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

Kieran looked up, his eyes like shining polished mirrors: one black, one silver. “I think I could sleep in the bed if you stayed with me.”

Cristina turned bright red. “All right,” she said. “I’ll say good night then—”

“No,” Kieran said quickly. “I mean both of you. I want both of you to stay with me.”

Mark and Cristina exchanged a look. It was the first time, Mark thought, that he had really looked at Cristina since they’d come back from the Vasquez Rocks: He’d felt too awkward, too ashamed of his own confusion. Now he realized she looked just as flushed and puzzled as he did.

Kieran’s shoulders sagged slightly. “If you do not want to, I will understand.”

It was Cristina who kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed beside Kieran. She was still wearing her jeans and tank top, one strap torn by a Harpyia demon. Mark got into the bed on the other side of Kieran, pillowing his head on his hand.

They lay there for long moments in silence. The warmth from Kieran’s body was familiar—so familiar it was hard not to curl up against him. To pull the blankets up over them, to forget everything in the darkness.

But Cristina was there, and her presence seemed to change the makeup of the atoms in the air, the chemical balance between Kieran and Mark. It was no longer possible to fall into forgetting. This moment was now, and Mark was sharply aware of Kieran’s nearness in a way he had not been since they first met, as if the clock had been rewound on their relationship.

And he was aware of Cristina as well, no less sharply. Awkward, shy wanting anchored him in place. He glanced over at her; he could see the gleam of her dark hair against the pillow, one bare brown shoulder. Heat muddled Mark’s head, his thoughts.

“I shall dream of the Borderlands,” said Kieran. “Adaon had a cottage there, in lands neither Seelie nor Unseelie. A little stone place, with roses climbing the walls. In the Hunt, when I was hungry and cold, I would say to myself, none of this is real, and try to make the cottage real in my mind. I would pretend I was there, looking out the windows, and not where I truly was. It became more real to me than reality was.”

Cristina touched his cheek lightly. “Ya duérmete,” she murmured. “Go to sleep, you silly person.”

Mark couldn’t help smiling. “Has anyone else ever called you a silly person before, Prince Kieran?” he whispered as Cristina closed her eyes to sleep.

But Kieran was looking over at Cristina, his dark hair tangled, his eyes soft with weariness and something else.

“I think she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he said in a ruminative voice.

“I have always thought the same,” said Mark.

“You are different with each other now,” Kieran said. “It is clear to see. You were together while I was away.”

It was not something Mark would have ever lied about. “That is true.”

Kieran reached out, touched Mark’s hair. A light touch, sending a shower of sparks down through Mark’s body. Kieran’s mouth was a sleepy, soft curve. “I hoped you would be,” he said. “The thought gave me comfort while I was in the Scholomance.”

Kieran curled into the blankets and closed his eyes, but Mark remained awake for a long time, staring into the dark.





12


BENEATH THE SKY


Mark, Kieran, and Cristina were in the library, packing for their departure to Faerie. Everyone else was there too; at least, everyone except Dru, who had taken Tavvy down to the beach to keep him distracted. Kit doubted she’d actually want to watch them preparing to leave anyway.

Kit felt bad for her—her eyes had still been red when she’d set out with Tavvy and a duffel bag full of toys and sand buckets, though she’d kept her voice cheerful when promising Tavvy she’d help him make a sandcastle city.

But he felt worse for Ty.

It wasn’t just that Mark was going back to Faerie. That was bad enough. It was why he was going. When Mark and Helen had explained that Emma and Julian were on a mission in the Undying Lands and needed assistance, Kit had tensed all over with panic. Ty didn’t just love Julian, he needed him the way kids needed their parents. On top of what had happened to Livvy, how would he deal with it?

They had been in the kitchen, in the early morning, the room flooded with sun. The table still scattered with the remains of breakfast, Dru teasing Tavvy by making mini seraph blades out of pieces of toast and dunking them in jelly. Then Aline had gotten up at some unspoken signal from Helen and taken Tavvy out of the room, promising to show him her favorite illustrated book in the library.

And then Helen had explained what was going on. Mark and Cristina had interjected occasionally, but Kieran had stood quietly by the window while they talked, his dark blue hair threaded through with white.

When they were done, Drusilla was crying quietly. Ty sat in absolute silence, but Kit could see that his right hand, under the table, was moving like a pianist’s, his fingers stretching and curling. He wondered if Ty had forgotten his hand toys—the Internet called them stim toys or stimming objects. He glanced around for something he could hand to Ty, as Mark leaned forward and lightly touched his younger brother’s face.

“Tiberius,” he said. “And Drusilla. I know this must be hard for you, but we will bring Julian back and then we will all be together again.”

Dru smiled faintly at him. Don’t say that, Kit thought. What if you can’t bring him back? What if he dies there in Faerie? Making promises you can’t keep is worse than making no promises at all.

Ty stood up and walked out of the kitchen without a word. Kit started to push his chair back, and hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t go after Ty. Maybe Ty wouldn’t want him to. When he glanced up, he saw that Mark and Cristina were both looking at him—in fact, Kieran was too, with his eerie light-and-dark eyes.

“You should go after him,” Mark said. “You’re the one he wants.”

Kit blinked and stood up. Cristina gave him an encouraging smile as he headed out of the kitchen.

Ty hadn’t gone far; he was in the corridor just outside, leaning back against the wall. His eyes were closed, his lips moving silently. He had a retractable pen in his right hand and was clicking the top of it, over and over, snap snap.

“Are you okay?” Kit said, hovering awkwardly just outside the kitchen door.

Ty opened his eyes and looked toward Kit. “Yeah.”

Kit didn’t say anything. It seemed desperately unlikely to him in that moment that Ty was actually okay. It was too much. Losing Livvy, and now the fear of losing Julian and Mark—and Emma and Cristina. He felt as if he were witnessing the burning away of the Blackthorn family. As if the destruction that Malcolm had wished on them was happening now, even after Malcolm was gone, and they would all be lost, one by one.

But not Ty. Please don’t do this to Ty. He’s good, he deserves better.

Not that people always got what they deserved, Kit knew. It was one of the first things he’d ever learned about life.

“I am okay,” Ty said, as if he could hear Kit’s doubts. “I have to be okay for Livvy. And if anything happens to Mark or to Julian or Emma in Faerie, that’s okay too, because we can bring them all back. We have the Black Volume. We can bring them back.”

Kit stared; his mind felt full of white noise and shock. Ty didn’t mean it, he told himself. He couldn’t mean it. The kitchen door opened behind him and Mark came out; he said something Kit didn’t hear and then he went to Ty and put his arms around him.