Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

“I’m not all that entertained, actually,” said Kit. “We could put on a movie.”

Livvy leaned forward. “Sorry,” she said. “He gets like this when he’s uncomfortable. Sarcastic.”

“Who knew that was an inherited trait?” Shade held out a gloved hand. “Now, show me what you’ve brought. I assume that wasn’t a lie?”

Ty reached into his jacket and brought out the aletheia crystal. In the candlelight, it glittered more than ever.

Shade chuckled. “A memory-holder,” he said. “It looks like you might get your movie, after all.” He reached out, and after a moment’s hesitation, Ty allowed him to take it.

Shade set the crystal delicately in the center of the table. He passed a hand over it, then frowned and removed his glove. As Kit had thought, the skin of the hand he revealed was deep green. He wondered why Shade would bother covering something like that up, here in the Shadow Market, where warlocks were commonplace.

Shade passed his bare hand over the crystal and murmured. The candles in the room began to gutter. His murmuring increased—Kit recognized the words as Latin, which he’d taken three months of in school before he decided there was no point in knowing a language you couldn’t converse in with anyone but the Pope, who he was unlikely to meet.

He had to admit now that it had a weight to it, though, a sense that each word was freighted with a deeper meaning. The candles went out entirely, but the room wasn’t dark: The crystal was glowing, brighter and brighter under Shade’s touch.

At last a focused beam of light seemed to explode from it, and Kit realized what Shade had meant when he’d joked about a movie. The light worked like the beam of a projector, casting moving images against the dark wall of the tent.

A girl sat bound to a chair inside a circular room filled with benches, a sort of auditorium. Through the windows of the room Kit could see mountains covered in snow. Though it was likely winter, the girl was wearing only a white shift dress; her feet were bare, and her long dark hair hung in tangles.

Her face was remarkably like Livvy’s, so much so that to see it twisted in agony and terror made Kit tense.

“Annabel Blackthorn.” A slight man with bent shoulders entered the scene. He was dressed in black; he wore a pin not unlike Diego’s clasped at his shoulder. His hood was drawn up: Because of that and the angle of the crystal’s viewpoint, it was hard to see his face or body in much detail.

“The Inquisitor,” muttered Shade. “He was a Centurion, back then.”

“You have come before us,” the man went on, “accused of consorting with Downworlders. Your family took in the warlock Malcolm Fade and raised him as a brother to you. He repaid their kindness with abject treachery. He stole the Black Volume of the Dead from the Cornwall Institute, and you helped him.”

“Where is Malcolm?” Annabel’s voice was shaking, but also clear and firm. “Why isn’t he here? I refuse to be questioned without him.”

“How attached you are to your warlock despoiler,” sneered the Inquisitor. Livvy gasped. Annabel looked furious. She had Livvy’s stubborn set to her jaw, Kit thought, but there was a little of Ty and the rest in her too. Julian’s haughtiness, Dru’s look of easy hurt, the thoughtful cast of Ty’s mouth and eyes. “So will it disappoint you, then, to hear that he is gone?”

“Gone?” Annabel repeated blankly.

“Disappeared from his cell in the Silent City overnight. Abandoned you to our tender mercies.”

Annabel clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “That can’t be true,” she said. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”

“We have done nothing with him. I would be happy to testify to such under the grip of the Mortal Sword,” said the Inquisitor. “In fact, what we want from you now—and we will release you afterward—is Fade’s location. Now, why would we want to know that unless he truly had escaped?”

Annabel was shaking her head wildly, her dark hair whipping across her face. “He wouldn’t leave me,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t.”

“The truth is better faced, Annabel,” said the Inquisitor. “He used you to gain access to the Cornwall Institute, to thieve from it. Once he had what he wanted, he vanished with it, leaving you alone to take the brunt of our wrath.”

“He wanted it for our protection.” Her voice trembled. “It was so we could begin a new life together where we would be safe—safe from the Law, safe from you.”

“The Black Volume does not contain spells of safety or protection,” said the Inquisitor. “The only way it could be of help to you would be if you traded it to someone powerful. Who was Fade’s powerful ally, Annabel?”

She shook her head, her chin set stubbornly. Behind her someone else was coming into the room: a stern-faced woman carrying what looked like a bundle of black cloth. She sent a shiver up Kit’s spine. “I will tell you nothing. Not even if you use the Sword.”

“Indeed, we cannot believe what you say under the Sword,” said the Inquisitor. “Malcolm has so tainted you—”