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

It was a scene both familiar and unfamiliar. He had begged for this: a quick stop via Portal to see the Los Angeles Institute one last time. He’d wondered how it would be; he was surprised to realize he felt as if he could have easily walked into the wedding party and taken his place with Julian and Emma and Cristina and the rest. Dru would have welcomed him. They all would.

But he didn’t belong there. Not after what had happened. The thought of seeing Ty at all hurt much too much.

Not that he couldn’t see him. He could see all of them: Dru in her black dress dancing with Simon, and Mark and Cristina chatting with Jaime, and Kieran teaching Diego some kind of awkward faerie dance, and Emma with her hair like a waterfall of amber light, and Julian starting to walk up the beach toward her. They were always going toward each other, those two, like magnets. He’d heard from Jem that they were dating now, and since he’d never really understood the hazy “parabatai can’t date” thing anyway, he wished them well. He could see Aline and Helen too, Aline holding a bottle of champagne and laughing, Helen hugging Tavvy and swinging him around. He could see Diana with Gwyn, the Wild Hunt leader with a big arm thrown protectively around his lady. He could see Alec lying in the sand beside Jace, deep in conversation, and Clary talking to Isabelle, and Magnus dancing with his two sons in the moonlight.

He could see them all, and of course he could see Ty.

Ty stood at the water’s edge. He wouldn’t have wanted to be close to the noise and the lights and shouting, and Kit hated that even now he wanted to go down to the beach and draw Ty away, to protect him from anything and everything that might upset him. He didn’t look upset, though. He was facing the glittering waves. Anybody else would have thought he was splashing around in the bioluminescence by himself, but Kit could see that he wasn’t alone.

A girl in a long white dress, with Blackthorn-brown hair, floated barefoot above the water. She was dancing, invisible to anyone but Ty—and Kit, who saw even what he didn’t want to see.

Ty threw something into the ocean—his phone, Kit thought. Getting rid of the Black Volume and its images forever. At least that was something. Kit watched as Ty waded out a little bit, tipping his head back, smiling up at the Livvy only he could see.

Remember him like this, Kit thought, happy and smiling. His hand crept up to touch the faded white scar on his left arm where Ty had drawn that Talent rune what felt like so long ago.

Jem put his hand on Kit’s shoulder. Tessa was looking at him with deep sympathy, as if she understood more than he’d guessed.

“We should go,” Jem said, his voice gentle as always. “It does no one any good to look backward for too long and forget that the future lies ahead.”

Kit turned away to follow them both into his new life.

*

Dawn was starting to break.

The wedding party had lasted all night. Though many of the guests had staggered off to sleep in the Institute (or were carried off, protesting, by their parents and older siblings), a few still remained, huddled up on blankets, watching the sun rise behind the mountains.

Emma couldn’t remember a better celebration. She was curled up on a striped blanket with Julian, in the shelter of a tumble of rocks. The sand under them was cool, silvered by the dawn light, and the water had just begun to dance with golden sparks. She leaned back against Julian’s chest, his arms around her.

His hand moved gently up her arm, fingers dancing against her skin. W-H-A-T A-R-E Y-O-U T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G A-B-O-U-T?

“Just that I’m happy for Magnus and Alec,” she said. “They’re so happy, and I feel like one day—we could be happy like that too.”

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Of course we will be.”

His complete confidence spread warmth through her, like a comforting blanket. She glanced up at him.

“Remember when you were under the spell?” she said. “And I asked you why I took down all that stuff in my closet, about my parents. And you said it was because I knew who’d killed them now, and he was dead. Because I got revenge.”

“And I was wrong,” he said.

She took one of his hands in hers. It was a hand as familiar to her as her own—she knew every scar, every callus; she rejoiced in every splash of paint. “Do you know now?”

“You did it to honor your parents,” he said. “To show them you’d let go of it all, that you weren’t going to let revenge control your life. Because they wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”

She kissed his fingers. He shivered, drew her closer. “That’s right.” She looked up at him. Dawn light turned his wind-tangled hair to a halo. “I do keep worrying,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let Zara go. Maybe Jia and the Council should have arrested every Cohort sympathizer, like Balogh, not just the ones who fought. People like him are the reason things turned out the way they did.”

Julian was watching the ocean as it slowly lightened. “We can only arrest people for what they do, not what they think,” he said. “Any other way of doing things makes us like the Dearborns. And we’re better off with what we have now than we would be if we’d become like them. Besides,” he added, “every choice has a long afterlife of consequences. No one can know the eventual outcome of any decision. All you can do is make the best choice you can make in the moment.”

She let her head fall back against his shoulder. “Do you remember when we used to come down here when we were kids? And make sandcastles?”

He nodded.

“When you were gone earlier this summer, I came here all the time,” she said. “I thought about you, how much I missed you.”

“Did you think sexy thoughts?” Julian grinned at her, and she swatted his arm. “Never mind, I know you did.”

“Why do I ever tell you anything?” she complained, but they were both smiling at each other in a goofy way she was sure any bystander would have found intolerable.

“Because you love me,” he said.

“True,” she agreed. “Even more now than I used to.”

His arms tightened around her. She looked up at him; his face was tight, as if with pain.

“What is it?” she said, puzzled; she hadn’t meant to say anything that would hurt him.

“Just the thought,” he said, his voice low and rough, “of being able to talk about this, with you. It’s a freedom I never imagined we would ever have, that I would ever have. I always thought what I wanted was impossible. That the best I could hope for was a life of silent despair as your friend, that at least I would be able to be somewhere near you while you lived your life and I became less and less a part of it—”

“Julian.” There was pain in his eyes, and even if it was a remembered pain, she hated to see it. “That would never have happened. I always loved you. Even when I didn’t know it, I loved you. Even when you didn’t feel anything, even when you weren’t you, I remembered the real you and I loved you.” She managed to turn around, slide her arms around his neck. “And I love you so much more now.”

She leaned up to kiss him, and his hands slid into her hair: She knew he loved to touch her hair, just as he had always loved to paint it. He drew her into his lap, stroking her back. His sea-glass bracelet was cool against her bare skin as their mouths met slowly; Julian’s mouth was soft and tasted of salt and sunshine. She hovered in the kiss, in the timeless pleasure of it, in knowing it wasn’t the last but was one of the first, sealing the promise of a love that would last down the years of their lives.