Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Come and dance,” they called. “Come and dance, beautiful girl, chica bella, come and dance with us.”

Cristina began to move toward them, toward the music and the dancing. The field was still clouded with fog, carving its streaks of white across the ground and hiding the blue of the sky. The mist glowed as she moved into it, heavy with strange scents: fruit and wine and incense-like smoke.

She began to dance, moving her body to the music’s rhythm. Exhilaration seemed to pour into her with every breath she took in. She was suddenly no longer the girl who had let Diego Rosales fool her not once, but twice, not the girl who followed rules and trusted people until they broke her trust as casually as knocking a glass off a table. No longer the girl who stood back and let her friends be wild and crazy and waited to catch them when they fell. Now she was the one falling.

Hands seized her, spinning her around. Mark. His eyes were flashing. He pulled her up close against him, his arms slipping around her, but his grip was unyielding with anger. “What are you doing, Cristina?” he asked in a low voice. “You know about faeries, you know this is dangerous.”

“That’s why I’m doing it, Mark.” She hadn’t seen him look so furious since Kieran had come riding up to the Institute with Iarlath and Gwyn. She felt a small, secret pulse of excitement inside her chest, that she could make him that angry.

“They hate Shadowhunters here, don’t you remember?” he said.

“They don’t know I’m a Shadowhunter.”

“Believe me,” said Mark, leaning in close so that she could feel his breath, hot, against her ear. “They know.”

“Then they don’t care,” said Cristina. “It’s a revel. I’ve read about these. Faeries lose themselves in the music, like humans. They dance and they forget, just like us.”

Mark’s hands curved around her waist. It was a protective gesture, she told herself. It didn’t mean anything. But her pulse quickened regardless. When Mark had first arrived at the Institute, he’d been stick-thin, hollow-eyed. Now she could feel muscle over his bones, the hard strength of him against her.

“I never asked you,” he said, as they moved among the crowd. They were close to two girls dancing together; both of them had their black hair bound up in elaborate crowns of berries and acorns. They wore dresses of russet and brown, ribbons around their slim throats, and swished their skirts away from Mark and Cristina, laughing at the couple’s clumsiness. Cristina didn’t mind. “Why faeries? Why did you make that the thing you studied?”

“Because of you.” She tilted her head back to look up at him, saw the surprise that passed across his expressive face. The beginning of the gentle curves of wonder at the corners of his mouth. “Because of you, Mark Blackthorn.”

Me? His lips shaped the word.

“I was in my mother’s rose garden when I heard what had happened to you,” she said. “I was only thirteen. The Dark War was ending, and the Cold Peace had been announced. The whole Shadowhunter world knew of your sister’s exile, and that you had been abandoned. My great-uncle came out to tell me about it. My family always used to joke that I was softhearted, that it was easy to make me cry, and he knew I’d been worrying about you—so he told me, he said, ‘Your lost boy will never be found now.’?”

Mark swallowed. Emotions passed like storm clouds behind his eyes; not for him Julian’s guardedness, his shields. “And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you cry?” he said. They were still moving together, in the dance, but it was almost mechanical now: Cristina had forgotten the steps her feet were taking, she was aware only of Mark breathing, her fingers locked behind Mark’s neck, Mark in her arms.

“I did not cry,” Cristina said. “But I did decide that I would dedicate myself to eradicating the Cold Peace. It was not a fair Law then. It will never be a fair Law.”

His lips parted. “Cristina—”

A voice like doves interrupted them. Soft, feathery, and light, it crooned, “Drinks, madam and sir? Something to cool you after dancing?”

A faerie with a face like a cat’s—furred and whiskered—stood before them in the tatters of an Edwardian suit. He held a gold plate on which were many small glasses containing liquid of different colors: blue, red, and amber.

“Is it enchanted?” Cristina said breathlessly. “Will it give me strange dreams?”

“It will cool your thirst, lady,” said the faerie. “And all I would ask for in return is a smile from your lips.”

Cristina seized up a glass full of amber fluid. It tasted of passionfruit, sweet and tart—she took one swallow, and Mark dashed the glass from her hand. It fell tinkling at their feet, splashing his hand with liquid. He licked the fluid from his skin, glaring at her all the while.

Cristina backed away. She could feel a pleasant warmth spreading in her chest. The drinks seller was snapping at Mark, who pushed him away with a coin—a mundane penny—and started after Cristina.

“Stop,” he said. “Cristina, slow down, you’re going toward the center of the revel—the music will only be stronger there—”

She stopped, held out a hand to him. She felt fearless. She knew she ought to be terrified: She had swallowed a faerie drink, and anything might happen. But instead she only felt as if she were flying. She was soaring free, only Mark here to tether her to the ground. “Dance with me,” she said.

He caught at her. He looked angry, still, but he held her tightly nonetheless. “You’ve had enough dancing. And drinking.”

“Enough dancing?” It was the girls in russet again, their red mouths laughing. Other than their different-colored eyes, they looked nearly identical. One of them pulled the ribbon from around her throat—Cristina stared; her neck was horribly scarred, as if her head had nearly been severed from her body. “Dance together,” the girl said—nearly spat it, as if it were a curse, and looped the ribbon around Mark’s and Cristina’s wrists, binding them together. “Enjoy the binding, Hunter.” She grinned at Mark, and her teeth were black, as if they had been painted that color, and sharp as needles.

Cristina gasped, stumbling back, pulling Mark after her, the ribbon connecting them. It stretched like a rubber band, not breaking or fraying. Mark caught up to her, seizing her hand in his, his fingers threaded through hers.

He drew her after him, fast and sure-footed on the uneven terrain, finding the breaks in the heavy mist. They pushed between dancing couples until the grass under them was no longer trampled and the music was faint in their ears.

Mark veered to the side, making for a copse of trees. He slipped under the branches, holding the low-hanging ones aside to let Cristina in after him. Once she had ducked underneath, he released them, closing them both into a dirt-floored space beneath the trees, hidden from the outside world by long branches, laden with fruit, that touched the ground.

Mark sat down, drawing a knife from his belt. “Come here,” he said, and when Cristina came to sit beside him, he took her hand and slashed apart the ribbon binding them.

It made a little shrieking, hurt sound, like a wounded animal, but frayed and gave. He let go of Cristina and dropped the knife. Faint sunlight filtered down through the branches above, and in the dim illumination, the ribbon still around his wrist looked like blood.

The ribbon was looped around Cristina’s wrist as well, no longer burning, trailing its lonely end in the dirt. She worried at it with her nails until it came free and fell to the ground. Her fingers kept slipping. Probably the faerie drink, still in her system, she thought.

She glanced over at Mark. His face was drawn, his gold and blue eyes shadowed. “That could have been very bad,” he said, casting the rest of his ribbon aside. “A binding spell like that can tie two people together and send one of them mad, make them drown themselves and pull the other in after them.”