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

“I guess everything went according to your plan, didn’t it,” Emma said coldly, not looking at Julian. She could feel him beside her, though, the familiar warmth and shape of him. Her parabatai, who she would have known deafened and blindfolded. “If you’re lying about having the Black Volume, it’s going to go badly for both of us.”

“I’m not lying,” he said. “There was a copy shop near the London Institute. You’ll see.”

“We weren’t supposed to leave the Institute, Julian—”

“This was the best option,” said Julian. “You may be too sentimental to see it clearly, but this gets us closest to what we want.”

“How does it do that?” Emma hissed. “What’s the point of coming to the Seelie Queen? We can’t trust her, any more than we can trust Horace or Annabel.”

Julian’s eyes glittered like the precious stones set into the walls of the long tunnel. They gleamed in stripes of jasper and quartz. The ground underfoot had become polished tile, a milky green-white. “Not trusting the Queen is part of my plan.”

Emma wanted to kick a wall. “You shouldn’t have a plan that includes the Queen at all, don’t you get it? We’re all dealing with the Cold Peace because of her treachery.”

“Such anti-faerie sentiments,” Julian said, ducking under a gray curtain of lace. “I’m surprised at you.”

Emma stalked after him. “It’s nothing to do with faeries in general. But the Queen is a no-holds-barred bit—why hello, Your Majesty!”

Oh crap. It seemed that the gray curtain they’d passed through was the entrance to the Queen’s Court. The Queen herself was seated in the middle of the room, on her throne, regarding Emma coldly.

The chamber looked as it had before, as if a fire had swept through the room years ago and no one had truly cleaned up the damage. The floor was blackened, cracked marble. The Queen’s throne was tarnished bronze, the back of it rising high above her head in a fan-shaped scroll. The walls were gouged here and there, as if a massive beast had dug out clots of marble with its claws.

The Queen was flame and bone. Her bony clavicles rose from the bodice of her intricately figured blue-and-gold dress; her long bare arms were thin as sticks. All around her tumbled her rich, deep red hair in thick waves of blood and fire. From her narrow white face, blue eyes blazed like gas flames.

Emma cleared her throat. “The Queen is a no-holds-barred bit of sunshine,” she said. “That’s what I was going to say.”

“You will not greet me in that informal manner, Emma Carstairs,” she said. “Do you understand?”

“They were waylaid on the road and attacked,” said Nene. “We sent pixie messengers ahead to tell you—”

“I heard,” said the Queen. “That does not excuse rudeness.”

“I think the blond one was about to call the Queen a besom,” Fergus murmured to Nene, who looked as exasperated as faerie courtiers ever looked.

“So true,” said Emma.

“Kneel,” snapped the Queen. “Kneel, Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn, and show proper respect.”

Emma felt her chin go up as if it had been pulled on a string. “We are Nephilim,” she said. “We do not kneel.”

“Because once the Nephilim were giants on earth, with the strength of a thousand men?” The Queen’s tone was gently mocking. “How the mighty have fallen.”

Julian took a step toward the throne. The Queen’s eyes raked him up and down, assessing, measuring. “Would you rather an empty gesture or something you truly want?” he asked.

The Queen’s blue eyes flashed. “You are suggesting you have something I truly want? Think carefully. It is not easy to guess what a monarch desires.”

“I have the Black Volume of the Dead,” Julian said.

The Queen laughed. “I had heard you had lost that,” she said. “Along with the life of your sister.”

Julian whitened, but his expression didn’t change. “You never specified which copy of the Black Volume you wanted.” As the Queen and Emma both stared, he reached into his pack and pulled out a bound white manuscript. Holes were punched into the left side, the whole thing held together with thick plastic ties.

The Queen sat back, her flame-red hair brilliant against the dark metal of her throne. “That is not the Black Volume.”

“I think you will find if you examine the pages that it is,” said Julian. “A book is the words it contains, nothing more. I took photos of every page of the Black Volume with my phone and had it printed and bound at a copy shop.”

The Queen tilted her head, and the thin gold circle binding her brow flashed. “I do not understand the words of your mortal spells and rituals,” she said. Her voice had risen to a sharp pitch. Behind her sometimes mocking, sometimes laughing eyes, Emma thought she caught a glimpse of the true Queen, and what would happen if one crossed her, and she felt chilled. “I will not be tricked or mocked, Julian Blackthorn, and I do not trust your mischief. Nene, take the book from him and examine it!”

Nene stepped forward and held out her hand. In the shadowy corners of the room, there was movement; Emma realized the walls were lined with faerie guards in gray uniforms. No wonder they’d allowed her and Julian to enter still carrying their weapons. There must be fifty guards here, and more in the tunnels.

Let Nene have the book, Julian, she thought, and indeed, he handed it over without a murmur. He watched calmly as Nene looked it over, her eyes flicking over the pages. At last she said, “This was made by a very skilled calligrapher. The brushstrokes are exactly as I remember.”

“A skilled calligrapher named OfficeMax,” Julian muttered, but Emma didn’t smile at him.

The Queen was silent for a long time. The tapping of her slipper-shod foot was the only sound in the room as they all waited for her to speak. At last she said, “This is not the first time you have presented me with a perplexing issue, Julian Blackthorn, and I suspect it will not be the last.”

“It shouldn’t be perplexing,” said Julian. “It’s the Black Volume. And you said if we gave you the Black Volume, you would help us.”

“Not quite,” said the Queen. “I recall making promises, but some may no longer be relevant.”

“I am asking you to remember that you promised us aid,” said Julian. “I am asking you to help us find Annabel Blackthorn here in Faerie.”

“We’re already here to find her,” Emma said. “We don’t need this—this—person’s help.” She glared at the Queen.

“We have a map that barely works,” said Julian. “The Queen will have spies all over Faerie. It could take us weeks to find Annabel. We could wander in Faerie forever while our food runs out. The Queen could lead us right to her. Nothing happens in this realm she doesn’t know about.”

The Queen smirked. “And what do you want of Annabel when you find her? The second Black Volume?”

“Yes,” said Julian. “You can keep this copy. I need to take the original Black Volume back with me to Idris to prove to the Clave that it’s no longer in the hands of Annabel Blackthorn.” He paused. “And I want revenge. Pure and simple revenge.”

“There is nothing simple about vengeance, and nothing pure,” said the Queen, but her eyes glittered with interest.

If the Queen knew so much, why didn’t she just go kill Annabel and take the Black Volume? Emma wondered. Because of the involvement of the Unseelie Court? But she kept her mouth shut—it was clear she and Julian were in no way in agreement on the Queen.

“Before, you wished for an army,” said the Queen. “Now you only want me to find Annabel for you?”

“It’s a better bargain for you,” said Julian, and Emma noticed that he hadn’t said “yes.” He wanted more than this from the Queen.

“Perhaps, but I will not be the final word on this volume’s merit,” said the Queen. “I must have an expert agree first. And you must remain in the Court until that is done.”

“No!” Emma said. “We will not stay an unspecified amount of time in Faerie.” She spun on Julian. “That’s how they get you! Unspecified amounts of time!”

“I will watch over the two of you,” said Nene unexpectedly. “For the sake of Mark. I will watch over you and make sure no harm comes to you.”

The Queen shot Nene an unfriendly look before returning her gaze to Emma and Julian. “What do you say?”