Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

by Cassandra Clare

  Maybe Arthur had been right. Maybe mercy was better than revenge.

  She kept her hand down, as did all the other Blackthorns. No one she knew well raised their hand, not even Diego or Jaime, who had good cause to hate Zara and her friends.

  Jia looked relieved. “And now,” she said, “to the election of a new Consul.”

  Jace was on his feet before she finished speaking. “I nominate Alec Lightwood.”

  The Blackthorns clapped fiercely. Alec looked stunned and touched. Clary cheered, and the cheer spread—many in the room waved their hands in support, and Emma’s heart swelled. Jace could have reached out for the position of Consul had he wanted; he and Clary were beloved; either would win handily. But he had put Alec forward for it, because it was what Alec wanted—and because Jace knew Alec was the right choice.

  Delaney Scarsbury rose to his feet, his face red. “I object. Alec Lightwood is much too young. He lacks experience and notoriously consorts with Downworlders.”

  “You mean by heading up the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance where his job is to consort with Downworlders?” called Julian.

  “He does it in his free time as well, Blackthorn,” said Scarsbury with a nasty smile. Emma rather wished Magnus was there and could turn him into a toad, but Downworlders weren’t at the meeting. They had refused to be in the same room as the Cohort members, and Emma couldn’t blame them.

  “You know what they mean,” called Zara. “He’s a filthy pervert. Jace should stand for Consul instead.”

  “I am also a filthy pervert,” said Jace, “or at least I aspire to be. You have no idea what I get up to in my spare time. Just last week I asked Clary to buy me a—”

  Clary pulled him down next to her and belabored him with her fists. He grinned.

  “What about Patrick Penhallow?” someone shouted. “He knows what he’s doing!”

  Patrick, seated in the front row, rose to his feet with a stony expression. “I will not stand as Consul,” he said. “My wife has given enough. My daughter has given enough. It is time for my family to be allowed some peace and rest.”

  He sat down in dead silence.

  Delaney Scarsbury said, “I nominate Lazlo Balogh.”

  Real fear stabbed through Emma for the first time that day. She and Julian looked at each other, both remembering the same moment—Lazlo rising in the Hall of Accords to deliver the words that sent Helen into exile and abandoned Mark to the Hunt. Both Mark and Helen Blackthorn have the blood of faeries in them. We know the boy’s already joined up with the Wild Hunt, so he’s beyond us, but the girl shouldn’t be among Shadowhunters. It isn’t decent.

  Those who hadn’t cheered for Alec’s nomination looked pleased, as did the Cohort. “He’d be an awful Consul,” Emma said to Julian. “He’d set everything back.”

  “We don’t really have a better system,” said Julian. “All we can do is ask people what they want.”

  “And hope they choose the right thing,” said Cristina.

  “Alec would look much better on the money,” said Mark.

  “We don’t put the Consul on the money,” said Julian. “And we don’t print money, anyway.”

  “We could start doing both,” said Mark.

  “Alec Lightwood has never even lived in Idris,” said Lazlo, rising up. “What does he know about governing our homeland?”

  Alec rose to his feet. “My parents were exiled,” he said. “And most Shadowhunters don’t live in Idris—how will you govern them if you think the only Shadowhunters that matter live in Alicante?”

  “Your parents were exiled because they were in the Circle!” snapped Balogh.

  “And he has learned from his parents’ mistakes!” Maryse snapped. “My son knows better than anyone else the horror that bigotry and prejudice can bring.”

  Alec gave her a nod, and spoke coolly. “You voted for my father for Inquisitor, Balogh, so it didn’t bother you then,” he said. “My father gave his life in this room for the Clave. What have you done besides exile Shadowhunter children because you were afraid of their faerie blood?”

  “Damn,” said someone in the back. “He’s good.”

  “Lightwood would end the Downworlder Registry,” said Lazlo. “And the Cold Peace.”

  “You’re right, I would,” said Alec. “We can’t live in fear of Downworlders. Downworlders gave us Portals. They gave us a victory over Valentine. They gave us a victory on the Fields just now. We cannot keep pretending we don’t need them, any more than they can pretend they don’t need us. Our future depends on our mandate—we are the hunters of demons, not the hunters of our own allies. If prejudice sidetracks us, we may all die.”

