Alastair’s restless hands stopped moving. “Yes,” he said. “Pity for your friend James.”
So he knows, Cordelia thought. Charles must have told him. “So—are you all right?” she asked.
Alastair’s black eyes were fathomless. “What do you mean?”
Cordelia couldn’t bear it any longer. “I heard you and Charles talking in the library,” she said. “I heard you say you loved him. I won’t tell anybody else, I promise. You know I always keep my word. It doesn’t make the least bit of difference to me, Alastair.”
Alastair was silent.
“I wouldn’t have said anything, but—for Charles to become engaged again, after he knew how unhappy you were about Ariadne—Alastair, I don’t want anyone to be cruel to you. I want you to be with someone who will make you happy.”
Alastair’s eyes glittered. “He’s not cruel. You don’t know him. He and Grace have an understanding. He explained it to me. Everything Charles does is so he and I can be together.” There was something mechanical about the words, as if they had been rehearsed.
“But you don’t wish to be someone’s secret,” said Cordelia. “You said—”
“How do you know what I said? How could you possibly have overheard us without going out of your way to do so? You were upstairs, we were downstairs—unless you followed me,” Alastair finished slowly. “You were eavesdropping. Why?”
“I was afraid,” Cordelia said, in a low voice. “I thought you were going to tell Charles—what I had made you promise not to say.”
“About that demon creature at the bridge?” he said incredulously. “About your little friends and their little schemes and secrets? I gave you my word.”
“I know,” she said, close to crying, “and I should have trusted you, Alastair. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overhear such things. I know they’re private. I only wanted to tell you I loved you just the same. It makes no difference to me.”
She thought the reassurance might help, but instead Alastair’s mouth wrenched out of shape with sudden violence.
“Really,” he said coldly. “Well, it makes a difference to me to have a sister who is a sneak and a spy. Get out of my room, Cordelia. Now.”
* * *
“Jesse,” Lucie whispered. “Jesse, where are you?”
She sat on the floor by the cast-iron fireplace in the Institute drawing room. She had come home from the Devil Tavern once night had begun to fall in earnest. Both Thomas and Christopher had been distracted and preoccupied, anyway, and she wasn’t sure how much real Pyxis research was getting done. Christopher had had some kind of realization about the antidote he was working on and vanished into the steel-lined corner of the tavern room, where he had banged about trying to distill something in a retort.
But that wasn’t the real reason she had wanted to leave. Night had a new importance now. Night meant she could talk to Jesse.
“Jesse Blackthorn,” she said now, feeling a little ridiculous. “Please come here. I want to speak with you.”
She glanced about the room, as if Jesse might be hiding under a sofa. This was their family room, where the Herondales often gathered in the evenings. Tessa had kept some of the older decorations here—a gilt-framed mirror still hung over the fireplace—and the furniture was comfortably shabby, from the flowered armchairs by the fireplace to the big old desk, scarred with years of marks from the nibs of pens. The walls were papered in light damask, and well-thumbed books lined the walls.
Tessa would read aloud from a new book, and the others would sprawl around the fire; sometimes they would exchange gossip, or Will and Tessa would tell familiar stories from the past. It was a place Lucie associated with great comfort, and afternoons spent scribbling away at the desk. So it was perhaps doubly unnerving when Jesse appeared, evolving out of the shadows in his white shirtsleeves, his face pale under his dark hair.
“You came!” she said, not bothering to hide her astonishment. “I really didn’t know if that was going to work.”
“I don’t suppose you ever wondered if now was a convenient time for me,” he said.
“What could you possibly have been doing?” she wondered aloud.
Jesse made an unghostlike snorting sound and seated himself on the rickety desk. The weight of a live person would likely have tipped it over, but he was not a live person. “You wanted to speak with me. So speak.”
She told him hastily about Emmanuel Gast, how she had found the ghost and what he had said to her. As he listened, Jesse played with the gold locket around his throat.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have heard nothing of this warlock. Still, it is clear these are dark doings,” he said, when she was done. “Why put yourself in the middle of this? Why not let your parents solve these mysteries?”
