Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(202)

She sat down on Dru's bed. "It seemed real enough."

Jaime ran a hand through his black hair. He looked only a little like Diego, maybe in the set of his mouth, the shape of his eyes. Jaime had always been playful where Diego was serious. Now, tired and skinny, he resembled the glum, style-conscious boys who hung around coffee shops in the Colonia Roma. "I know you probably hate me," he said. "You've got every reason. You think I wanted our branch of the family to take over the Institute because I wanted power and didn't care about you. But the fact is I had a good reason."



       
         
       
        

"I don't believe you," Cristina said.

Jaime made an impatient noise. "I'm not self-sacrificing, Tina," he said. "That's Diego, not me. I wanted our family out of trouble."

Cristina dug her hands into the bedspread. "What kind of trouble?"

"You know we've always had a connection with faeries," said Jaime. "It's where that necklace of yours comes from. But there's always been more than that. Most of it didn't matter, until the Cold Peace. Then the family was supposed to turn everything over to the Clave-all their information, anything the faeries had ever given them."

"But they didn't," Cristina guessed.

"They didn't," Jaime said. "They decided the relationship with the hadas was more important than the Cold Peace." He shrugged fluidly. "There's an heirloom. It has power even I don't understand. The Dearborns and the Cohort demanded it, and we told them only a Rosales could make the object work."

Realization came to Cristina with a hard shock. "So the fake engagement," she said. "So Zara could think she was becoming a Rosales."

"Exactly," said Jaime. "Diego ties himself to the Cohort. And I-I take the heirloom and run. So Diego can blame me-his bad little brother ran off with it. And the engagement drags on and they don't find the heirloom."

"Is that your only plan?" Cristina said. "Delay forever?"

Jaime frowned at her. "I don't think you entirely appreciate that I've been very bravely on the run for months now," he said. "Very bravely."

"We are Nephilim, Jaime. It's our job to be brave," Cristina said.

"Some of us are better at it than others," Jaime said. "Anyway. I would not say our whole plan is to delay, no. Diego works to find out what the Cohort's weaknesses are. And I work to find out what the heirloom does exactly."

"You don't know?"

He shook his head. "I know it helps you enter Faerie undetected."

"And the Cohort wants to be able to enter Faerie so they can start a war?" Cristina guessed.

"That would make sense," said Jaime. "To them, anyway."

Cristina sat on the bed in silence. Outside it had begun to rain. Water streaked the windowpanes. She thought of rain on the trees in the Bosque, and sitting there with Jaime, watching him eat bags of Dorilocos and lick the salt off his fingers. And talking-talking for hours, about literally everything, about what they would do when they were parabatai and could travel anywhere in the world. 

"Where are you going to go?" she said finally, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I can't tell you." He pulled himself away from the desk. "I can't tell anyone. I am a good escape artist, Cristina, but only if I never tell where I'm hiding."

"You don't know, do you," she said. "You're going to improvise."

He smiled sideways. "No one knows me better than you."

"And Diego?" Cristina's voice shook. "Why didn't he ever tell me any of this?"

"People do stupid things when they're in love," said Jaime, in the voice of someone who never had been. "And besides, I asked him not to."

"So why are you telling me now?"

"Two things," he said. "In Downworld, they say the Blackthorns are going up against the Cohort. If it comes to a fight, I want to be in it. Send me a fire-message. I will come." His tone was earnest. "And secondly, to deliver Diego's message. He said you might be too angry to read it. But I was hoping that now-you would not be."

She looked down at the envelope in her hand. It had been bent and folded many times.

"I'll read it," she said quietly. "Won't you stay? Eat a meal with us. You look starved."

Jaime shook his head. "No one can know I was here, Tina. Promise me. On the fact that we were once going to be parabatai."

"That isn't fair," she whispered. "Besides, Drusilla knows."