“I am not sure he likes him precisely,” said James, “but rather feels as if he ought to be given a second chance after his behavior at school.” James paused, thinking of Alastair’s strained face and panicked eyes in the library at Cornwall Gardens. “And perhaps he is right. Perhaps we all deserve one.”
“There are some people who do not deserve one.” Matthew’s voice was fierce. “If I ever catch you considering befriending Alastair, James—”
“Then what?” James said, arching an eyebrow.
“Then I will have to tell you what Alastair said to me the day we left the Academy,” said Matthew. “And I would rather not. Cordelia should never know it, if nothing else. She loves him and she should be allowed that.”
Cordelia. There was something about the way Matthew said her name. James turned to him, puzzled. He wanted to say that if Alastair had truly said something so awful it would threaten Cordelia’s affection for him, Matthew should not suffer it in silence, but there was no chance. Christopher had burst out the front door, pulling on gloves. He wore a hat, tilted sideways on his head, and a green scarf that matched none of his other clothes.
“Where’s the carriage?” he asked, descending the steps.
“We were waiting for you, Christopher, not fetching you a carriage,” said James, as the three of them crossed the front garden to the mews, where a large carriage house held the Consul’s horses and means of transportation. “Besides, I’m fairly sure Darwin said something about it being healthful for scientists to walk.”
Christopher looked indignant. “He certainly didn’t—”
The front gate rattled. James turned to see shadows perched atop it. No, not shadows—demons, ragged and black. They leaped soundlessly to the ground, one after another, stalking toward the Shadowhunters.
“Khora demons,” James whispered; Matthew already had a shortsword out, and Christopher a seraph blade. It crackled as he named it, like a broken radiometer.
James whipped a throwing knife from his belt, turning to realize that they had been cut off from retreating to the house. The demons were circling them, as they had tried to circle Christopher on the bridge.
“I don’t like this,” said Matthew. His eyes were burning, his teeth bared. “At all.”
The hat had fallen from Christopher’s head; it lay sodden on the damp, stony ground. He kicked at it in frustration. “James? What next?”
James heard Cordelia’s voice in his head, gentle and certain. You are the leader. “We cut through the circle of demons, there”—he pointed, talking fast—“and duck into the carriage house. Lock the doors behind us with a rune.”
“Brings new meaning to the saying ‘don’t frighten the horses,’ ” Matthew muttered. “All right. Let’s go.”
They spun toward the area James had indicated, knives flying from James’s hands like arrows from a bow. Each met its target, sinking deep into demon flesh. The Khora demons skittered away, howling, and the boys bolted through the gap between them toward the mews, just as the sky crackled with thunder.
They sprang through white tendrils of fog; James reached the gate to the mews first and kicked it open, then nearly doubled over, pain shooting through him.
He turned to see that a Khora had seized hold of Matthew and thrown him. Christopher was battling another of the shadowy creatures, his seraph blade describing a sputtering arc of light as he slashed at it. James choked—Matthew must have had the breath knocked out of him—and turned to race toward his parabatai as the Khora reared up over Matthew’s body—
A flash of gold sprang between Matthew and the shadow, sending the Khora reeling back.
It was Oscar. The retriever sailed past the demon, missing a savage blow from its claws by barely an inch, and landed near Matthew.
The Khora started back toward the boy and the dog. Matthew threw his arms around Oscar—the puppy James had saved and given to him so long ago—curving his body to protect his dog. James spun, a knife in each hand, and let them fly.
The knives sank to their hilts in the demon’s skull. It blew apart; one of the other demons screamed, and Matthew leaped to his feet, seizing up his fallen sword. James could hear him shouting at Oscar to go back into the house, but Oscar clearly felt he had scored a great victory and had no intention of listening. He growled as Christopher paused at the mews gate, shouting for the others to follow him.
