The Dark Artifices One Shots

Cristina

That dash of Cristina . . .

Cristina lay on her back on her bed. She stared at the white ceiling of her room in the Los Angeles Institute. It had been over a week since Livvy's funeral, and the institute was filled with an overwhelming sense of sibling grief. Cristina felt like she was a stranger — an intruder to the Blackthorns' mourning.

The Rosales family were never quick to mourn. They knew they would be in the presence of their loved ones again on Día de Los Muertos. But Cristina still understood what they were going through; She and her family had grieved much over her uncle and head of the Mexico City Institute, Tomas Rosales, who had been lost during the Dark War.

But this situation was slightly different. The Blackthorns had lost their sister. Cristina had only known Livvy for a short time, and but the little girl had made a space in her heart, and now it was empty. It was empty of joy and happiness, that Livvy brought to every conversation. It was empty of the delight of spotting Ty and Livvy, and sometimes Kit, all spying on important conversations. And it was empty of the smile that Cristina would grow when she saw Livvy teasing her siblings.

Cristina knew that everyone else felt the same difference, except far much worse. Even Kit had bonded quite close to the twins, but now he and Ty were a tricycle with only two wheels. Julian had barely started coming out of his room, and as the backbone of the family, it was making everything else crumble. Mark had made feeble attempts at cooking, but it was mainly Cristina who ended up making the meals. Ty, Kit, and Dru had been slacking on their training, and there had still been no progress on Annabel's tracking. There was no news from Jaime, either. Cristina and Dru had kept his secret, but Cristina knew it was eating the other girl up as much as it was her. Cristina had gotten a fire-message from Diego that Kieran was safe at the Scholomance, but the rest of the Centurions would be returning from Alicante soon, and a faerie would not be safe in a house full of faerie-haters.

As for Emma, Cristina knew she was mourning in her own way. Emma didn't like expressing her sadness, so she focused her attention on moving on from Livvy. Emma tried going on about her life like the trip to Alicante had never happened, but her overwhelming acts of joy only sickened the rest of them. The few times that Julian had come out of his room, she'd put much more effort into her display, but Cristina could see how it angered Julian.

There was a knock on the door that snapped Cristina out of her thoughts. She opened it to see a familiar blond head at her door. Kit looked up at her with his watery-blue eyes. "Come on in, Kit."

Kit silently stepped through the doorway and sat on her rug. Cristina folded her legs and sat across from him. She wasn't surprised at Kit's visit.

The first time he'd come was a few days after returning from Alicante. He'd been standing in her doorway with bloody knuckles. "Kit! What happened?" she had asked frantically.

"I . . .can't," he'd mumbled.

Cristina hadn't questioned him about that comment. She'd known someone would crash unexpectedly from the recent events, but had always thought it would be one of the Blackthorns. Nevertheless she bandaged Kit up that day— he wanted to feel the pain rather than apply a quick iratze—and let him open up to her. He told her about how he had bonded with the twins, and how it was uncomfortably uneven without Livvy in their trio. He told her about his kiss with Livvy, his conversations with Ty. He's told her about his feelings for Ty, and the kiss they'd shared outside the Council Hall. He told her how he just couldn't take losing his father then a girl he'd cared for.

He came back the next day with healed knuckles and poured himself out again. Cristina didn't mind—she was glad to still feel important to someone at a time like this. Kit came by regularly, and Cristina started confiding in him as well— on her feelings, her problems. She'd even told him a bit about her past with Diego and Jaime. Eventually, his visits ranged from teary conversations to angry speeches to complete silence for hours at a time. The two of them found a bit of themselves in each other, both feeling like outsiders to the family.