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

Ethna laughed unpleasantly. “Shiver all you want,” she said. “There is no escape here, and no pity.” She took Emma’s weapons belt from her waist and forced her to remove the Clave’s gold medallion from her throat. Emma cast Julian a panicked look—nothing would prevent them from suffering the time slippage in Faerie now.

Furious, Emma was shoved into a cell through a gap in the vines. To her relief, Julian followed a moment later. She had been afraid they would be separated and that she would go out of her mind alone. He was also weaponless. He turned to glare at the Riders as Ethna tapped the end of her sword against the cage; the vines that had parted quickly slithered and twisted together, closing up any possibility of an exit.

Ethna was grinning. The look of triumph on her face made Emma’s stomach twist acidly. “Little Shadowhunters,” she crooned. “What does all your angel blood avail you now?”

“Come, sister,” said Eochaid, though he was smiling indulgently. “The King awaits.”

Ethna spat on the ground before turning to follow her brother. Their footsteps faded away, and there was darkness and silence—cold, pressuring silence. Only a little dim illumination came from smoky torches high up on the walls.

The strength left Emma’s limbs like water pouring out of a broken dam. She sank to the ground in the center of the cage, cringing away from the thorns all around her.

“Julian,” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

He dropped to his knees. She could see where goose bumps had risen all over his skin. The bloody bandage around his wrist seemed to glow like a phantom in the dark.

“I got us in here,” he said. “I’ll get us out.”

Emma opened her mouth to protest, but no words came; it was close enough to the truth. The old Julian, her Julian, would have listened when she’d said she sensed the situation outside Ash’s room wasn’t right. He would have trusted her instinct. For the first time she felt something close to true mourning for that Julian, as if this Julian wasn’t just temporary—as if her Julian might never come back.

“Do you care?” she said.

“You think I want to die in here?” he said. “I still have a self-preservation instinct, Emma, and that means preserving you, too. And I know—I know I’m a better Shadowhunter than I just was.”

“Being a Shadowhunter isn’t just in fast reflexes or strong muscles.” She pressed her hand against his heart, the linen of his shirt soft against her fingers. “It’s here.” Here where you’re broken.

His blue-green eyes seemed the only color in the prison; even the vines of their cell were metallic gray. “Emma—”

“It is them!” said a voice, and Emma jumped as light flared all around them. And not just any light. White-silver light, radiating from the cell opposite theirs; she could see it now, in the new illumination. Two figures stood inside, staring at them through the vines, and one of them held a glowing rune-stone in her hand.

“Witchlight,” breathed Julian, rising to his feet.

“Julian? Emma?” called the same voice—familiar, and full of surprise and relief. The witchlight grew, and Emma could see the figures in the opposite cell clearly now. She bolted upright with astonishment. “It’s us—it’s Jace and Clary.”





16


A THOUSAND THRONES


Oban and his guards had led Mark and Kieran blindfolded through the tower, so if there were more reactions to Kieran’s presence, Mark had been unable to note them. He had, however, heard Manuel and Oban laughing about what the King was likely to do to Kieran, and to Mark as well, and he had struggled against his manacles in rage. How dare they speak that way when Kieran could hear them? Why would anyone take pleasure in such torture?

They had been led finally to a windowless stone room and left there, their hands still manacled. Oban had torn their blindfolds from them as he walked out of the room, laughing. “Look one last time upon each other before you die.”

And Mark did look at Kieran now, in the dim room. Though there were no windows, light filtered down from a grating far above. The room was close, oppressive as the bottom of an elevator shaft.

“It is meant to be horrible,” Kieran said, answering the question Mark had not asked. “This is where the King keeps prisoners prior to bringing them before the throne. It is meant to terrify.”

“Kieran.” Mark moved closer to the other boy. “It will be all right.”

Kieran smiled painfully. “That is what I love about mortals,” he said. “That you can say such things, for comfort, whether they be true or not.”

“What did that girl give you?” Mark said. Kieran’s hair was blue-black in the shadows. “The little girl, on the steps.”

“A flower.” Kieran’s hands were bound in front of him; he opened one and showed Mark the crushed white bloom. “A white daffodil.”

“Forgiveness,” Mark said. Kieran looked at him in puzzlement; his education had not been flower-focused. “Flowers have their own meanings. A white daffodil means forgiveness.”

Kieran let the flower fall from his hand. “I heard the words those people said as I went through the courtyard,” he said. “And I do not remember.”

“Do you think your father made you forget?” Mark’s hands had begun to ache.

“No. I think it did not matter to me. I think I was kind because I was a prince and arrogant and careless and it suited me to be kind, but I could just as easily have been cruel. I do not remember saving a farm or a child. I was drunk on an easy life in those days. I should not be thanked or forgiven.”

“Kieran—”

“And during the Hunt, I thought only of myself.” White threads shot through Kieran’s dark hair. He let his head fall back against the stone wall.

“No,” said Mark. “You thought of me. You were kind to me.”

“I wanted you,” Kieran said, a hard twist to his mouth. “I was kind to you because it benefited me in the end.”

Mark shook his head. “When mortals say that things will be all right, it is not only for comfort,” he said. “In part it is because we do not, as faeries do, believe in an absolute truth. We bring our own truth to the world. Because I believe things will be all right, I will be less unhappy and afraid. And because you are angry at yourself, you believe that everything you have done, you have done out of selfishness.”

“I have been selfish,” Kieran protested. “I—”

“We are all selfish sometimes,” said Mark. “And I am not saying you have nothing to atone for. Perhaps you were a selfish prince, but you were not a cruel one. You had power and you chose to use it to be kind. You could have chosen the opposite. Do not dismiss the choices you made. They were not meaningless.”

“Why do you try to comfort and cheer me?” Kieran said in a dry voice, as if his throat ached. “I was angry with you when you agreed to return to your family from the Hunt—I told you none of it was real—”

“As if I did not know why you said that,” said Mark. “I heard you, in the Hunt. When they whipped you, when you were tormented, you would whisper to yourself that none of it was real. As if to say the pain was all a dream. It was a gift you meant to give me—the gift of escaping agony, of retreating into a place in your mind where you were safe.”

“I thought the Shadowhunters were cruel. I thought they would hurt you,” said Kieran. “With you, with your family, I have learned differently. I thought I loved you in the Hunt, Mark, but that was a shadow of what I feel for you now, knowing what loving-kindness you are capable of.”

The elf-bolt at his throat shone as it rose and fell with his quick breathing.

“In the Hunt, you needed me,” said Kieran. “You needed me so much I never knew if you would want me, if you did not need me. Do you?”

Mark stumbled a little, moving closer to Kieran. His wrists were burning fire, but he didn’t care. He pressed close to Kieran, and Kieran’s bound hands caught at Mark’s waist, fumbling to pull Mark closer to him. His heels lifted off the ground as he leaned into Kieran, the two of them trying to get as close as possible, to comfort each other despite their bound hands.