Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 115

Cristina took a small vial out of her pocket, made of thick blue glass. She unstoppered it and held it up to the light.
Nothing happened. Emma looked at Cristina sideways.
“It always takes a bit of time,” Cristina said reassuringly.
“I heard you in the Unseelie Court,” Emma said. “You said that it wasn’t the ley lines—that it was the blight. You figured it out, didn’t you? What was causing the warlocks’ sickness?”
Cristina turned the vial around. “I suspected it, but I wasn’t totally sure. I knew the blight in Brocelind was the same as the blight in Faerie, but when I realized the King was causing them both—that he wanted to poison our world—I realized it might be what was hurting the warlocks.”
“And Catarina knows?”
“I told her when we got back. She said she’d look into it—”
Smoke began to stream out of the vial, gray-white and opaque. It slowly shaped itself into a slightly distorted scene, wavering at the edges: They were looking at Tessa in a loose blue dress, a stone wall visible behind her.
“Tessa?” Emma said.
“Tessa!” Cristina said. “Is Catarina there as well?”
Tessa tried to smile, but it wavered. “Last night Catarina fell into a sleep that we haven’t been able to wake her from. She is—very ill.”
Cristina murmured in sympathy. Emma couldn’t stop staring at Tessa. She looked so different—not older or younger, but more alive. She had not realized how much Thule Tessa’s emotions had seemed deadened, as if she had long ago given up on having them.
And this Tessa, Emma remembered, was pregnant. It wasn’t visible yet, though Tessa did rest one hand with light protectiveness on her belly as she spoke.
“Before Catarina fell into unconsciousness,” Tessa said, “she told me that she thought Cristina was right about the blight. We have some samples of it here, and we’ve been studying them, but I fear we will be too late to save Magnus and Catarina—and so many others.” Her eyes were bright with tears.
Emma sprang to reassure her. “We think we might have the answer,” she said, and scrambled to tell her story again, ending it on her meeting with Tessa in the cave. There seemed no reason to tell her now what had come after that.
“I told you this?” Tessa seemed astonished. “A me that you encountered in another world?”
“I know it sounds hard to believe. You were living in that cave, the big one up by Staircase Beach. You had Church with you.”
“That does sound right.” Tessa seemed dazed. “What’s the plan? I can help you, though there are few other warlocks well enough to join me—”
“No, it’s all right,” Cristina said. “Jace and Clary are going.”
Tessa frowned. “That seems dangerous.”
“Aline found a time tomorrow when she thinks there won’t be guards at Lake Lyn,” said Cristina. “They’re going to leave at dawn.”
“I suppose danger can never be avoided for Nephilim,” said Tessa. She glanced at Cristina. “Could Emma and I speak for a moment alone, please?”
Cristina blinked in surprise, then hopped down from the desk. “Of course.” She bumped Emma’s shoulder companionably as she headed out the door, and then Emma was alone in the office with a wavering but determined-looking Tessa.
“Emma,” Tessa said as soon as the door had shut behind Cristina. “I wanted to talk to you about Kit Herondale.”
* * *
Kit picked his way across the sand, his sneakers already wet where the incoming tide had caught him unawares.
It was the first time he’d been down to the beach near the Institute without Ty. He felt almost guilty, though when he’d told Ty he was taking a walk, Ty had just nodded and said he’d see him later—Kit knew Ty wanted to talk to Julian, and he didn’t want to interrupt anyway.
There was something restful about this space, where the sea met the shore. Kit had learned long ago in the Shadow Market that there were “in-between” spaces in the world where it was easier to do certain kinds of magic: the middle of bridges, caves between the earth and the underworld, borderlands between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. And the Shadow Market itself, between Downworld and the mundane.
The tide line was a place like that, and because of that it felt like home. It reminded him of an old song he remembered someone singing to him. It must have been his father, though he always remembered it in a woman’s voice.
Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Between the salt water and the sea sand,
Then he shall be a true love of mine.
“That’s a very, very old song,” said a voice. Kit almost tumbled off the rock he’d been clambering over. The sky was deep blue, studded with white clouds, and standing above him on a heap of rocks was Shade. He wore a ragged navy suit with a stitched collar and cuffs, his green skin a stark contrast. “How do you know it?”
Kit, who hadn’t even realized he’d been humming the tune, shrugged. Shade had left off his usual hood. His green face was lined and good-humored, his hair curly and white. Small horns protruded from his temples, curling inward like seashells. Something about him struck Kit as a little odd. “Heard it in the Market.”
“What are you doing out and about without your shadow?”
“Ty’s not my shadow,” said Kit crossly.
“My apologies. I suppose you’re his.” Shade’s eyes were solemn. “Have you come to tell me of the progress you’ve made in your foolish plan to raise his sister from the dead?”
It wasn’t why Kit had come down here, but he found himself telling Shade anyway, about Emma and Julian’s return (though he made no mention of Thule) and the visits they’d made to the Shadow Market in the ensuing chaos, no one noticing they were gone. Julian, usually the most eagle-eyed older brother in the world, had been unconscious, and even today he’d seemed unfocused and groggy.
“You’ve done better than I thought you would,” Shade said grudgingly, looking out to sea. “Still. You’ve mostly gotten the easy stuff. There’s still some objects that ought to trip you up.”
“You sound like you want us to fail,” said Kit.
“Of course I do!” Shade barked. “You shouldn’t be messing around with necromancy! It never does anyone any good!”
Kit backed up until his heels hit the surf. “Then why are you helping us?”
“Look, there’s a reason I’m here,” said Shade. “Yeah, Hypatia passed on Tiberius’s message to me, but I was headed to the cave anyway to keep an eye on you.”
“On me?”
“Yes, you. Did you really think I was sticking around and helping you with your dumb necromancy just as a favor to Hypatia? We’re not that close. Jem’s the one who asked me to look out for you. The whole Carstairs owe the Herondales business. You know.”
It was weird to Kit, the idea that someone would be worried about protecting him just because of his last name. “Okay, but why are you helping us with the spell stuff?”
“Because I said I would protect you, and I will. Your Ty is stubborn like the Blackthorns are all stubborn, and you’re even stubborner. If I didn’t help you two, some other warlock would, someone who didn’t care if you both got hurt. And no, I haven’t told anyone about it.”
“A lot of the other warlocks are sick,” Kit said, realizing that this was what had seemed odd about Shade. He didn’t look even a little bit ill.
“And I might get sick too, eventually, but there will always be unscrupulous magic-users—what are you looking all cross-eyed about, boy?”
“I guess I was thinking that you didn’t know they found a cure for the warlock plague,” said Kit. “Up at the Institute.”
It was the first time he had ever seen the warlock look genuinely surprised. “The Nephilim? Found a cure for the warlock illness?”
Kit thought back on the way he’d been introduced to the idea of Shadowhunters. Not as people but as a vicious, holier-than-thou army of true believers. As if they were all like Horace Dearborn, and none were like Julian Blackthorn or Cristina Rosales. Or like Alec Lightwood, patiently holding a glass of water with a straw in it so his sick warlock boyfriend could drink.