James turned. “Christopher—”
It rose up behind Christopher, a massive shadow, the biggest Khora demon James had seen yet. Christopher started to turn, raising his seraph blade, but it was too late. The Khora had reached around Christopher, almost as if it meant to embrace him, pulling his body back toward it. His weapon went flying.
Matthew started to run toward Christopher, skidding across the wet ground. James couldn’t move—he was out of knives; he grabbed for the seraph blade in his belt, but there was no time. The demon’s great clawed hand raked across Christopher’s chest.
Christopher screamed, and the Khora demon shoved him away. He crumpled to the ground.
“No!” James broke into a run, zigzagging toward Christopher’s fallen body. Something lunged toward him; he heard Matthew shout, and a chalikar sliced an oncoming Khora in half. James jerked his seraph blade free, heading for the demon that had wounded Kit.
It turned to look at him. Its eyes were knowing, almost amused. It bared its teeth—and vanished, just as the Khora demons in the park had.
“Jamie, they’ve gone,” Matthew called. “They’ve all gone—”
The front gates burst open with a ringing clang of metal, and a carriage rolled into the front garden. The doors flew open, disgorging Charles Fairchild; James dimly realized that Alastair Carstairs was also there, looking around himself with a stunned expression. As James dropped to his knees by Christopher, he could hear Charles demanding to know what was going on.
Matthew shouted back, asking if Charles was blind, couldn’t he see Christopher was hurt and needed to go to the Silent City? Charles kept demanding what had happened to the demons, where had they gone, he’d seen one when they’d first crashed through the gates, but where were they now?
I will take him, Alastair was saying. I will take him to the Silent City. But the words seemed to echo from some far-off place, someplace where James was not kneeling in the wet and the fog next to a motionless Christopher, whose chest had been scored across by the ragged lines of demon claws. Someplace where Christopher was not still and silent no matter how much James begged him to open his eyes. Someplace where Christopher’s blood was not mixing with the rain on the cobblestones, surrounding him in a pool of crimson. Someplace better than this.
* * *
Cordelia had been hoping to speak to her brother again, but she rose so late in the day that by the time Risa had helped her dress and sent her downstairs, Alastair had already gone out.
Despite the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows, the house seemed muffled and dim, the ticking of the clock unnaturally loud as she ate her porridge in the dining room. It tasted like sawdust in her mouth. She kept remembering Alastair’s words of the night before: I wanted you to have a childhood, a thing I never had. I wanted you to be able to love and respect your father as I never could.
She realized with a chill of shame that she had badly misunderstood her mother and brother. She had thought they would not stand up for her father because of cowardice and social pressure. Now she realized they knew Elias might have been in the wrong—so drunk that he could not properly consider the safety of those he was sending on a dangerous mission.
She had thought her mother wanted her to marry to rid her of the shame of being the daughter of a man on trial in Idris. Now she realized it was far more complicated.
No wonder Sona and Alastair had looked with wariness on her attempts to “save” her father. They had been afraid she would find out the truth. Her blood felt cold in her veins. They really could lose everything, she thought. She had never quite believed it b
efore. She had always thought justice would prevail. But justice was not as simple as she’d thought.
She started when Sona came into the dining room. Her mother eyed Cordelia consideringly before saying, “Is that one of the dresses James sent you?”
Cordelia nodded. She was wearing a deep rose day dress that had been part of the package from Anna.
For a moment, Sona looked wistful. “It is a lovely color,” she said. “The dresses are indeed very beautiful and probably much better suited to you than the dresses I have given you.”
“No!” Cordelia rose to her feet, stricken. “Kha¯k bar saram!” It was a phrase that literally meant “I should die”—the most extreme form of apology. “I’m an awful daughter. I know you did the best you could.”
I know you did, Mâmân. I know you were only trying to protect me.
Sona looked astonished. “By the Angel. They are only dresses, Layla.” She smiled. “Perhaps you could make it up to me by helping about the house? As a good daughter should?”
