Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 146

He scuffed across the beach toward Ty, who was sitting with his legs crossed on the sand. Kit had often thought night and darkness seemed like Ty’s natural environment. He disliked direct sunlight and his pale skin looked as if it had never been burned. In moonlight, he shone like a star.
With a sigh, Kit pointed at the glowing red ball Ty had gotten from the Shadow Market. “The catalyst goes in the middle of the circle.”
Ty was already picking it up. “Come sit next to me,” he said. Kit knelt down as Ty started to place the objects into the ceremonial circle, murmuring in a low voice as he did so. He reached up, undid the chain of the locket, handed it to Kit. With a deep sense of dread, Kit placed the locket near the edge of the circle.
Ty began to chant more loudly. “Abyssus abyssum invocat in voce cataractarum tuarum; omnia excelsa tua et fluctus tui super me transierunt. Deep calls to deep in the voice of your waterfalls; all your whirlpools and waves have passed over me.”
As he chanted, one by one the objects in the circle caught fire, like fireworks going off in a row. They burned with a clean white blaze, without being consumed.
A strong wind started to blow off the lake: It smelled of loam and grave dirt. Kit started to hear a clamor of voices and twisted around, staring—was someone there? Had they been followed? But he saw no one. The beach was deserted.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered.
Ty only shook his head, still chanting. The lake shimmered, the water moving. Pale white figures rose from the dark water. Many were in gear, some in more old-fashioned armor. Their hair flowed down and around them, translucent in the moonlight. They reached their arms out toward him, toward Ty, who could not see them. Their lips moved silently.
This is really happening, Kit thought, chilled to the bone. Whatever tiny hope he’d had that this wouldn’t work had vanished. He turned to Ty, who was still chanting, spitting out the memorized words like machine-gun fire. “Hic mortui vivunt, hic mortui vivunt—”
“Ty, stop.” His hands shot out, grabbed Ty’s shoulders. He knew he shouldn’t—Ty didn’t like to be startled—but terror was fizzing in his blood like poison. “Ty, don’t do this.”
The Latin choked off midsentence: Ty stared at Kit, confused, his gray eyes darting from Kit’s collarbone to his face and back down again. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t raise her from the dead.”
“But I have to,” Ty said. His voice sounded stretched, like a wire pulled taut. “I can’t live without Livvy.”
“Yes, you can,” Kit whispered. “You can. You think this will make your family stronger, but it will destroy them if you bring her back. You think you can’t survive without Livvy, but you can. We will go through it together.” Kit’s face was cold; he realized he was crying. “I love you, Ty. I love you.”
Ty’s face went blank with surprise. Kit plowed on, regardless, hardly knowing what he was saying.
“She’s gone, Ty. She’s gone forever. You have to get through this. Your family will help you. I will help you. But not if you do this. Not if you do this, Ty.”
The blankness was gone from Ty’s face. His mouth twisted, as if he were trying to hold in tears; Kit knew the feeling. He hated seeing it on Ty’s face. He hated everything that was happening.
“I have to get her back, Kit,” Ty whispered. “I have to.”
He pulled away from Kit’s grasp, turning back toward the circle, where the various objects were still burning. The air was full of the scent of char. “Ty!” Kit said, but Ty was already chanting Latin again, his hands outstretched to the circle.
“Igni ferroque, ex silentio, ex animo—”
Kit threw himself at Ty, knocking him onto the sand. Ty tumbled backward without a struggle, too surprised to defend himself; they rolled down the slight incline toward the water. They splashed into the shallows and Ty seemed to come back to life; he shoved at Kit, elbowing him hard in the throat. Kit coughed and let go; he grabbed for Ty again and Ty kicked at him. He could see that Ty was crying, but even crying, he was a better fighter than Kit was. Though Ty looked fragile as moonbeams, he was a Shadowhunter born and trained. He struggled free and darted up the sand toward the circle, thrusting his hand out to the fire.
“Ex silentio, ex animo!” he shouted, panting. “Livia Blackthorn! Resurget! Resurget! Resurget!”
The flame in the center of the circle turned black. Kit sank back on his heels, tasting blood in his mouth.
It was over. The spell was done.
The dark flames rose toward the sky. Ty stepped back, staring, as they roared upward. Kit, who had seen dark magic before, staggered to his feet. Anything could have gone wrong, he thought grimly. If they had to run, he’d knock Ty out with a rock and drag him away.
The water of the lake began to ripple. Both boys turned to look, and Kit realized the shimmering dead were gone. There was only one transparent figure now, rising out of the water, her hair long and streaming silver. The outline of her face, her eyes, came clear: her floating hair, the locket around her throat, the drifting white dress that didn’t seem like something Livvy would have chosen.
“Livvy,” Kit whispered.
Ty ran to the edge of the lake. He stumbled, fell to his knees at the waterline as Livvy’s ghost made its way toward them across the water, scattering luminous sparks.
She reached the banks of the lake. Her bare feet trailed in the glowing water. She looked down at Ty, her body transparent as a cloud, her expression unfathomably sad. “Why have you disquieted me?” she said in a voice as sorrowful as winter wind.
“Livvy,” Ty said. He reached a hand out, as if he could touch her. His fingers passed through the skirt of her dress.
“It’s not really her.” Kit wiped blood from his face. “She’s a ghost.”
Relief battled with misery in his chest: She wasn’t undead, but surely raising a ghost against its will wasn’t a good idea either.
“Why aren’t you here?” said Ty, his voice rising. “I did everything right. I did everything right.”
“The catalyst you used was corrupted. It wasn’t strong enough to fully bring me back,” Livvy said. “It might have other consequences as well. Ty—”
“But you can stay with me, right? You can stay with me like this?” Ty interrupted.
The outlines of Livvy’s body blurred as she swayed toward her brother. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes. That’s why I did all this,” Ty said. “I want you with me in any way you can be. You were there with me before I was born, Livvy. Without you, I just—there’s nothing if you aren’t there.”
There’s nothing if you aren’t there. Pity and despair ripped through Kit. He couldn’t hate Ty for this. But he would never mean anything to Ty and never had: That much was clear.
“I loved you, Ty, I loved you even when I was dead,” said Livvy’s ghost. “But you have upended the universe, and we will all pay for it. You’ve ripped a hole in the fabric of life and death. You don’t know what you’ve done.” Tears ran down Livvy’s face and splashed into the water: individual, glowing drops like sparks of fire. “You cannot borrow from death. You can only pay for it.”
She vanished.
“Livvy!” Ty didn’t scream the word so much as it was ripped from him; he curled up, hugging himself, as if desperate to keep his body from shattering apart.
Kit could hear Ty crying, awful dark sobs that sounded pulled out of him; an hour ago he would have moved Heaven to make it stop. Now he was unable to take a step, his own pain a searing agony that held him frozen in place. He looked up at the ceremonial circle; the flames were burning white again, and the objects inside were beginning to be consumed. The velvet bag turned to ash, the tooth blackened, the chalk and myrrh destroyed. Only the necklace still gleamed whole and unharmed.
As Kit watched, the letter from Thule caught fire and the words on the page flared up to burn a glowing black before vanishing:
I love you. I love you. I love you.
* * *
At the door of the Gard prison, Dru paused, picks in hand. She was breathing hard from her climb up the hill. She hadn’t taken the normal paths, but crept through the underbrush, staying out of sight. Her wrists and ankles were torn from the whiplash scratches of branches and thorns.