Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(60)

"Okay, I guess that suggestion was a little out of bounds," he admitted. The urge to kiss her had become overwhelming, so he gave up trying not to, and curved his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Her eyes widened, and then she tilted her head back, her mouth angled toward his and their mouths slanted together surprisingly gently.



       
         
       
        

It was soft and sweet and warm, and she moved into the circle made by his arm, her hands coming to rest at first hesitantly and then with greater purpose on his shoulders. She gripped tightly, pulling him in, his eyes shutting against the blue dazzle of the ocean in the distance. He forgot the ground under his feet, the world around him, everything but the sense of being comforted by someone holding him. Someone caring.

"Livvy. Ty! Kit!"

It was Diana's voice. Kit snapped out of his daze and let Livvy go; she moved away from him looking surprised, one hand rising to touch her lips.

"All of you!" Diana called. "Get back here, now! I need your help!"

"So how was it?" Kit asked. "Okay for your first?"

"Not bad." Livvy lowered her hand. "You really put your back into it. I didn't expect that."

"Herondales don't do perfunctory kisses," said Kit. There was a brief flurry of movement, and Ty was down from the rock he'd climbed, picking his way toward them through the desert scrub.

Livvy gave a short, soft laugh. "I think that's the first time I've heard you call yourself a Herondale."

Ty joined them, his pale oval face unreadable. Kit couldn't tell anything from his expression-whether he'd seen Kit and Livvy kiss or not. Though what reason would he have to care if he had?

"Looks like it's going to be clear tonight," he said. "No clouds coming in."

Livvy said something about better weather for following suspicious Centurions, and she was already moving to walk next to Ty, like she always did. Kit followed after them, hands in the pockets of his jeans, though he could feel the Herondale ring, heavy on his finger, as if he had only now remembered the weight.

* * *

The Land Under the Hill. The Delightful Plain. The Place Beneath the Wave. The Lands of the Ever-Young.

As the hours wore on, all the names Emma had ever heard for Faerieland ran through her head. Conversation between the four of them had grown quieter and fallen eventually into an exhausted silence; Cristina trudged along beside Emma wordlessly, her pendant glimmering in the moonlight. Mark led the way, checking their path against the stars every short while. In the distance the Thorn Mountains became clearer and closer, rising stark and unforgettable against a sky the color of blackened sapphire.

The mountains weren't often visible, though. Mostly the path they followed wound through low-hanging trees that grew close together, boughs occasionally intertwining. More than once Emma would catch a glimpse of bright eyes flashing out from between the shadows. When tree branches rustled, she would look up to catch sight of shadows moving quickly above them, laughter trailing behind them like mist. 

"These are the places of the wild fey," said Mark, as the road curved around a hill. "The gentry fey stay within the Courts or sometimes town. They like their creature comforts."

Here and there were signs of habitation: crumbled mossy bits of old stone walls, wooden fences cleverly fitted together without the use of nails. They passed through several villages in the hour before dawn: Every one of them was shuttered and dark, windows broken and empty. As they went farther into Faerie they began to see something else, too. The first time they saw it, Emma stopped short and exclaimed-the grass they'd been walking on had suddenly dissolved under her feet, puffing up white and gray like ash around her ankles.

She looked around in astonishment and discovered that the others were staring too. They had wandered into the edge of a ragged circle of diseased-looking land. It reminded Emma of photos she'd seen of crop circles. Everything within the perimeter of the circle was a dull, sickly whitish gray: the grass, the trees, the leaves and plants. The bones of small animals were scattered among the gray vegetation.

"What is this?" Emma demanded. "Some kind of dark faerie magic?"

Mark shook his head. "I have never seen any blight such as this before. I do not like it. Let us make haste away."

No one argued, but as they hurried through the ghost towns and across the hills, they saw several more patches of the ugly blight. At last the sky began to turn light with dawn. All of them were nearly dropping with exhaustion when they left the road behind and found themselves in a place of trees and rolling hills.