Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 29

The rune.
The birth control rune. Cristina had never put it on; she’d never thought she was that close to needing it. “Oh, no,” she said. “My stele is down in the Institute.”
“Mine as well,” he said. Cristina almost giggled at the disappointed look on his face, though she felt the same. “Still,” he said, brightening. “There is much else I can do to make you feel good. Allow me?”
Cristina settled back into the sand, feeling as if she might die from blushing. “All right.”
He came back into her arms, and they held each other and kissed through the night, and he touched her and showed her he did indeed know how to make her feel good—so good she shook in his arms and muffled her cries against his shoulder. And she did the same for him, and this time he didn’t ask her to stop, but arched his back and cried out her name, whispering afterward that he adored her, that she made him feel whole.
They decided to return to the Institute when dawn began to turn the sky rose-colored, and fingers of light illuminated their hilltop mesa. They wandered back down the path holding hands, and only unlinked their fingers when they reached the back door of the Institute. It stuck when Mark pushed on it, and he took his stele out to scrawl a quick Open rune on the wood.
It popped open, and he held it for Cristina, who slipped past him into the entryway. She felt incredibly disheveled, with sand stuck to half her body, and her hair a tangled mess. Mark didn’t look much better, especially considering that most of the buttons had been ripped off his shirt.
He smiled at her, a heart-meltingly sweet smile. “Tomorrow night—”
“You have your stele,” Cristina said.
He blinked. “What?”
“You have your stele. You told me that you didn’t, when I needed to make the birth control rune. But you just used it to open the door.”
He glanced away from her, and any hope Cristina had that he’d simply forgotten or been wrong vanished. “Cristina, I—”
“I just don’t know why you lied to me,” she said.
She turned away from him and walked up the stairs that led to her room. Her body had been humming with happiness; now she felt dazed and sticky and in need of a shower. She heard Mark call after her, but she didn’t turn around.
* * *
Diego was asleep and dreaming restlessly about pools of blue water in which a dead woman floated. So he was only a little bit upset to be woken by the impact of a flying boot.
He sat up, reaching automatically for the ax propped next to his bed. The next thing that hit him was a ball of socks, which didn’t hurt but was annoying. “What?” he sputtered. “What’s going on?”
“Wake up,” said Divya. “By the Angel, you snore like an outboard motor.” She gestured at him. “Put your clothes on.”
“Why?” said Diego, in what he felt was a very reasonable manner.
“They took Kieran,” Divya said.
“Who took Kieran?” Diego was up, grabbing a sweater and jamming his feet into socks and boots.
“The Cohort,” Divya said. She looked as if she’d just woken up herself; her thick dark hair was tangled, and she wore a gear jacket unbuttoned over her uniform. “They burst into my room and grabbed him. We tried to fight them off, but there were too many.”
Diego’s heart raced: Kieran had been under his protection. If he was harmed, Diego would have failed, not just Cristina but himself. He grabbed for his ax.
“Diego, stop,” Divya said. “You can’t ax Manuel to death. He’s still a student.”
“Fine. I’ll take a shorter blade.” Diego shoved the ax back against the wall with a clang and reached for a dagger. “Where did they take Kieran?”
“The Place of Reflection, or at least that’s what they said,” said Divya. “Rayan’s out looking for them. Come on.”
Diego shook the last cobwebs of sleep from his head and bolted after Divya. They jogged down the corridors, calling for Rayan.
“The Place of Reflection,” said Diego. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Is this a room for quiet meditation, or—?”
“No. You don’t understand. It’s called the Place of Reflection because there’s a reflecting pool in it, but it isn’t a regular reflecting pool. Some people call it the Hollow Place.”
Oh. Diego did know of the Hollow Place, a secret room where, it was said, a pool had been filled with enchanted water. To gaze into the water was to gaze into your own soul: to see all the evil you had ever done, intentionally or otherwise.
“It’s awful for anyone,” said Divya. “And for someone in the Wild Hunt, it could kill them.”
“What?” They turned a corner and encountered a blaze of light. It was Rayan, standing in the middle of a long corridor, wearing a grim expression. He had a massive sword strapped to his back.
“They just went into the Hollow Place,” he said. “I couldn’t follow them—I don’t have my stele on me. Do either of you?”
“I do,” said Diego, and they jogged down a short, sloping hallway to a set of closed doors. Loud giggles spilled out from inside the room.
Diego scrawled a quick Open rune on the door. It wrenched open with a puff of rust and they charged inside.
The Hollow Place was a wide space with granite floors, clear of any furniture. The walls were rough rock, glittering with mica. In the center of the room was a tile-lined pool with water so clear and clean it reflected like a mirror. Gold metal lettering decorated the floor: And God split open the hollow place, and water came out from it.
“Well, thank the Angel,” drawled Manuel, who was leaning against a far wall in a pose of total disinterest. “Look who’s here to save us all.”
Zara giggled. She was surrounded by a group of other Cohort members—among them Diego recognized several Scholomance students and their family members. Mallory Bridgestock and Milo Coldridge. Anush Joshi, Divya’s cousin. Several Centurions were there too: Timothy Rockford, Samantha Larkspear, and Jessica Beausejours were standing around smirking while Anush dragged Kieran toward the pool in the center of the room. Kieran was jerking and twisting in his grip; there was blood on his face, his shirt.
“It’s a fair punishment for the princeling, don’t you think?” said Zara. “If you look or swim in the water of the pool, you feel the pain you’ve inflicted on others. So if he’s innocent, it should be just fine for him.”
“No one is that innocent,” said Rayan. “The pool is to be used sparingly, to allow students to seek for truth within themselves. Not as a torture device.”
“What an interesting thought, Rayan,” said Manuel. “Thank you for sharing. But I don’t see Gladstone running in here to stop us, do you? Is it possible you didn’t want to get in trouble for harboring a faerie fugitive?”
“I think it’s interesting you know so much about Kieran,” said Divya. “Is it possible you knew he was here and didn’t want to report it so you could torture and kill him yourself?”
She was right, Diego thought, but none of this was helping Kieran, who was gagging and choking on his own blood.
I swore I would protect him. Diego reached for his ax, only to realize it wasn’t there. He saw Zara’s eyes narrow and turned; Divya had yanked Rayan’s sword from its scabbard and was pointing it at the Cohort.
“Enough,” she said. “Stop it, all of you. And I’m especially ashamed of you, Anush,” she added, shooting her cousin a dark look. “You know what it’s like to be treated unfairly. When your mother finds out . . .”
Anush let Kieran go with a shove. He landed at the edge of the pool with a grunt of agony. Move away from the water, Diego thought, but Kieran was clearly wounded; he knelt in place, dazed and gasping.
“We’re just having a little fun,” protested Anush.
“What are you going to do, Divya, attack us?” said Samantha. “Just for having a little fun?”
“He’s bleeding,” said Diego. “That’s more than just ‘a little fun.’ And what happens if you kill him? Do you really want to deal with the consequences? He’s the son of the Unseelie King.”