“Barbara was my cousin,” she said. “I cannot do nothing.”
“You do not need to do this.”
“Perhaps being dead has made you forget how perilous life is,” said Lucie. “I do not think James, or Cordelia, or any of us have chosen to be the ones to solve this mystery. It has chosen us. I am not going to bring danger to my parents, either, when there is nothing they can do.”
“I am not sure there is anything anyone can do,” said Jesse. “There is deliberate evil at work here. A desire to destroy Shadowhunters and to hurt them. It will not be ended soon.”
Lucie sucked in her breath.
“Luce?” The door opened. It was James. Lucie started, and Jesse vanished—not the way Jessamine sometimes disappeared, with a wake of trailing smoke, but simply snapping out of existence between one second and the next. “What are you doing in here?”
“Why shouldn’t I be in the drawing room?” she said, knowing she sounded disagreeable. She felt immediately guilty—he hadn’t known she was in the middle of trying to interrogate a ghost.
James tossed his jacket over a flowered armchair and sat down beside her, picking up a poker from the rack of fireplace instruments.
“I’m sorry about Grace,” she said. “Matthew told Thomas and Christopher.”
James sighed, moving the coals in the fire about restlessly. “Probably better that he did. It isn’t as if I wish to announce the news to everyone.”
“If Grace doesn’t want you, she is a terrible idiot,” Lucie said. “And if she wants to marry Charles, she is even more of a terrible idiot, so she is a terrible idiot twice over.”
James went still, his hand motionless on the poker. The sparks flew upward. “I thought I would feel incredible grief,” he said at last. “Instead I am not sure what I feel. Everything is sharper and clearer, colors and textures are different. Perhaps that is grief. Perhaps it is just that I don’t know how such loss should feel.”
“Charles will be sorry he married her,” said Lucie, with conviction. “She will devil him until the day he dies.” She made a face. “Wait. She’ll be Matthew’s sister, won’t she? Think of the awkward dinner parties.”
“About Matthew.” James set the poker down. “Luce. You know that Matthew has feelings for you, and you don’t return those feelings.”
Lucie blinked. She hadn’t expected the conversation to take this turn, though it was not the first time they’d discussed the matter. “I cannot feel something that I don’t feel.”
“I’m not saying that you should. You don’t owe your feelings to anyone.”
“Besides, it is a fancy,” Lucie said. “He does not really care for me. In fact, I think—”
She broke off. It was a theory she had developed, seeing the way Matthew’s gaze had been drifting the past few days. But she was not ready to share it.
“I don’t disagree.” James’s voice was low. “But I fear that Matthew is in pain for reasons even I do not understand.”
Lucie hesitated. She knew what she ought to say about the way Matthew had chosen to address his pain, but she could not bear to say the words to her brother. A moment later she was spared the choice as footsteps sounded in the hall. Her mother and fathe
r came in, both bright-eyed from the brisk wind outside. Tessa stopped to set her gloves on a small Moroccan table by the door, while Will swept over to kiss Lucie and ruffle James’s hair.
“Gracious,” said James, his tone light. “What is the meaning of all this unbridled affection?”
“We were with your aunt Cecily and uncle Gabriel,” said Tessa, and Lucie realized her mother’s eyes were a bit too bright. Tessa took a seat on the sofa. “My poor loves. All our hearts are shattered for Sophie and Gideon.”
Will sighed. “I remember when Gideon and Gabriel could barely stand each other. Now Gabriel is there each day for his brother. I am glad you and James have each other, Luce.”
“I suppose the good news is that there have been no new attacks today,” said Tessa. “We must hold to that. This dreadfulness could end at any time.”
Will sat down beside his wife and pulled her into his lap. “I am going to kiss your mother now,” he announced. “Flee if you will, children. If not, we could play Ludo when the romance is over.”
“The romance is never over,” said James glumly.
Tessa laughed and put up her face to be kissed. James looked exasperated, but Lucie was not paying attention: she could not help but hear Jesse’s voice in her head.
