Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 77

She thought of tonight, though, giggling in the back of the car with Kit and Ty, and the desert wind in her hair. It carried the smell of white oleander even in the center of Hollywood. The night had filled the gnawing urge to do something inside her that she hadn’t even realized was there.
She reached the twins’ bedrooms. Ty and Livvy had always had bedrooms directly across from each other; the door of Livvy’s room was shut tight and had been since they’d returned from Idris.
Dru laid her hand on it, as if she could feel her sister’s heartbeat through the wood. Livvy had painted her door red once, and the flaking paint was rough against Dru’s fingers.
In a horror movie, Dru thought, this was when Livvy would burst out half-rotted, clawing at Dru with her dead hands. The idea didn’t frighten her at all. Maybe that was why she liked horror movies, Dru thought; the dead never stayed dead, and those left behind were too busy wandering unwisely around in the woods to have time to grieve or feel loss.
She left Livvy’s door and went over to Ty’s. She knocked, but there was music playing in the room and she couldn’t hear a reply. She pushed the door open and froze.
The radio was on, Chopin blasting, but Ty wasn’t there. The space was freezing. All the windows were wide open. Dru almost tripped getting across the room to slam the largest window shut. She looked down and saw that Ty’s books were scattered over the floor, no longer in neat rows determined by subject and color. His desk chair lay in pieces, his clothes were scattered everywhere, and there were smears of dried blood on his sheets and pillowcases.
Ty. Oh, Ty.
Dru closed the door as hastily as she could without slamming it, and hurried off down the hallway as if a monster from one of her old movies were chasing her.
* * *
They stopped outside the prison, where the dead body of the guard lay draped over the wooden chest Emma had noticed earlier. Adaon grimaced and used the tip of his boot to shove the guard’s body aside. It hit the bloodstained flagstones with a thump. To Emma’s puzzlement, Adaon knelt and shoved the chest open, the hinges groaning and squeaking.
Her puzzlement vanished quickly. The chest was full of weapons—longswords, daggers, bows. Emma recognized the sword the Riders had taken from her, and Julian’s as well. She craned her neck to stare, but she didn’t see the medallion anywhere among the confiscated items.
Adaon seized up a number of swords. Jace held out his hand for one.
“Come to papa,” he crooned.
“I can’t believe you have a beard,” Emma noted, momentarily diverted.
Jace touched his bristly cheek. “Well, it has been a week, at least. I expect it makes me look manly, like a burnished god.”
“I hate it,” said Emma.
“I like it,” said Clary loyally.
“I don’t believe you,” said Emma. She stuck out her hand toward Adaon. “Give me my sword. Jace can use it to shave.”
Adaon glared at all of them. “You shall bear no blades. You cannot be armed if you are meant to be prisoners. I will carry the swords.” He swung them up over his shoulder as if they were a bunch of kindling. “Now, come.”
They marched ahead of Adaon, through the now-familiar dank underground corridors. Julian was silent, lost in thought. What did he feel? Emma wondered. He loved his family, still, but he had said it was different now. Did that mean he wasn’t terrified for Mark?
Emma moved closer to Cristina. “How did you end up finding Adaon?” she whispered. “Did you just click your ruby heels together and demand to be taken to the Unseelie King’s hottest son?”
Cristina rolled her eyes. “I saw Adaon in London, with Kieran,” she whispered. “He seemed to care about Kieran. I took a chance.”
“And how did you get to him?”
“I’ll tell you later. And he is not the hottest Unseelie prince. Kieran is the hottest,” Cristina said, and blushed beet red.
Emma eyed Adaon’s muscles, which were bunching spectacularly under his tunic as he balanced the swords. “I thought Kieran was at the Scholomance?”
Cristina sighed. “You missed a lot. I will tell you everything, if we—”
“Survive?” Emma said. “Yeah. I have a lot to tell you, too.”
“Be quiet!” snapped Adaon. “Enough chatter, prisoners!”
They had emerged from the underground tunnels into the lower levels of the tower. Seelie and Unseelie faeries streamed by, hurrying to and fro. A passing redcap gave Adaon a broad wink.
“Good work, Prince,” he growled. “Round up those Nephilim!”
“Thank you,” said Adaon. “They’re very rowdy.”
He glared at Cristina and Emma.
“Still think he’s hot?” Cristina muttered.
“Possibly more so,” whispered Emma. She felt an insane urge to giggle, despite the awful situation. She was just so happy to see Cristina again. “We’re going to get through this, and we’re going to get back home, and we’re going to tell each other everything.”
“That is enough. The two of you, move apart,” Adaon snapped, and Emma sheepishly went to walk next to Clary. They had reached the less crowded, more residential part of the tower, with its rows of richly decorated doors.
Clary looked exhausted, her clothes stained with blood and dirt.
“How did you get caught?” Emma murmured, keeping a weather eye on Adaon.
“The Riders of Mannan,” said Clary in a low voice. “They’ve been set the task of guarding Ash. We tried to fight them off, but they’re more powerful here than they are in our world.” She glanced sideways at Emma. “I heard you killed one of them. That’s pretty impressive.”
“I think it was Cortana, not me.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of the right blade,” said Clary. “I miss Heosphoros sometimes. I miss the feel of it in my hand.”
Heosphoros, like Cortana, had been forged by the legendary weapon-maker Wayland the Smith. Every schoolchild knew Clary had carried the sword into Edom and slain Sebastian Morgenstern with it, and that it had been destroyed in the resulting conflagration.
Was Clary thinking about Sebastian? Without being able to stop herself, Emma whispered, “I don’t think Ash has to be like his father. He’s still a little kid. He could grow up better—kinder.”
Clary’s smile was sad. “So he got to you, too.”
“What?”
“‘A perfect leader, inspiring of perfect loyalty,’” Clary said. “The King has already done things to Ash, using his blood, I think, to make him like the First Heir. When you talked to him, you wanted to follow him and protect him, didn’t you?”
Emma blanched. “I did, but—”
“Prince Adaon!” called a rough voice. Emma looked up to see that they stood in front of the rows of redcaps guarding the throne room. The leader of them—the one with the bloodiest, reddest cap and uniform—was looking at Adaon with some surprise. “What is this?”
“Prisoners for the King,” Adaon barked.
“These were caught a week hence.” The redcap pointed at Jace and Clary.
“Aye, but I discovered these others in the prison, attempting to free them.” Adaon indicated Cristina, Julian, and Emma. “They are Nephilim spies. They claim they have information for the King, which they would trade for their miserable, wormlike lives.”
“Wormlike?” Julian muttered. “Really?”
“Hold here a moment,” said the redcaps’ leader. He ducked through the archway. A moment later he had returned, a faint smirk on his face. “Prince Adaon, pass through. Your father would see you, and prayed me give you the expectation of a familial reunion.”
A familial reunion. The King could just mean himself, of course. But he could also mean Kieran—and Mark.
Julian had reacted too, if silently. His hand tightened as if he could grip an imaginary blade, and his eyes fixed on the dark archway.
“Thank you, General Winter,” said Adaon, and began to lead them all forward.
This time they weren’t walking into the throne room invisible to all eyes. This time they would be seen. Emma’s throat was dry, her heart pounding.