Queen of Air and Darkness

Page 20

She began to climb out the window before he was even done with his question. Sliding onto the horse’s back in front of him felt familiar now, as did being circled by his enormous arms. She had always been a tall woman, and not much made her feel small and delicate, but Gwyn did. It was, if nothing else, a novel feeling.

She let her mind wander as they flew in silence past the city, over its walls and the Imperishable Fields. The pyres had burned away to ash, covering the grass in eerie circles of blanched gray. Her eyes stung, and she looked away, hurriedly, toward the forest: the green trees approaching and then stretching out below them, the rills of silver streams, and the occasional rise of a stone manor house at the fringes of the woods.

She thought of Emma and Julian, of the lonely shock on Emma’s face when the Consul had told them they’d have to stay in Idris, of the worrying blankness on Julian’s. She knew the emptiness shock could force on you. She could see it in Ty, as well, the deep silence and stillness brought on by a pain so great that no wailing or tears would touch it. She remembered her own loss of Aria, how she had lain on the floor of Catarina’s cottage, turning and twisting her body as if she could somehow get away from the pain of missing her sister.

“We are here,” Gwyn said, and they were landing in the glade she remembered. Gwyn dismounted and was reaching up to help her down.

She stroked the side of the horse’s neck, and it nudged her with its soft nose. “Does your horse have a name?”

Gwyn looked puzzled. “Name?”

“I’m going to call him Orion,” said Diana, settling herself on the ground. The grass under her was springy, and the air was scented with pine and flowers. She leaned back on her hands and some of the tension began to leave her body.

“I would like that. For my steed to be named by you.” Gwyn seated himself opposite her, large hands at his sides, his brow creased with concern. His size and bulk somehow made him seem more helpless than he would have otherwise. “I know what happened,” he said. “When death comes in great and unexpected ways, the Wild Hunt knows it. We hear the stories told by spilled blood.”

Diana didn’t know what to say—that death was unfair? That Livvy hadn’t deserved to die that way, or any way? That the broken hearts of the Blackthorns would never be the same? It all seemed trite, a hundred times said and understood already.

Instead she said, “I think I would like it if you kissed me.”

Gwyn didn’t hesitate. He was beside her in a moment, graceful despite his bulk; he put his arms around her and she was surrounded by warmth and the smell of the forest and horses. She wrinkled her nose slightly and smiled, and he kissed her smiling mouth.

It was a gentle kiss, for all his size. The softness of his mouth contrasted with the scratch of his stubble and the hard musculature under her hands when she put them timidly on his shoulders and stroked.

He leaned into the touch with a low rumble of pleasure. Diana reached up to gently cup his face, marveling at the feeling of someone else’s skin. It had been a long time, and she had never imagined something quite like this: Moonlight and flowers were for other people.

But apparently not. His big hands stroked her hair. She had never felt so warm or so cared for, so completely contained in someone else’s affection. When they stopped kissing it was as natural as when they had started, and Gwyn pulled her closer, tucking her into his body. He chuckled.

“What?” she asked, craning her head up.

“I wondered if kissing a faerie was different than kissing a Shadowhunter,” he said with a surprisingly boyish smile.

“I’ve never kissed one,” she said. It was true; long ago, she had been too shy to kiss anyone, and too deeply sad, and later . . . “I’ve kissed a few mundanes. I knew them in Bangkok; a few were trans, like me. But back then I always felt too much as if I were keeping the secret of being Nephilim, and it fell like a shadow between me and other people. . . .” She sighed. “I feel like you’re maybe the only person besides Catarina who really knows everything about me.”

Gwyn made a low, thoughtful noise. “I like everything about you that I know.”

And I like you, she wanted to say. She was shocked at how much she did like him, this odd faerie man with his capacity for great gentleness and equal capacity for enormous violence. She had experienced him as kind, but from Mark’s stories she knew there was another side to him: the side that led the Wild Hunt on their bloody pathway between the stars.

“I’m going to tell them everything,” she said. “Emma and Julian. We’re all stuck here in Idris together, and I love them like they were my little brother and sister. They should know.”

