Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Good teamwork,” Julian said finally.

“I know,” Emma said, and she did. That was the worst thing: that he was right, that they still worked so perfectly together as parabatai. As warrior partners. As a matched pair of soldiers who could never, ever be parted.

*

Mark and Cristina were waiting for them under the pier. Mark had kicked off his shoes and was partway into the ocean water. Cristina was folding away her butterfly knife. At her feet was a patch of slimy, drying sand.

“Did you see the squid thingie fall off the Ferris wheel?” Emma asked as she and Julian drew near.

Cristina nodded. “It fell into the shallows. It wasn’t quite dead, so Mark dragged it up onto the beach and we finished it off.” She kicked at the sand in front of her. “It was very disgusting, and Mark got slime on him.”

“I’ve got ichor on me,” Emma said, looking down at her stained gear. “That was one messy demon.”

“You are still very beautiful,” Mark said with a gallant smile.

Emma smiled back at him, as much as she could. She was unbelievably grateful to Mark, who was playing his part in all this without a word of complaint, though he must have found it strange. In Cristina’s opinion, Mark was getting something out of the pretense, but Emma couldn’t imagine what. It wasn’t as if Mark liked lying—he’d spent so many years among faeries, who were incapable of untruths, that he found it unnatural.

Julian had stepped away from them and was on the phone again, speaking in a low voice. Mark splashed up out of the water and jammed his wet feet into his boots. Neither he nor Cristina was fully glamoured, and Emma noticed the stares of mundane passersby as he came toward her—because he was tall, and beautiful, and because he had eyes that shone brighter than the lights of the Ferris wheel. And because one of his eyes was blue, and the other one was gold.

And because there was something about him, something indefinably strange, a trace of the wildness of Faerie that never failed to make Emma think of untrammeled, wide-open spaces, of freedom and lawlessness. I am a lost boy, his eyes seemed to say. Find me.

Reaching Emma, he lifted his hand to push back a lock of her hair. A wave of feeling went through her—sadness and exhilaration, a longing for something, though she didn’t know what.

“That was Diana,” Julian said, and even without looking at him, Emma could picture his face as he spoke—gravity, thoughtfulness, a careful consideration of whatever the situation was. “Jace and Clary have arrived with a message from the Consul. They’re holding a meeting at the Institute, and they want us there now.”





2


BOUNDLESS FLOODS


The four of them went straight through the Institute to the library, without pausing to change their gear. Only when they’d burst into the room and Emma realized she, Mark, Cristina, and Julian had all tracked in sticky demon ichor did she pause to wonder if perhaps they should have stopped to shower.

The roof of the library had been damaged two weeks before and hastily repaired, the stained-glass skylight replaced with plain, warded glass, the intricately decorated ceiling now covered over with a layer of rune-carved rowan wood.

The wood of rowan trees was protective: It kept out dark magic. It also had an effect on faeries—Emma saw Mark wince and look up sideways as they entered the room. He’d told her proximity to too much rowan made him feel as if his skin were powdered with tiny sparks of fire. She wondered what effect it would have on a full-blood faerie.

“Glad to see you made it,” said Diana. She was sitting at the head of one of the long library tables, her hair pulled back into a sleek bun. A thick gold chain necklace glittered against her dark skin. Her black-and-white dress was, as always, pristinely spotless and wrinkle free.

Beside her was Diego Rocio Rosales, notable to the Clave for being a highly trained Centurion and to the Blackthorns for having the nickname Perfect Diego. He was irritatingly perfect—ridiculously handsome, a spectacular fighter, smart, and unfailingly polite. He’d also broken Cristina’s heart before she had left Mexico, which meant that normally Emma would be plotting his death, but she couldn’t because he and Cristina had gotten back together two weeks ago.

He cast a smile at Cristina now, his even white teeth flashing. His Centurion pin glittered at his shoulder, the words Primi Ordines visible against the silver. He wasn’t just a Centurion; he was one of the First Company, the very best of the graduating class from the Scholomance. Because, of course, he was perfect.

Across from Diana and Diego sat two figures who were very familiar to Emma: Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild, the heads of the New York Institute, though when Emma had met them, they’d been teenagers the age she was now. Jace was all tousled gold handsomeness, looks he’d grown into gracefully over the years. Clary was red hair, stubborn green eyes, and a deceptively delicate face. She had a will like iron, as Emma had good cause to know.

Clary jumped to her feet now, her face lighting up, as Jace leaned back in his chair with a smile. “You’re back!” she cried, rushing toward Emma. She wore jeans and a threadbare MADE IN BROOKLYN T-shirt that had probably once belonged to her best friend, Simon. It looked worn and soft, exactly like the sort of shirt Emma had often filched from Julian and refused to give back. “How did it go with the squid demon?”

Emma was prevented from answering by Clary’s enveloping hug.

“Great,” said Mark. “Really great. They’re so full of liquid, squids.”

He actually seemed pleased about it.

Clary let Emma go and frowned down at the ichor, seawater, and unidentifiable slime that had transferred themselves to her shirt. “I see what you mean.”

“I’m just going to welcome you all from over here,” said Jace, waving. “There’s a disturbing smell of calamari wafting from your general direction.”

There was a giggle, quickly stifled. Emma glanced up and saw legs dangling between the railings of the upstairs gallery. With amusement, she recognized Ty’s long limbs and Livvy’s patterned stockings. There were nooks up on the gallery level that were perfect for eavesdropping—she couldn’t count how many of Andrew Blackthorn’s meetings she and Julian had spied on as kids, drinking up the knowledge and sense of importance that being present at a Conclave meeting brought.

She glanced sideways at Julian, seeing him note Ty and Livvy’s presence, knowing the moment he decided, as she had, not to say anything about it. His whole thought process was visible to her in the quirk of his smile—odd how transparent he was to her in his unguarded moments, and how little she could tell what he was thinking when he chose to hide it.

Cristina went over to Diego, bumping her hand gently against his shoulder. He kissed her wrist. Emma saw Mark glance at them, his expression unreadable. Mark had talked to her about many things in the past two weeks, but not Cristina. Not ever Cristina.

“So how many sea demons does that make it?” asked Diana. “In total?” She gestured for everyone to take seats around the table. They sat down, squelching slightly, Emma next to Mark but across from Julian. He answered Diana as calmly as if he wasn’t dripping ichor onto the polished floor.

“A few smaller ones this past week,” said Julian, “but that’s normal when it storms. They wash up on the beach. We ran some patrols; the Ashdowns ran some farther south. I think we got them all.”

“This was the first really big one,” said Emma. “I mean, I’ve only seen a few that big before. They don’t usually come up out of the ocean.”

Jace and Clary exchanged a look.