Deep in her eyes the lamp of night
Burns with a secret flame,
Where shadows pass that have no sight,
And ghosts that have no name.
—James Elroy Flecker, “Destroyer of Ships, Men, Cities”
Outside the Whitby Mansions, that big pink wedding cake of a building which housed Matthew’s flat, James looked up at its turrets and curlicues and felt a stabbing reminder of the last time he had been here. He had come racing in, sure Cordelia was here, only to be told by the lobby porter that Matthew and Cordelia had already left for the train station. To go to Paris.
And his whole world had broken apart, shattering like his cursed bracelet. Though it had not broken into two neat halves—rather a sort of pile of ragged bits, which he had been trying to put back together ever since.
This time the porter barely took any notice of him, only waved a hand when James announced he was here to see Mr. Fairchild. James took the lift up and, on a hunch, tried the doorknob before even bothering to knock. It was open, and he went inside.
To his surprise, the first thing he saw was Thomas, kneeling in front of the fireplace. The fire was burning high and the flat was hotter than was comfortable, but Thomas only set another log on the fire and shrugged at James.
In front of the fireplace had been laid a pile of thick eiderdowns. Curled on the blankets was Matthew, in an untucked shirt and trousers, his feet bare. His eyes were closed. James felt a pain at his heart—Matthew looked so young. His chin was on his fist, his long eyelashes feathering down against his cheeks. He seemed asleep.
“Cordelia summoned you as well, I see,” James said to Thomas in a low voice.
Thomas nodded. “All of us, I think. Your parents were willing to let you out of the house?”
“They understood it was important,” James said absently. He went to sit down on the sofa. Matthew had begun shivering, burrowing down into the blanket as his body shook. “He can’t be cold.”
Thomas glanced at Matthew. “It’s not the temperature. He’s… not well. He won’t eat—I tried to get some beef tea into him but it didn’t stay down. He drank a bit of water, at least.”
There was a scuffling noise, which James realized after a moment must be Oscar, shut into Matthew’s bedroom. As if he knew James was looking in his direction, the dog whined sadly from behind the closed door. “Why is Oscar in there?” James demanded.
Thomas sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Matthew asked me to shut him in. I don’t know why. Perhaps he’s worried about Oscar making noise and bothering the other tenants.”
James doubted Matthew was concerned about the other tenants, but he said nothing. Instead he got up, kicked off his shoes, and crawled onto the blanket with Matthew.
“Don’t wake him up,” Thomas warned, but James could see the thin crescent of green visible beneath Matthew’s eyelids.
“I think he’s awake,” James said, knowing Matthew was awake, but wishing to let him keep pretending if he liked. “And I was thinking—sometimes an iratze can be good for a hangover. It might be worth trying here. Since I’m his parabatai…”
Matthew thrust his arm out from the blanket pile. His sleeves were already unbuttoned at the cuffs, and the loose material flapped dramatically around his wrist. “Have at it,” he said. His voice was raspy, although considering how hot and dry it was in the flat, that wasn’t surprising.
James nodded. Thomas poked at the fire, watching curiously as James drew Matthew’s arm across his lap. He took his stele from his jacket, and carefully applied the healing rune to the blue-veined skin of Matthew’s forearm.
When he was done, Matthew exhaled and flexed his fingers. “Does it help?” said James.
“My head pounds with slightly less intensity,” Matthew said. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “Look—I didn’t ask Cordelia to dispatch you here. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not a burden,” James said. “You can be an ass, but you’re not a burden.”
There was a scuffling sound at the doors. Christopher had arrived, carrying a black doctor’s bag and wearing a determined expression. “Oh, good,” he said without preamble. “You’re all here.”
“Well, where else would I be?” Matthew said. His fair hair was stuck to his forehead and cheeks with sweat. He stayed propped up on his elbows as Christopher came and knelt on the eiderdown near James. He set his black bag down and began rummaging through it.
“Why is the fire built up so high?” Christopher asked.
“I was cold,” Matthew said. He looked on the verge of pushing his bottom lip out, like a defiant child.
Christopher straightened his crooked spectacles. “It is possible,” he began, “that this is something the Silent Brothers could assist with—”
“No,” Matthew said flatly.
“I’d drag him to the Silent City myself if I thought it would help,” said James. “But they weren’t able to do anything for Cordelia’s father.”
