“We stopped,” Emma said, her cheeks flushing as she remembered: the shower, the tangle of sheets, the salt-and-soap taste of kisses.
“It’s not the actions, it’s the emotions,” said Julian. “Nothing made me stop loving you. Nothing made me even slow down. So I had to fix it.”
A cold knot of dread settled in Emma’s stomach. “What did you do?”
“I went to Magnus,” Julian said. “He agreed to do a spell. Magnus said this kind of magic, messing with people’s emotions, can have dangerous repercussions, but—”
“Messing with your emotions?” Emma took a step back, and his hands fell to his sides. “What do you mean?”
“He took them away,” said Julian. “My emotions. My feelings for you. They’re gone.”
“I don’t understand.” Emma had always wondered why people said that when it was clear they did understand, perfectly. She realized now: It was because they didn’t want to understand. It was a way of saying: No, you can’t mean it. Not what you just said.
Tell me it isn’t true.
“As long as our feelings aren’t mutual,” he said, “it’s not a problem, right? The curse can’t come to pass.”
“Maybe.” Emma took a deep, shaking breath. “But it’s not just how you feel about me. You’re different. You didn’t fight Jia about leaving the kids—”
He looked a little surprised. “I suppose I didn’t,” he said. He stood up, reaching out a hand for her, but she backed away. He dropped his arm. “Magnus said this stuff wasn’t precise. That that was why it was a problem. Love spells, real love spells, the kind that make you fall for someone, those are black magic. They’re a way of forcing emotion on people. Something like what he did to me is almost the opposite—he wasn’t forcing anything on me, I asked for it, but he said emotions aren’t singular—that’s why there are no real ‘cancel out love’ spells. All your feelings are tied to other feelings, and they’re tied to your thoughts and to who you are.” Something fluttered on his wrist as he gestured: It looked like a loop of red fabric. “So he said he would do his best to affect only one part of my emotions. The eros part. Romantic love. But he did say it would probably affect everything else I felt too.”
“And has it?” Emma said.
He frowned. And watching him frown tore at her heart: It was an emotion, even if it was just frustration or wonderment. “I feel as if I’m behind a pane of glass,” he said. “And everyone else is on the other side. My anger is still there, I can feel that easily. I was angry at Jia. And when I climbed the pyre after Ty, it was atavistic, the need to protect him, there was no conscious thought to it.” He glanced down at his bandaged hands. “I still feel grief, over Livvy, but it’s bearable. It doesn’t feel like it’s ripping away my breath. And you . . .”
“And us,” Emma said grimly.
“I know I loved you,” he said. “But I can’t feel it.”
Loved. The past tense was like being punched; she took another step backward, toward the door. She had to get out of the room.
“Entreat me not to leave thee,” she said, reaching for the doorknob, “but you’ve left me. You’ve left me, Julian.”
“Emma, stop,” he said. “Last night—when I went to Magnus—the curse was happening. I felt it. I know, I know I couldn’t stand one more person dying.”
“I never would have agreed to stay here with you if I’d known what you’d done,” Emma said. “You could at least have told me. Honesty isn’t an emotion, Julian.”
At that, she thought, he did flinch—though it could have been a start of surprise. “Emma—”
“No more,” she said, and fled from the room.
* * *
She wasn’t waiting for Gwyn, Diana told herself. She was definitely not sitting on her bed in the early hours of the morning, wearing a nice silk top she’d found in her closet, even though she would normally have put on her pajamas hours ago, for any reason except that she was up cleaning swords.
She had three or four swords strewn across the coverlet, and she’d been polishing them in an attempt to bring back some of their original glory. They’d once been etched with twining roses, stars, flowers, and thorns, but over the years some had darkened and discolored. She felt a twinge of guilt at having neglected her father’s shop, mixed with the old familiar guilt that always accompanied thoughts of her parents.
