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

Helen made a small noise. “Oh, Octavian,” she said.

“She is dead,” Mark said helplessly, and saw Tavvy wince away from the words. “Mortal lives are short and—and fragile in the face of eternity.”

Tavvy’s eyes filled with tears.

“Mark,” Helen said, and knelt down on the ground, reaching her hands out to Tavvy. “She died so bravely,” she said. “She was defending Julian and Emma. Our sister—she was courageous.”

The tears began to spill down Tavvy’s face. “Where’s Julian?” he said. “Where did he go?”

Helen dropped her hands. “He’s with Livvy in the Silent City—he’ll be back soon—let us take you back home to the canal house—”

“Home?” Tavvy said scornfully. “Nothing here is home.”

Mark was aware of Simon having come to stand beside him. “God, poor kid,” he said. “Look, Mark—”

“Octavian.” It was Magnus’s voice. He was standing in the doorway still, looking down at the small tearstained boy in front of him. There was exhaustion in his eyes, but also an immense compassion: the kind of compassion that came with great old age.

He seemed as if he would have said more, but Rafe and Max had joined him. Silently they filed down the steps and went over to Tavvy; Rafe was nearly as tall as he was, though he was only five. He reached to hug Tavvy, and Max did too—and to Mark’s surprise, Tavvy seemed to relax slightly, allowing the embraces, nodding when Max said something to him in a quiet voice.

Helen got to her feet, and Mark wondered if his face wore the same expression hers did, of pain and shame. Shame that they could not do more to comfort a younger brother who barely knew them.

“It’s all right,” Simon said. “Look, you tried.”

“We did not succeed,” said Mark.

“You can’t fix grief,” said Simon. “A rabbi told me that when my father died. The only thing that fixes grief is time, and the love of the people who care about you, and Tavvy has that.” He squeezed Mark’s shoulder briefly. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Shelo ted’u od tza’ar, Mark Blackthorn.”

“What does that mean?” said Mark.

“It’s a blessing,” said Simon. “Something else the rabbi taught me. ‘Let it be that you should know no further sorrow.’?”

Mark inclined his head in gratitude; faeries knew the value of blessings freely given. But his chest felt heavy nonetheless. He could not imagine the sorrows of his family would be ending soon.





2


MELANCHOLY WATERS


Cristina stood despairingly in the extremely clean kitchen of the Princewater Street canal house and wished there was something she could tidy up.

She’d washed dishes that didn’t need washing. She’d mopped the floor and set and reset the table. She’d arranged flowers in a vase and then thrown them out, and then retrieved them from the trash and arranged them again. She wanted to make the kitchen nice, the house pretty, but was anyone really going to care if the kitchen was nice and the house was pretty?

She knew they wouldn’t. But she had to do something. She wanted to be with Emma and comfort Emma, but Emma was with Drusilla, who had cried herself to sleep holding Emma’s hands. She wanted to be with Mark, and comfort Mark, but he’d left with Helen, and she could hardly be anything but glad that at last he was getting to spend time with the sister he’d missed for so long.

The front door rattled open, startling Cristina into knocking a dish from the table. It fell to the floor and shattered. She was about to pick it up when she saw Julian come in, closing the door behind him—Locking runes were more common than keys in Idris, but he didn’t reach for his stele, just looked sightlessly from the entryway to the stairs.

Cristina stood frozen. Julian looked like the ghost from a Shakespeare play. He clearly hadn’t changed since the Council Hall; his shirt and jacket were stiff with dried blood.

She never quite knew how to talk to Julian anyway; she knew more about him than was comfortable, thanks to Emma. She knew he was desperately in love with her friend; it was obvious in the way he looked at Emma, spoke to her, in gestures as tiny as handing her a dish across a table. She didn’t know how everyone else didn’t see it too. She’d known other parabatai and they didn’t look at each other like that.

Having such personal information about someone was awkward at the best of times. This wasn’t the best of times. Julian’s expression was blank; he moved into the hall, and as he walked, his sister’s dried blood flaked off his jacket and drifted to the floor.

If she just stood still, Cristina thought, he might not see her, and he might go upstairs and they’d both be spared an awkward moment. But even as she thought it, the bleakness in his face tugged at her heart. She was in the doorway before she realized she’d moved.

“Julian,” she said quietly.

He didn’t seem startled. He turned to face her as slowly as an automaton winding down. “How are they?”

How did you answer that? “They’re well taken care of,” she said finally. “Helen has been here, and Diana, and Mark.”

“Ty . . .”

“Is still asleep.” She tugged nervously at her skirt. She’d changed all her clothes since the Council Hall, just to feel clean.

For the first time, he met her eyes. His were shot through with red, though she didn’t remember having seen him cry. Or maybe he had cried when he was holding Livvy—she didn’t want to remember that. “Emma,” he said. “Is she all right? You’d know. She would—tell you.”

“She’s with Drusilla. But I’m sure she’d like to see you.”

“But is she all right?”

“No,” Cristina said. “How could she be all right?”

He glanced toward the steps, as if he couldn’t imagine the effort it would take to climb them. “Robert was going to help us,” he said. “Emma and me. You know about us, I know that you do, that you know how we feel.”

Cristina hesitated, stunned. She’d never thought Julian would mention any of this to her. “Maybe the next Inquisitor—”

“I passed through the Gard on my way back,” Julian said. “They’re already meeting. Most of the Cohort and half the Council. Talking about who’s going to be the next Inquisitor. I doubt it’s going to be someone who will help us. Not after today. I should care,” he said. “But right now I don’t.”

A door opened at the top of the steps, and light spilled onto the dark landing. “Julian?” Emma called. “Julian, is that you?”

He straightened a little, unconsciously, at the sound of her voice. “I’ll be right there.” He didn’t look at Cristina as he went up the stairs, but he nodded to her, a quick gesture of acknowledgment.

She heard his footsteps die away, his voice mingling with Emma’s. She glanced back at the kitchen. The broken dish lay in the corner. She could sweep it up. It would be the more practical thing to do, and Cristina had always thought of herself as practical.

A moment later she had thrown her gear jacket on over her clothes. Tucking several seraph blades into her weapons belt, she slipped quietly out the door and into the streets of Alicante.

*

Emma listened to the familiar sound of Julian coming up the stairs. The tread of his feet was like music she had always known, so familiar it had almost stopped being music.

Emma resisted calling out again—she was in Dru’s room, and Dru had just fallen asleep, worn-out, still in the clothes she’d worn to the Council meeting. Emma heard Julian’s step in the hall, and then the sound of a door opening and closing.

Careful not to wake Dru, she slipped out of the room. She knew where Julian was without having to wonder: Down the hall a few doors was Ty’s borrowed bedroom.

Inside, the room was softly lit. Diana sat in an armchair by the head of Ty’s bed, her face tight with grief and weariness. Kit was asleep, propped against the wall, his hands in his lap.