Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(40)

The effect was instant. Suddenly everything about Arthur seemed to sharpen, to become crisp, clear, precise, like a sketch that had been refined into a careful drawing. He rose to his feet and reached for the jacket that hung on a peg by his desk. “Help me find some clothes to change into, Julian,” he said. “We must make a decent appearance in the Sanctuary.”

Every Institute had a Sanctuary.

It had always been that way. The Institute was a mixture of city hall and residence, a place where Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike came to meet with the Institute’s head. The head was the local representative of the Clave. In all of Southern California, there was no more important Shadowhunter than the head of the Los Angeles Institute. And the safest place to meet him was the Sanctuary, where vampires did not need to fear hallowed ground, and Downworlders were protected by oaths.

The Sanctuary had two sets of doors. One led outside and could be entered by anyone, who would find themselves inside the massive stone-bound room. The other set of doors connected the inside of the Institute to the Sanctuary. Like the front doors of the Institute, the inner doors of the Sanctuary yielded only to those with Shadowhunter blood.

Emma paused on the landing of the stairs to look out the window for the Fair Folk delegation. She had seen their horses, riderless, waiting near the front steps. If the Fair Folk delegation had experience with Shadowhunters, and they likely did, then they were already inside the Sanctuary.

The inner doors to the Sanctuary were at the end of a corridor that led off the Institute’s main entryway. They were made of copper metal that had long since gone green with verdigris, and runes of protection and welcome wound their way around the framework of the doors like vines.

Emma could hear voices from the other side of the doors: unfamiliar voices, one clear like water, one sharp like a twig snapping underfoot. She tightened her hold on Cortana and pushed through the entrance.

The Sanctuary itself was built in the shape of a crescent moon, facing the mountains—the shadowy canyons, the silver-green brush scattered across the landscape. The mountains blocked the sun, but the room was bright, thanks to a pendant chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Light bounced off the cut glass and illuminated the checkerboard floor: alternating squares of darker and lighter wood. If you climbed to the chandelier and looked down, they revealed themselves as the shape of the Angelic Power rune.

Not that Emma would admit she’d done that. Though one did get an excellent view of the massive stone chair of the Institute’s head from that angle.

In the center of the room were the faeries. There were only two of them, the one in white robes and the one in black armor. Nowhere could she see the brown rider. Neither of their faces was visible. She could see the fingertips of long, pale hands extending beyond their sleeves but couldn’t tell if they were male or female.

Emma could sense a wild, unwieldy power rolling off them, the breathy edge of otherworldliness. A feeling like the cool damp of wet earth brushed her skin, carrying the scent of roots and leaves and jacaranda blossoms.

The faerie in black laughed and drew his hood down. Emma started. Skin the color of dark green leaves, clawed hands, yellow owl’s eyes. He wore a cloak, woven with the pattern of a rowan tree.

It was the faerie she had seen at the Sepulchre the other night.

“We meet again, fair one,” he said, and his mouth, which was like a slit in the bark of a tree, grinned. “I am Iarlath of the Unseelie Court. My companion in white is Kieran of the Hunt. Kieran, lower your hood.”

The other faerie lifted two slender hands, each of them tipped by nearly translucent, square nails. He took hold of the edges of his hood and thrust it back with an imperious, almost rebellious gesture.

Emma suppressed a gasp. He was beautiful. Not like Julian was beautiful, or Cristina—in human ways—but like the cutting edge of Cortana. He looked young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, though she guessed he was older than that. Dark hair with a faint blue sheen framed a sculpted face. His light tunic and trousers were faded and worn; they had been elegant once, but now the sleeves and hems were slightly too short on a lithe and graceful body. His wide-spaced eyes were two-colored: the left black and the right a deep silver. He wore the battered white gauntlets that proclaimed him a prince of Faerie, but his eyes—his eyes said that he was part of the Wild Hunt.

“Is this because of the other night?” Emma said, looking from Iarlath to Kieran. “At the Sepulchre?”

“In part,” said Iarlath. His voice sounded like boughs creaking in the wind. Like the dark depths of fairy-tale forests, where only monsters lived. Emma wondered that she hadn’t noticed it at the bar.

“Is this the girl?” Kieran’s voice was very different: It sounded like waves sliding up the shore. Like warm water under pale light. It was seductive, with an edge of cold. He looked at Emma as if she were a new kind of flower, one he wasn’t sure he liked. “She’s pretty,” he said. “I didn’t think she’d be pretty. You didn’t mention it.”

Iarlath shrugged. “You’ve always been partial to blondes,” he said.

“Okay, seriously?” Emma snapped her fingers. “I am right here. And I was not aware I was being invited to a game of ‘Who’s the Hottest?’”

“I wasn’t aware you were invited at all,” said Kieran. His speech had a casual edge, as if he was used to talking to humans.