Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

5

E

ARTH AND

H

EAVEN

Emma led Julian through the building, through hallways familiar to both of them even in the dark. They were silent. Emma’s braids swung as she walked. Julian focused on them for a moment, thinking about the thousands of times he’d walked beside Emma on their way out of the Institute, carrying their weapons, laughing and chatting and planning about whatever it was they were going to face.

The way his heart always lightened as they stepped out of the Institute, ready to climb into the car, drive fast up the highway, wind in their hair, salt taste on their skin. The memory was like a weight against his chest now as they stepped into the flat, sandy area behind the Institute.

Jace and Clary were waiting for them. Both were wearing gear jackets and carrying duffel bags. They were speaking to each other intently, their heads bent together. Their shadows, cast into razor-edged precision by the late afternoon light, seemed to merge together into one.

Emma cleared her throat, and the two of them broke apart.

“We’re sorry to go like this,” Clary said, a little awkwardly. “We thought it would be better to avoid questions from the Centurions about our mission.” She glanced around. “Where’s Kit?”

“I think he’s with Livvy and Ty,” Emma said. “I sent Drusilla to get him.”

“I’m here.” Kit, a blond shadow with his hands in his pockets, shouldered open the Institute’s back door. Light-footed, Julian thought. A natural characteristic of Shadowhunters. His father had been a thief and a liar. They were light-footed too.

“We have something for you, Christopher,” Jace said, unusually somber. “Clary does, at least.”

“Here.” Clary stepped forward and dropped an object that flashed silver into Kit’s open hands. “This is a Herondale family ring. This belonged to James Herondale before it was Jace’s. James was close with several of the Blackthorns, when he was alive.”

Kit’s face was unreadable. He closed his fingers around the ring and nodded. Clary put her hand against his cheek. It was a motherly sort of gesture, and for a moment, Julian thought he saw vulnerability flash across Kit’s features.

If the boy had a mother, Julian realized, none of them knew anything about her.

“Thanks,” Kit said. He slid the ring onto his finger, looking surprised when it fit. Shadowhunter family rings always fit; it was part of their magic.

“If you’re thinking about selling it,” Jace said, “I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Kit raised his face; blue eyes looked into gold. The color of their eyes was different, but the framing was the same: the shape of their eyelids, the sharp cheekbones and watchful angles of their faces.

“I just wouldn’t,” said Jace, with heavy emphasis; Kit shrugged, nodded, and vanished back into the Institute.

“Were you trying to scare him?” Emma demanded, the moment the door shut behind him.

Jace just grinned sideways at her. “Thank Mark for his help,” he said, pulling Emma into a hug and ruffling her hair. The next few moments were a flurry of hugs and good-byes, Clary promising to send them a fire-message when she could, Jace making sure they had Alec and Magnus’s phone number in case they ran into trouble.

No one mentioned that technically, they had the Clave if they ran into trouble. But Clary and Jace had learned to be wary of the Clave when they were young, and it appeared that getting older hadn’t dimmed their suspicions.

“Remember what I told you on the roof,” Clary said to Emma in a low voice, hands on the younger girl’s shoulders. “What you promised.”

Emma nodded, looking uncharacteristically serious. Clary turned away from her, raising her stele, preparing to make a Portal into Faerie. Just as the shapes began to flow under her hands, the doorway starting to shimmer against the dry air, the Institute door banged open again.

This time it was Dru, her round face anxious. She was twisting one of her braids around her finger.

“Emma, you’d better come,” she said. “Something’s happened with Cristina.”

* * *

He wasn’t going to play their stupid spying game, Kit thought. No matter how much fun the twins seemed to be having, wedged into a corner of the second-floor gallery and looking down onto the main entryway, securely hidden from sight by the railings.

Mostly the game involved trying to figure out what people were saying to each other from their body language, or the way they gestured. Livvy was endlessly creative, able to imagine dramatic scenarios between people who were probably just chatting about the weather—she’d already decided the pretty South Asian girl with the stars on her jacket was in love with Julian, and that two of the other Centurions were secretly spies from the Clave.

Ty made rarer pronouncements, but Kit suspected they were more likely to be right. He was good at observing small things, like what family symbol was on the back of someone’s jacket, and what that meant about where they were from.

“What do you think of Perfect Diego?” Livvy asked Kit, when he returned from saying good-bye to Clary and Jace. She had her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around her long legs. Her curling ponytail bounced on her shoulders.

“Smug bastard,” said Kit. “His hair’s too good. I don’t trust people with hair that good.”

“I think that girl with her hair in a bun is angry with him,” said Ty, leaning closer to the railing. His delicate face was all points and angles. Kit followed his gaze downward and saw Diego, deep in conversation with a pale-skinned girl whose hands were flying around as she spoke.

