Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Luke, I am your father,” she muttered, and heard Julian laugh softly. She staggered off to find her gear so she wouldn’t have to watch him getting up adorably sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired. She changed in the office while Julian showered and dressed; they met up for a quick breakfast of toast and juice, and were off to find Annabel.

It was nearly noon and the sun was high in the sky by the time they made it to Porthallow Church—apparently what was close for piskies wasn’t what humans would call nearby. Though Emma kept hearing the high voice of the piskie in her head. Killing close, it had said. Whatever that meant, she didn’t like the sound of it.

The church had been built on a cliff over a headland. The sea spread out in the distance, a carpet of matte blue. Clouds brushstroked across the sky, like a ball of cotton someone had picked apart and scattered. The air was full of the hum of bees and the scent of late wildflowers.

The area around the church was overgrown, but the building itself was in decent shape despite having been abandoned. The windows had been carefully boarded up, and a KEEP OUT: PRIVATE PROPERTY: YOU ARE TRESPASSING sign was nailed to the front door. Some small distance from the church was a little graveyard, its gray, rain-washed tombstones barely visible among the long grass. The church’s single square tower was cast in lonely relief against the sky. Emma adjusted Cortana on her back and glanced over at Julian, who was frowning down at her phone.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“Wikipedia. ‘Porthallow Church is located above the sea, on the cliff-top at Talland near Polperro in Cornwall. The altar of the church is said to date from the time of King Mark, of Tristan and Isolde fame, and was built at the junction of ley lines.’?”

“Wikipedia knows about ley lines?” Emma took her phone back.

“Wikipedia knows about everything. It might be run by warlocks.”

“You think that’s what they do all day in the Spiral Labyrinth? Run Wikipedia?”

“I admit it seems like a letdown.”

Tucking the phone in her pocket, Emma indicated the church. “So this is another convergence?”

Julian shook his head. “A convergence is where every ley line in the area links up. This is a junction—two ley lines crossing. Still a powerful place.” In the bright sunshine he drew a seraph blade from his belt, holding it against his side as they approached the church entrance.

“Do you know what you’re going to say to Annabel?” Emma whispered.

“Not a clue,” Julian said. “I guess I’ll—” He broke off. There was something in his eyes: a troubled look.

“Is something wrong?” Emma asked.

They’d reached the church doors. “No,” Julian said, after a long moment, and though Emma could tell he didn’t mean it, she let it slide. She drew Cortana from her back, just in case.

Julian shouldered the doors open. The small lock holding them shut burst apart, and they were inside, Julian a few steps ahead of Emma. It was pitch-black inside the abandoned church. “Arariel,” he murmured, and his seraph blade lit like a small bonfire, illuminating the interior.

A stone arcade ran along one side of the church, the pews nestled between the arches. The stone was carved with delicate designs of leaves. The nave and the transept, where the altar was usually located, were deep in shadow.

Emma heard Julian draw in his breath. “This is where Malcolm raised Annabel,” he said. “I remember it from the scrying glass. This is where Arthur died.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Julian lowered his head. “Ave atque vale, Arthur Blackthorn.” His voice was full of sorrow. “You died bravely and for your family.”

“Jules . . .” She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he had already straightened up, any sorrow he felt cloaked beneath the mantle of being Nephilim.

“I don’t know why Annabel would want to stay here,” he said, sweeping the light of his seraph blade over the church’s interior. It was thick with dust. “It can’t be a spot with good memories for her.”

“But if she’s desperate for a hiding place . . .”

“Look.” Julian indicated the altar, propped on a granite slab a few feet thick. It had a wooden top laid over the stone, and something flashed white against the wood. A folded piece of paper, pinned there by a knife.

Julian’s name was scrawled on it in a feminine dark hand.

Emma ripped the paper away and handed it to Jules, who flicked it open quickly, holding it where they could both read by the light of Julian’s blade.

Julian,

You may consider this in the nature of a test. If you are here, reading this note, you have failed it.

Emma heard Julian draw in his breath. They read on:

I told the piskies that I was living here, in the church. It is not true. I would not remain where so much blood has spilled. But I knew that you could not leave my whereabouts alone, that you would ask the piskies where I was, that you would search me out.

Though I had asked you not to.

Now you are here in this place. I wish you were not, for I was not the only thing that was raised by Malcolm Fade and your uncle’s blood. But you had to see what the Black Volume can do.

—Annabel

Cristina was sitting in the embrasure of the library window, reading, when she glanced out the window and saw a familiar dark figure slipping through the front gates.

She’d been in the library for several hours, dutifully going through the books in the languages she knew best—Spanish, Ancient Greek, Old Castilian, and Aramaic—for mentions of the Black Volume. Not that she could concentrate.

Memories of the night before kept hitting her at odd moments, like when she was passing the sugar to Ty and nearly spilled it in his lap. Had she really kissed Mark? Danced with Kieran? Enjoyed dancing with Kieran?

No, she thought, she’d be truthful with herself: She had enjoyed it. It had been like riding with the Wild Hunt. She’d felt drawn out of her own body, spinning through the stars and clouds. It had been like the stories of revels her mother had told her when she was a child, where mortals had lost themselves in the dances of Faerie-kind, and died for the beautiful joy of it.

Of course, afterward they’d all simply gone back to their separate rooms—Kieran calmly, Mark and Cristina both looking shaken. And Cristina had lain there a long time, not sleeping, looking at the ceiling and wondering what she had gotten herself into.

She set down her book with a sigh. It didn’t help that she was alone in the library—Magnus was in and out of the infirmary, where Mark was helping him set up equipment to mix the binding spell cure, and Dru was helping Alec look after the children in one of the spare rooms. Livvy, Ty, and Kit had gone to pick up the supplies from Hypatia Vex’s shop. Bridget had been in and out with trays of sandwiches and tea, muttering that she was worked off her feet and that the house was more crowded than a train station. Kieran was . . . nowhere.

Cristina had grown used to a certain amount of controlled chaos in Los Angeles, but she found herself longing for the quiet of the Mexico City Institute, the silence of her mother’s rose garden, and even the dreamy afternoons she’d spent with Diego and sometimes Jaime in the Bosque de Chapultepec.

And she missed Emma. Her thoughts were a whirl of confusion—everything was—and she wanted Emma to talk to her, Emma to braid her hair and tell her stupid jokes and make her laugh. Maybe Emma would be able to make some sense out of what had happened the night before.

She reached for her phone, and then drew her hand back. She wasn’t going to start texting Emma all her problems, not when they were in the middle of so much. She glanced resolutely out the window instead—and saw Kieran, crossing the courtyard.

He was all in black. She didn’t know where he’d gotten the clothes, but they made him look like a slender shadow under the gray and rainy sky that had replaced the morning’s blue. His hair was blue-black, his hands hidden by gloves.