Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

Before he could say anything, Kieran turned his head, his attention diverted. “That must be the lovely Diana,” he said, gesturing toward the Blackthorns’ tutor. “Gwyn was most enraptured with her.”

“Gwyn’s the big guy? Antler helmet?” said Kit. Kieran nodded, watching as Gwyn dismounted his horse to speak with Diana, who looked quite tiny against his bulk, though she was a tall woman.

“Providence has brought us together again,” Gwyn said.

“I don’t believe in providence,” said Diana. She looked awkward, a little alarmed. She was holding her injured arm close against her. “Or an interventionist Heaven.”

“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ ” said Gwyn, “ ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

Kit snorted. Diana looked flabbergasted. “Are you quoting Shakespeare?” she said. “I would have thought at least it would have been A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“Faeries can’t stand A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” muttered Kieran. “Gets everything wrong.”

Gwyn’s lips twitched at the corners. “Speaking of dreams,” he said. “You have been in mine, and often.”

Diana looked stunned. The Blackthorns had quieted their loud reunion and were watching her and Gwyn with unabashed curiosity. Julian was even smiling a little; he was holding Tavvy, who had his arms hooked around his brother’s neck like a clinging koala.

“I would that you would meet me, formally, that I might court you,” said Gwyn. His large hands moved aimlessly at his sides, and Kit realized with a shock that he was nervous—this big, muscled man, the leader of the Wild Hunt, nervous. “We could together slay a frost giant, or devour a deer.”

“I don’t want to do either of those things,” said Diana after a moment.

Gwyn looked crestfallen.

“But I will go out with you,” she said, blushing. “Preferably to a nice restaurant. Bring flowers, and not the helmet.”

The Blackthorns burst into giggling applause. Kit leaned against the wall with Kieran, who was shaking his head in bemusement. “And thus was the proud leader of the Hunt felled by love,” he said. “I hope there will be a ballad about it someday.”

Kit watched Gwyn, who was ignoring the applause as he readied his horses to leave.

“You don’t look like the other Blackthorns,” said Kieran after a moment. “Your eyes are blue, but not like the ocean’s blue. More of an ordinary sky.”

Kit felt obscurely insulted. “I’m not a Blackthorn,” he said. “I’m a Herondale. Christopher Herondale.”

He waited. The name Herondale seemed to produce an explosive reaction in most denizens of the supernatural world. The boy with the ocean hair, though, didn’t bat an eye. “Then what are you doing here, if you are not family?” he asked.

Kit shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t belong, that’s for sure.”

Kieran smiled a sideways faerie smile. “That makes two of us.”

*   *   *

They eventually gathered in the parlor, the warmest room in the house. Evelyn was already there, muttering by the fire burning in the grate; even though it was late summer, London had a damp, chill edge to it. Bridget brought sandwiches—tuna and sweet corn, chicken and bacon—and the newcomers tucked into them as if they were wildly starving. Julian had to eat awkwardly with his left hand, balancing Tavvy on his lap with the other.

The parlor had aged better than a lot of the other rooms in the Institute. It had cheerful flowered wallpaper, only slightly discolored, and gorgeous antique furniture someone had clearly picked out with care—a lovely rolltop desk, a delicate escritoire, plush velvet armchairs and sofas grouped around the fireplace. Even the fire screen was made of delicate wrought iron, patterned with wing-spread herons, and when the fire shone through it, the shadow of the birds was cast against the wall as if they were flying by.

Kieran alone didn’t seem thrilled with the sandwiches. He poked at them suspiciously and then pulled them apart, eating only the tomatoes, while Julian explained what had happened in Faerie: their journey to the Unseelie Court, the meeting with the Queen, the blight on the Unseelie Land. “There were burned places, white as ash, like the surface of the moon,” Mark said, eyes dark with distress. Kit tried his best to hang on to the story, but it was like trying to ride a roller coaster with faulty brakes—phrases like “scrying glass,” “Unseelie champion,” and “Black Volume of the Dead” kept hurling him off track.

“How much time passed for them?” he whispered finally to Ty, who was wedged in beside him and Livvy on a love seat too small for the three of them.

“It sounds like a few less days than passed for us,” said Ty. “Some time slippage, but not much. Cristina’s necklace seems to have worked.”

Kit whistled under his breath. “And who’s Annabel?”

“She was a Blackthorn,” said Ty. “She died, but Malcolm brought her back.”

“From the dead?” said Kit. “That’s—that’s necromancy.”

“Malcolm was a necromancer,” pointed out Ty.