Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 145

“No,” Julian said, his voice quiet and firm. “You had no obligation to do that. Not ever.”
Emma scooted closer to Diana, her hair a pale halo in the moonlight streaming through the tent flap. “Diana, these past five years, you’ve been the closest thing I’ve had to an older sister. And since I met you, you’ve shown me the kind of woman I want to grow up to be.” She reached out and took Diana’s hand. “I feel so grateful and so privileged that you wanted to tell us your story.”
“Agreed,” Julian said. He bent his head, like a knight acknowledging a lady in an old painting. “I’m sorry I pushed you. I didn’t understand. We—I—thought of you as an adult, someone who couldn’t possibly have problems or be in any danger. I was so focused on the kids that I didn’t realize you were also vulnerable.”
Diana touched his hair lightly, the way she often had when he was younger. “That’s growing up, isn’t it? Figuring out that adults are people with their own issues and secrets.”
She smiled wryly just as Helen stuck her head in through the still-unzipped flap. “Oh good, you’re up,” she said. “I wanted to go over who’s staying behind tomorrow—”
“I’ve got a list,” Julian said, sliding his hand into the pocket of his jacket.
Emma got to her feet, murmuring that she needed to go find Cristina. She slipped out the door of the tent, stopping only to glance back once at Julian as she went, but he was deep in conversation with Helen and didn’t seem to notice.
Something was going on with that girl, Diana thought. Once they’d gotten through tomorrow, she’d have to find out what it was.
29
TEMPT THE WATERS
“Cristina! Cristina!”
Voices rang through the woods below. Surprised, Cristina stood up, peering down into the darkness.
It had been too painful at the campfire, looking at Mark and at Kieran, knowing she was counting down hours until one or both of them left her life forever. She had slipped away to sit among the trees and grass and shadows of Brocelind. There were white flowers here, among the green, native to Idris. She had seen them before only in pictures, and to touch their petals gave her a feeling of peace, though her sorrow remained beneath it.
Then she had heard the voices. Mark and Kieran, calling for her. She had been sitting at the top of a green rise of grass between the trees; she rose, brushed herself off, and hurried down the hill toward the sound of her name.
“Estoy aquí!” she called, nearly tripping as she rushed down the hill. “I’m right here!”
They burst from the shadows, both white-faced. Mark found her first and swung her up off her feet, hugging her tightly. After a moment he released her to Kieran’s arms as they tried to explain: something about Magnus and traps and being afraid she’d fallen into a pit lined with knives.
“I would never do that,” she protested as Kieran stroked her hair back from her face. “Mark—Kieran—I think we were wrong.”
Kieran let her go immediately. “Wrong about what?”
Mark was standing next to Kieran, their shoulders just brushing. Her boys, Cristina thought. The ones she loved. She could not choose between them any more than she could choose between night and day. Nor did she wish to.
“Wrong that it’s impossible,” she said. “I should have said it before. I was afraid. I did not want to be hurt. Isn’t that what we all fear? That we will be hurt? We keep our hearts in prison, in terror that if we let them go free in the world they would be injured. But I do not want to be in a prison. And I think you feel the same, but if you do not—”
In his soft, husky voice, Mark said, “I love both of you, and I could not say I love one of you the most. But I am afraid. The loss of both of you would kill me, and here it seems I am risking having my heart broken not once but twice.”
“Not all love ends in heartbreak,” said Cristina.
“You know what I want,” Kieran said. “I was the one to say it first. I love and desire you both. Many are happy like this in Faerie. It is common, such marriages—”
“Are you proposing to us?” said Mark with a crooked grin, and Kieran turned bright red.
“There is one thing,” he said. “The King of Faerie can have no human consort. You both know that.”
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Cristina said fiercely. “You are not King yet. And if you ever are, we will find a way.”
Mark inclined his head, a faerie gesture. “As Cristina says. My heart goes with her words, Kieran.”
“I want to be with you both,” said Cristina. “I want to be able to kiss you both and hold you both. I want to be able to touch you both, sometimes at the same time, sometimes when we are just two. I want you to be able to kiss and hold each other because it makes you happy and I want you to be happy. I want us to be together, all three.”
“I think of each of you all the time. I long for you when you are not there.” The words seemed to burst from Kieran like undammed water. He touched Mark’s face with his long-boned fingers, light as the brush of wind on grass. He turned to Cristina next and, with his other hand, caressed her cheek. She could feel that he was shaking; she put her hand over his, pressing it to her face. “I have never wanted anything so desperately as this.”
Mark placed his own hand over Kieran’s. “I too. I believe in this, in us. Love wakens love, faith wakens faith.” He smiled at Cristina. “All this time we were waiting for you. We loved each other, and it was a great thing, but with you, it is even greater.”
“Kiss me, then,” Cristina whispered, and Mark pulled her close and kissed her warmly, then hotly. Kieran’s hands were on her back, in her hair; she leaned her head against him as he and Mark kissed over her shoulder, their bodies cradling hers, their hands linked in each other’s.
Kieran was smiling like his face would break; they were all kissing each other and laughing with happiness and touching each other’s faces with wondering fingers. “I love you,” Cristina said to both of them, and they said it back to her at the same time, their voices mingling so she was not sure who spoke first or last:
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
* * *
Kit had seen Lake Lyn before in pictures, the endless images of the Angel rising out of it with the Mortal Instruments that were inside every Shadowhunter building, on every wall and tapestry.
It was a different thing entirely in real life. It moved like an oil slick under the moonlight: The surface was silver-black but shot through with bursts of chromatic splendor, streaks of violet blue and hot red, ice green and bruise violet. For the first time, when Kit imagined the Angel Raziel, massive and blank-faced, rising out of the water, he felt a shiver of awe and fear.
Ty had set up his ceremonial circle by the edge of the lake, where the water lapped at a shallow sandy beach. It was actually two circles, one smaller within another larger, and in the border between the two circles Ty had etched dozens of runes with a pointed stick.
Kit had seen ceremonial circles before, often in his own living room. But how had Ty become an expert at making them? His circles were neater than Johnny’s had ever been, his etchings more careful. He wasn’t using Shadowhunter runes but a runic language that looked far spikier and more unpleasant. Was this where Ty had been all those times Kit had turned around to find him gone? Learning how to be a dark magician?
Ty had also set up their ingredients in neat rows beside him: the myrrh, the chalk, Livvy’s baby tooth, the letter from Thule.
Having placed the velvet bag containing a lock of Livvy’s hair carefully among the other objects, Ty looked up at Kit, who was standing close to the water’s edge. “Did I do it right?”
A wave of reluctance came over Kit; the last thing he wanted was to get close to the magic circle. “How would I know?”
“Well, your father was a magician; I thought he might have taught you some of this,” Ty said.
Kit kicked at the edge of the water; luminous sparks flew up. “Actually, my dad kind of kept me away from learning real spells. But I know a little.”