Queen of Air and Darkness

“How did you figure it out?” said Emma.

“We found out pretty early on that the King had kidnapped the Seelie Queen’s son,” said Jace. “It’s something of an open secret in the Courts. And then the first time Clary saw him—from a distance, we were captured before we ever got close—”

Clary moved restlessly inside the cell. “I knew who he was right away. He looks exactly like my brother.”

Emma had heard Julian and Livvy and Mark and Dru say the words “my brother” more times than she could count. It had never sounded the way it did when Clary said it: imbued with bitterness and regret.

“And now the King has the Black Volume, which means we have hardly any time,” said Jace, brushing his hand lightly across the back of Clary’s neck.

“Okay,” said Julian. “What exactly does the King plan to do with the Black Volume to make Ash a weapon?”

Jace lowered his voice, though Emma doubted anyone could hear them. “There are spells in the Black Volume that would imbue Ash with certain powers. The King did something like this once before—”

“Have you heard of the First Heir?” said Clary.

“Yes,” Emma said. “Kieran mentioned him—or at least mentioned the story.”

“It was something his brother Adaon told him.” Julian was frowning. “Kieran said his father had wanted the book since the First Heir was stolen. Maybe to raise the child from the dead? But what does that have to do with Ash?”

“It’s an old story,” said Jace. “But as you know—all the stories are true.”

“Or at least true in part.” Clary smiled up at him. Emma felt a spark of longing—even in the darkness and cold of this prison, their love was undamaged. Clary turned back to Julian and Emma. “We learned that long ago the Unseelie King and the Seelie Queen decided to unite the Courts. Part of their plan involved having a child together, a child who would be heir to both Courts. But that wasn’t enough for them—they wanted to create a faerie child so powerful that he could destroy the Nephilim.”

“Before the child was born, they used rites and spells to give the child ‘gifts,’?” said Jace. “Think Sleeping Beauty but the parents are the wicked faeries.”

“The child would be perfectly beautiful, a perfect leader, inspiring of perfect loyalty,” said Clary. “But when the child was born, she was a girl. It had never even occurred to the King that the child wouldn’t be male—being who he is, he thought the perfect leader had to be a man. The King was furious and thought that the Queen had betrayed him. The Queen, in turn, was furious that he wanted to abandon their whole plan just because the child was a girl. Then the child was kidnapped, and possibly murdered.”

“No wonder—all that stuff about the King hating daughters,” Emma mused.

“What do you mean ‘possibly’?” said Julian.

Jace said, “We weren’t able to find out what happened to that child. No one knows—the claim of the King was that she was kidnapped and murdered, but it seems likely she escaped Faerie and lived on.” He shrugged. “What’s clear is that Ash has mixed in him the blood of royal faeries, the blood of the Nephilim, and the blood of demons. The King believes he’s the perfect candidate to finish what they began with the First Heir.”

“The end of all Shadowhunters,” Julian said slowly.

“The blight the King has already brought here has been taking hold slowly,” Clary said. “But if the King is allowed to perform the spells he wants to on Ash, Ash will become a weapon even more powerful than the blight. We don’t even know everything he’ll be able to do, but he’ll have the same mixture of seraphic and infernal blood that Sebastian did.”

“He’d be demonic, but impervious to runes or angelic magic,” said Jace. “He could bear runes, but nothing demonic could hurt him. The touch of his hands could make the blight spread like wildfire.”

“The blight is already in Idris,” said Emma. “Parts of Brocelind Forest have been destroyed.”

“We need to get back,” Clary said. She looked even paler than she had before, and younger. Emma remembered Clary on the roof at the L.A. Institute. Knowing something awful is coming. Like a wall of darkness and blood. A shadow that spreads out over the world and blots out everything.

“We can’t wait any longer,” Jace said. “We have to get out of here.”

“I’m guessing that wishing to get out of here hasn’t worked so far, since you’re still imprisoned,” said Julian.

Jace narrowed his eyes.

