Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

“Tighter,” Ty said. He was hanging on to Kit as if he were a life raft, his forehead digging painfully into Kit’s shoulder. He sounded desperate. “I need to feel it.”

Kit had never been a casual hugger, and no one had ever, that he could remember, come to him for comforting. He wasn’t a comforting sort of person. He’d always assumed that. And he barely knew Ty.

But then, Ty didn’t do things for no reason, even if people whose brains were differently wired couldn’t see his reasons immediately. Kit remembered the way Livvy rubbed Ty’s hands tightly when he was stressed and thought: The pressure is a sensation; the sensation must be grounding. Calming. That made sense. So Kit found himself holding Ty harder, until Ty relaxed under the tight grip of his hands; held him more tightly than he’d ever held anyone, held him as if they’d been lost in the sea of the sky, and only holding on to each other could keep them afloat above the wreckage of London.





20


EVERMORE


Diana sat in her small room above the weapons shop and flipped through the file Jia had given her.

She hadn’t been in this room since the end of the Dark War, but it felt comfortable and familiar—the blanket her grandmother had made folded at the foot of the bed, the first blunt wooden daggers her father had given her to practice with on the wall, her mother’s shawl across the back of a chair. She wore a pair of bright red satin pajamas she’d found in an old trunk and felt amusingly dressed up.

Her amusement faded quickly, though, as she examined the pages inside the cream-colored file. First was Zara’s story about how she’d killed Malcolm, which had been signed off on by Samantha and Dane as witnesses. Not that Diana would have believed Samantha or her brother if they’d said the sky was blue.

Zara was claiming that the Centurions had chased Malcolm away the first time he’d attacked, and that the next night she’d fearlessly patrolled the borders of the Institute until she’d found him lurking in the shadows and bested him in a one-on-one swordfight. She claimed his body had then disappeared.

Malcolm was hardly a lurk-in-the-shadows type, and from what Diana had seen on the night he’d returned, his magic was still working. He’d never fight Zara with a blade when he could blast her with fire.

But none of that was hard evidence that she was lying. Diana frowned, turning the pages, and then sat up straight. There was more here than just the report on Malcolm’s death. There were pages and pages about Zara. Dozens of reports of her achievements. All together like this, it was an impressive package. And yet . . .

As Diana read through, taking careful notes, a pattern started to emerge. Every success of Zara’s, every triumph, took place when no one was around to witness it except those in her inner circle—Samantha, Dane, or Manuel. Often others would arrive in time to see the empty demon nest, or the evidence of a battle, but that was all.

There were no reports of Zara ever being wounded or hurt in any battle. Diana thought of the scars she’d gotten through her life as a Shadowhunter and frowned more deeply. And more deeply yet when she reached Marisol Garza Solcedo’s year-old report—Marisol claimed to have saved a group of mundanes from an attacking Druj demon in Portugal. She was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, she said, Zara’s destruction of the Druj was being celebrated.

The report had been submitted, along with a signed statement by Zara, Jessica, Samantha, Dane, and Manuel, stating that Marisol was imagining things. Zara, they said, had killed the Druj after a fierce fight; again, Zara had no wounds.

She takes credit for what other people do, Diana thought. Her window rattled, wind probably. I ought to go to bed, she thought. The clock in the Gard, new since the Dark War, had rung the early hours of dawn some time ago. But she kept reading, fascinated. Zara would hang back, wait for the battle to be over, and announce the victory as her own. With her group backing her up, the Clave accepted her claims at face value.

But if it could be proved that she hadn’t killed Malcolm—in some way that kept Julian and the others protected—then perhaps the Cohort would be disgraced. Certainly the Dearborns’ bid to seize the Los Angeles Institute would fail—

Her window rattled again. She looked up and saw Gwyn on the other side of the glass.

She stood up with a yelp of surprise, sending her papers flying. Get a grip, she told herself. There was no way that the leader of the Wild Hunt was actually outside her window.

She blinked, and looked again. He was still there, and as she moved toward the window, she saw that he was hovering in the air just below her sill, on the back of a massive gray horse. He wore dark brown leather, and his antlered helmet was nowhere to be seen. His expression was grave and curious.

He gestured for her to open the window. Diana hesitated, then reached to undo the latch and fling up the sash. She didn’t have to let him in, she reasoned. They could just talk through the window.

Cool air rushed into her room, and the smell of pine and morning air. His bicolored eyes fixed on her. “My lady,” he said. “I had hoped you would accompany me on a ride.”

Diana tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Why?”

“For the pleasure of your company,” Gwyn said. He peered at her. “I see you are richly attired in silk. Are you expecting another guest?”

She shook her head, amused. Well, the pajamas were nice.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “I am fortunate.”

She supposed he wasn’t lying. He couldn’t lie.

“You couldn’t have arranged this meeting in advance?” she asked. “Sent me a message, maybe?”

He looked puzzled. He had long eyelashes and a square chin—a pleasant face. A handsome face. Diana often tried not to think about those things, as they only caused trouble, but now she couldn’t help it. “I only discovered you were here in Idris this dawn,” he said.

“But you’re not allowed to be here!” She looked nervously up and down empty Flintlock Street. If anyone saw him . . .

He grinned at that. “As long as my horse’s hooves do not touch Alicante ground the alarm will not be raised.”

Still, she felt a bubble of tension in her chest. He was asking her on a date—she couldn’t pretend otherwise. And though she wanted to go, the fear—that old fear that walked hand in hand with distrust and grief—held her back.

He reached out a hand. “Come with me. The sky awaits.”

She looked at him. He wasn’t young, but he didn’t look old, either. He seemed ageless, as faeries did sometimes, and though he seemed solid and thoughtful in himself, he carried with him the promise of the air and the sky. When else will you ever have a chance to ride a faerie horse? Diana asked herself. When else will you ever fly?

“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” she whispered, “if they find out you’re here.”

He shrugged, hand still outstretched. “Then you had better come quickly,” he said.

She began to climb out the window.

*

Breakfast was late; Kit managed to snag a few hours of sleep and a shower before wandering into the dining room to find everyone else already sitting down.

Well, everyone but Evelyn. Bridget was serving tea, pinched-faced as always. Alec and Magnus each had a child on their lap, and introduced them to Kit: Max was the small, blue warlock who was spilling brown sauce down the front of Magnus’s designer shirt, and Rafe was the brown-eyed child who was tearing his toast into pieces.

Kieran was nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t unusual at meals. Mark was seated beside Cristina, who was quietly drinking coffee. She looked neat and self-contained as always, despite the red mark on her wrist. She was an interesting mystery, Kit thought, a non-Blackthorn like himself, but inextricably tied to the Blackthorns nevertheless.