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

“But we’re the first Shadowhunters,” said Emma, with a bravado she didn’t feel. She slashed at the hedge. Thorns pattered down around her in a light rain.

Light began to fade as she pushed on, farther into the hedge. It was as thick as the lane of a highway, and the vines seemed to weave together above her, forming a shield against the sunlight. She thought she heard Julian call out to her, but his voice was muffled. She glanced back in surprise—and stiffened in horror.

The hedge had closed up behind her like water. She was surrounded by a thick green-gray wall, studded with deadly spikes. She slashed out wildly with her dagger, but the edge of it bounced off the nearest thorn with a clang, as if it were made of steel.

A sharp pain stabbed at her chest. The vines were moving, pressing in toward Emma slowly. The sharp tip of one jabbed her above her heart; another stabbed at her wrist; she jerked her hand away, dropping the dagger; she had more in her pack, but there was no way she could reach them now. Her heart was pounding as the vines surged toward her; she could see flashes of white through the vines as they moved, others who had been trapped in the heart of the hedge wall.

The tip of a thorn slashed along her cheek and blood ran warmly down her face. Emma shrank back, and more thorns stabbed into her back and shoulders. I’m going to die, she thought, her thoughts blackening with terror.

But Shadowhunters weren’t meant to be afraid, weren’t meant to feel fear. In her mind, Emma begged the forgiveness of her parents, her parabatai, her friends. She had always thought she’d die in battle, not be crushed to death by a thousand blades, alone and without Cortana in her hand.

Something stabbed into her throat. She twisted, trying to pull away from the agony; she heard Julian call her name—

Something slammed into her palm. Her fingers closed reflexively around it, her body knowing the feel of the sword’s hilt before her mind registered what she was holding.

It was a sword. A sword with a white blade, like a slice cut out of the moon. She recognized it immediately from illustrations in old books: It was Durendal, the sword of Roland, brother blade to Cortana.

There was no time to ask questions. Against the thorns, she swung her arm up, Durendal a silvery blur. There was a scream, as of twisting metal, as Durendal sliced through thorns and vines. Sap sprayed, stinging Emma’s open cuts, but she didn’t care; she cut again and again, the blade whipsawing in her hand, and the vines fell away around her. The hedge writhed as if in pain and the vines began to draw back as if afraid of Durendal. A path opened both ahead of her and behind her, like the parting of the Red Sea. Emma fled through the narrow gap between the vines, calling for Julian to follow her.

She exploded out the other side into a world of color and light and noise: green grass, blue sky, the distant sounds of the procession advancing to the tower. She fell to her knees, still clutching Durendal. Her hands were slicked with blood and sap; she was gasping, bleeding from long rents in her tunic.

A shadow darkened the sky above her. It was Julian. He fell to his knees across from her, his face bone white. He caught at her shoulders and Emma held back a wince. Having his hands on her was more than worth the pain, as was the look on his face. “Emma,” he said. “That was incredible. How—?”

She held up the sword. “Durendal came to me,” she said. Blood from her cuts pattered down onto the blade as it began to shimmer and fade. In a moment, she was holding only empty air, her fingers still curved around the place the golden hilt had been. “I needed Cortana, and it sent Durendal to me.”

“?‘I am of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal,’??” Julian murmured. “Twinned blades. Interesting.” He released her shoulders and tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his tunic, wadding it up to press against the cut on her cheek with a surprising gentleness.

Joy surged through her, brighter than her pain. She knew he couldn’t love her, but in that moment it felt as if he did.

*

“Mother?” Aline said. “Mother, are you there?”

Helen squinted. She was seated on the desk in the Institute’s office, Aline next to her. Jia seemed to be trying to appear as a Projection against the far wall, but at the moment she was just a rather wobbly shadow, like an image taken with a handheld camera.

“Ma!” Aline exclaimed, clearly exasperated. “Could you please appear? We really need to talk to you.”

Jia sharpened at the edges. Now Helen could see her, still in her Consul robes. She looked drawn, so thin as to be worryingly emaciated.

The texture of the wall was still visible through her, but she was solid enough for Helen to read her expression: It mirrored her daughter’s in annoyance. “It isn’t easy to Project from the Gard,” she said. “We could have spoken on the phone.”

“I wanted to see you,” said Aline. There was a slight tremble in her voice. “I needed to know what’s going on with this Registry. Why did the Council pass this piece of trash?”

“Horace—” Jia began.

Aline’s voice cracked. “Where were you, Mom? How did you let this happen?”

“I did not let it happen,” Jia said. “Horace lied to me. A very significant meeting was set up this morning, a meeting with Sister Cleophas of the Iron Sisters about the Mortal Sword.”

“Is it fixed?” said Aline, diverted momentarily.

“They have made no progress reforging it. It was created by angels, not humans, and perhaps only an angel can heal it.” Jia sighed. “Horace was meant to run a very standard meeting about border protocols while I was at the Adamant Citadel. Instead it became this fiasco.”

“I just don’t understand how he convinced people that this was a good idea,” Helen said.

Jia had begun to pace. Her shadow wobbled up and down the wall like a puppet being pulled back and forth on a stage. “Horace should never have been a politician. He should have had a career in the theater. He played upon everyone’s worst fears. He sent a spy into Faerie and when he came to harm, claimed he was an innocent, murdered child. He claimed Kieran Kingson drove Samantha Larkspear mad—”

“Mark told me she went out of her mind because she fell into the pool in the Hollow Place while the Cohort was tormenting Kieran,” said Helen indignantly. “She tried to murder him.”

Jia looked bleakly amused. “Should I ask where Kieran is now?”

“Back in Faerie,” said Aline. “Now, you should tell me where Horace is now so I can punch him harder than he’s ever been punched in his life.”

“Punching him won’t help,” said Jia. This was a conversation she and Aline had often. “I have to think about how to take constructive steps to undo the damage he’s done.”

“Why did he arrest the Scholomance kids?” Helen said. “According to Mark, Rayan and Divya and Diego were the most decent of the Centurions.”

“To make an example of them. ‘This is what happens if you help Downworlders,’?” said Jia.

“We can’t actually register people,” said Aline. “It’s inhumane. That’s what I’m going to tell the Clave.”

Jia’s Projection fizzed angrily at the edges. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “Haven’t you heard what I just said? Dearborn has it in for Helen because of her faerie blood. You’ll wind up in jail if you do, and someone more compliant will be installed in your place. You have to at least look like you’re going along with it.”