“Julian,” Emma said. She wanted to add sorry, he has no feelings of empathy, but she didn’t because at that moment she heard a shout, followed by a loud thump. Jace closed his hand over his witchlight, and in the near-total darkness, Emma backed away from the walls of the cage. She didn’t want to accidentally walk face-first into the stabbing thorns.

There was a grinding sound as the door of the prison swung open.

“Probably guards,” said Clary in a low voice.

Emma stared into the shadowy dimness. There were two figures coming toward them; she could see the gold glint of the braid on guard uniforms.

“One’s carrying a sword,” Emma whispered.

“They’re probably coming for us,” Clary said. “We’ve been down here longer.”

“No,” Julian said. Emma knew what he was thinking. Jace and Clary were valuable hostages, in their way. Emma and Julian were Shadowhunter thieves who had killed a Rider. They would not be left in the dungeons to languish. They would be beheaded quickly for the enjoyment of the Court.

“Fight back,” Jace said urgently. “If they open your cell, fight back—”

Cortana, Emma thought in desperation. Cortana!

But nothing happened. There was no sudden and comforting weight in her hand. Only a pressure against her shoulder; Julian had moved to stand next to her. Weaponless, they faced the front of their cell. There was the sound of a gasp, then running feet—Emma raised her fists—

The smaller of the guards reached their cell and grabbed at one of the vines, then yelped in pain. A voice murmured something in a faerie language, and the torches along the walls burst into dim flame. Emma found herself staring through the tangle of vines and thorns at Cristina, wearing the livery of a faerie guard, a longsword strapped across her back.

“Emma?” Cristina breathed, her eyes wide. “What on earth are you doing here?”

*

Watch over Tiberius.

Kit was doing just that. Or at least he was staring at Ty, which seemed close enough. They were on the beach below the Institute; Ty had taken off his socks and shoes and was walking at the edge of the water. He glanced up at Kit, who was sitting on a rise of sand, and beckoned him closer. “The water isn’t that cold!” he called. “I promise.”

I believe you, Kit wanted to say. He always believed Ty. Ty wasn’t a liar unless he had to be, though he was good at hiding things. He wondered what would happen if Helen asked them both straight-out if they were trying to raise Livvy from the dead.

Maybe he would be the one who told the truth. After all, he was the one who didn’t really want to do it.

Kit rose slowly to his feet and walked down the beach to join Ty. The waves were breaking at least twenty feet out; by the time they reached the shoreline they were white foam and silver water. A surge splashed up and over Ty’s bare feet and soaked Kit’s sneakers.

Ty had been right. It wasn’t all that cold.

“So tomorrow we’ll go to the Shadow Market,” said Ty. The moonlight played delicate shadows over his face. He seemed calm, Kit thought, and realized that it had been a long time since he hadn’t felt like Ty was a tightly strung wire, thrumming by his side.

“You hated the Shadow Market in London,” Kit said. “It really bothered you. The noises, and the crowd—”

Ty’s gaze flicked down to Kit. “I’ll wear my headphones. I’ll be all right.”

“. . . and I don’t know if we should go again so soon,” Kit added. “What if Helen and Aline get suspicious?”

Ty’s gray gaze darkened. “Julian told me once,” he said, “that when people keep coming up with reasons not to do something, it’s because they don’t want to do it. Do you not want to do this? The spell, everything?”

Ty’s voice sounded tight. The thrumming wire again, sharp with tension. Under the cotton of his shirt, his thin shoulders had tightened as well. The neck of his shirt was loose, the delicate line of his collarbones just visible.

Kit felt a rush of tenderness toward Ty, mixed with near panic. In other circumstances, he thought, he would just have lied. But he couldn’t lie to Ty.

He splashed farther into the water, until his jeans were wet to below his knees. He turned around, the foam of the surf splashing around him. “Didn’t you hear what Shade said? The Livvy we get back might not be anything like our Livvy. Your Livvy.”

Ty followed him out into the water. Mist was coming down to touch the water, surrounding them in white and gray. “If we do the spell correctly, she will be. That’s all. We have to do it right.”