  Lazlo’s expression darkened. Applause rang through the room, though not all were applauding. Many Shadowhunters sat with their hands clasped firmly in their laps.

  “I think it has come time for the vote,” said Jia. She took a tarnished glass vessel from a stand on the dais and handed it down to Patrick in the front row. He bent his head and whispered into the vial.

  Emma watched with interest—she had heard of the process of voting for Consul but had never seen it. The vial went from hand to hand, each Shadowhunter whispering into it as if confessing a secret. Those Projecting had the vial held out to them by obliging hands since Projections could speak but not touch objects.

  When the vial came to her, she lifted it to her mouth and said, “Alexander Lightwood,” in a firm, loud voice. She heard Julian chuckle as she passed it along to Cristina.

  At last the vial had been shared with every Shadowhunter save the Cohort. It was given to Jia, who passed it along to Zara.

  “Vote wisely,” she said. “The freedom to choose your own Consul is a great responsibility.”

  For a moment, Zara looked as if she might spit in the jar. She jerked it out of Jia’s hand, spoke into it, and handed it to Manuel on her right. He smirked as he whispered into the jar, and Emma’s shoulders tightened, knowing that every Cohort vote was a vote against Alec.

  At last the final vote was cast, and the jar returned to Jia, who took out her stele and drew a rune on its side. The vial shook in her hand as pale smoke poured from its open neck, the expelled breath of hundreds of Nephilim. It formed into words across the air.

  ALEXANDER GIDEON LIGHTWOOD

  Clary and Jace flung themselves at Alec, laughing, as the air exploded with cheers. Aline and Helen gave Alec a mutual thumbs-up. The Projections of Isabelle and Simon waved from the back of the room. The Blackthorns whooped and applauded; Emma whistled. Maryse Lightwood wiped away tears of happiness as Kadir patted her shoulder gently.

  “Alec Lightwood,” cried Jia. “Please rise. You are the new Consul of the Clave.”

  Emma had expected an outburst from Lazlo, or at least a look of black rage. Instead he merely smirked coldly as Alec rose to his feet among cheers and applause.

  “This vote doesn’t count! It shouldn’t count!” shouted Zara. “If those who died on the field could have voted, Alec Lightwood would never have won!”

  “I will work toward your rehabilitation, Zara,” said Alec evenly.

  Silver flashed. Zara had snatched a long dagger from the weapons belt of a guard standing near her; he made no move to stop her. There were gasps as the rest of the guards tossed weapons to the other Cohort members, steel sparking in the light from the great windows.

  “We refuse to recognize Alec Lightwood as Consul!” shouted Manuel. “We stand for our old traditions, for the way things always have been and always should be!”

  “Guards!” Jia shouted, but the twenty or so guards were making no effort to stop the Cohort—in fact, they had joined them in a flurry of unsheathed daggers. Emma glanced at Lazlo Balogh, who was watching with folded arms, clearly unsurprised. Somehow, Emma realized, the Cohort’s allies had planted guards who were sympathetic to their cause. But what on earth were they planning? There were still only a fraction of them compared to the overwhelming number of Shadowhunters who had voted for Alec.

>   Jia leaped down from the dais, unsheathing her dao. All over the Hall, Shadowhunters were rising to their feet and drawing arms. Alec had reached for his bow, Jace his sword. Dru reached for Tavvy, her face pale, as the rest of the family took out their weapons.

  Then Zara raised her dagger and put it to her own throat.

  Movement in the room ceased. Emma still gripped Cortana, staring as Manuel followed Zara’s gesture, placing the blade of his own dagger against his throat. Amelia Overbeck did the same—Vanessa Ashdown followed, with Milo Coldridge—until all the Cohort members stood with blades to their throats.

  “You can put your weapons down,” said Zara, holding the knife against her throat so tightly that blood dripped down her hand. “We are not here to harm our fellow Shadowhunters. You have harmed yourselves enough with your foolish and shortsighted vote. We are acting to save Alicante from corruption and the glass towers from ruin.” Her eyes glittered madly. “You spoke before of the value of the lands outside Alicante as if Alicante were not the heart of our people. Very well then, go out and embrace the mundane world, away from the Angel’s light.”

