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

Julian.

He had thrown himself onto Ethna and was kneeling on her back, stabbing her over and over with something clutched in his fist. Emma realized with a shock that it was the iron figurine that Simon had given to him. Ethna was screaming, trying to writhe away from the iron. Emma whirled around: The room was blazing with fire, the boulders glowing like red-hot coals. Hot pain stabbed her side; a coal had landed on the sleeve of her jacket. She yanked it off furiously and stomped on it, putting the fire out. Sorry, Clary.

She thought she could still see the dim figures of the others through the smoke. The surface of the Portal seemed to ripple like melting glass.

“Julian!” she screamed, and held out her hand. “Leave her! We have to get to the others!”

He looked up, his eyes wild with rage, and Ethna wrenched away from him with a yelp of anger and pain. Julian landed on his feet, already racing toward Emma. Together they fled toward the sound of Cristina’s voice, rising and desperate, shouting their names. Emma thought she could hear Mark, too, and the others—

A sheet of flame blazed up from the ground, knocking them backward. They swung around, looking for a way around it, and Emma gasped: Ethna and Eochaid were striding toward them, Ethna bloodied and glaring, Eochaid gleaming and deadly.

The Riders were at the heart of their power. Emma and Julian were starving, exhausted, and weakened. Emma’s heart sank.

“Cristina!” she screamed. “Go! Go! Get out of here!”

Julian caught hold of her wrist. “There’s only one way.”

His eyes flicked toward the wall—she tensed, then nodded—and the two of them took off running, just as the Riders began to raise their blades.

Emma heard them cry out in confusion and disappointed bloodlust. She didn’t care; the Portal was looming up in front of her like the dark window of a high-rise building, all shadow and gleam.

She reached it and leaped, Julian’s hand in hers, and together they sailed through the Portal.

*

Diego wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the barren stone cell. There were no windows, no sense of time passing. He knew Rayan and Divya were in the same prison, but the thick stone walls of the cells kept them from being able to shout or call to each other.

It was almost a relief when there were footsteps in the corridor and—instead of the usual guard who came twice a day with a plate of bland food—Zara appeared, resplendent in Centurion gear. He would have thought she would be smirking, but she was oddly expressionless. Cortana was strapped to her side, and she caressed its hilt absently as she looked at him through the bars, as if she were stroking the head of a dog.

“My dear fiancé,” she said. “How are you finding the accommodations? Not too cold and unwelcoming?”

He said nothing. The rune of Quietude the Cohort had put on him had been removed almost immediately after the meeting, but that didn’t mean he had anything to talk to Zara about.

“And to think,” she went on. “If you’d played your cards a little differently, you might have been living in the Gard tower with me.”

“And that wouldn’t have been cold and unwelcoming?” spat Diego. “Living with someone I hate?”

She flinched a little. Diego was surprised. Surely she knew they hated each other?

“You have no right or reason to hate me,” she said. “I’m the one who was betrayed. You were a convenient marriage prospect. Now you’re a traitor. It would shame me to marry you.”

Diego let his head fall back against the wall. “Good,” he said wearily. “You have taken everything from me. At least I no longer have to pretend to love you.”

Her lips tightened. “I know you never intended to go through with the marriage. You were just trying to buy time for your vigilante brother. Still—I’ll make you a deal. You claim Jaime still has the faerie artifact. We want it. It should be in government hands.” Her lips twisted into an ugly smirk. “If you tell us where to find it, I’ll pardon you.”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” said Diego. “And carrying that sword around won’t make you Emma Carstairs.”

She glared at him. “You shouldn’t have said that. Or the thing about how I’ve taken everything from you already. You still have a lot left to lose.” She turned her head. “Milo? Bring the second prisoner forward.”

There was a blur of movement in the shadowy corridor, and the cell door opened. Diego strained forward as a dark figure was hurled into the cell alongside him.

Milo slammed the door shut and locked it as the new arrival groaned and sat up. Diego’s heart turned over in his chest. Even bruised and bloody, with his lip cut and a burn scar on his cheek, he would recognize his younger brother anywhere.

“Jaime,” he breathed.

“He seems to know no more about the artifact than you do,” said Zara. “But then, without the Mortal Sword, we can’t make him tell the truth. So we have to fall back on more old-fashioned methods of dealing with liars and traitors.” She traced the hilt of Cortana with loving fingertips. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Jaime,” Diego said again. The ceiling was too low for him to stand up; he crawled across the floor to his brother, pulling Jaime against him.

Jaime, half-conscious, lolled against his shoulder, his eyes almost slitted shut. His clothes were torn and wet with blood. Diego felt a cold fear at his heart: What wounds lay underneath?

“Hola, hermano,” Jaime whispered.

“During his discussions with the Inquisitor about the location of the artifact, your brother became overexcited. He needed to be subdued.” Now Zara did smile. “The guards accidentally, shall we say, injured him. It would be a shame if his injuries were to become infected or if he were to die because he lacked proper medical care.”

“Give me a stele,” hissed Diego. He had never hated anyone more than he hated Zara in that moment. “He needs an iratze.”

“Give me the artifact,” said Zara. “And he can have one.”

Diego said nothing. He had no idea where the Eternidad was, the heirloom that Jaime had suffered so much to protect. He held his brother tighter, his lips pressed together. He would not beg Zara for mercy.

“No?” she preened. “As you like. Perhaps when your brother is screaming with fever you will feel differently. Call upon me, Diego dear, if you ever change your mind.”

*

Manuel strode into the throne room, smirking, Oban on his heels.

Manuel couldn’t help the smirking; as he sometimes told people, it was just the natural expression of his face. It was true that he also liked chaos, though, and right now, there was chaos aplenty to please him.

The throne room looked charred, the rock walls and floor smeared with black ash. The place reeked of blood and sulfur. Bodies of redcaps were strewn on the floor, one covered by an expensive-looking tapestry. On a far wall, the shrinking Portal showed a beach at night, under a red moon.

Oban clicked his tongue, which Manuel had learned was the faerie equivalent of letting out a low whistle. “What happened in here? It looks like the aftermath of one of my more famous parties.”

Manuel poked at the tapestry-covered mound with his toe.

“And the fields outside are full of fleeing Seelie fey, now that their Queen is gone,” Oban went on. “Manuel, I demand an explanation. Where is my father?”

Winter, the somber redcap leader, came over to them. He was streaked with blood and ash. “Prince,” he said. “Your father lies here.”

He indicated the mound Manuel was poking with his toe. Manuel bent over and yanked the tapestry back. The thing beneath did not look human, or fey, or as if it had ever lived at all. It was the blackened, crumbling outline of a man drawn in ash, its face a rictus. Something gleamed at its throat.