“They just went into the Hollow Place,” he said. “I couldn’t follow them—I don’t have my stele on me. Do either of you?”
“I do,” said Diego, and they jogged down a short, sloping hallway to a set of closed doors. Loud giggles spilled out from inside the room.
Diego scrawled a quick Open rune on the door. It wrenched open with a puff of rust and they charged inside.
The Hollow Place was a wide space with granite floors, clear of any furniture. The walls were rough rock, glittering with mica. In the center of the room was a tile-lined pool with water so clear and clean it reflected like a mirror. Gold metal lettering decorated the floor: And God split open the hollow place, and water came out from it.
“Well, thank the Angel,” drawled Manuel, who was leaning against a far wall in a pose of total disinterest. “Look who’s here to save us all.”
Zara giggled. She was surrounded by a group of other Cohort members—among them Diego recognized several Scholomance students and their family members. Mallory Bridgestock and Milo Coldridge. Anush Joshi, Divya’s cousin. Several Centurions were there too: Timothy Rockford, Samantha Larkspear, and Jessica Beausejours were standing around smirking while Anush dragged Kieran toward the pool in the center of the room. Kieran was jerking and twisting in his grip; there was blood on his face, his shirt.
“It’s a fair punishment for the princeling, don’t you think?” said Zara. “If you look or swim in the water of the pool, you feel the pain you’ve inflicted on others. So if he’s innocent, it should be just fine for him.”
“No one is that innocent,” said Rayan. “The pool is to be used sparingly, to allow students to seek for truth within themselves. Not as a torture device.”
“What an interesting thought, Rayan,” said Manuel. “Thank you for sharing. But I don’t see Gladstone running in here to stop us, do you? Is it possible you didn’t want to get in trouble for harboring a faerie fugitive?”
“I think it’s interesting you know so much about Kieran,” said Divya. “Is it possible you knew he was here and didn’t want to report it so you could torture and kill him yourself?”
She was right, Diego thought, but none of this was helping Kieran, who was gagging and choking on his own blood.
I swore I would protect him. Diego reached for his ax, only to realize it wasn’t there. He saw Zara’s eyes narrow and turned; Divya had yanked Rayan’s sword from its scabbard and was pointing it at the Cohort.
“Enough,” she said. “Stop it, all of you. And I’m especially ashamed of you, Anush,” she added, shooting her cousin a dark look. “You know what it’s like to be treated unfairly. When your mother finds out . . .”
Anush let Kieran go with a shove. He landed at the edge of the pool with a grunt of agony. Move away from the water, Diego thought, but Kieran was clearly wounded; he knelt in place, dazed and gasping.
“We’re just having a little fun,” protested Anush.
“What are you going to do, Divya, attack us?” said Samantha. “Just for having a little fun?”
“He’s bleeding,” said Diego. “That’s more than just ‘a little fun.’ And what happens if you kill him? Do you really want to deal with the consequences? He’s the son of the Unseelie King.”
There was a rumble of discontent among the Cohort. Clearly they’d never thought about that.
“Fine, fine,” said Zara. “Be killjoys. But I knew he was here, hiding out in your room,” she said to Diego. “I saw a hollowed acorn on your floor. So this is your fault. If you hadn’t brought him here, none of this would have happened.”
“Give it a rest, Zara,” said Divya, still holding the sword levelly. “Diego, go get Kieran.”
Diego started across the room, just as Manuel spoke. “Why don’t you look in the water yourself, Rocio Rosales?” he said. “If you think your soul is so clean. It should be painless for you.”
“Cállate la pinche boca,” Diego snapped, nearly at Kieran’s side; the faerie prince was coughing, blood on his lips. He’d started to pull himself upright when Manuel moved with the speed of a snake: Planting a boot in Kieran’s back, he kicked him into the water.
Diego lunged forward, catching at the back of Kieran’s shirt, but not before Kieran had gotten a faceful of pool water. Diego yanked him out, coughing and gasping, and tried to set him on his feet; Kieran staggered and Rayan caught him.
