Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 166

Emma suddenly lurched and went down on one knee. Clary stared in shock as the Cohort howled and fled, but Emma made no movement toward them.
Julian, beside her, reached down a shining hand to lift her back up.
“They’re dying,” Jace said quietly.
Alec looked puzzled. “What?”
“They are Nephilim—true Nephilim,” said Jace. “The monsters of old who once strode the earth. They have heavenly fire inside them, powering everything they do. But it’s too much. Their mortal bodies will burn away. They’re probably in agony.”
He got to his feet.
“We have to stop them. If they get too maddened with pain, who knows what they’ll do.”
Emma began to move toward the city. Clary could see Isabelle and Simon running toward the blockade of Shadowhunters standing between Emma and Julian and the city of Alicante.
“Stop them how?” Alec said.
Grimly, Jace unsheathed the Mortal Sword. Before he could move, Clary put a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait,” she said. “Look.”
Not far away now, a small group was walking steadily toward the shining, monstrous figures of Emma and Julian. Helen Blackthorn, with all her siblings beside her—Mark and Tiberius, Drusilla and Octavian. They moved together in a strong and steady line.
“What are they doing?” Alec asked.
“The only thing they can do,” said Clary.
Slowly, Jace lowered the Mortal Sword. “By the Angel,” he said, drawing in his breath. “Those kids . . .”
* * *
“Diego. Wake up, my brother. Please wake up.”
There had been only darkness, interspersed with bright sparks of pain. Now there was Jaime’s voice. Diego wanted to stay in the darkness and the quiet. To rest where the pain was held at arm’s length, here in the silent world.
But his brother’s voice was insistent, and from childhood Diego had been trained to respond to it. To rise from bed when his brother cried, to run to help him up when he fell down.
He peeled his eyes open. They felt sticky. His face burned. Above him was roiling dark sky and Jaime, his expression starkly distraught. He was on his knees, his bow at his side; a distance away, a redcap lay dead with an arrow protruding from its chest.
Jaime was clutching a stele in his hand. He reached out and pushed back Diego’s hair; when he drew his hand back, it was red with blood. “Stay still,” he said. “I have given you several iratzes.”
“I must get up,” Diego whispered. “I must fight.”
Jaime’s dark eyes flashed. “Your face is sliced open, Diego. You have lost blood. You cannot get up. I will not allow it.”
“Jaime . . .”
“In the past, you have always healed me,” said Jaime. “Let me be the one who heals you.”
Diego coughed. His mouth and throat were thick with blood. “How bad—how bad will the scars be?”
Jaime took his hand, and that was when Diego knew it was bad indeed. He begged Jaime silently not to lie to him or to pity him.
Jaime’s smile was slow and crooked. “I think I will be the pretty one in the family now,” he said. “But at least you are still very muscular.”
Diego choked on a laugh, on the taste of blood, on the strangeness of it all. He wound his fingers into his brother’s, and held on tight.
* * *
The walk across the field was surreal.
As the siblings came closer to Emma and Julian, other Shadowhunters drew nearer to the Blackthorns, sometimes looking puzzled, sometimes almost ashamed. Dru knew they felt that the group was walking toward certain death. Some called out that they should leave Tavvy behind, but he only pressed closer to his brothers and sisters, shaking his head.
Emma and Julian were clearly making their way toward the city. They moved like shining shadows, closing the distance between themselves and the barricade of Shadowhunters who stood between them and Alicante.
“We need to get to them,” she muttered, but the crowd in front of them was forming another sort of barricade. She saw Shadowhunters she recognized among them—Anush and Divya Joshi, Luana Carvalho, Kadir Safar, and even some Downworlders—Bat Velasquez and Kwasi Bediako among them—who were calling out to them not to approach Julian and Emma, that it wasn’t safe.
She glanced at the others in panic. “What do we do?”
“I cannot shoot them with elf-bolts,” Mark said. “They mean well.”
“Of course not!” Helen looked horrified. “Please!” she called out. “Let us pass!”
But her voice was lost in the roar of the crowd, which was jostling them back, away from the city, away from Emma and Jules. Dru had begun to panic when they heard the thunder of hooves.
Shadowhunters moved reluctantly back as Windspear, Kieran on his back, parted the crowd. His flanks were lathered with sweat; he had clearly raced across the field. Kieran’s panicked eyes flew across the group until he found Mark, and then Cristina.
The three of them exchanged a swift and speaking look. Mark flung his hand up, as if he were reaching out to the new Unseelie King. “Kieran!” he shouted. “Help us! We need to get to Emma and Julian!”
Dru waited for Kieran to say that it was dangerous. Impossible. Instead he bent low over Windspear’s neck; he seemed to be whispering to the horse.
A moment later, the sky darkened with flying shapes. The Wild Hunt had come. Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike scattered as the Hunt swooped low. Suddenly the Blackthorns could move forward again, and they did, moving as fast as they could toward Emma and Julian, who had nearly closed the gap between themselves and the line of Shadowhunters guarding the city.
As they passed, Dru reached up to wave at Diana and Gwyn, who had detached themselves from the Wild Hunt and were preparing to land alongside the Blackthorns. Diana smiled at her and pressed her hand over her heart.
Dru fixed her eyes on the goal ahead. They were nearly there. Kieran had joined them. The crown of Unseelie gleamed on his brow, but his attention was fixed on protecting the Blackthorns. With Windspear rearing, he was keeping the crowd at bay on one side, while Gwyn and Diana did the same on the other.
The field leveled out. They were close now, close enough that Emma and Julian were shining blurs. It was like looking at trees in the forest whose tops you couldn’t see.
Dru took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Just us now. Just Blackthorns.”
Everyone went still.
Mark pressed his forehead to Cristina’s, his eyes shut, before helping her up onto Windspear, beside Kieran. Kieran squeezed Mark’s hand tightly and wrapped his arms around Cristina as if to say to Mark that he would keep her safe. Aline kissed Helen softly and went to stand by her mother among the crowd. They watched, a small and worried group, as the Blackthorns set off to close the distance between themselves and Emma and Jules.
They stopped a few feet from the giant figures of Julian and Emma. For a moment, the certainty that had carried Dru this far faltered. She had thought only of getting here. Not of what she would do or say when they arrived.
It was Tavvy who stepped forward first. “Jules!” he shouted. “Emma! We’re here!”
And at last Emma and Julian reacted.
They turned away from the city and looked down at the Blackthorns. Dru craned her head back. She could see their expressions. They were completely blank. No recognition lived in their glowing eyes.
“We can’t just tell them to stop,” said Mark. “Everyone’s already tried that.”
Tavvy moved a little bit farther forward. The eyes of the giants followed him like massive lamps, glowing and inhuman.
Dru wanted to reach out and snatch him back.
“Jules?” he said, and his voice was small and low and stabbed into Drusilla’s heart. She took a deep breath. If Tavvy could approach them, so could she. She moved to stand behind her younger brother and tilted her shoulders back until she was looking directly up at Emma and Julian. It was like gazing into the sun; her eyes prickled, but she held them open.
“Emma!” she called. “Julian! It’s Dru—Drusilla. Look, everyone is telling you to stop because the battle is won, but I’m not here to say that. I’m here to tell you to stop because we love you. We need you. Come back to us.”