“I am not—” Matthew broke off, plucking at the eiderdown. James knew what he wanted to say: I am not like Cordelia’s father. Perhaps it was for the best that he couldn’t finish the sentence, though; perhaps he was beginning to understand that Elias Carstairs was not his present, but would be his future if things did not change.
“I am a scientist and not a physician,” said Christopher. “But I have read about… dependence.”
He glanced at Thomas, and James could not help but wonder how much Thomas and Christopher had discussed this before, when Matthew and James were not with them. Whether they had thought James, too, needed protection from the truth. “One cannot simply stop drinking all at once. It’s a noble endeavor, but it’s dangerous,” Christopher said. “Your body believes it needs alcohol to survive. That’s why you feel so rotten. Hot and cold and sick.”
Matthew bit his lip. The shadows under his eyes were bluish. “What can I do?”
“This is not just about discomfort or pain,” Christopher said. “The alcohol has made itself necessary to you. Your body will fight for it, and perhaps kill you in the process. You will shake, be sick, your heart will beat too fast. You will be feverish, which is why you feel cold. You could have seizures—”
“Seizures?” echoed James, in alarm.
“Yes, and even heart failure, which is why he should not be alone.” Christopher blinked owlishly. “I cannot emphasize enough, Matthew. You must stop trying to do this on your own. Let us help you.”
In the flickering light of the fire, the hollows of Matthew’s face looked cavernous. “I don’t want that,” he said. “I did this to myself alone. I ought to be able to undo it alone.”
James rose to his feet. He wanted to scream, wanted to shake Matthew, shout at him that he wasn’t just hurting himself, he was hurting all of them, that in risking himself he was risking James, too.
“I’m going to let Oscar out,” he said.
“Don’t,” said Matthew, rubbing at his eyes. “He was whimpering. He doesn’t understand what’s wrong.”
“He wants to help you,” James said, heading to the bedroom door. The moment the door was open, Oscar shot across the room to Matthew; for a moment, James was worried he’d try to jump up and lick his owner’s face, but he only lay down next to Matthew and panted quietly. “See?” James said. “He feels better already.”
“He’s going to take all the blankets,” Matthew complained, but he reached out a free hand to scratch Oscar behind the ears.
“He loves you,” James said, and Matthew looked up at him, his eyes very dark in the sallow pallor of his face. “Animals are innocent. To have their trust is an honor. He will be miserable unless you let him stay with you, help you. You are not saving him from a burden by keeping him away. Only breaking his heart.”
Matthew looked at James for a long moment before turning to Christopher. “All right, Kit,” he said in a subdued tone. “What do you need me to do?”
Kit rummaged in his bag. “When was the last time you had a drink, Matthew?”
“This morning,” Matthew said. “Only some brandy.”
“Where is your flask?”
“I’ve lost my silver one,” Matthew said. “Might have left it in Paris. I’ve been keeping water in this.”
From his pocket, he withdrew a simple tin flask with a cork stopper. He handed it to Christopher, who unscrewed the top, reached into his doctor’s bag, and brought out a bottle. He began to pour the contents of the bottle into Matthew’s flask, frowning as he did so, as if he were measuring amounts in his head.
“What is that?” Thomas asked, staring; the liquid was a pale tea color.
“Water and alcohol, mixed with sedative herbs. The sedatives will prevent seizures, most likely.”
“Most likely?” Matthew muttered. “This is why no one likes scientists, Christopher. Too much accuracy, not enough optimism.”
“Everyone likes scientists,” said Christopher with supreme confidence, and handed the now-full tin flask to Matthew. “Drink.”
Matthew rather gingerly took the flask from Christopher and brought it to his lips. He swallowed, coughed, and made a face. “Awful,” he proclaimed. “Like a mixture of licorice and soap.”
“That’s good,” Christopher said. “It’s not supposed to be pleasant. Think of it as medicine.”
“So how does this work?” said James. “Does he just drink this muck whenever he feels like it?”
“It’s not muck, and no,” Christopher said. He turned to Matthew. “I’ll bring you a new flask every morning, with less in it each time. You’ll drink a little in the morning and a little in the afternoon, and each day less, and eventually you will feel better and won’t want the flask anymore.”
“How long will this take?” Thomas said.
“About a fortnight.”
“And that’s it?” said Matthew. He already looked better, James thought. Some color had come back to his face, and his hands were steady when he set the flask aside. “It’ll be over?”
There was a short silence. Christopher looked unsure; here, where the subject was no longer dosages and timing, he was on more unsteady ground. James could only think of Elias, and what Cordelia had said about him: the many times he’d tried to stop, the way he’d relapsed after months had gone by without a drink.