  “Are you demanding we leave Alicante?” said Diana in disbelief. “We who are Nephilim as you are?”

  “No consort of a faerie is as Nephilim as I am,” Zara spat. “Yes. We ask—we demand—that you go. Clary Fairchild can create Portals; let her make one now. Step through it and go where you wish. Anywhere that is not Alicante.”

  “You’re only a few people,” said Emma. “You can’t kick the rest of us out of Alicante. It’s not your tree house.”

  “I am sorry it came to this,” said Lazlo, “but we are not a few people. We are many more. You may have intimidated people into voting for Lightwood, but their hearts are with us.”

  “You would propose a civil war? Here in the Council Hall?” demanded Diana.

  “Not a civil war,” said Zara. “We know we cannot win against you in battle. You have too many filthy tricks. You have warlocks on your side.” She glared at Alec. “But we are willing to die for our beliefs and for Alicante. We will not leave. We will spill Shadowhunter blood, yes. Our own blood. We will cut our own throats and die here at your feet. Either you will go or we will wash this room clean in our blood.”

  Jaime rose to his feet. “Call their bluff,” he said. “They cannot hold us hostage—”

  Zara nodded to Amelia, who plunged the dagger she held into her stomach and twisted it viciously to the side. She fell to her knees spurting blood as the room exploded with gasps of horror.

  “Can you build your new Clave on the blood of dead children?” Zara screamed at Alec. “You said you would show mercy. If you let us die, every time you step into this room from this moment onward, you will be walking on our corpses.”

  Everyone looked at Jia, but Jia was looking at Alec. Alec, the new Consul.

  He was studying not Zara’s face but the faces of the others in the room—those who looked at Zara as if she were the promise of freedom. There was no mercy on the faces of the Cohort. Not a one of them reached for Amelia as her blood ran out across the floor.

  “Very well,” said Alec with a deadly calm. “We will go.”

  Zara’s eyes widened. Emma suspected she had not expected her plan to work, but had hoped to die as a martyr and destroy Alec and the rest of them in the process.

  “You understand,” Lazlo said, “that once you go, Lightwood, you cannot return. We will lock the wards of Idris against you, tear the Portal from the walls of the Gard, brick up the entrances from the Silent City. You will never be able to come back.”

  “Brick up the entrances to the Silent City?” said Diego. “You would cut off your own access to the Silent Brothers? To the Cup and Sword?”

  “Who holds Idris holds the Mortal Mirror,” said Lazlo. “As for the Silent Brothers, they have been corrupted, as the Iron Sisters have. We will cut them off from Alicante until they see the error of their ways. Until they see who the true Shadowhunters are.”

  “The world is bigger than Idris,” said Jace, standing tall and proud beside Alec. “You think you are taking our homeland, but you are making it your prison. Just as we can never return, you will never be able to leave.”

  “Outside the wards of Idris we will fight on to protect the world,” Alec said. “In here, you will rot as you play at being soldiers with nothing to fight but each other.”

  Alec turned his back on Balogh, moving to face the Clave. “Let’s open the Portal now,” he said. “Those who do not live in Alicante, return through it to your homes. Those who live here will have a choice. Gather your families and come with us or remain here, trapped forever, with the Cohort as your rulers. It is the choice of each Shadowhunter whether they wish to be imprisoned or free.”

  Clary rose to her feet and walked to the doors at the back of the room, taking her stele from her pocket. The Clave watched in silence as her stele flashed in her hand and a silvery-gray whirlwind began to grow against the doors, opening outward, shimmering along the walls until it had become an enormous Portal.

  She turned to look at the room. “I’ll keep this open for as long as anyone needs to leave Idris,” she said, her voice firm and clear. “I’ll be the last who passes through. Who wants to be the first?”

  Emma stood, and Julian moved with her, acting together as they always had. “We will follow our Consul,” Emma said.

  “The Blackthorns will go first,” Julian said. “Keep your prison, Zara. We will be free without you.”

