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

Ty’s face was alight with relief, and Kit knew what he was thinking: This was step one accomplished, one move closer to getting Livvy back. Shade looked at him and shook his head, his white hair gleaming in the candlelight. “Of course, if you reconsider, and I never hear from you again, that will be even better,” he added. “Consider this, children. Some lights were never meant to burn for long.”

He closed his gloved fingers around the wick of the largest candle, extinguishing it. A plume of white smoke rose toward the ceiling. Kit glanced at Ty again, but he hadn’t reacted; he might not even have heard Shade. He was smiling to himself: not the blazing smile Kit had missed on the beach, but a quiet, private smile.

If we go forward, I have to shoulder this alone, Kit thought. Any guilt, any apprehension. It’s only mine.

He glanced away from the warlock before Shade could see the doubt in his eyes.

Some lights were never meant to burn for long.

*

“I can’t believe the Centurions left such a mess,” Helen said.

For years, Helen had promised Aline that she would take her on a full tour of the Institute and show her all her favorite places from her childhood.

But Helen’s mind was only partly on showing Aline around.

Some of it was on the destruction wrought by the Centurions inside the Institute—towels left everywhere, stains on the tables, and old food rotting in the fridge in the kitchen. Some of it was on the message she’d paid a faerie to take to her aunt Nene in the Seelie Court. But most of it was on her family.

“Those jerks aren’t what’s really bothering you,” said Aline. They were standing on an overlook some distance from the Institute. From here you could see the desert, carpeted with wildflowers and green scrub, and the ocean as well, blue and gleaming below. There had been ocean at Wrangel Island, cold and icy and beautiful, but in no way welcoming. This was the sea of Helen’s childhood—the sea of long days spent splashing in the waves with her sisters and brothers. “You can tell me anything, Helen.”

“They hate me,” Helen said in a small voice.

“Who hates you?” Aline demanded. “I’ll kill them.”

“My brothers and sister,” said Helen. “Please don’t kill them, though.”

Aline looked stunned. “What do you mean, they hate you?”

“Ty ignores me,” said Helen. “Dru snarls at me. Tavvy despises that I’m not Julian. And Mark—well, Mark doesn’t hate me, but his mind seems far away. I can’t drag him into this.”

Aline crossed her arms and stared thoughtfully at the ocean. This was one of the things Helen loved about her wife. If Helen said something was the case, Aline would consider it from all angles; she was never dismissive.

“I told Julian to tell all the kids I was happy on Wrangel Island,” said Helen. “I didn’t want them to worry. But now—I think they believe I spent all these years not caring about being separated from them. They don’t know how much I missed them. They don’t know how horrible I feel that Julian had to shoulder all that responsibility, for all those years. I didn’t know.”

“The thing is,” said Aline, “they don’t just see you as replacing Julian as the person who takes care of them. You also stepped into their lives just as Livvy left them.”

“But I also loved Livvy! I also miss her—”

“I know,” Aline said gently. “But they’re just children. They’re grief stricken and lashing out. They don’t know this is why they feel angry. They just feel it.”

“I can’t do this.” Helen tried to keep her voice steady, but it was nearly impossible. She hoped the strain would be covered by the sound of the waves crashing below them, but Aline knew her too well. She could sense when Helen was upset, even when she was trying hard not to show it. “It’s too hard.”

“Baby.” Aline moved closer, wrapping her arms around Helen, brushing her lips softly with her own. “You can. You can do anything.”

Helen relaxed into her wife’s arms. When she’d first met Aline, she’d thought the other girl was taller than she was, but she’d realized later it was the way Aline held herself, arrow straight. The Consul, her mother, held herself the same way, and with the same pride—not that either of them was arrogant, but the word seemed a shade closer to what Helen imagined than simple confidence. She remembered the first love note Aline had ever written her. The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. Later, she’d found out it was an Oscar Wilde quote, and had said to Aline, smiling, You’ve got a lot of nerve.

Aline had looked back at her steadily. I know. I do.

They both had, always, and it had stood them in good stead. But this wasn’t a situation where nerve mattered so much as patience. Helen had expected her younger brothers and sister to love her; she had needed it, in a way. Now she realized she had to show them her love first.

“In a way, their anger means good things,” said Aline. “It means they know you’ll always love them, no matter what. Eventually they’ll stop testing you.”

“Is there any way to speed up ‘eventually’?”

“Would thinking about it as ‘someday’ help?”

Helen sniffled a laugh. “No.”

Aline stroked her shoulder gently. “It was worth a try.”

*

There were a dozen or more guards posted when Emma and Julian returned to the house. It was a bright day, and sun sparkled off the swords slung over their shoulders and the water in the canal.

As they went up the stairs, Dane Larkspear was slouching against one side of the doorway, his whippety face pale under a shock of black hair. He winked at Emma as Julian, ignoring him, reached for his stele. “Nice to see you.”

“Can’t say the same,” said Emma. “Where’s your evil twin? And I mean that literally. She’s your twin, and she’s evil.”

“Yeah, I got that,” said Dane, rolling his eyes. “Samantha’s at the Scholomance. And you’ve got guests.”

Emma tensed. “In the house? Isn’t the point of guards to keep them out?”

Dane chuckled. “Please. The point of us is to keep you in.”

Julian scrawled an unlocking rune on the door and gave Dane a dark look. “Fifteen against two?”

Dane’s smirk got wider. “Just showing you who’s in power,” he said. “We control the odds. I don’t feel bad about that at all.”

“You wouldn’t,” Julian said, and stalked into the house.

“Just in case I wasn’t feeling really crappy about this situation already,” Emma muttered, and followed Julian. She was wary—she hadn’t liked the way Dane had said the word “guests.” She closed the front door slowly, hand on the hilt of the dagger in her weapons belt.

She heard Julian call her name. “In the kitchen,” he said. “It’s all right, Emma.”

Usually she trusted Julian more than she trusted herself. But things were different now. She went carefully toward the kitchen, only dropping her hand from the dagger when she saw Isabelle seated on the kitchen table, her long legs crossed. She was wearing a short velvet coat and a long tulle skirt. The bright glint of silver jewelry shone on her wrists and ankles.

Simon was seated at one of the kitchen chairs, elbows on the table, sunglasses pushed up on his head. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “The guards let us in.”

“Not at all,” said Julian, leaning against one of the counters. “I’m just surprised they agreed.”

“Friendly persuasion,” said Isabelle, and smiled a smile that was mostly teeth. “The Cohort doesn’t have all the power yet. We still know a lot of people in high places.”

“Where were you?” Simon inquired. “The guards wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“The Inquisitor wanted to talk to us,” said Emma.

Simon frowned. “Dearborn? You mean he wanted to interrogate you?”

“Not exactly.” Emma took off her jacket and slung it over a chair back. “He had a favor he wanted us to do. But what are you doing here?”

Isabelle and Simon exchanged a glance. “We have some bad news,” Simon said.

Emma stared harder at both of them. Izzy looked tired, Simon tense, but that wasn’t surprising. She could only imagine how she looked herself.