It was Thomas who broke the silence.
“Whatever in your mind made you drink in the first place,” said Thomas. “That will still be there.”
“So you’re saying I will still want to drink,” Matthew said slowly, “but I will not need to drink.”
James reached out and ruffled Matthew’s damp hair. “You should rest,” he said.
Matthew leaned into James’s touch. “I would. But I don’t want all of you to leave. It’s selfish, but—”
“I’ll stay,” said James.
“As will I,” said Thomas.
Christopher closed his doctor’s bag with a snap. “We’ll all stay,” he said.
Which was how they ended up sleeping curled on the eiderdown before the fire, like a litter of puppies. Matthew fell asleep almost immediately, and the others shortly after; James, back-to-back with Matthew, had not thought he would sleep, but the crackle of the logs in the fire and the soft breathing of the other Merry Thieves quieted him into an exhausted slumber. Only Oscar did not sleep: he padded a slight distance away and sat down, watching over them throughout the night.
Cordelia lay awake, tossing and turning on her bed. She missed Curzon Street; she missed her bed there, missed knowing James was only a room away. Here, she had Alastair and her mother, but it was not the same. Returning to Cornwall Gardens felt like trying to turn a key in a lock it no longer fit.
Over and over she heard Hypatia saying, You truly could become the greatest, most effective Shadowhunter that has ever been known. But at what a price! The price of embracing darkness, of accepting Lilith as her master. And had it not been a desire for greatness that had led her down this path? But then, how could it be wrong to want to be an excellent Shadowhunter? How could it be wrong to want to protect the world from Belial?
And not just the world, she knew. Lucie and James. They were targets; their vulnerability pierced her heart. Perhaps Lucie hated her now, and perhaps she had lost James, but everything inside her wanted to protect them.
She wondered what James had thought when he had gotten her message asking him to go to Matthew’s. She hoped he had done it. He and Matthew needed each other desperately, however stubborn they both might be.
She flopped over, knocking her pillow to the floor. Her hair was tangled, her eyes aching with tiredness. Hypatia had told her to fight in Lilith’s service. But that she would never do. Still—the memory of the Gamigin demon in Chiswick returned to her. She was sure that if she’d been able to question it longer, she would have learned more about Belial’s plans.
She sat up, staring sightlessly into the dark. Surely questioning a demon didn’t require lifting a weapon. And as long as she was Lilith’s paladin, she could take advantage of the demons’ fear of her. It would be a way to wrest something good out of her horrible binding to Lilith. A way to help Lucie, James, and the others.
Simply find a place of death or horror, scarred by tragedy, Hypatia had said. And Cordelia knew just the location.
Thomas was woken at dawn, by Oscar.
The other boys were still asleep, sprawled in a pile on the rug before the now-cold fireplace. Fingers of dawn light crept through the windowpanes, illuminating the curve of James’s shoulder, the glint off Christopher’s glasses, and Matthew’s bright hair.
Oscar was whimpering and fussing, darting between the door and Matthew, his nails clicking on the wood floor. Thomas bent over Matthew; he was fast asleep but breathing regularly, his hand clamped over James’s wrist. If he had not been so exhausted, he would certainly have been awakened by Oscar, which didn’t seem ideal.
Leaving Matthew to rest, Thomas rose to his feet. He glared down at Oscar—who looked up at him with wide brown eyes—said, “Why me?” under his breath, and went to get his coat.
Oscar happily snapped to his leash, they headed downstairs, passing the empty porter’s desk. Outside, Thomas gazed industriously into the distance while Oscar did what he needed to do under a plane tree.
Dawn was just beginning to illuminate the sky. It was a dusky-pink sort of dawn, with streaks of darker red cutting lengthwise through the lower clouds. Marylebone had not yet begun to awaken; there was not even the sound of a distant milk cart rattling along the streets to disturb the quiet.
In the reddish dawn, Whitby Mansions looked even pinker. Around its corner, Thomas noted, quite out of place, a dark shadow lurked.
“Alastair?” Thomas called, and the dark shadow started and turned toward him. Alastair was leaning against the building and appeared to have partially fallen asleep; he rubbed at his eyes, stared at Thomas and Oscar, and muttered something under his breath.
“Alastair.” Thomas approached him, Oscar trotting happily at his side. “What on earth are you doing?”
“I don’t think that dog likes me,” Alastair said, eyeing Oscar suspiciously.
