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

It was Annabel Blackthorn.

Memory surged in the back of Emma’s throat, a bitter wave. Annabel on the dais in the Council Hall. Annabel, her eyes wild, driving the shards of the Mortal Sword into Livvy’s chest. Annabel covered in blood, the dais swimming with it, Julian holding Livvy in his arms.

Beside Emma, Julian sucked in a harsh, choking breath. He had gone rigid. Emma grabbed his shoulder. It felt like granite: unyielding, inhuman.

His hand was at his belt, on the hilt of a shortsword. His eyes were fixed on Annabel. His whole body was tense with barely leashed energy.

He’s going to kill her. Emma knew it the way she knew each of his next moves in a fight, the rhythm of his breath in battle. She tugged at him, pulling him around to face her, though it was like trying to move a boulder.

“No.” She spoke in a harsh whisper. “You can’t. Not now.”

Julian was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. “Let me go, Emma.”

“She can see us,” Emma hissed. “She’s not a faerie. She will see us coming, Julian.”

He looked at her with wild eyes.

“She’ll raise the alarm, and we’ll be stopped. If you try to kill Annabel now, we’ll both be caught. And we’ll never get the Black Volume back.”

“She needs to die for what she did.” Two harsh red dots burned on his cheekbones. “Let me kill her and the King can keep the goddamn book—”

Emma caught at his cloak. “We’ll both die here if you try!”

Julian was silent, his fingers closing and unclosing at his side. The red glow above his parabatai rune flared like fire, and black lines chased through it, as if it were glass about to shatter.

“Would you really choose revenge over Tavvy and Dru and Ty?” Emma shook him, hard, and let go. “Would you want them to know that you did?”

Julian sagged back against a rock. He shook his head slowly, as if in disbelief, but the red glow around him had dimmed. Maybe the mention of the Blackthorn kids had been a low blow, Emma thought, but she didn’t care; it was worth it to keep Julian from flinging himself headlong into suicide. Her legs were still shaking as she turned around to peer at the throne room through a gap in the rocks.

Annabel and the boy had approached the throne. Annabel looked nothing like she had before—she wore a dress of bleached linen, gathered under her bosom, falling to brush her ankles. Her hair fell down her back in a smooth river. She looked quiet and ordinary and harmless. She held the hand of the boy in the crown carefully, as if ready to shield him from harm if necessary.

They were still surrounded by Unseelie guards in gold and black. The King smiled at them with half his face, a horrible smile. “Annabel,” said the King. “Ash. I have had this day some interesting tidings.”

Ash. Emma stared at the boy. So this was the Seelie Queen’s son. He had silver-fair hair and deep green eyes like forest leaves; he wore a high-collared velvet tunic and the golden band around his forehead was a smaller version of the King’s. He was probably no more than Dru’s age, thin in a way that didn’t look healthy, and there was a bruise on his cheek. He carried himself with the same straight posture Kieran did. Princes probably weren’t supposed to slump.

He looked familiar in a way she couldn’t quite place. Was it just that he resembled his mother?

“This day I have had a visit from the Queen of the Seelie Court,” said the King.

Ash lifted his head sharply. “What did my mother want?”

“As you know, she has long bargained for your return, and only today she has brought me what I asked for.” The King sat forward and spoke with relish. “The Black Volume of the Dead.”

“That’s impossible,” said Annabel, her pale cheeks flushing. “I have the Black Volume. The Queen is a liar.”

The King tapped two gloved fingers against his bony cheek. “Is she,” he mused. “It is something of an interesting philosophical question, isn’t it? What is a book? Is it the binding, the ink, the pages, or the sum of the words contained?”

Annabel frowned. “I don’t understand.”

The King drew the copy of the Black Volume from where it had rested at his side. He held it up so that Annabel and Ash could see it. “This is a copy of the Black Volume of the Dead,” he said. “The book that is also called the Dark Artifices, for it contains within it some of the most formidable magic ever recorded.” He caressed the front page. “The Queen says it is an exact duplicate. It was made with the assistance of a wizard of great power called OfficeMax, of whom I know nothing.”

“Jesus Christ,” Julian muttered.

“The Queen has left it with me for the span of a single day,” said the King, “that I might decide whether I wish to trade Ash for it. I have sworn to return it to her at the rising of the sun tomorrow morning.”

“The Queen is deceiving you.” Annabel drew Ash closer to her side. “She would trick you into trading Ash for this—this flawed copy.”

“Perhaps.” The King’s eyes were hooded. “I have yet to make my decision. But you, Annabel, you also have your decisions to make. I have observed that you’ve become very close to Ash. I suspect you would miss him if you were parted. Is that not true?”

A thunderous expression had come across Annabel’s face, but for a moment Emma was more interested in Ash’s. There was a look in his eyes that made him seem more familiar to her than ever. A sort of coldness, astonishing in someone so young.

“But you need Ash,” said Annabel. “You’ve said so a dozen times. You require him as your weapon.” She spoke with contempt. “You have already worked magics upon him since you took him from his mother’s Court. If you give him back—”

The King leaned back in his stone seat. “I will not give him back. The Queen will see reason. It will take some time for the Black Volume to work its will upon Ash. But when it has, we will no longer need the Portal. He will be able to spread blight and destruction with his very hands. The Queen hates Shadowhunters as much as I do. Within a month, their precious land of Idris will look like this—”

He gestured at the window set in the wall. Suddenly the view through the glass changed—in fact, there was no glass. It was as if a hole had been torn in the world, and through it Emma could see a view of a blowing desert and a gray sky scorched with lightning. The sand was stained red with blood, and broken trees stood scarecrow-like against the acidic horizon.

“That’s not our world,” Julian murmured. “It’s another dimension—like Edom—but Edom was destroyed—”

Emma couldn’t stop staring. Human figures, half-covered by the sand; the white of bone. “Julian, I can see bodies—”

The King waved his hand again, and the Portal turned dark. “As Thule is now, so Idris will be.”

Thule? The word was familiar. Emma frowned.

“You think you’ll be able to convince the Queen to endanger her child just for power,” said Annabel. “Not everyone is like you.”

“But the Queen is,” said the Unseelie King. “I know it, because Ash would not be the first.” He grinned a skeleton grin. “Annabel Blackthorn, you have toyed with me because I have allowed it. You have no true power here.”

“I know your name,” Annabel gasped. “Malcolm told it to me. I can force you—”

“You will die the moment the name leaves your lips, and Ash will die after,” said the King. “But because I do not wish bloodshed, I will give you one night to decide. Give me the true Black Volume, and you may remain here with Ash and be his guardian. If not, I shall join forces with the Queen instead and drive you from my lands, and you will never see Ash again.”

Ash pulled away from Annabel’s restraining hands. “What if I say no? What if I refuse?”

The King turned his red gaze on the boy. “You are a perfect candidate for the Dark Artifices,” he said. “But in the end, do you truly think I would stop at harming Sebastian Morgenstern’s brat?”

The name was like a blow. Sebastian Morgenstern. But how—