Tricked as usual, Cordelia thought, but she was more than a little glad to have the distraction. More unpacking had been done, and there were decisions to be made as to where certain bits of Isfahan pottery might be set, or where their Tabriz rugs could be placed to best advantage. As Cordelia watched her mother bustle about, clearly in her element, she felt the words roll to the tip of her tongue: Did you know when you married him, Mâmân? Did you find out one day, or was it a slow realization, a terrible dawning of knowledge? All those times you said he should go to the Basilias, did you think they could cure his drunkenness? Did you weep that he refused to go? Do you still love him?
Sona stepped back to admire a small collection of framed miniatures by the stairs. “That looks nice there, doesn’t it? Or do you think it was better in the other room?”
“Definitely better there,” Cordelia said, having no idea what other room her mother meant.
Sona turned, a hand braced against the small of her back. “Have you been paying atten—” she began, and winced suddenly. She leaned back against the wall as Cordelia hurried over to her, worried.
“Are you feeling well? You look tired.”
Sona sighed. “I am perfectly all right, Cordelia.” She straightened up, her hands hovering as if she couldn’t quite decide what she wanted to do with them. It was a gesture she made only when very nervous. “But—I am expecting a baby.”
“What?”
Sona smiled a shaky smile. “You will have a little brother or sister, Layla. In only a few more months.”
Cordelia wanted to throw her arms around her mother but was suddenly terrified. Her mother was forty-two, late for a woman to carry a child. For the first time in her life, her formidable mother looked fragile to her. “How long have you known?”
“Three months,” Sona said. “Alastair knows as well. So does your father.”
Cordelia swallowed. “But you didn’t tell me.”
“Layla joon.” Her mother came closer to her. “I didn’t want to worry you more than you were already worried about our family. I know you have been trying—” She broke off, stroking a stray lock of hair back from her daughter’s face. “You know you do not have to marry, if you do not want to,” she said, almost in a whisper. “We will get by, darling. We always do.”
Cordelia placed a kiss in the palm of her mother’s thin hand, marked with many ancient scars from the time long ago when she had fought demons. “Cheshmet roshan, mâdar joon,” she whispered.
Her mother’s eyes sparkled with tears. “Thank you, darling.”
A heavy knock came at the front door. Cordelia exchanged a surprised look with her mother before heading to the entryway. Risa had answered the door, and on the front step stood the grubby newsboy Matthew had given her satchel to outside Gast’s flat. One of the Irregulars, she recalled, the Downworlder boys who worked out of the Devil Tavern and ran errands for James and the others.
“Got a message here for Miss Cordelia Carstairs,” he said, clinging to a folded piece of paper.
“That’s me,” Cordelia said. “Do you, er, require payment?”
“Nope,” said the boy, grinning cheerfully. “Been paid already by Mr. Matthew Fairchild. ’Ere you go!”
He handed over the message and scrambled down the steps, whistling. Risa shut the door, sharing a puzzled look with Cordelia. Why would Matthew send her a note like this? Cordelia wondered, unfolding the paper. What could be so urgent?
The note fell open. There were only a few words on the page, but they stood out in shocking black ink.
Come at once to the Devil Tavern. There was an attack. Christopher is badly wounded.
—James
“Cordelia?” Sona had come into the entryway. “What’s going on?”
Her hands shaking, Cordelia handed the note to her mother. Sona read it quickly before pressing the note back into Cordelia’s hand. “You must go and be with your friends.”
Relief washed over Cordelia. She started to dash upstairs for her things but paused. “I should wear my gear,” she said. “But it’s still damp from the river.”
Sona smiled at her—a weary, worried smile, the smile of so many Shadowhunter parents down through the ages who had watched their children march into the night, carrying blades blessed by angels, knowing they might never return. “Layla, my daughter. You can wear mine.”