“Just get out,” Samantha said, striding toward them. “When the Inquisitor hears about this—”
“Samantha!” Jessica called in alarm, but it was too late; Samantha had slipped on the water at the edge of the pool and tumbled in with a scream.
“By the Angel.” Divya lowered her sword, staring. “Is she—”
Samantha surfaced, screaming. It was a terrible scream, as if she were dying, or watching someone she loved die. It was a scream of horror and revulsion and misery.
The Cohort members stood stunned; only a few moved toward Samantha. Hands reached into the water, grasped her arms, and drew her out.
Kieran’s hands. Still coughing blood, he deposited Samantha on the side of the pool. She rolled over, retching and gagging water, as Zara shoved herself between Samantha and the faerie prince. “Get away from her,” she snarled at Kieran.
He turned and limped toward Diego. Diego caught Kieran as he nearly collapsed. The Cohort was occupied with Samantha; there was no time to waste. As Diego hurried from the room, half-supporting Kieran between himself and Rayan, Divya following with her sword, he was almost sure he could hear Manuel laughing.
* * *
“Okay,” Julian said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
They were in what Emma could only describe as a glade. Glades were the sort of thing she didn’t have a lot of experience with—there weren’t too many in L.A.—but this was definitely one: open and grassy, surrounded by trees, filled with sunlight and the low humming of what might have been insects or tiny pixies.
You never could tell in Faerie.
She was still dizzy from the trip through the faerie gate, buried deep in the woods of Brocelind Forest. How Horace had known about it, she couldn’t guess. Perhaps it was information given to all the high officials of the Clave. He had been impatient, nearly shoving them through without ceremony, but not too impatient to give Emma the medallion, and both of them black rucksacks packed with weapons, gear, and food.
The last thing he’d said was: “Remember, you’re heading toward the Unseelie Court. Follow the map.”
A map wouldn’t work in Faerie, Emma had thought, but Horace had shoved her toward the gate of twisted branches, and a moment later she was thudding to her knees on green grass and the scent of Faerie air was in her nose and mouth.
She reached up a hand and touched the medallion. It didn’t have an angel on it, like Cristina’s; in fact, it looked as if it had once borne a Shadowhunter family crest that had since been scratched away. Otherwise it looked much like the Rosales necklace. It made a comforting weight at the base of her throat.
“The Clave packed us sandwiches,” Julian said, fishing around in his rucksack. “I guess for today, because they won’t keep. There’s cheese, bread, dried meat, and fruit. Some bottles of water.”
Emma moved closer to him to see what he was unpacking and spreading on the grass. He’d taken out two gray blankets, an assortment of weapons—they also carried weapons on their belts—and folded clothes. When Julian shook them out, they turned out to be smooth linen in earth tones, fastened with laces and loops, no zippers or buttons.
“Faerie clothes,” Emma said.
“It’s a good idea,” said Julian. Both outfits consisted of a long overshirt, trousers that laced up the front, and vests made of tough hide. “We should change. The longer we stand around in Shadowhunter gear, the longer we’re a target.”
Emma took the smaller set of clothes and went behind a copse of trees to change. She wished she could have asked Julian to go with her, especially when she was hopping on one foot, pulling on
her trousers with one hand while gripping her weapons belt with the other. She’d rarely felt more vulnerable to attack, but even though Julian had seen her with no clothes on at all, it felt awkward now. She wasn’t sure how this new Julian, the one without feelings, would react, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
The faerie clothes were comfortable at least, soft and loose. When she emerged from the trees, she stood blinking in the bright sunlight for a moment, looking for Julian.
She saw him as he turned; he was holding up what looked like a piece of old parchment, frowning. He had put on the faerie trousers, but he was naked from the waist up.
Her stomach tightened. Emma had seen Julian shirtless at the beach plenty of times, but somehow this was different. Maybe because now she knew what it was like to run her hands over his shoulders, pale gold in the sunlight. He was smoothly muscled all over, the ridges in his abdomen sharply defined. She had kissed her way down that skin while he ran his hands through her hair, saying Emma, Emma, in the gentlest voice. Now she was staring like a curious onlooker.