  The rest of their family rose with them. Aline went to Jia and looped her arm through her mother’s. Emma would have thought the room would have been full of cries and chaos, of arguing and fighting. But it seemed as if a cloak of stunned acceptance had been drawn over the Shadowhunters, both those leaving and those staying. The Cohort and their allies watched in silence as the majority of Shadowhunters either headed toward the Portal or went to gather up their things from their Alicante houses.

  Alicante would be a ghost town, a ghost city in a ghost land, Emma thought. She looked for Diana, found her nearby in the crowd. “Your father’s shop,” she said. “Your apartment—”

  Diana just smiled. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I was always coming back with you to Los Angeles, love. I’m a teacher. Not a shop owner in Idris. And why would I want to live somewhere Gwyn couldn’t go?”

  Cristina hugged Diego and Jaime as they stood, ready to return to Mexico City. Divya and Rayan were preparing themselves. So were Cameron and Paige Ashdown, though Vanessa still stood on the dais, glaring at them with narrowed eyes. Amelia’s body lay at her feet. Emma felt a twist of pity. To sacrifice so much for a cause that cared nothing for you, and then to die unmourned. It seemed too cruel.

  Cameron turned his back on Vanessa, heading for the stairs, joining the Blackthorns and their friends as Clary directed the Portal to return them to Los Angeles. He didn’t look back at his cousin. Emma hoped he saw her smile at him encouragingly.

  The Ashdowns weren’t the only family that would be torn apart by this. But with every step she took toward the Portal, she knew they were doing the right thing. No shining new world could be built on blood and bones.

  The Portal rose up before Emma, lucent and shimmering. Through it she could see the ocean and the shore, the looming shape of the Institute. Finally the Blackthorns were going home. They had passed through blood, through disaster, and now through exile, but they were going home at last.

  She took Julian’s hand, and they stepped through.

  34

  THE CITY IN THE SEA

  Kieran had been waiting in the meadow for some time now. No one ever told you, he thought, that when you became a King of a Faerie Court, you would have to wear very itchy velvet and silk nearly all the time. The boots were nice—the King had his own cobbler, who molded the leather to his feet—but he could have done without wearing a jeweled belt, heavy rings, and a doublet with five pounds of embroidery on it on a bright summer day.

  A r
ustle in the grass announced the arrival of General Winter, who bowed deeply before Kieran. Kieran had told him many times not to do that, but Winter persisted.

  “Adaon Kingson, your brother,” he announced, and stepped aside, allowing Adaon to pass him and come close to Kieran.

  The two brothers regarded each other. Adaon wore the green livery of a page of the Seelie Court. It suited him. He seemed rested and calm, his dark eyes thoughtful as he gazed at Kieran. “You sought private word with me, my liege?” he said.

  “Winter, turn your back,” Kieran said. In truth, he did not mind what Winter heard: He had not bothered keeping secrets from the head of his guards. It was better for a King not to have secrets if he could avoid it, in his opinion. It simply gave the tools for blackmail into enemy hands.

  Winter walked a few steps away and turned his back. There was a rustle as the handful of redcap guards who had come with him did the same. Adaon raised an eyebrow, but surely he could not be surprised: The guards were good at making themselves invisible, but Kings did not stand around in meadows alone and unprotected.

  “You have come all the way to the doors of an enemy Court to see me,” said Adaon. “I suppose I am complimented.”

  “You are the only brother I have ever trusted,” Kieran said. “And I came to ask you if you wished—if you would consider becoming King in my place.”

  Adaon’s eyebrows flickered like bird wings. “Do you not enjoy being King?”

  “It is not to be enjoyed or not enjoyed. It does not matter. I have left Mark and Cristina, who I love, to stand as King, but I cannot bear it. I cannot live like this.” Kieran fiddled with his heavy rings. “I cannot live without them.”

  “And they would not survive the Court.” Adaon fingered his chin thoughtfully. “Kieran, I am not going to become King, for two reasons. One is that with you on the King’s throne and me beside the Queen, we can work toward peace between Seelie and Unseelie. The Queen hated Arawn, but she does not hate you.”

  “Adaon—” Kieran’s voice was raw.