Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(24)

"Oh." His dark eyes were sympathetic. "It's all right to miss him. I miss him too."

"Then you should talk to him." Cristina knew she sounded short. She couldn't help it. She wasn't sure why Diego was driving her crazy, and not in a good way. Maybe it was that she'd blamed him for betraying her for so long that it was hard to let go of that anger. Maybe it was that no longer blaming him meant more blame laid on Jaime, which seemed unfair, as Jaime wasn't around to defend himself.

"I don't know where he is," Diego said.

"At all? You don't know where he is in the world or how to contact him?" Somehow Cristina had missed this part. Probably because Diego hadn't mentioned it.

"He doesn't want to be bothered by me," said Diego. "All my fire-messages come back blocked. He hasn't talked to our father." Their mother was dead. "Or any of our cousins."

"How do you know he's even alive?" Cristina asked, and instantly regretted it. Diego's eyes flashed.

"He is my little brother, still," he said. "I would know if he was dead."

"Centurion!" It was Clary, gesturing from the top of the hill. Diego began to jog up the ruins toward her without looking back. Cristina was conscious that she'd upset him; guilt spilled through her and she kicked at a heavy chunk of plaster with a bolt of rebar stuck through it like a toothpick.

It rolled to the side. She blinked at the object revealed under it, then bent to pick it up. A glove-a man's glove, made of leather, soft as silk but a thousand times tougher. The leather was printed with the image of a golden crown snapped in half.

"Mark!" she called. "¡Necesito que veas algo!"

A moment later she realized she'd been so startled she'd actually called out in Spanish, but it didn't seem to matter. Mark had come leaping nimbly down the stones toward her. He stood just above her, the wind lifting his airy, pale-gold curls away from the slight points of his ears. He looked alarmed. "What is it?" 

She handed him the glove. "Isn't that the emblem of one of the Faerie Courts?"

Mark turned it over in his hands. "The broken crown is the Unseelie King's symbol," he murmured. "He believes himself to be true King of both the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts, and until he rules both, the crown will remain snapped in half." He tilted his head to the side like a bird studying a cat from a safe distance. "But these kind of gloves-Kieran had them when he arrived at the Hunt. They are fine workmanship. Few but the gentry would wear them. In fact, few but the King's sons would wear them."

"You don't think this is Kieran's?" Cristina said.

Mark shook his head. "His were . . . destroyed. In the Hunt. But it does mean that whoever visited Malcolm here, and left this glove, was either high in the Court, or the King himself."

Cristina frowned. "It's very odd that it's here."

Her hair had escaped from its braids and was blowing in long curls around her face. Mark reached up to tuck one back behind her ear. His fingers skimmed her cheek. His eyes were dreamy, distant. She shivered a little at the intimacy of the gesture.

"Mark," she said. "Don't."

He dropped his hand. He didn't look angry, the way a lot of boys tended to when asked not to touch a girl. He looked puzzled and a little sad. "Because of Diego?"

"And Emma," she said, her voice very low.

His puzzlement increased. "But you know that's-"

"Mark! Cristina!" It was Emma, calling to them from where she and Julian had joined Diego and Clary. Cristina was grateful not to have to answer Mark; she raced up the pile of rocks and glass, glad her Shadowhunter boots and gear protected her from stray sharp edges.

"Did you find something?" she asked as she approached the small group.

"Have you ever wanted a really up-close look at a gross tentacle?" Emma asked.

"No," said Cristina, drawing closer warily. Clary did appear to have something unpleasantly floppy speared on the end of her odd weapon. It wriggled a bit, showing pink suckers against green, mottled skin.

"No one ever seems to say yes to that question," said Emma sadly.

"Magnus introduced me to a warlock with tentacles like this once," Clary said. "His name was Marvin."

"I assume these aren't Marvin's remains," Julian said.

"I'm not sure they're anyone's remains," said Clary. "To command sea demons, you'd need either the Mortal Cup or something like this-a piece of a powerful demon you could enchant. I think we have some definite evidence that Malcolm's death is tied to the recent Teuthida attacks."

"Now what?" said Emma, side-eyeing the tentacle. She wasn't a huge fan of the ocean, or the monsters that lived in it, though she'd fight anything or anyone on dry land.