Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

“Cristina—sweetheart—let me see, let me see.” She pulled frantically at Cristina’s arms until the other girl let go.

There was blood on her right hand and sleeve. Most of it seemed to be coming from her arm and to have transferred itself to her shirt. Emma breathed a little easier. A wound to the arm was less serious than one to the body.

“What’s going on?” It was Julian’s voice. He and Bridget had reached them; Jules was white-faced. She saw the terror in his eyes and realized what had caused it: He’d thought something had happened to Emma.

“I’m all right,” Emma said mechanically, shocked by the look on his face.

“Of course you are,” said Bridget impatiently. “Let me get to the girl. Stop clinging to her, for goodness’ sake.”

Emma detached herself and watched as Bridget knelt and peeled Cristina’s sleeve back. Cristina’s wrist was banded with a bracelet of blood, her skin puffy. It was as if someone was tightening an invisible wire around her arm, cutting into the flesh.

“What are you two just sitting there for?” Bridget demanded. “Put a healing rune on the girl.”

They both reached for steles; Julian got to his first and drew a quick iratze on Cristina’s skin. Emma leaned forward, holding her breath.

Nothing happened. If anything, the skin around the bleeding circle seemed to swell more. A fresh gush of blood welled up, spattering Bridget’s clothes. Emma wished she still had her old stele; she’d always superstitiously believed she could draw stronger runes with it. But it was in faerie hands now.

Cristina didn’t whimper. She was a Shadowhunter, after all. But her voice shook. “I don’t think an iratze will help this.”

Emma shook her head. “What is it—?”

“It looks like a faerie charm,” said Bridget. “While you were in the Lands, did any fey seem to cast a spell on you? Were your wrists ever tied?”

Cristina pushed herself up on her elbows. “That—I mean, that couldn’t be it . . . .”

“What happened?” Emma demanded.

“At the revel, two girls tied my wrist and Mark’s together with a ribbon,” Cristina said reluctantly. “We sliced it off, but there may have been a stronger magic there than I guessed. It could be a sort of binding spell.”

“This is the first time you’ve been away from Mark since we were in Faerie,” Julian said. “You think that’s it?”

Cristina looked grim. “The farther I go from him, the worse it becomes. Last night was almost the first time I’d left his side, and my arm burned and ached. And as we drove away from the Institute, the pain got worse and worse—I hoped it would go away, but it didn’t.”

“We need to get you back to the Institute,” said Emma. “We’ll all go. Come on.”

Cristina shook her head. “You and Julian should still go to Cornwall,” she said, and gestured with her uninjured hand overhead, toward the board on which the schedules for the trains were posted. The train for Penzance left in less than five minutes. “You need to. This is necessary.”

“We could wait a day,” Emma protested.

“This is faerie magic,” said Cristina, letting Bridget help her to her feet. “There’s no assurance it will be fixed in a day.”

Emma hesitated. She hated the thought of leaving Cristina.

Bridget spoke in a sharp voice, surprising them all. “Go,” she said. “You are parabatai, the most powerful team the Nephilim can offer. I have seen what parabatai can do. Stop hesitating.”

“She’s right,” Julian said. He shoved his stele back into his belt. “Come on, Emma.”

A blur followed, of Emma hugging Cristina hurriedly good-bye, Julian catching at her hand, drawing her away, of the two of them running haphazardly through the train station, nearly knocking over the ticket barriers, and flinging themselves into the empty coach of a Western Railway train just as it pulled out of the station with a loud screeching of released brakes.

*   *   *

With every mile she and Bridget covered that brought them closer to the Institute, Cristina’s pain faded. At Paddington, her arm had screamed with agonizing pain. Now it was a dull ache that seemed to push down into her bones.

I have lost something, the ache seemed to whisper. There is something I am missing. In Spanish, she might have said, Me haces falta. She had noticed early on when she learned English that a direct translation of that phrase didn’t really exist: English speakers said I need you, where me haces falta meant something closer to, You are lacking to me. That was what she felt now, a lack like a missing chord in a song or a missing word on a page.

They pulled up in front of the Institute with a squeal of brakes. Cristina heard Bridget call her name, but she was already out of the car, cradling her wrist as she ran toward the front steps. She couldn’t help herself. Her mind revolted at the thought of being controlled by something outside herself, but it was as if her body was dragging her along, pushing her toward what it needed to make itself whole.