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

They came out of the embrace reluctantly, like divers unwilling to leave the beauty of the underwater world behind. The circle of each other’s arms, their own private city in the sea. “Why did you say that?” he whispered breathlessly, nuzzling the hair at her temple. “That you love me more now?”

“You’ve always felt everything so intensely,” she said after a moment’s pause. “And that was something I did love about you. How much you loved your family, how you would do anything for them. But you kept your heart closed off. You didn’t trust anyone, and I don’t blame you—you took everything on yourself, and you kept so many secrets, because you thought you had to. But when you opened up the Institute for the war council, you made yourself trust other people to help you execute a plan. You didn’t hide; you let yourself be open to being hurt or betrayed so you could lead them. And when you came to me in the Silent City and you stopped me breaking the rune—” Her voice shook. “You told me to trust not just you but in the intrinsic goodness of the world. That was my worst point, my darkest point, and you were there, despite everything, with your heart open. You were there to bring me home.”

He laid his fingers against the bare skin of her arm, where her parabatai rune had once been. “You brought me back too,” he said with a sort of awe. “I’ve loved you all my life, Emma. And when I felt nothing, I realized—without that love, I was nothing. You’re the reason I wanted to break out of the cage. You made me understand that love creates far more joy than any pain it causes.” He tipped his head back to look up at her, his blue-green eyes shining. “I’ve loved my family since the day I was born and I always will. But you’re the love I chose, Emma. Out of everyone in the world, out of everyone I’ve ever known, I chose you. I’ve always had faith in that choice. At the edge of everything, love and faith have always brought me back, and back to you.”

At the edge of everything, love and faith have always brought me back. Emma didn’t have to ask; she knew what he was thinking about: their friends and family lined up before them on the Imperishable Fields, the love that had brought them back from a curse so strong the whole of the Shadowhunter world had feared it.

She placed her hand over his heart, and for a moment they sat in silence, their hands remembering where their parabatai runes had once been. They were bidding good-bye, Emma thought, to what they had been: Everything from this moment on would be new.

They would never forget what had gone before. The banner of Livia’s Watch flew even now from the roof of the Institute. They would remember their parents, and Arthur and Livvy, and all they had lost, but they would step into the world the new Clave was building with hope and remembrance mixed together, because though the Seelie Queen was a liar, every liar was truthful sometimes. She had been right about one thing: Without sorrow, there can be no joy.

They lowered their hands, their gazes locked. The sun was rising over the mountains, painting the sky like one of Julian’s canvases in royal purple and bloody gold. It was dawn in more than one sense: They would step into the world’s day from this moment onward without being afraid. This would be the true beginning of a new life that they would face together, in all their human frailty and imperfections. And if ever one of them feared the bad in themselves, as all people did sometimes, they had the other to remind them of the good.





EPILOGUE


The Queen sat upon her throne as faerie workmen swept in and out of the room.

Everything had changed. The color of triumph was gold, and the Unseelie King was dead. His favored son had become the Queen’s closest adviser and loyal friend. After so long immured in the ice of grief over the loss of Ash, the Queen had begun to feel alive again.

Workmen had polished the marble floors, removing the signs of burning. Gems had been placed in the walls where holes had been: They glimmered now like winking eyes, red and blue and green. Butterflies with shining wings circled the roof, casting shifting, prismatic patterns over the silk-draped throne and the low couches that had been carried in for her courtiers to lounge upon.

Soon the new Unseelie King, Kieran, would pay a visit and he would not find the throne room any less than dazzling. She was curious about the boy King. She had met him before, one of the Unseelie King’s pack of feral children, wounded and leaning upon Shadowhunters for support. That he had risen so high surprised her. Perhaps he had hidden qualities.

The new closeness of the Shadowhunters and the Unseelie Court was disturbing, of course. She had lost several good courtiers to the wiles of the Shadowhunters, Nene among them. Perhaps she should have tried harder to get the Blackthorn boy and the Carstairs girl to destroy the parabatai rune and weaken their army. But you could only plant the seeds of discord; you could not be assured that each of them would grow. The game was a long one, and impatience served no one well.

She had been distraught, too, over the loss of her son. She had been searching for him since, but with little hope. Other worlds were not magic that faeries understood well.

The golden velvet curtain that hung at the throne room’s entrance rustled, and Fergus entered. He wore a permanently sour expression these days since his place in her favor had become Adaon’s. There was more than sourness in it now, though. There was more than a little alarm. “My lady,” he said. “You have visitors.”

She raised herself up in her chair to show her white silk gown, clinging and gossamer, to better advantage. “Is it the Unseelie King?”

“No,” he said. “A Shadowhunter. Jace Herondale.”

She slitted her eyes at Fergus. “Jace Herondale is forbidden to enter my throne room.” The last time he had, he’d nearly stabbed her. It was irresponsible of Fergus to forget such a thing. “Are you unwell, Fergus? Why did you not send him away?”

“Because I think you will want to see him, my lady. He surrendered his blades to me willingly, and he is . . . not alone.”

“This had better be worth my time, Fergus, or it will cost you your second bedroom.” She waved an angry hand in his direction. “Let him in, but return as well to stand guard.”

Fergus departed. The Queen idly considered having Jace pecked by pixies, but it seemed like trouble and would unnecessarily annoy the new Shadowhunter government. The word was that they had put Alec Lightwood in charge—unfortunate, as she had disliked him since he had killed Meliorn, her last champion—and he would be unlikely to forgive trouble visited on his best friend.

Perhaps this was why Jace was here? To forge an alliance? She had only just had the thought when the curtain rustled again and Fergus came in, escorting two companions, one robed and hooded.

The other was Jace Herondale, but it was not the Jace Herondale she knew. The Jace she knew had been beautiful as angels were beautiful: this Jace was older, haggard. Still handsome but in the manner of a granite cliff seared by lightning. There was no gentleness in his eyes, and he was muscled like an adult, with nothing childish left in him. There was a dark light about him—as if he carried a miasma of ill magic with him wherever he walked.

“I have his swords,” said Fergus. “You might wish to see them.”

He laid them at the Queen’s feet. A larger sword with stars imprinted on its dark silver blade, its pommel and grip coated in gold. A smaller sword of black gold and adamas, a pattern of stars down its center ridge.

“Heosphorus and Phaesphorus,” said the Queen. “But they were destroyed.”

“Not in my world,” said Jace. “In Thule, much lives that is dead here, and much is dead there that lives in your world, Queen.”

“You speak in riddles,” said the Queen, though her ancient heart had begun to beat with a rare swiftness. The land of Thule is death and it will rain down death here. “Are you from the world the Unseelie King called Thule?”