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

At first, Kieran could not speak. Before him he saw the long days stretching away without love in them or trust. He thought of Mark laughing, wheeling Windspear around, his strong body and golden hair. He thought of Cristina dancing, smoke and flame in the night, her softness and her boundless generosity of spirit. He would not find those things again; he would not find such hearts again.

“I understand,” Kieran said remotely. This was the end, then. He would have a life of dutiful service—a life that would stretch on many years—and only the pleasure of doing good, which was not nothing, to sustain him. If only the Wild Hunt had known this would be the fate of their wildest Hunter. They would have laughed. “I must uphold my duty. I regret that I asked.”

Adaon’s face softened. “I do not hold duty above love, Kieran. I must tell you—I heard from Cristina.”

Kieran’s head jerked up. “What?”

“She made a suggestion that I give you my cottage. It exists in a place on the Borderlands that is in neither Faerie nor the mortal world. It would neither weaken you as the mortal world would nor would Mark and Cristina be under threat, as they would be in the Court.” Adaon laid his hand on Kieran’s silk-and-velvet shoulder. “You could be with them there.”

The raw emotion he felt nearly rocked Kieran off his feet. “You would do that, Adaon? You would give me your cottage?”

Adaon smiled. “Of course. What are brothers for?”

*

Emma was sitting on her suitcase in the hopes of trying to get it to close. She thought regretfully of all the stuff she’d already snuck into Julian’s bag. He was an organized and minimalist packer, and had had a zipped suitcase ready to go in the hallway for a week now. It was starting to look a little bulgy with the extra items she’d snuck in while he wasn’t looking—a hairbrush, a bag of ponytail holders, flip-flops, and a few extra sunglasses. And a neck pillow. You never knew when you were going to need a neck pillow, especially when you were taking your entire travel year to wander the globe.

“Are you ready to go to the party?” It was Cristina, in an airy blue dress, a daisy in her dark hair. She wrinkled up her nose. “What are you doing?”

“Jumping up and down on this suitcase.” Emma stood up and kicked off her shoes. “Submit,” she said to the suitcase, and climbed on top of it. “Okay. I’m jumping.”

Cristina looked horrified. “Have you never heard of a packing cube?”

“What’s a packing cube? Is it some sort of extra-dimensional space?” She started to jump up and down on the suitcase as if it were a trampoline.

Cristina leaned back against the door. “It’s good to see you so happy.”

The suitcase made a horrible sound. Emma stopped jumping. “Quick! Zip it!”

Clucking, Cristina got down on her knees and yanked the zipper closed. Emma jumped down to the floor and they both regarded the bulging suitcase, Cristina with apprehension and Emma with pride. “What are you going to do next time you have to close it?” Cristina said.

“I’m not thinking that far ahead.” Emma wondered if she should have dressed up a bit more—the party was meant to be casual, just a group of them celebrating Aline and Helen’s official ascension to heads of the Los Angeles Institute.

Or at least, that was the story.

She’d found a silk midi dress from the sixties with laces up and down the back and thought it was playful and retro, but Cristina looked so elegant and calm that Emma wondered if she should have gone more formal. She determined to find her big gold hair clip somewhere and put her hair up. She just hoped it wasn’t in her suitcase, because that was a definite No-Go Area. “Do I really seem happy?”

Cristina tucked a stray lock of hair behind Emma’s ear. “More happy than I have ever seen you before,” she said, and because she was Cristina, every word she spoke shone with sincerity. “I’m so, so glad for you.”

Emma flopped back onto her bed. Something poked her in the back. It was her hair clip. She seized it up with relief. “But what about you, Tina? I worry you’re not happy.”

Cristina shrugged her shoulders. “I am all right. I am surviving.”

“Cristina, I love you, you’re my best friend,” Emma said. And it was easy to say now, “best friend,” because while Julian was still her best friend too, he was more than that as well and finally everyone knew it. “Surviving isn’t enough. What about being happy?”

Cristina sighed and sat down next to Emma. “We will get there, Mark and I. We are happy, yet we also know that there is a greater happiness we could have had. And we worry about Kieran every day.”

“Did you contact Adaon?” Emma asked.

“I did, but I have not had a reply. Perhaps it is not something Kieran wants.”

Emma frowned. She found the whole business confusing, but one thing she was certain of—there was nothing Kieran wanted more than to be with Mark and Cristina.

“Cristina!” A voice echoed faintly from outside the Institute; Emma scrambled across the bed to the window and threw it open. A second later Cristina was beside her. They both poked their heads outside to see Diego and Jaime standing on the front lawn, waving their arms energetically. “Cristina! Come down!”

Cristina started to laugh, and for a moment, under her quiet sadness, Emma saw the girl she must have been in Mexico City when she was a child, tearing around with the Rosales brothers and getting into trouble.

She couldn’t help but smile. I wish I’d known you then, Tina. I hope we’ll be friends our whole lives.

But Cristina was smiling and Emma didn’t want to break her fragile good mood with wistfulness. “Come on,” she said, grabbing a pair of sandals. “Let’s go down to the beach.”

*

With help from Ragnor and Catarina, the sandy strip of coast below the Institute had been blocked off for their private use, the area encircled by glamoured signs claiming the beach was closed due to a terrible sand crab infestation.

Magnus had also thrown up muffling spells that quieted the sounds of traffic from the highway. Emma knew he hadn’t been involved in the weather, but it was almost as if he had: a perfect day, the sky blue and deep, the waves like blue satin threaded with gold.

Shadowhunters and Downworlders dotted the beach, all up and down the curve of golden sand encircled with rocks. Alec, tall and handsome in an ivory sweater and black pants, was helping Catarina and Ragnor set up tables of food. Emma noticed that his hands shook slightly as he set out plates and chopsticks. Magnus had summoned dumplings from all over the world—Chinese jiaozi, Japanese gyoza, Polish cheese pierogi, buttery Russian pelmeni, Korean mandu. Ragnor had provided bottles of ludicrously expensive wine from his favorite Argentinian vintner, as well as French sparkling water and apple juice for the kids. Catarina had created a fountain of Swiss chocolate, which had already attracted the attention of Max and Rafe. “Sandy fingers out of the chocolate,” Magnus was telling them. “Or I’ll turn you both into sea sponges.”

Cristina headed off down the beach with the Rosales brothers to catch up with Mark, who had been sitting alone on a hillock of sand, his eyes fixed on the middle distance. Emma bent to lace her sandal. When she straightened up, Julian had appeared, his jeans rolled to his knees and his bare feet sandy from playing at the water’s edge with Tavvy and Helen. He looked carefree in a way she had almost never seen him: His blue-green eyes sparkled like the sea glass at his wrist, and his smile was slow and easy as he came up to slide his arm around her waist. “You look gorgeous.”

“So do you,” she said, meaning it, and he laughed and kissed her. She marveled a little—Julian, who had always been so careful, was the one who didn’t care who knew about their relationship. She knew their family understood everything, that Jem had explained it to them in Alicante. But she always worried—would others wonder how long they’d been in love, how much it overlapped with their time of being parabatai?

No one seemed to care, though, and Julian least of all. He smiled whenever he saw her, caught her up and kissed her, held her hand proudly. He even seemed to enjoy the good-natured wailing of his siblings when they happened on Julian and Emma kissing in the hallways.