“The ring.” Livvy caught Kit’s hand, turning it over. The Herondale ring glinted on his finger. He’d already taken note of the delicate carving of birds that winged their way around the band. “Did Jace give you that?”

He shook his head. “Clary. Said it used to belong to James Herondale.”

“James . . .” She looked as if she were making an effort to remember something. She gave a squeak then and dropped his hand as a shadow loomed over them.

It was Emma. “All right, you little spies,” she said. “Where’s Cristina? I already looked in her room.”

Livvy pointed upward. Kit frowned; he hadn’t thought there was anything to the third floor but attic.

“Ah,” Emma said. “Thanks.” She shook out her hands at her sides. “When I get hold of Diego . . .”

There was a loud exclamation from below. All four of them craned forward to see the pale girl slap Diego sharply across the face.

“What . . . ?” Emma looked astonished, then furious again. She whirled and headed for the stairs.

Ty smiled, looking with his curls and light eyes for all the world like a painted cherub on a church wall.

“That girl was angry,” he said, sounding delighted to have gotten it right.

Kit laughed.

* * *

The sky above the Institute blazed with color: hot pink, blood red, deep gold. The sun was going down, and the desert was bathed in the glow. The Institute itself shimmered, and the water shimmered too, far out where it waited for the sun’s fall.

Cristina was exactly where Emma had guessed she would be: sitting as neatly as always, legs crossed, her gear jacket spread out on the shingles beneath her.

“He didn’t come after me,” she said, as Emma drew closer to her. Her black hair moved and lifted in the breeze, the pearls in her ears glimmering. The pendant around her neck shone too, the words on it picked out by the deep glow of the sun: Blessed be the Angel my strength, who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.

Emma collapsed onto the roof next to her friend, as close as she could get. She reached out and took Cristina’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Do you mean Diego?”

Cristina nodded. There were no marks of tears on her face; she seemed surprisingly composed, considering. “That girl came up and said she was his fiancée,” Cristina said. “And I thought it must be some sort of mistake. Even when I turned and ran out of the room, I thought it must be a mistake and he would come after me and explain. But he didn’t, which means he stayed because of her. Because she really is his fiancée and she matters to him more than I do.”

“I don’t know how he could do it,” Emma said. “It’s bizarre. He loves you so much—he came here because of you.”

Cristina made a muffled noise. “You don’t even like him!”

“I like him—well, liked him—sometimes,” Emma said. “The perfect thing was kind of annoying. But the way he looked at you. You can’t fake that.”

“He has a fiancée, Emma. Not even just a girlfriend. A fiancée. Who knows how long he’s even been engaged? Engaged. To get married.”

“I’ll crash the wedding,” Emma suggested. “I’ll jump out of the cake, but not in a sexy way. Like, with grenades.”

Cristina snorted, then turned her face away. “I just feel so stupid,” she said. “He lied to me and I forgave him, and then he lied to me again—what kind of idiot am I? Why on earth did I think he was trustworthy?”

“Because you wanted to,” Emma said. “You’ve known him a long time, Tina, and that does make a difference. When someone’s been part of your life for that long, cutting them out is like cutting the roots out from under a plant.”

Cristina was silent for a long moment. “I know,” she said. “I know you understand.”

Emma tasted the acid burn of bitterness at the back of her throat and swallowed it back. She needed to be here for Cristina now, not dwell on her own worries. “When I was little,” she said, “Jules and I used to come up here together at sunset practically every night and wait for the green flash.”

“The what?”

“The green flash. When the sun goes down, just as it disappears, you’ll see a flash of green light.” They both looked out at the water. The sun was disappearing below the horizon, the sky streaked red and black. “If you make a wish on it, it’ll come true.”

“Will it?” Cristina spoke softly, her eyes on the horizon along with Emma’s.

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I’ve made a lot of wishes by now.” The sun sank another few millimeters. Emma tried to think what she could wish for. Even when she’d been younger, she’d understood somehow that there were some things you couldn’t wish for: world peace, your dead parents back. The universe couldn’t turn itself inside out for you. Wishing only bought you small blessings: a sleep without nightmares, your best friend’s safety for another day, birthday sunshine.

“Do you remember,” Emma said, “before you saw Diego again, you said we should go to Mexico together? Spend a travel year there?”

Cristina nodded.

“It’d be a while before I could go,” said Emma. “I don’t turn eighteen until the winter. But when I do . . .”

Leaving Los Angeles. Spending the year with Cristina, learning and training and traveling.

Without Jules. Emma swallowed against the pain the thought caused. It was a pain she’d have to learn to live with.

“I’d like that,” Cristina said. The sun was just a rim of gold now. “I’ll wish for that. And maybe to forget Diego, too.”