But she couldn’t stop. There was something about it—illicit, nerve-racking—as if Julian were a dangerous stranger. Her gaze slipped over him: his hair, soft and dark and thick, curling where it touched the nape of his neck; his hips and collarbones made elegant arches under his skin; his runes described whorls and spirals across his chest and biceps. His parabatai rune seemed to glow under the sun. Around his wrist was the same knotted rag of red-brown cloth.
He looked up at that moment and saw her. He lowered the parchment he was holding, angling it to cover the thing on his wrist. “Come here,” he called, “and look at the map,” and turned away, reaching for his shirt. By the time she’d gotten near him, he’d pulled it on and the rag was covered.
He handed over the map and she forgot everything else. She stared at it as he knelt down, unpacking the food from one of the rucksacks.
The parchment showed a sketch of Faerie—the Thorn Mountains, various lakes and streams, and the Courts of Seelie and Unseelie. It also showed a bright red dot that seemed to be trembling slightly, as if it weren’t a part of the page.
“The dot is us,” Julian said, putting out sandwiches. “I figured the map out—it shows where we are in relation to the Courts. No real map would work here. The landscape of Faerie always shifts, and the Unseelie Court moves around. But since this shows where we are and where the Unseelie Court is, as long as we keep walking toward it we should be all right.”
Emma sat down on the grass across from him and picked up a sandwich. They were both cheese, lettuce, and tomato—not her favorite but she didn’t care, since she was hungry enough to eat pretty much anything.
“And what about Jace and Clary? We said to Simon and Isabelle that we’d look for them.”
“We only have four days,” Julian said. “We have to find the Black Volume first, or Horace will destroy our lives.”
And the kids’ lives. And Helen’s and Aline’s. And even Cristina’s, because she knew our secret and she didn’t tell. Emma knew it was all true, and Julian was being practical. Still, she wished he seemed more regretful that they couldn’t look for their friends yet.
“But we can look for them if we find the book?” said Emma.
“If we still have time left on Horace’s clock,” said Julian. “I don’t see why not.”
“Four days isn’t that much time,” said Emma. “Do you think this plan could work? Or is Horace just trying to get us killed?”
“Be a pretty elaborate way to kill us,” said Julian. He took a bite out of his sandwich and looked meditatively into the distance. “He wants the Black Volume. You heard him. I don’t think he cares how he gets it, and we’ll probably have to watch our step. But as long as we have it in our hands . . .” He pointed at the map. “Look. Bram’s Crossroads.”
The fact that their extraction point actually existed made Emma feel slightly better.
“I wish I knew what he was going to do with the Black Volume,” Emma muttered.
“Probably nothing. He wants it so the faeries can’t have it. It would be a political coup for him. The Consul couldn’t get it, now he does, he gets to hold it up at the next Council meeting and praise himself.”
“He’ll probably say Zara found it,” Emma said—and then paused, staring at Julian. “You’re eating lettuce,” she said.
“Yes?” He was leaning over the map, his fingers keeping it flat.
“You hate lettuce.” She thought of all the times he’d eaten lettuce in front of the kids to be a good example and then complained to her later that it tasted like crunchy paper. “You’ve always hated it.”
“Have I?” He sounded puzzled. He rose to his feet, starting to gather up their things. “We should head out. This time we travel by daylight. Too much weird stuff abroad in Faerie at night.”
It’s just lettuce, Emma told herself. Not that important. Still, she found herself biting her lip as she bent to pick up her rucksack. Julian was strapping his crossbow to his back; his rucksack went across the other shoulder.
From the woods came a cracking noise, the kind a breaking branch might make. Emma whirled around, her hand at her hip, feeling for the hilt of a knife. “Did you hear that?”
Julian tightened the strap of his crossbow. They stood there for long moments, on their guard, but there was no second sound, and nothing appeared. Emma wished fiercely for a Vision or Hearing rune.
“It could have been nothing,” Julian said, finally, and though Emma knew he wasn’t really trying to comfort her, just trying to get them on the road, it still seemed like something the Julian she knew would say.