“That doesn’t really answer the question, does it?”
Alastair sighed. He was wearing his dark blue paletot and a gray scarf. His thick black hair touched his collar, and his dark eyes were tired, the lids hanging heavy in a way that was almost seductive, though Thomas knew perfectly well it was only exhaustion. “All right,” he said. “Cordelia told me what happened. And believe it or not, I was worried.”
“About Matthew?” Oscar bounced at his owner’s name. “I’m not sure I do believe you.”
“Thomas,” Alastair said, with exaggerated patience, “I have a great deal of experience with drunks. I know what it means when they stop drinking suddenly. How ill they get. My father nearly killed himself a few times.”
“Oh,” Thomas said. “Well, why didn’t you ring the bell, then? Come up?”
“I arrived,” Alastair said, “and realized my presence might not be entirely welcome. I had been rather impulsive.” He looked surprised as Oscar sat on his feet. “Why is he doing that?”
“Because he does like you. He likes everybody. He’s a dog. So you decided you didn’t want to come in, and you’d just stand out here all night?”
“I thought I’d stand out here until one of you came out, and I’d ask how Matthew was. I could at least bring the information back to Cordelia. She’s sick with worry.” He patted Oscar’s head tentatively. “I admit I hoped it would be you. There’s something I’ve been meaning—needing—to tell you.”
Thomas’s heart gave a treacherous thump. He looked around, and then reminded himself they were both glamoured. No mundane could see them, and Shadowhunter patrols had ended with the sunrise. He moved a step closer to Alastair, and then another step, until he, Oscar, and Alastair were crowded together under the arch of a false doorway.
“All right,” Thomas said. “What is it?”
Alastair looked at him, his eyes sleepy, sensual. His licked his lips, and Thomas thought of their kiss in the library, the delicious friction of their mouths sliding together, and Alastair said, “I’m leaving London soon. I’m moving to Tehran.”
Thomas took a step back, accidentally putting a foot on Oscar’s paw. Oscar yelped resentfully, and Thomas bent to lay a hand on the dog’s head. It provided a blessed opportunity to hide his expression.
“My mother is going to move to Tehran with the baby,” Alastair said, “and I cannot let her go alone. If I don’t accompany her, Cordelia will volunteer, but Cordelia needs to stay here. She is the one with friends, a future parabatai, and a husband here. All I have is you.”
Thomas straightened up. His heart felt as if it had frozen in his chest. “And I am not enough?”
“You can’t be my only reason to stay,” Alastair whispered. “I can’t expect you to carry that weight. It isn’t fair to you.”
“I wish,” Thomas said, surprised at the coldness in his own voice, “that you would stop telling me what the best thing for me is. You tell me over and over that there are all these reasons why you think my loving you would be bad for me.”
Alastair’s chest was rising and falling quickly. “I didn’t say anything about love.”
“Well, I did,” Thomas said. “You came here; you even said it was because you hoped to talk to me. You’re the one chasing me around, telling me to leave you alone.”
“Don’t you see? It’s because I am a wretched, selfish person, Thomas. It’s not good for you to see me, for us to meet, but I want to see you. I want to see you every damned moment of every day, and so I spent the night standing outside this ugly pink building in hopes of seeing you, and now that I have seen you, I am reminded of all the reasons this is a bad idea. Believe me,” he said, with a bitter laugh, “if I were a better person, I would have just sent you a note.”
“The only reason you’ve given me that this is a bad idea,” said Thomas stubbornly, “is because you believe yourself to be a wretched and selfish person.”
“Isn’t that enough?” Alastair said, in an agonized voice. “You’re the only person who thinks I’m not, and if we were in a relationship, I would disappoint you, and you would stop being the one person who thinks well of me.”
“Don’t go to Tehran,” said Thomas. “I don’t want you to go.”
They stared at each other, and for a moment Thomas thought he saw something he knew to be an impossibility—the bright glint of tears in Alastair’s eyes. I cannot get through to him, he thought miserably. If only I had Matthew’s charm, or James’s gift with words, perhaps I could make him understand.
“Alastair,” he said softly, and then Oscar whimpered, moving restlessly beside Thomas’s leg. A precursor, Thomas knew, to the retriever setting up a mournful howl.
“He’s missing Matthew,” Thomas said. “I’d better get him back. I’ll tell Matthew you stopped by,” he added, but Alastair, twisting the material of his scarf in one hand, only shook his head.
