Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Right now, the Institute is the safest place outside Idris,” said Magnus. “It’s warded, and I’ll ward it again.”

“The cottage is safe too,” Emma said, hoisting her bag over her shoulder. It was twice as heavy as it had been before with the addition of Malcolm’s books. “The Riders can’t come near it; they said so.”

“Thoughtful of Malcolm,” said Magnus. “But you’d be trapped in the house if you stayed, and I can’t imagine you’d want to be unable to leave these four walls.”

“No,” Julian said, but he said it quietly. Emma could see Magnus raking his gaze over the interior of the cottage—the mess of teacups they hadn’t cleaned up, the signs of Julian’s cooking, the disarray of the bedcovers, the remains of the fire in the grate. A place built by and for two people who loved each other yet weren’t allowed to, and that had sheltered two more such people two hundred years later. “I suppose we wouldn’t.”

There was sympathy in Magnus’s eyes when he looked back at Julian, and at Emma, too. “All dreams end when you wake,” he said. “Now, come. I’ll Portal us home.”

*

Dru watched the rain streak her bedroom windows. Outside, London was a blur, the glow of streetlights expanding in the rain to become yellow dandelion clocks of light perched on elongated metal posts.

She had been in the library long enough to tell Mark that she was fine, before he’d gotten worried about Cristina and gone looking for her. When they’d both returned, Dru’s stomach had tightened with fear. She’d been sure Cristina was going to tell—tell everyone about Jaime, spill her secret, spill his.

The expression on Cristina’s face wasn’t comforting, either. “Can I talk to you in the hall, Dru?” she had said.

Dru nodded and put her book down. She hadn’t been reading it anyway. Mark had gone over to Kieran and the children, and Dru followed Cristina out into the hall.

“Thank you,” Cristina said, as soon as the door was shut. “For helping Jaime.”

Dru cleared her throat. Being thanked seemed like a good sign. At least a sign that Cristina wasn’t mad. Maybe.

Cristina smiled. She had dimples. Dru immediately wished she had them too. Did she? She’d have to check. Though smiling at herself in the mirror sounded a little bizarre. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone he was here, or that you helped him. It must not have been easy, putting up with him as you did.”

“I didn’t mind,” Dru said. “He listened to me.”

Cristina’s dark eyes were sad. “He used to listen to me, once, too.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Dru asked.

“I think so,” Cristina said. “He has always been smart and careful.” She touched Dru’s cheek. “I’ll let you know if I hear from him.”

And that was that. Dru had gone back to her bedroom, feeling hollow. She knew she’d been supposed to stay in the library, but she needed to be where she could think.

She’d sat on the edge of her bed, kicking her legs listlessly. She wanted Jaime to be there so she’d have someone to talk to. She wanted to talk about the fact that Magnus looked tired, that Mark was stressed, that she was worried about Emma and Jules. She wanted to talk about how she missed home, the smell of the ocean and desert.

She swung her legs harder—and her heel collided with something. Bending down, she saw with surprise that Jaime’s duffel bag was still stuffed under her bed. She pulled it out from under the mattress, trying not to spill the contents. It was already unzipped.

He must have shoved it there in a hurry when Cristina came in, but why would he leave it? Did it mean he was planning on coming back? Or had he just left behind the stuff he didn’t need?

She didn’t mean to look inside, or at least that was what she told herself later. It wasn’t that she needed to know if he was coming back. It was just an accident.

Stuffed inside were a jumble of boy’s clothes, a bunch of jeans and shirts, and a few books, spare steles, unactivated seraph blades, a balisong not unlike Cristina’s, and some photographs. And something else, something that shone so brightly that she thought for a moment it was a witchlight—but the illumination was less white than that. It glowed with a dim, deep gold color, like the surface of the ocean. Before she knew it, her hand was on it—

She felt herself jerked off her feet, as if she were being sucked into a Portal. She yanked her hand back, but she was no longer touching anything. She was no longer in her room at all.

She was underground, in a long corridor dug out of the earth. The roots of trees grew down into the space, like the curling ribbon on expensively wrapped gifts. The corridor stretched away on either side of her into shadows that deepened like no shadows above ground.

Dru’s heart was pounding. A terrible sense of unreality choked her. It was as if she’d traveled through a Portal, but with no idea where she’d gone, with no sense of familiarity. Even the air in the place smelled like something strange and dark, some kind of scent she’d never breathed before.

Dru reached automatically for the weapons at her belt, but there was nothing there. She’d come here completely unprepared, in only jeans and a black T-shirt with cats on it. She choked back a hysterical laugh and moved to press herself against the wall of the underground corridor, keeping to the depth of the shadows.

Lights appeared at the end of the hall. Dru could hear high, sweet voices in the distance. Their chatter was like the chatter of birds. Faeries.

She moved blindly in the other direction, and nearly fell backward when the wall gave way behind her and became a curtain of fabric. She stumbled through and found herself in a large stone room.

The walls were squares of green marble, veined with thick black lines. Some of the squares were carved with golden patterns—a hawk, a throne, a crown divided into two pieces. There were weapons in the room, ranged around on the surfaces of different tables—swords and daggers of copper and bronze, hooks and spikes and maces of all sorts of metal except iron.

There was also a boy in the room. A boy her age, maybe thirteen. He had turned around when she came in, and now he stared at her in astonishment.

“How dare you come into this room?” His voice was sharp, imperious.

He wore rich clothing, silk and velvet, heavy leather boots. His hair was white-blond, the color of witchlight. It was cut short, and a pale band of metal encircled it at his brow.

“I didn’t mean to.” Dru swallowed. “I just want to get out of here,” she said. “That’s all I want.”

His green eyes burned. “Who are you?” He took a step forward, snatching a dagger up off the table beside him. “Are you a Shadowhunter?”

Dru raised her chin and stared back at him. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you so rude?”

To her surprise, he smiled, and there was something familiar about it. “I’m called Ash,” he said. “Did my mother send you?” He sounded hopeful. “Is she worried about me?”

“Drusilla!” said a voice. “Dru! Dru!”

Dru looked around in confusion: Where was the voice coming from? The walls of the room were starting to darken, to melt and merge. The boy in the rich clothes with his sharp faerie’s face looked at her in confusion, raising his dagger, as more holes began to open around her: in the walls, in the floor. She shrieked as the ground gave way beneath her and she fell into darkness.

The whirling air caught her again, the cold spinning almost-Portal, and then she slammed back to reality on the floor of her bedroom. She was alone. She gasped and choked, trying to pull herself to her knees. Her heart felt as if it was going to rip its way out of her chest.