There is deliberate evil at work here. A desire to destroy Shadowhunters and to hurt them. It will not be ended soon.
She shivered.
* * *
In the morning, a grand package festooned with ribbons arrived at 102 Cornwall Gardens. It was addressed to Cordelia, and Sona followed Risa as the maid carried it up to Cordelia’s room.
“A gift!” Sona said, as Risa deposited the box on Cordelia’s bed. Sona was entirely breathless. Cordelia looked at her with concern—her mother was usually quite energetic, so a few flights of stairs should not have winded her. “Perhaps it is from a gentleman?”
Cordelia, who had been seated at the vanity table brushing out her hair, sighed. She had cried half the night, horribly aware that she had embarrassed her brother. She certainly didn’t feel she deserved a gift, or an excursion to the Hell Ruelle in the evening, for that matter. “It’s probably from Lucie—”
Her mother already had the wrappings off and the box open. Risa had stepped back, plainly finding Sona’s excitement alarming. As Sona tore through a delicate layer of paper, she gasped aloud. “Oh, Layla!”
Curiosity getting the better of her, Cordelia came to join her mother at the side of the bed. She gaped. Out of the box had tumbled a dozen dresses: day dresses and tea gowns alongside gorgeous evening wear, all in rich colors: kingfisher-blue lace, cotton in cinnamon and wine, silks in Prussian green, claret, and burgundy, shimmering gold and dark rose.
Sona held up a silk dress the color of bronze, with a soft chiffon edging at the bodice and the hem. “It’s so lovely,” she said, almost reluctantly. “They’re from James, aren’t they?”
Despite her surprise, Cordelia knew exactly who they were from. She had seen the small card signed A tucked among the tea gowns. But if believing they were from James meant her mother would allow her to wear them, she would let her mother think what she liked.
“It’s very kind of him,” she said. “Don’t you think? I can wear it tonight—there’s a gathering at the Institute.”
Sona smiled in delight, the smile like a weight on Cordelia’s heart. The dresses were so very extravagant: her mother would surely believe now that James’s imaginary romantic intentions toward Cordelia were serious indeed. It was a sort of irony, she thought, that for once both she and her mother wanted the same thing. And that neither of them was going to get it.
* * *
Anna fetched Cordelia at precisely nine o’clock that night, in a black carriage that resembled dark leather. Cordelia hurried out the door, bundled in her coat despite the warmness of the evening. She clambered into the carriage, ignoring her mother calling after her that she should bring gloves, too, or possibly a muff.
The interior of the carriage shone with brass fittings and red velvet bench seats. Anna had her long legs carelessly crossed before her. She was dressed in elegant black menswear, her shirtfront starched and white. There was an amethyst pin, the color of her brother’s eyes, winking in her cravat, and her coat fit sleekly along her narrow shoulders. She seemed entirely composed. Cordelia envied her confidence.
“Thank you,” Cordelia said breathlessly, as the carriage began to move. “The dresses are absolutely lovely—you didn’t have to—”
Anna waved her thanks away. “It cost me nothing. A werewolf seamstress owed me a favor, and Matthew helped me pick out fabric.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, which one did you decide to wear?”
Cordelia removed her coat to show the shimmering bronze gown beneath. The silk was cool and heavy against her skin, like the touch of water; the chiffon at the hem caressed her legs and ankles. It was practical, too—her mother had helped her cunningly conceal Cortana in a sheath on her back that ran below the material of her dress.
Anna chuckled approvingly. “Deep colors are the right ones for you, Cordelia. Claret red, kingfisher blue, emerald green. Sleek lines and simplicity, none of this silly frou-frou everyone’s wearing.”
The carriage had turned toward the West End. There was something exciting about moving toward the heart of London, away from Kensington’s greenery, into the crowds and the life that pulsed through them. “Do we have a plan?” Cordelia said, gazing out the window at Piccadilly Circus. “What we’re going to do when we get there?”
“I will seduce,” said Anna. “You will distract, or at the least, not get in my way.”
