Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

“Let me bandage it,” Kieran said. He sat on the nightstand, his feet half pulled up under him. His hair was tangled and he was barefoot. It looked as if a wild creature had alighted on some piece of civilization: a hawk balancing on the head of a statue. “At least let me do that for you.”

“Bandaging it won’t help,” Mark said. “Like Magnus said—it won’t heal until the spell’s off.”

“Then do it for me. I cannot bear looking at it.”

Mark looked at Kieran in surprise. In the Wild Hunt, they had seen their fair share of injuries and blood, and Kieran had never been squeamish.

“There are bandages in there.” Mark indicated the drawer of the nightstand. He watched as Kieran hopped down and retrieved what he needed, then returned to the bed and to him.

Kieran sat down and took Mark’s wrist. His hands were clever and capable, blunt-nailed, calloused from years of fighting and riding. (Cristina’s hands were calloused, too, but her wrists and fingertips were smooth and soft. Mark remembered the feel of them against his cheek in the faerie grove.)

“You are so distant, Mark,” Kieran said. “Further from me now than you were when I was in Faerie and you were in the human world.”

Mark looked steadfastly at his wrist, now wrapped in a bracelet of bandage. Kieran tied the knot expertly and set the box aside. “You can’t stay here forever, Kier,” Mark said. “And when you go, we will be separated. I can’t not think about that.”

Kieran gave a soft, impatient noise and flopped down on the bed, among the sheets. The blankets were already flung onto the floor. With his black hair tangled against the white linen, his body sprawled out with no regard for human modesty—his shirt had ridden up to the bottom of his rib cage, and his legs were flung wide apart—Kieran looked even more of a wild creature. “Come with me, then,” he said. “Stay with me. I saw the look on your face when you saw the horses of the Hunt. You would do anything to ride again.”

Suddenly furious, Mark leaned down over him. “Not anything,” he said. His voice throbbed with low anger.

Kieran gave a slight hiss. He caught at Mark’s shirt. “There,” he said. “Be angry with me, Mark Blackthorn. Shout at me. Feel something.”

Mark stayed where he was, frozen, just above Kieran. “You think I don’t feel?” he said, incredulously.

Something flickered in Kieran’s eyes. “Put your hands on me,” he said, and Mark did, feeling helpless to stop himself. Kieran clutched at the sheets as Mark touched him, pulling at his shirt, snapping the buttons. He moved his hands over Kieran’s body, as he had done on countless nights before, and a slow flame began in his own chest, the memory of desire becoming the immediate present.

It burned in him: a lambent, sorrowful heat, like a signal fire on a distant hill. Kieran’s shirt came up and over his head and his arms were tangled in it, so he reached for Mark with his legs, pulling him in, holding him with his knees. Kieran lifted up his mouth to Mark’s, and he tasted like the sweet ice of polar expanses under skies streaked with the northern lights. Mark couldn’t stop his hands: The shape of Kieran’s shoulder was like the rise of hills, his hair soft and dark as clouds; his eyes were stars and his body moved under Mark’s like the rush of a waterfall no human eye had ever seen. He was starlight and strangeness and freedom. He was a hundred arrows loosed from a hundred bows at the same time.

And Mark was lost; he was falling through dark skies, silvered with the diamond dust of stars. He was tangling his legs with Kieran’s, his hands were in Kieran’s hair, they were hurtling through mist over green pastures, they were riding a fire-shod horse over deserts where sand rose up in clouds of gold. He cried out, and then Kieran was rushing away from him as if he had been lifted up off the bed—it was all rushing away, and Mark opened his eyes and he was in the library.

He had fallen asleep, head on his arms, face against the wood of the table. He bolted upright with a gasp and saw Kieran, sitting in the embrasure of the windowsill, looking at him.

The library was otherwise empty, thank the Angel. No one was there except them.

Mark’s hand was throbbing. He must have struck it against the edge of the table; the sides of his fingers were already starting to swell.

“A pity,” said Kieran, looking at Mark’s hand thoughtfully. “Or you wouldn’t have woken up.”

“Where is everyone?” Mark said. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat.

“Some have gone to find ingredients to dissolve the binding spell,” said Kieran. “The children became restive, and Cristina went with them and Magnus’s lover.”

“You mean Alec,” said Mark. “His name is Alec.”

Kieran shrugged. “As for Magnus, he went to something called an Internet café to make printings of Emma and Julian’s messages. We were left to do research, but you promptly fell asleep.”