“But then you have to forget the good things as well as the bad ones. And I know there were good things.” Emma wound her fingers through Cristina’s. “He’s not the right person for you. He isn’t strong enough. He keeps letting you down and disappointing you. I know he loves you, but that’s not enough.”

“Apparently I’m not the only one he loves.”

“Maybe he started dating her to try to forget you,” Emma said. “And then he got you back, even though he didn’t expect to, and he didn’t know how to break it off with her.”

“What an idiot,” said Cristina. “I mean, if that were true, which it isn’t.”

Emma laughed. “Okay, yeah, I don’t buy it either.” She leaned forward. “Look, just let me beat him up for you. You’ll feel so much better.”

“Emma, no. Don’t lay a hand on him. I mean it.”

“I could beat him up with my feet,” Emma suggested. “They’re registered as lethal weapons.” She wiggled them.

“You have to promise not to touch him.” Cristina glared so severely that Emma raised her free hand in submission.

“All right, all right, I promise,” she said. “I will not touch Perfect Diego.”

“And you can’t yell at Zara, either,” Cristina said. “It’s not her fault. I’m sure she has no idea I exist.”

“Then I feel sorry for her,” Emma said. “Because you’re one of the greatest people I know.”

Cristina started to smile. The sun was almost completely down now. A year with Cristina, Emma thought. A year away from everything, from everyone that reminded her of Jules. A year to forget. If she could bear it.

Cristina gave a little gasp. “Look, there it is!”

The sky flashed green. Emma closed her eyes and wished.

* * *

When Emma got back to her bedroom, she was surprised to find Mark and Julian already there, each of them standing on opposite sides of her bed, their arms crossed over their chests.

“How is she?” Mark said, as soon as the door closed behind Emma. “Cristina, I mean.”

His gaze was anxious. Julian’s was stonier; he looked blank and autocratic, which Emma knew meant he was angry. “Is she upset?”

“Of course she’s upset,” Emma said. “I think not so much because he’s been her boyfriend for a few weeks again, but because they’ve known each other for so long. Their lives are completely entwined.”

“Where is she now?” Mark said.

“Helping Diana and the others fix up the rooms for the Centurions,” said Emma. “You wouldn’t think carrying sheets and towels around would cheer anyone up, but she promises it will.”

“In Faerie, I would challenge Rosales to a duel for this,” said Mark. “He broke his promise, and a love-promise at that. He would meet me in combat if Cristina consented to let me be her champion.”

“Well, no luck there,” said Emma. “Cristina made me promise not to lay a hand on him, and I bet that goes for you two, too.”

“So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do?” Mark scowled, a scowl that matched Julian’s. There was something about the two of them, Emma thought, light and dark though they were; they seemed more like brothers in this moment than they had in a long time.

“We can go help set up the bedrooms so Cristina can go to sleep,” said Emma. “Diego’s locked in one of the offices with Zara, so it’s not like she’s going to run into him, but she could use the rest.”

“We’re going to get revenge on Diego by folding his towels?” Julian said.

“They’re not technically his towels,” Emma pointed out. “They’re his friends’ towels.”

She headed for the door, the two boys following reluctantly. It was clear they would have preferred mortal combat on the greensward to making hospital corners for Centurions. Emma wasn’t looking forward to it herself. Julian was a lot better at making beds and doing laundry than she was.

“I could watch Tavvy,” she suggested. Mark had gone ahead of her down the corridor; she found herself walking beside Julian.

“He’s asleep,” he said. He didn’t mention how he’d found time to put Tavvy to bed in between everything else that had happened. That was Julian. He found the time. “You know what strikes me as odd?”

“What?” Emma said.

“Diego must have known his cover would be blown,” said Julian. “Even if he wasn’t expecting Zara to come with the other Centurions tonight, they all know about her. One of them would have mentioned his fiancée or his engagement.”

“Good point. Diego might be dishonest, but he’s not an idiot.”

“There are ways you could hurt him without touching him,” Julian said. He said it very low, so that only Emma could hear him; and there was something dark in his voice, something that made her shiver. She turned to reply but saw Diana coming down the hall toward them, her expression very much that of someone who has caught people slacking off.

She dispatched them to different parts of the Institute: Julian to the attic to check on Arthur, Mark to the kitchen, and Emma to the library to help the twins clean up. Kit had disappeared.

“He hasn’t run away,” Ty informed her helpfully. “He just didn’t want to make beds.”

It was late by the time they finished cleaning up, figured out which bedroom to assign to which Centurion, and made arrangements for food to be delivered the next day. They also set up a patrol to circle the Institute in shifts during the night to watch for rogue sea demons.

Heading down the corridor to her room, Emma noticed that a light was shining out from under Julian’s door. In fact, the door was cracked partway open; music drifted into the hallway.