“Do it if it will bring you ease to do it,” said Gwyn. “You owe them nothing; you have cared for them and helped them and they know you as who you are. None of us owe every piece of our soul’s history to another.”

“I am doing it for me. I’ll be happier.”

“Then by all means.” Gwyn dropped a kiss on her head. Diana sat in the warm circle of his arms and thought of Livvy and how grief and contentment could share a place in the human heart. She wondered what losses Gwyn had sustained in his life. He must have had a mother, a father, brothers and sisters, but she couldn’t imagine them and couldn’t yet bring herself to ask.

Later, when she was walking to Gwyn’s horse for the return journey to Alicante, she noticed that the tips of her fingers were smudged with ash, and frowned. Ash must have blown on the wind from the pyres that morning, but still. It was very odd.

She put it from her mind as Gwyn lifted her onto Orion’s back and they sailed up, into the stars.

*

The rooms in the Scholomance were neither as pleasant as the rooms in most Institutes nor as unpleasant as the ones in the Shadowhunter Academy. They were clean and bare and had, in Diego’s opinion, a monkish feel. Each room came with two beds, two heavy desks, and—thanks to the absence of closets—two massive wardrobes.

Due to low enrollment, Diego didn’t usually have a roommate, but at the moment, Kieran lay in a grouchy lump on the floor, wrapped in blankets.

Folding his arms behind his head, Diego stared at the ceiling. He’d memorized the lumps and bumps in the plaster. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have the concentration to read or meditate; his mind skittered like a nervous spider over thoughts of Jaime, of Cristina, of the Dearborns and the new Inquisitor.

Not to mention the unhappy faerie prince who was currently thrashing around on his floor.

“How long are you planning to keep me here?” Kieran’s voice was muffled. He pulled a piece of blanket away from his face and stared at the ceiling as if he could come to understand what Diego saw in it.

“Keep you here?” Diego rolled onto his side. “You’re not a prisoner. You can go whenever you like.”

“I cannot,” Kieran said. “I cannot return to the Wild Hunt without bringing the wrath of the King upon the Hunt. I cannot return to Faerie, for the King will find and slay me. I cannot wander the world as a wild fey, for I will be recognized, and I do not know even now if the King is seeking me.”

“Why not return to the Institute in Los Angeles? Even if you’re angry with Mark, Cristina would—”

“It is because of Mark and Cristina that I cannot go there.” Kieran’s hair was changing color in the dim light, deep blue to pale white. “And I am not angry with either of them. It is only that I do not want . . .” He sat up. “Or perhaps I want too much.”

“We can figure it out when the time comes,” Diego said. “What will be best for you.”

Kieran looked at him, an uncanny, sharp look that made Diego push himself up on his elbow. “Isn’t that what you always do?” he said. “You decide you will find a solution when the time comes, but when the worst happens, you find yourself unprepared.”

Diego opened his mouth to protest when there was a sharp rap on the door. Kieran was gone in a flash, so quickly that Diego could only guess where he’d disappeared to. Diego cleared his throat and called, “Pásale!”

Divya slipped into the room, followed by Rayan. They were in their uniforms, Rayan wearing a thick sweater over his. Both he and Divya had found it difficult to get used to the cold air in the Scholomance.

Divya carried a witchlight, its rays illuminating her anxious expression. “Diego,” she said. “Is Kieran here?”

“I think he’s under the bed,” said Diego.

“That’s strange,” said Rayan. He didn’t look anxious, but Rayan rarely betrayed much emotion.

“He could be in the wardrobe,” Diego said. “Why?”

“The Cohort,” said Divya. “Zara and some of the others—Samantha and Manuel and Jessica—they’ve just Portaled in with Professor Gladstone.”

Kieran rolled out from under the bed. There was a dust ball in his hair. “Do they know I’m here?” He sat up, eyes gleaming. “Give me a weapon. Any weapon.”

“Hold on there.” Divya raised a hand. “We were actually thinking of a more restrained approach. Like hiding you.”

“I was already hiding,” Kieran pointed out.

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