Blood of the Hunt

Blood of the Hunt - Chapter 14

"My Queen," he murmured. "We are ready to leave when you command."

"Excellent." The Seelie Queen extended her hand to him, but Aspen leaped between them.

"Woah, woah, woah. What's this? Leaving for where?"

"The Rift," the Queen answered simply. "The evacuation orders must be given immediately and preparations will be made for the Fey to return to our former territories, as agreed upon with your Consul."

"The Rift?" Aspen said incredulously, her golden eyebrows climbing halfway up her forehead. "Um, how about no? It's way too dangerous."

"I am well aware of the dangers of the Rift." The Queen gestured to the patient Faerie before her. "Cassius will be more than able to protect me while I am there."

"Uh uhn. I don't think so." Aspen crossed her arms and shot a look at where Hunter was hovering nervously near the door. "Not without us."

The Queen shook her head. "Nephilim are forbidden in the Rift with good reason, little girl. You would be killed before you made it two steps from where you entered."

"Yeah, well, technically, the Fey aren't allowed in Idris, but here you guys are anyway. Don't you know that Herondales love breaking rules? Either we're going, or you're not, okay?" She touched the cold-iron manacles looped around her belt that were intended for any Faerie assassins that might come looking for the Queen. "Or do you need another 'demonstration'?"

Arynessa eyed the child warily and briefly considered ordering Cassius to leave the pair of Nephilim tied up and stuffed in the closet, but she doubted that he would side with her against them in this even if she pressed his loyalty. He had come to love the Shadowhunters too much through his bond with Ezekiel. Too much, indeed... she mused to herself as she once again tallied up his strange behaviour since returning from his mission. She wondered what was going on behind those grey eyes of his that was causing him so much sadness.

"Your Consul would not look kindly upon the two of you going into the Rift," the Queen warned.

Aspen made a dismissive noise and waved her hand. "He said he didn't care what we had to do to protect you, which pretty much sounds like we can do whatever we want. We're going."

The Queen smiled sweetly at her in response. "I'll be sure to tell him that if I should need to return your bodies to your families after this."

After a bit of rummaging through some of the spare rooms upstairs, Hunter managed to turn up what he had thought he remembered seeing during their summer cleaning spree, and he nearly vanished in the cloud of dust that rose up from the first few shakes of the bundle in his arms. He coughed violently and shook it out even more furiously, revealing a very outdated Clave cloak that had to be more than fifty years old by now. He unceremoniously turned it inside-out to hide the emblem on its breast and tossed the other one to his parabatai.

"So, do you think these belonged to like, Valentine's parents or something? Back in the day?" Hunter smoothed the front down fruitlessly and reached over his shoulder to find the hood. Aspen wrinkled up her nose at the musty smell and pulled hers on distastefully.

"I dunno, probably? It's so weird."

"I think it's cool! Rayce's great-grandparents probably wore these."

"Smells like it," Aspen muttered unappreciatively. "Come on."

They clomped down the stairs together, already starting to sweat in the black cloaks even without having them done up fully. But the Queen had steadfastly refused to allow them to come unless they did something to disguise what they were. They didn't have Sera around to apply powerful enough glamour runes to fool the residents of the Rift, and even if she had been available, there was no guarantee on how long those glamours might have lasted.