Cordelia smiled. She leaned against the window as Anna pointed out landmarks to her: the statue of Eros in the center of the roundabout, and the Criterion Restaurant, where Arthur Conan Doyle had set the first meeting of Holmes and Watson. Soon they were rolling into Soho with its narrower streets. Fog hung like spider’s webs stretched between the buildings. The carriage rattled past an Algerian coffee vendor, the window crammed with the shining brass and tin of coffee cans. Nearby was a shop for light fittings with a shiny new black-and-gold facade on which the words W. SITCH & CO. were inscribed, and past it a collection of market stalls. In the dark, narrow street, oil flares blazed like warning fires, and the cloth hangings protecting the stall fronts flew in the wind.
The carriage came to a stop at last in front of Tyler’s Court. The air was full of smoke and shadow and the chatter of voices speaking a dozen different languages. James and Matthew lounged against the stone walls. They both wore fitted black evening coats. Matthew had added a bottle-green tie and velvet trousers to his ensemble. James had his collar turned up against the wind, his face pale between his black hair and the fine black material of his suit.
Anna threw open the door of the carriage and hopped out, leaving the door open behind her. Cordelia tried to follow, only to find that it was less than easy to move in her new dress. She inched across the bench seat, squeaking slightly, and half tumbled out the carriage door.
Arms braced her before she hit the pavement. James had caught her by the waist. Her hair brushed his cheek and she inhaled his cologne: cedarwood, like the forests in Lebanon.
He set her on her heels, his hands still on her hips. She could feel the imprint of the Herondale ring he wore against her side. He was staring, and Cordelia realized with a jolt that she had left her coat in the carriage. She was standing in front of Matthew and James in her new dress, with nothing else to cover her.
She could not help but be conscious of how closely the dress clung to her body. The fabric over her hips was so tight that she hadn’t been able to wear a petticoat beneath it, only her combination and a light corset. Anyone could see the shape of her waist, the swell of her bosom, and even the silk draped across the curve of her stomach. The narrow sleeves slipped down her shoulders, uncovering the tops of her breasts; the weight and softness of the material was like a caress. She felt elegant in a way she never had before, and a little
wild.
“Cordelia,” said Matthew. He looked slightly stunned, as if he’d walked into a wall. “You look different.”
“Different?” Anna scoffed. “She looks stunning.”
James hadn’t moved. He was looking at Cordelia, and his eyes had darkened, from the color of a tiger’s eyes to something richer and deeper. Something like the gold of Cortana when it flashed in the air. He exhaled and let her go, stepping back. Cordelia could feel her heart beating in her throat, a sharp pulse, as if she had drunk too much of her mother’s strong tea.
“We had better go in,” James said, and Cordelia saw Anna smile sideways, a catlike smile, before she led them into the narrow court.
The faerie at the door recognized Anna and Matthew and let them all pass through into the Hell Ruelle with only a lift of her lavender eyebrows. They found themselves in the Ruelle’s dazzling series of interconnected rooms. As they followed Anna, who strode along with purpose, Cordelia realized what she had not before: that the rooms spread out from a central large chamber like the arms of a starfish. The ceilings in the passages were low, but every room was illuminated by electric light, brilliant and harsher than witchlight.
They found Hypatia Vex holding court in the central chamber. The decor of the octagonal room had been changed. The walls were now hung with paintings of bacchanals: naked dancers encircled with streaming ribbons, demons with eyes painted red and foreheads garlanded with flowers, their bodies lacquered gold like James’s eyes. Behind Hypatia Vex hung a massive triptych of a dark-haired woman holding a black owl with golden eyes.
The stage in the center of the room was empty now, though chairs and couches had been arranged around it. They were full of Downworlders. Cordelia recognized the vampire girl Lily, jeweled combs in her black hair, sipping blood from a crystal glass. She winked at Anna, but Anna was focused on Hypatia, who was seated on an intricately carved oak settee, upholstered in red-and-green jacquard fabric. She was wearing another shimmering gown, this one black silk that made it seem as if the luxurious curves of her body had been dipped into ink.
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