Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(178)

       
        

"Wikipedia knows about ley lines?" Emma took her phone back.

"Wikipedia knows about everything. It might be run by warlocks."

"You think that's what they do all day in the Spiral Labyrinth? Run Wikipedia?"

"I admit it seems like a letdown."

Tucking the phone in her pocket, Emma indicated the church. "So this is another convergence?"

Julian shook his head. "A convergence is where every ley line in the area links up. This is a junction-two ley lines crossing. Still a powerful place." In the bright sunshine he drew a seraph blade from his belt, holding it against his side as they approached the church entrance.

"Do you know what you're going to say to Annabel?" Emma whispered.

"Not a clue," Julian said. "I guess I'll-" He broke off. There was something in his eyes: a troubled look.

"Is something wrong?" Emma asked.

They'd reached the church doors. "No," Julian said, after a long moment, and though Emma could tell he didn't mean it, she let it slide. She drew Cortana from her back, just in case.

Julian shouldered the doors open. The small lock holding them shut burst apart, and they were inside, Julian a few steps ahead of Emma. It was pitch-black inside the abandoned church. "Arariel," he murmured, and his seraph blade lit like a small bonfire, illuminating the interior.

A stone arcade ran along one side of the church, the pews nestled between the arches. The stone was carved with delicate designs of leaves. The nave and the transept, where the altar was usually located, were deep in shadow.

Emma heard Julian draw in his breath. "This is where Malcolm raised Annabel," he said. "I remember it from the scrying glass. This is where Arthur died."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Julian lowered his head. "Ave atque vale, Arthur Blackthorn." His voice was full of sorrow. "You died bravely and for your family."

"Jules . . ." She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he had already straightened up, any sorrow he felt cloaked beneath the mantle of being Nephilim.

"I don't know why Annabel would want to stay here," he said, sweeping the light of his seraph blade over the church's interior. It was thick with dust. "It can't be a spot with good memories for her."

"But if she's desperate for a hiding place . . ."

"Look." Julian indicated the altar, propped on a granite slab a few feet thick. It had a wooden top laid over the stone, and something flashed white against the wood. A folded piece of paper, pinned there by a knife.

Julian's name was scrawled on it in a feminine dark hand. 

Emma ripped the paper away and handed it to Jules, who flicked it open quickly, holding it where they could both read by the light of Julian's blade.

Julian,

You may consider this in the nature of a test. If you are here, reading this note, you have failed it.

Emma heard Julian draw in his breath. They read on:

I told the piskies that I was living here, in the church. It is not true. I would not remain where so much blood has spilled. But I knew that you could not leave my whereabouts alone, that you would ask the piskies where I was, that you would search me out.

Though I had asked you not to.

Now you are here in this place. I wish you were not, for I was not the only thing that was raised by Malcolm Fade and your uncle's blood. But you had to see what the Black Volume can do.

-Annabel

Cristina was sitting in the embrasure of the library window, reading, when she glanced out the window and saw a familiar dark figure slipping through the front gates.

She'd been in the library for several hours, dutifully going through the books in the languages she knew best-Spanish, Ancient Greek, Old Castilian, and Aramaic-for mentions of the Black Volume. Not that she could concentrate.

Memories of the night before kept hitting her at odd moments, like when she was passing the sugar to Ty and nearly spilled it in his lap. Had she really kissed Mark? Danced with Kieran? Enjoyed dancing with Kieran?

No, she thought, she'd be truthful with herself: She had enjoyed it. It had been like riding with the Wild Hunt. She'd felt drawn out of her own body, spinning through the stars and clouds. It had been like the stories of revels her mother had told her when she was a child, where mortals had lost themselves in the dances of Faerie-kind, and died for the beautiful joy of it.

Of course, afterward they'd all simply gone back to their separate rooms-Kieran calmly, Mark and Cristina both looking shaken. And Cristina had lain there a long time, not sleeping, looking at the ceiling and wondering what she had gotten herself into.

She set down her book with a sigh. It didn't help that she was alone in the library-Magnus was in and out of the infirmary, where Mark was helping him set up equipment to mix the binding spell cure, and Dru was helping Alec look after the children in one of the spare rooms. Livvy, Ty, and Kit had gone to pick up the supplies from Hypatia Vex's shop. Bridget had been in and out with trays of sandwiches and tea, muttering that she was worked off her feet and that the house was more crowded than a train station. Kieran was . . . nowhere.