“Don’t,” he said, and after a moment, Thomas shrugged and headed back inside.
Cordelia had done enough planning; she was ready to act. Still, she had to wait for sunset. She knew she should be reading the books on paladins and bonding magic Christopher had given her, but she could not concentrate.
It was always like that when she’d come up with a plan; as the hour of action grew near, her thoughts went around in a whirl, stopping intermittently to concentrate on this or that aspect of her scheme. First go here, then there; this is what I will tell Alastair; here is how I will return without being noticed.
Enough. She visited with her mother, until Sona fell asleep; she bothered Risa in the kitchen while she was making khoresh-e fesenjoon, and she even went to see what Alastair was doing, which turned out to be reading in the armchair in his bedroom. He looked up when Cordelia came in. “Oh no,” he said. “Please tell me you’re not coming to demand I participate in some harebrained scheme your friends have come up with. Kachalam kardan.” They drive me crazy.
“Not at all,” Cordelia said, and thought she saw a flicker of disappointment on her brother’s face. There was a time, not long ago, when Alastair would never have tolerated his sister invading his room, and she would never have thought to seek out his advice. They had both guarded their privacy so carefully; she was glad that some of that had fallen away. “I just wanted to see you.”
Alastair closed his book, marking his place with a slim finger. “What is it, moosh?” Which meant mouse; it was something he hadn’t called Cordelia since she was quite small. He looked tired; there were shadows under his eyes, and a slump to his shoulders that wounded Cordelia’s heart. “If you’re wondering about Matthew, all his friends did stop by his flat yesterday. In fact, they spent the night.”
Cordelia exhaled a deep breath of relief. “Really? James, too? I’m so glad.”
“Yes.” He looked at her soberly. “Do you think Matthew will be angry at you? For telling them?”
“I don’t know,” Cordelia admitted. “But I would do the same again. He needed them. He wasn’t willing to be desperate or sick in front of me. But in front of them, I think he knows it is not weakness, or shameful. I hope so.”
“I hope so as well.” Alastair looked over at the wall where his daggers were displayed; one was missing, which was odd. Alastair was particular about his things. “The disease he has, that our father had—it is a disease of shame, as well as of addiction and need. Shame poisons you. It makes you unable to accept help, for you do not believe that you deserve it.”
“I think that is true about many things,” Cordelia said softly. “Turning away love because one believes one does not deserve it, for instance.”
Alastair looked at her beadily. “You are simply not going to stop bothering me about Thomas, are you?”
“I just don’t understand it,” Cordelia said. “Ariadne is living with Anna—surely it would not be the end of the world if you and Thomas were to love each other?”
“Ask Mâmân,” said Alastair grimly.
Cordelia had to admit she’d no idea how her mother would react to finding out that Alastair’s romantic love was for men.
“Our deepest illusions, and the most fragile, are the ones we hold on to about our friends and families. Thomas believes our families would be happy as long as we were happy; I look at the Bridgestocks and know that is not always the case. Thomas believes his friends would accept me with open arms; I believe they would sooner abandon him. And what a terrible situation that would be for him. I could not allow it.”
“That,” Cordelia said, “is beautifully noble. And also very stupid. And you are not the one who is going to allow Thomas to do anything; he has the feelings he has, and they are his business.”
“Thomas could have anyone,” said Alastair, with a righteously moping air. “He could choose better than me.”
“I am not sure we choose who we love,” said Cordelia, turning toward the door. “I rather think love is something like a book written just for us, a sort of holy text it is given to us to interpret.” She paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder. “And you are refusing to read yours.”
“Oh?” said Alastair. “What does yours say?” Cordelia glared at him, and he relented, waving a hand in apology. “Are you off somewhere, Layla?”
“Just to Curzon Street,” Cordelia said. “Most of my clothes are still there—I need to fetch something I can wear to the Christmas party tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe they’re still holding that,” Alastair said, opening his book. “Just—be back before full dark, all right?”
Cordelia only nodded before slipping out the door. Of course she had no intention of returning before nightfall—her plan required her to be out after the sun set. But a nod wasn’t precisely a lie, now, was it?
Letty Nance had been employed by the Cornwall Institute since she was twelve years old. The Sight ran in her family, which to her parents, who had both worked for the Cornwall Institute before her, had always been an honor. To Letty it seemed a cruel joke that the Lord had chosen to allow her to see that the world contained magic, but not to allow her to be part of it.