In silence they headed away from the clearing, which moments ago had been bright with sunlight and now seemed ominous and full of shadows.
8
LONG-FORGOTTEN BOWERS
Diana hurried toward the canal house on Princewater Street, the cool morning wind lifting her hair. She felt shot through with adrenaline, tense at the prospect of spilling her history to Emma and Jules. She’d kept it hugged so close to herself for so many years, telling Gwyn had been like cracking open her ribs to show her heart.
She hoped the second time would be easier. Emma and Julian loved her, she told herself. They would—
She stopped dead, the heels of her boots clacking on the cobblestones. The cheerfully painted blue canal house rose in front of her, but it was surrounded by a ring of Council guards. Not just Council guards, in fact. Quite a few of them were young Centurions. Each was armed with an oak bo staff.
She glanced around. A few Shadowhunters hurried by, none of them glancing at the house. She wondered how many of them knew Jules and Emma were even still in Alicante—but then, the Inquisitor had planned to make an example of their testimony. They’d have to know eventually.
At the top of the steps was Amelia Overbeck, who had been giggling with Zara at the funeral. Annoyance sped up Diana’s stride, and she pushed past the first ring of guards and ascended the steps.
Amelia, who had been leaning against the door talking to a girl with long orange-red hair, turned to Diana with a brittle smirk. “Miss Wrayburn,” she said. “Is there something you want?”
“I’d like to see Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs,” said Diana, keeping her voice as neutral as possible.
“Gosh,” said Amelia, clearly enjoying herself. “I just don’t think so.”
“Amelia, I have every right,” said Diana. “Let me by.”
Amelia slewed her gaze toward the redhead. “This is Diana Wrayburn, Vanessa,” she said. “She thinks she’s very important.”
“Vanessa Ashdown?” Diana looked more closely: Cameron’s cousin had left for the Academy as a spindly teen, and was almost unrecognizable now. “I know your cousin Cameron.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “He’s boring. Emma’s whipped puppy. And no, don’t think you can get into the house by making nice with me. I don’t like the Blackthorns or anyone who pals around with them.”
<
br /> “Great news, since you’re supposed to be protecting them,” said Diana. Her adrenaline was coiling into rage. “Look, I’m going to open this door. If you want to try to stop me—”
“Diana!”
Diana turned, pushing hair out of her face: Jia was standing outside the ring of guards, her hand raised as if in greeting.
“The Consul.” Vanessa’s eyes bugged out. “Oh sh—”
“Shut up, Vanessa,” hissed Amelia. She didn’t look worried or afraid of Jia, just annoyed.
Diana pushed her way down the steps and to Jia’s side. Jia wore a silk blouse and trousers, her hair held back with a jeweled clip. Her mouth was an angry slash. “Don’t bother,” she said in a low voice, placing her hand on Diana’s elbow and guiding her away from the crowd of hooting guards. “I heard them say Emma and Julian were with the Inquisitor.”
“Well, why didn’t they just tell me that?” Diana snapped, exasperated. She glanced back over her shoulder at Vanessa Ashdown, who was giggling. “Vanessa Ashdown. My mother used to say some people had more hair than sense.”
“She does seem to aptly prove that theory,” said Jia dryly. She had stopped some distance from the house, where a small stone bank inclined into the canal. It was thick with moss, bright green under the silver water that slopped up the side. “Look, Diana, I need to talk to you. Where can we not be overheard?”
Diana looked at Jia closely. Was it her imagination, or when the Consul glanced at the Centurions surrounding the small canal house, did she look—afraid?
“Don’t worry,” said Diana. “I know exactly what to do.”
* * *
She was climbing a spiral staircase that seemed to reach toward the stars. Cristina didn’t remember how she had found the staircase, nor did she recall her destination. The staircase rose from darkness and soared into the clouds; she kept the material of her long skirts clutched in her hands so she wouldn’t trip over them. Her hair felt dense and heavy, and the scent of white roses thickened the air.
Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3) Page 14