There had been a time when all she had wanted was to be Diana and own Diana’s Arrow, when she had ached for Idris and the chance to be herself in the Shadowhunter home country. Now she felt a restlessness that went beyond that; the old hopes felt too confining, as if they were a dress she had outgrown. Perhaps you outgrew your dreams, too, as your world expanded.
Tap. Tap. Diana was up and off the bed the moment the window rattled. She threw up the sash and leaned out. Gwyn was hovering at eye level, his dappled horse shining in the light of the demon towers. His helmet hung by a strap from his horse’s neck; there was a massive sword over his back, its hilt blackened with years of use.
“I could not come sooner,” he said. “I saw the smoke in the sky today and watched from above the clouds. Can you come with me to where it is safe?”
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 t
hem 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.
“He was under the bed,” Diego said.
“Yes, but since Zara Dearborn is on her way to talk to Diego, this isn’t the safest room,” said Rayan. “And the Cohort suspects Diego’s loyalty to their cause, anyway.”
“They do,” said Divya. “We heard them talking.” She held out a hand to Kieran as if to help him up. He eyed it with surprise, then rose to his feet unassisted.
“I would not kill her if she was unarmed,” said Kieran. “I would challenge her to a fair fight.”
“Yeah, and then everyone would know you were here, including the Clave,” said Divya. She snapped her fingers. “Come on. Let’s go. Quit wasting time.”
Kieran looked slightly stunned. He cut his eyes sideways toward Diego, and Diego nodded. “It’ll be safer for both of us.”
“As you command, then,” Kieran said, and followed Rayan and Divya out of the room, the witchlight wavering over them all. They slipped into the shadows and were gone; Diego barely had time to get out of bed and shrug on a T-shirt before the door banged open.
Zara stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, glowering. Diego wondered if he should thank her for knocking but decided that she probably didn’t understand sarcasm.
“I’m just about fed up with you,” she said.
Diego leaned back against the wardrobe and crossed his arms over his chest. Zara’s eyes skated over his biceps. She smirked.
“I really had hope for our alliance,” she said. “But you’d better straighten up and stop sympathizing with Downworlders, criminals, and ingrates.”
“Ingrates?” Diego echoed. “I’m only allowed to hang out with the grateful?”
Zara blinked. “What?”
“I’m not sure tha
t word means what you think it means,” said Diego. “English is my second language, but . . .”
“The Blackthorns are ingrates,” she clarified. “You need to drop them and everyone associated with them.” Her eyes bored into him.
“If you mean Cristina, we are only friends—”
“I don’t care. The Blackthorns are awful. Mark’s a half-breed, Ty is a weird little recluse, Dru is fat and stupid, and Julian is like—like Sebastian Morgenstern.”
Diego burst out laughing. “He’s what?”
She flushed. “He raised the dead!”
“He didn’t, actually,” said Diego, though he knew it didn’t matter. The Cohort constantly changed the rules of the game when they were trying to make a point. They didn’t care too much whether their evidence was accurate, nor were they going to be interested in the difference between raising the dead and just associating with them.
“You’ll be sorry when he’s burning the world down,” she said darkly.
“I bet I will,” said Diego. “Look, do you have anything else to say? Because it’s the middle of the night and I’d like to get some sleep.”
“Remember why you agreed to get engaged to me in the first place,” she said, with a sharp little grin. “Maybe you should have thought of what the consequences would be if I had to break it off.”
She turned to go, and Diego saw her pause, as if she’d caught sight of something that surprised her. She shot a last glare at him and stalked off down the corridor.
There was no lock on the door. All Diego could do was kick it shut before flopping back down on his bed. He stared at the ceiling again, but this time it provided no distraction.
6
FROM A PROUD TOWER
Emma awoke with a pounding headache to a knocking on her bedroom door. She’d fallen asleep on the floor in all her clothes; her hair was damp, sticking to her cheeks. She felt, and suspected she looked, like a shipwreck.
Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3) Page 10