Without conscious volition, she found herself in front of his room, her hand raised to knock on the door. In fact, she had knocked. She dropped her hand, half in shock, but he had already flung the door open.

She blinked at him. He was in old pajama bottoms, with a towel flung over his shoulder, a paintbrush in one hand. There was paint on his bare chest and some in his hair.

Though he wasn’t touching her, she was aware of his body, the warmth of him. The black spiraling Marks winding down his torso, like vines wreathing a pillar. She had put some of them there herself, back in the days when touching him didn’t make her hands shake.

“Did you want something?” he asked. “It’s late, and Mark is probably waiting for you.”

“Mark?” She’d almost forgotten Mark, for a moment.

“I saw him go into your room.” Paint dripped from his brush, splattered on the floor. She could see past him into his room: She hadn’t been inside it in what felt like forever. There was plastic sheeting on some of the floor, and she could see brighter spots on his wall where he’d clearly been retouching the mural that ran halfway around the room.

She remembered when he’d painted it, after they’d gotten back from Idris. After the Dark War. They’d been lying awake in bed, as they often did, as they had since they were small children. Emma had been talking about how she’d found a book of fairy tales in the library, the kind that mundanes had read hundreds of years ago: how they’d been bloody and full of murder and sadness. She’d spoken of the castle in Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by thorns, and how the story had said that hundreds of princes had tried to break through the barrier to rescue the princess, but they’d all been pierced to death by thorns, their bodies left to whiten to bones in the sun.

The next day Julian had painted his room: the castle and the wall of thorns, the glint of bone and the sad prince, his sword broken at his side. Emma had been impressed, even though they’d had to sleep in her room for a week while the paint dried.

She’d never asked him why the image or the story called to him. She’d always known that if he wanted to tell her, he would.

Emma cleared her throat. “You said I could hurt Diego, without laying a hand on him. What did you mean?”

He pushed his free hand through his hair. He looked disheveled—and so gorgeous it hurt. “It’s probably better if I don’t tell you.”

“He hurt Cristina,” Emma said. “And I don’t even think he cares.”

He reached up to rub the back of his neck. The muscles in his chest and stomach moved when he stretched, and she was aware of the texture of his skin, and wished desperately she could turn back time somehow and be again the person who wasn’t shaken to pieces by seeing Julian—who she’d grown up with, and seen half-clothed a million times—with his shirt off. “I saw his face when Cristina ran out of the entry hall,” he said. “I don’t think you need to worry that he isn’t in any pain.” He put a hand on the doorknob. “No one can read someone else’s mind or guess all their reasons,” he said. “Not even you, Emma.”

He shut the door in her face.

* * *

Mark was sprawled on the floor at the foot of Emma’s bed. His feet were bare; he was half-rolled in a blanket.

He looked asleep, his eyes shadowy crescents against his pale skin, but he half-opened the blue one when she came in. “Is she really all right?”

“Cristina? Yes.” Emma sat down on the floor beside him, leaning against the footboard. “It sucks, but she’ll be okay.”

“It would be hard, I think,” he said, in his sleep-thickened voice, “to deserve her.”

“You like her,” she said. “Don’t you?”

He rolled onto his side and looked at her with that searching faerie gaze that made her feel as if she stood alone in a field, watching the wind stir the grass. “Of course I like her.”

Emma cursed the intensity of faerie language—like meant nothing to them: They lived in a world of love or hate, scorn or adoration. “Your heart feels something for her,” she said.

Mark sat up. “She would not, I think—feel that way about me.”

“Why not?” Emma said. “She certainly isn’t stuck-up about faeries, you know that. She’s fond of you—”

“She is kind, gentle, generous-hearted. Sensible, thoughtful, kind—”

“You said ‘kind’ already.”

Mark glared. “She is nothing like me.”

“You don’t have to be like someone to love them,” said Emma. “Look at you and me. We’re pretty similar, and we don’t feel that way about each other.”

“Only because you’re involved with someone else.” Mark spoke matter-of-factly, but Emma looked at him in surprise. He knows about Jules, she thought, for a moment of panic, before she remembered her lie about Cameron.

“Too bad, isn’t it,” she said lightly, trying to keep her heart from hammering. “You and I, together, it would have been . . . such an easy thing.”

“Passion is not easy. Nor is the lack of it.” Mark leaned into her. His shoulder was warm against hers. She remembered their kiss, thought of her fingers in his soft hair. His body against hers, responsive and strong.

But even as she tried to grip tight to the image, it slid away between her fingers like dry sand. Like the sand on the beach the night Julian and she had lain there, the only night they’d had together.

“You look sad,” said Mark. “I am sorry to have brought up the matter of love.” He touched her cheek. “In another life, perhaps. You and I.”

Emma let her head fall back against the footboard. “In another life.”