* * *
Cordelia raced up the steps inside the Devil Tavern and burst into the Merry Thieves’ clubrooms. It was quite late in the afternoon now, and sunlight filtered through the east window, laying gold bars of light across the shabby little space and its occupants. Matthew was sprawled on the sofa, Lucie in a ragged armchair. Lucie looked up and smiled when Cordelia came in, but her eyes were red. James alone was standing: he leaned against the wall by the window, the shadows deep under his eyes. All three Shadowhunters were in gear.
“What happened?” Cordelia said, a little breathless. “I—what can I do?”
Matthew looked up at her. His voice was hoarse. “We were at my house, using my father’s laboratory,” he said. “They—the Khora demons—were waiting for us when we left.”
“We ought to have been prepared,” said James. He was opening and closing his right hand, as if he wished to crush something in his palm. “We should have remembered. We were hurrying for the carriage—they attacked us in front of the house. One of them tore a gash across Christopher’s chest.”
Christopher. Cordelia could see his bright smile, his dented spectacles; she could hear his eager and excited voice in her ears, explaining some new aspect of science or Shadowhunting. “I am so—I am so sorry,” she whispered. “Is he ill? What can we do?”
“He was already feverish when they took him to the Silent City,” said Matthew grimly. “We summoned you and Lucie as soon as we could, and—”
There were footsteps on the stairs. The door flew open, and Thomas burst in. He wore a long Inverness coat, though Cordelia could see that he was in gear beneath.
“Sorry,” he said breathlessly. “I was patrolling with Anna—didn’t get your message until we returned to Uncle Gabriel’s house. They all wanted to go to the Silent City, of course, but Brother Enoch came by—said it was impossible—” Thomas sank down into a chair, burying his face in his hands. “Everyone’s frantic. Anna went to ask Magnus for help in putting up extra wards around the house. Aunt Cecily nearly lost her mind at the thought of letting her go, but she went. Uncle Will and Aunt Tessa came, of course, but I couldn’t bear to be there too, bothering them all, intruding on them in their fear—”
“You’re not an intrusion, Thomas,” said Matthew. “You’re family. There and here.”
The door creaked open and Polly came in, carrying a bottle and a few glasses with chipped rims. She set them down on the table, cast Thomas a worried glance, and disappeared.
Matthew rose and took the bottle, pouring out the glasses with the grace of long habit. For the first time in Cordelia’s memory, Thomas pi
cked one up and downed the contents.
James spun one of the chairs around and sat down, arms crossed across the chair back, his long legs hooked around the front. “Tom,” he said, his eyes flaring intently. “We need to make the antidote to the Mandikhor poison. I think you can do it.”
Thomas choked, coughed, and began spluttering as Matthew took the glass from him and set it back down on the table. “I can’t,” he said, when he caught his breath. “Not without Christopher.”
“Yes, you can,” said James. “You’ve done everything with him. You’ve been in the laboratory with him nearly every moment since Barbara died. You know how to do this.”
Thomas was silent for a long moment. James didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on his friend. It was a look Cordelia couldn’t describe—a quiet intensity mixed with immovable conviction. This was James at his best, she thought. His faith in his friends was unwavering: it was strength, and they shared that strength between them.
“Perhaps,” Thomas said at last, slowly. “But we’re still missing an ingredient. Without it, the antidote won’t work, and Kit said it was impossible to find—”
“Malos root,” said Matthew. “We know where it is, and where to get it. All we need to do is go to Chiswick House. To the greenhouse.”
“My grandfather’s house?” Thomas said incredulously. He ran his fingers distractedly through his light brown hair.
“Finally Benedict Lightwood will be responsible for something useful,” Matthew said. “If we leave now, we can be there in half an hour—”
“Wait,” said Thomas, rising to his feet. “James, I’d nearly forgotten. Neddy gave me this.”
He handed over a folded piece of thin vellum paper, with James’s name scrawled across the front in a careful hand. James unfolded the note and stood up with a violent swiftness, nearly knocking the chair over.
“What is it?” said Cordelia. “James?”
As he handed her the note, Cordelia saw Matthew’s thoughtful gaze flick between the two of them. She glanced down.
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