Lord of Shadows The Dark Artifices 2

Emma landed hard on thick grass, tangled up in Julian. For a moment he was propped over her, elbows on the ground, his pale face luminous in the moonlight. The air around them was cold, but his body was warm against hers. She felt the expansion of his chest as he inhaled a sharp breath, the current of air against her cheek as he turned his face quickly away from hers.

A moment later he was on his feet, reaching down to pull her up after him. But she scrambled upright on her own, spinning around to see that they were standing in a clearing surrounded by trees.

The moonlight was bright enough for Emma to see that the grass was intensely green, the trees hung with fruit that was vividly colored: purple plums, red apples, star- and rose-shaped fruits that Emma didn’t recognize. Mark and Cristina were there too, under the trees.

Mark had pushed the sleeves of his shirt up and was holding his hands out as if he were touching the air of Faerie, feeling it on his skin. He tipped his head back, his mouth slightly open; Emma, looking at him, blushed. It felt like a private moment, as if she were watching someone reconnect with a lover.

“Emma,” Cristina breathed. “Look.” She pointed upward, at the sky.

The stars were different. They arched and whirled in patterns that Emma didn’t recognize, and they had colors—icy blue, frost green, shimmering gold, brilliant silver.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. She saw Julian look over at her, but it was Mark who spoke. He no longer looked quite so abandoned to the night, but he still seemed a little dazed, as if the air of Faerie were wine and he had drunk too much.

“The Hunt rode through the sky of Faerie sometimes,” he said. “In the sky the stars look like the crushed dust of jewels—powdered ruby and sapphire and diamond.”

“I knew about the stars in Faerie,” Cristina said in an awed, quiet voice. “But I never thought I would see them myself.”

“Should we rest?” Julian asked. He was prowling the outline of the clearing, peering between the trees. Trust Jules to ask the practical questions. “Gather our energy for traveling tomorrow?”

Mark shook his head. “We can’t. We must travel through the night. I know only how to navigate the Lands by the stars.”

“Then we’re going to need Energy runes.” Emma held out her arm to Cristina. It wasn’t meant as a deliberate snub to Jules—runes your parabatai put on you were always more powerful—but she could still feel where his body had crashed against hers when they’d fallen. She could still feel the visceral twist inside her when his breath had ghosted against her cheek. She needed him not to be close to her right now, not to see what was in her eyes. The way Mark had looked at the sky of Faerie: that was how she imagined she looked at Julian.

Cristina’s touch was warm and comforting, her stele swift and skilled, its tip tracing the shape of an Energy rune onto Emma’s forearm. Finished, she let Emma’s wrist go. Emma waited for the usual alert, searing heat, like a double jolt of caffeine.

Nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” she said, with a frown.

“Let me see—” Cristina stepped forward. She glanced down at Emma’s skin, and her eyes widened. “Look.”

The Mark, black as ink when Cristina had placed it on Emma’s forearm, was turning pale and silvery. Fading, like melting frost. In seconds it had blended back into Emma’s skin and was gone.

“What on earth . . . ?” Emma began. But Julian had already whirled on Mark. “Runes,” he said. “Do they work? In Faerie?”

Mark looked astonished. “It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t,” he said. “No one’s ever mentioned it.”

“I’ve studied Faerie for years,” Cristina said. “I’ve never seen it said anywhere that runes do not work in the Lands.”

“When was the last time you tried to use one here?” Emma asked Mark.

He shook his head, blond curls falling into his eyes. He shoved them back with narrow fingers. “I can’t remember,” he said. “I didn’t have a stele—they broke it—but my witchlight always worked—” He dug into his pocket and drew out a round, polished rune-stone. They all watched, breathless, as he held it up, waiting for the light to come, to shine brilliantly from his palm.

Nothing happened.

With a soft curse, Julian drew one of his seraph blades from his belt. The adamas gleamed dully in the moonlight. He turned it so that the blade lay flat, reflecting the multicolored brilliance of the stars. “Michael,” he said.

Something sparked inside the blade—a brief, dull gleam. Then it was gone. Julian stared at it. A seraph blade that could not be brought to life was barely more use than a plastic knife: dull-bladed, heavy, and short.

With a violent jerk of his arm, Julian cast the blade aside. It skidded across the grass. He raised his eyes. Emma could sense how tightly he was holding back. She felt it like a pressure in her own body that made it hard to breathe.