Max ahead of her, they’d stopped dead to gawk at the enormous square in the sky. All they’d been able to see then was the green of the Fields and a piece of gray-blue sky.

Then Horace and Zara had come into the frame, striding across the grass, and because of the size of the Projection and the angle, they had looked like angels striding across the sky. Horace looked as he always had, with one marked difference: the sleeve covering his left arm hung empty from the elbow down.

Zara had her hair loose, which was impractical for fighting but dramatic as a visual. She also had golden Cortana strapped to her side, which made Dru’s stomach turn.

“That’s Emma’s sword,” Tavvy said crossly. Dru didn’t reprimand him. She felt no less annoyed.

Horace and Zara were followed by a small group of guards—Vanessa Ashdown and Martin Gladstone among them—and a contingent of Centurions. Dru recognized some from the time they’d stayed at the Institute, like Mallory Bridgestock, Jessica Beausejours, and Timothy Rockford. Manuel wasn’t with them, though, which surprised her. He’d always struck her as someone who liked to be at the center of things.

As they took their places on the field, Maryse shook her head and muttered something about Gladstone. She had been trying to corral Max and Rafe, neither of whom were interested in the dull sky-pictures, but now she looked at Horace and frowned. “The Circle all over again,” she said. “This is just how Valentine was—so sure of his own rightness. So sure it gave him the right to decide for others how they should believe.”

An audible gasp ran through the watching Shadowhunters. Not a reaction to Maryse’s words—they were all staring upward. Dru craned her neck back and saw with a shock that the Unseelie Court army was now marching across the Fields toward the Cohort.

They seemed vast, a countless array of faeries in the dusky livery of the King of Unseelie. Knights on horseback with spears of silver and bronze gleaming in the early light. Squat goblins with stern-looking axes; dryads with stout wooden staffs and kelpies gnashing their knife-sharp teeth. Marching at the front were redcaps in their blood-dyed uniforms, their iron boots ringing on the earth. They surrounded a crowned man on a horse—the new King of Unseelie. Not the one Dru was familiar with from pictures; this King was young. His crown was cocked insouciantly to the side.

As he came closer, Dru could see that he resembled Kieran slightly. The same straight mouth, the same inhumanly beautiful features, though the King’s hair was coal-black and streaked with purple. He rode up to the Inquisitor and the rest of the Cohort and gazed down at them coldly.

Maryse made a noise of surprise. Other Shadowhunters were gasping, and a few standing on Cistern Bridge clapped. As much as Dru hated Horace, she could tell this was good theater: The small band of the Cohort facing down a great Faerie army.

She was just glad she had some theater of her own planned.

“Greetings, my lord Oban,” said Horace, inclining his head. “We thank you for agreeing to take parley with us this morning.”

“He’s lying,” Tavvy said. “Look at his face.”

“I know,” Dru said in a low voice. “But don’t say it where people can hear you.”

Oban slid gracefully from his horse. He bowed to Horace. There was another collective gasp that rocketed up the streets of Alicante. Faeries did not bow to Shadowhunters. “The pleasure is mine.”

Horace smiled expansively. “You understand the gravity of our situation,” he said. “The death of two of our own—especially such famed Shadowhunters as Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild—leaves a hole in the heart of our community. Such a wound cannot be borne by a civilized society. It demands recompense.”

He means retribution, thought Dru. She knew the two were different, though she doubted she could have explained exactly how.

“We of the Lands of Unseelie do not disagree,” said Oban pompously. “It seems to us proved that Downworlders and Shadowhunters cannot occupy the same space in safety. Better for us to be separated and respect one another from a distance.”

“Quite,” said Horace. “Respecting one another from a distance seems very fine.”

“Seriously,” Maryse muttered. “No one can be buying this crap, can they?”

Dru glanced sideways at her. “You really sound like a New Yorker sometimes.”

Maryse smiled crookedly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

There was a sudden stir. Dru looked up and saw that Horace, who had been nodding in agreement with King Oban, was staring into the distance, his mouth open in shock.

Oban turned, and a scowl—the first genuine expression he’d shown—spread across his face. “What is this intrusion?”

Unable to stop herself, Dru clapped her hands together. Coming into the Projection’s focus, striding across the green fields toward the Cohort, were Julian, Emma, and the rest of their group. Against all odds, they had arrived.

*

The wind had risen and whipped across the Fields, its force unbroken by walls or trees. The grass bent in front of Emma and the others, and Horace’s Inquisitor robes flapped around him. Zara pushed her hair out of her face and glared furiously at Julian before turning her look of loathing on Emma.

“You,” she hissed.

Emma grinned at Zara with all the hatred sparked by the sight of Cortana hanging at Zara’s side. “I always wanted someone to hiss ‘you’ at me,” she said. “Makes me feel like I’m in a movie.”

Horace sneered. “What are you brats doing here? How dare you interrupt this parley? This is a serious matter, not a game for children.”

“No one said this was a game, Dearborn.” Julian stopped in between Horace and a milling crowd of faerie knights and redcaps, flanked by Mark and Alec on one side, Emma and Cristina on the other. “Nor are we children.”

“I’m certainly not,” Alec pointed out mildly.

A man standing in the center of the milling redcaps pointed at Mark. He had a look of Kieran about him, with messy purple-black hair and a gold circlet tilted slightly on his head. “I know you.”

Mark glared. “Unfortunately, that’s true.” He turned to the others. “That is Prince Oban.”

“King Oban,” Oban snapped. “Horace—Inquisitor, see that they show me respect.”

“They shouldn’t be here at all,” said Horace. “My apologies for this intrusion.” He flipped a smug hand in their direction. “Ashdown—Gladstone—get rid of this trash.”