Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

Max, on the other hand, slept like a rock—a dark blue rock, with adorable big navy eyes and a gap-toothed grin. When Cristina, Mark, and Kieran had run down to find Alec, Magnus, and their two children in the Institute parlor, Evelyn had been there, fussing about warlocks in her house and the undesirability of being blue. Cristina hoped most adult Shadowhunters didn’t react to Max like that—it would be awfully traumatic for the poor little mite.

It seemed that Alec and Magnus had returned from a trip to find Diana’s messages asking them for help. They had Portaled to the London Institute immediately. On hearing about the binding spell from Mark and Cristina, Magnus had headed for the local Shadow Market to scout out a spell book he hoped might break the enchantment.

Rafe and Max, upon being left in a strange house with only one parent, had wailed. “Sleep,” Alec had said glumly to Rafe, carrying him into a spare room. “Adorno.”

Cristina giggled. “That means ‘ornament,’?” she said. “Not ‘sleep.’?”

Alec sighed. “I’m still learning Spanish. Magnus is the one who speaks it.”

Cristina smiled at Rafael, who was sniffling. She’d always sung her little cousins to sleep, just as her mother had with her; maybe Rafe would like that. “Oh, Rafaelito,” she said to him, oh, little Rafael baby. “Ya es hora de ir a dormir. ?Te gustaría que te cante una canción?”

He nodded vigorously. “?Sí!”

Cristina spent some time teaching Alec all the lullabies she knew while he held Max and she sat with Rafe. Not long after that, Magnus had Portaled back, and there had been a great deal of thumping and bumping from the library, and Alec had raced off, but Cristina had decided to stay where she was unless called on, because the ways of warlocks were mysterious and their charming boyfriends, too.

Besides, it was good to have something as harmless as a child to distract her from her anxiety. She was sure—relatively sure—that the binding spell could be undone. But it bothered her just the same: What if it couldn’t? She and Mark would be miserable forever, tied by a bond they didn’t want. And where would they go? What if he wanted to return to Faerie? She couldn’t possibly go with him.

Thoughts of Diego nagged at her too: she’d thought she would come back from Faerie to a message from him, but there had been nothing. Could someone disappear out of your life like that twice?

She sighed and leaned down to stroke Rafe’s hair, singing softly.

“Arrorró mi ni?o,

arrorró mi sol,

arrorró pedazo

de mi corazón.

Hush-a-bye my baby

Hush-a-bye my sun

Hush-a-bye, oh piece

of my heart.”

Alec had come in while she was singing, and was sitting on the bed beside Max, leaning against the wall.

“I’ve heard that song before.” It was Magnus, standing in the doorway. He looked tired, his cat’s eyes heavily lidded. “I can’t remember who was singing it.”

He came over and bent down to take Rafe from her. He lifted the boy in his arms, and for a moment Rafe’s head lolled against his neck. Cristina wondered if this had ever happened before: a Shadowhunter with a warlock for a parent.

“Sol solecito, caliéntame un poquito,

Por hoy, por ma?ana, por toda la semana,”

Magnus sang. Cristina looked at him in surprise. He had a nice singing voice, though she didn’t know the melody. Sun, little sun, warm me a little, for the noon, for the dawning, for all the week long.

“Are you all right, Magnus?” Alec asked.

“Fine, and Livvy’s fine. Healing. Should be back to normal tomorrow.” Magnus rolled his shoulders back, stretching his muscles.

“Livvy?” Cristina sat up in alarm. “What happened to Livvy?”

Alec and Magnus exchanged a look. “You didn’t tell her?” Magnus said in a low voice.

“I didn’t want to upset the kids,” said Alec, “and I thought you could reassure her better—”

Cristina scrambled to her feet. “Is Livvy hurt? Does Mark know?”

She was reassured by both Magnus and Alec that Livvy was fine and that yes, Mark did know, but she was already halfway out the door.

She bolted down the hallway toward Mark’s room. Her wrist was throbbing and aching—she’d been ignoring it, but it flared up now as she worried. Was it pain Mark was feeling, transmitted through the connection between them, the way parabatai sometimes felt each other’s agony? Or was the binding spell getting worse, more intense?

His door was half-open, light spilling out from beneath it. She found him awake inside, lying on his bed. She could see the deep indentation of the binding rune like a bracelet around his left wrist.

“Cristina?” He sat up. “Are you all right?”

“I am not the one who was hurt,” she said. “Alec and Magnus told me about Livvy.”

He drew his legs up, making room for her to sit on the blanket beside him. The sudden reduction of pain in her wrist made her feel a little dizzy.

He told her what they had done, Kit, Livvy, and Ty: about the crystal they’d found at Blackthorn Hall, their visit to the Shadow Market and how Livvy had been injured. “I cannot help but think,” he finished, “that if Julian had been here, if he hadn’t left me in charge, none of it would have happened.”

“Julian’s the one who said they could go to Blackthorn Hall. And most of us are running missions at fifteen. It’s not your fault they disobeyed.”

“I didn’t tell them not to go to the Shadow Market,” he said, shivering a little. He pulled the patchwork blanket up around his shoulders, giving him the look of a sad Harlequin.

“You didn’t tell them not to stab each other with knives, either, because they know that,” she said tartly. “The Market is off-limits. Forbidden. Although—don’t be too hard on Kit. The Shadow Market is the world he knows.”

“I don’t know how to take care of them,” he said. “How do I tell them to obey rules when none of us do? We went to Faerie—a much greater breakage of the Law than a visit to the Shadow Market.”

“Maybe you should all try taking care of each other,” she said.

He smiled. “You’re awfully wise.”

“Is Kieran all right?” she said.

“Still awake, I think,” he said. “He wanders around the Institute at night. He hasn’t rested well since we came here—too much cold iron, I think. Too much city.”

The neck of his T-shirt was frayed and loose. She could see where the scars on his back started, the marks of old injuries, the memory of knives. The patchwork blanket had begun slipping down his shoulder. Almost absently, Cristina reached to pull it up.

Her hand brushed along Mark’s neck, along the bare skin where his throat met the cotton of his shirt. His skin was hot. He leaned in toward her; she could smell the pine of forests.

His face was close enough to hers that she could make out the changing colors in the irises of his eyes. The rise and fall of her own breath seemed to lift her toward him.

“Can you sleep here tonight?” he said hoarsely. “It will hurt less. For both of us.”

His inhuman eyes glittered for a moment, and she thought of what Emma had said to her, that when she looked at him sometimes, she saw wildness and freedom and the unending roads of the sky.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Cristina—” He rose up on his knees. It was too cloudy outside for any moonlight or starlight, but Cristina could still see him, his light hair in tangles, his eyes fixed on her.

He was too close, too tangible. She knew if he touched her, she’d crumble. She wasn’t even sure what that would mean, only that the idea of such total dissolution frightened her—and that she could see Kieran when she looked at Mark, like a shadow always beside him.

She slid off the bed. “I’m sorry, Mark,” she said, and left the room so quickly she was almost running.

*

“Annabel seems so sad,” Emma said. “So very sad.”

They were lying in the cottage bed, side by side. It was a lot more comfortable than beds in the Institute, which was a little ironic, considering it was Malcolm’s place. Julian guessed even murderers needed regular mattresses and didn’t actually sleep on platforms made of skulls.