She had thought the Institute would be an exciting, wonderful kind of place to work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Over the years she had come to understand that not all Nephilim were like the ancient Albert Pangborn, too cranky to be kind to the help, and too cheap to even keep the wards up around the Institute properly. Local piskies were always wandering onto the property, and about the only contact with real magic she had most weeks was chasing them out of the garden with a rake while they yelled filthy oaths at her.
Some excitement had come to her at last, though, with the events of two nights before. Pangborn often patrolled the area with a group of younger Shadowhunters—as far as Letty could tell, patrolling meant riding about on horses looking for Downworlders, seeing if they were up to no good, and returning to the Institute to drink when it turned out they weren’t. Some of the Shadowhunters, like Emmett Kelynack and Luther Redbridge, weren’t half bad-looking, but none of them would look at a mundane girl twice, not even one with the Sight.
But two nights ago they’d brought in the old woman. Or at least she seemed old to Letty—not as old as Pangborn; nobody, after all, was as old as Pangborn—but she was scrawny, her light brown hair streaked with gray, and her skin sickly pallid.
The odd thing was that the woman was a Shadowhunter. She had Marks on her, like the others did, black printings of angelic script. And yet they brought her right quick to the Sanctuary and locked her in.
The Sanctuary was a great big stony crypt of a place, where Downworlders came sometimes when they wanted to speak to Pangborn. It doubled, as well, as a makeshift prison. After the old woman was locked up, Pangborn took Letty aside, saying, “Check in on her twice a day, Ms. Nance, and make sure she’s fed. Don’t speak to her, even if she speaks to you. With any luck, she’ll be gone out of here in a day or two.”
Now that, Letty thought, was a bit exciting. A Nephilim who’d done something bad enough to get themselves tossed in prison, and she, Letty, had the keeping of them.
She’d tried to bring her supper in the Sanctuary, and breakfast the next day, but the woman remained insensible, sprawled on the bed and unresponsive to any of Letty’s entreaties or even finger pokes. She had left the food on the table and then come and taken it away again hours later; the woman slept on. Letty hoped that this morning would be better—surely it was not good to sleep for a night and a day—and that the woman would wake and eat. She had to keep up her strength, considering her wounds.
Letty used the largest of the keys on the ring at her waist to open the Sanctuary. Inside the door, four steps led down to the stone floor, and as she descended she saw that the woman—Tatiana Blackthorn, that was her name—was awake, perched on the bed, her legs sprawled out in front of her in a most indecorous way. She was muttering to herself, in a voice too low for Letty to make out words. The supper from last night remained on the table, untouched.
“I’ve brought you some porridge, missus,” Letty said, taking care to make her voice slow and clear. Tatiana’s eyes followed her as she went over to the table. “Just simple porridge with some milk and a bit of sugar.”
Letty almost jumped and spilled her tray when Tatiana spoke. Her voice was raspy, but clear enough. “I was… betrayed. Abandoned by my master.”
Letty stared.
“He promised me everything.” The rasp became a low wail. “Power, and revenge. Now I have nothing. Now I must fear him. What if he comes after me?”
“I wouldn’t know about any of that,” Letty said sympathetically as she set the breakfast tray down. “But it’s my understanding that the safest place around is this here Sanctuary. That’s why they call it that, after all.”
The woman’s tone altered, and when she spoke again, there was a kind of cunning in it. “I would see my children. Why can I not see my children?”
Letty blinked. She didn’t look much like someone who had children. Not what Letty imagined a mother to be. But clearly she was half out of her head. Perhaps she’d been different once.
“You must ask Mr. Pangborn about that,” she said. “Or—I know a Silent Brother is coming soon. Perhaps one of them can help you see your children.” Through bars, she thought, but there was no point saying that.
“Yes.” The woman smiled at that, a peculiar, unsettling smile that seemed to stretch across half her face. “A Silent Brother. I would very much like to see him when he comes.”
Cordelia hadn’t been looking forward to going to Curzon Street. She had imagined something dim and ghostly, a shadow of the place it had been, with dustcloths over the furniture.
But it was nothing like that. It felt like stepping back into the house as she’d left it. Lights were on—Effie’s doing, no doubt—and it was clean and swept. As she wandered through the rooms, she saw that fresh flowers had been placed on the tables in cut-crystal vases. The chess table was set up in the study, as if waiting for a game, though she could not bear to look in the room for very long. A fire burned low in the hearth.
Perhaps this was worse than dustcloths, she thought, passing into the dining room. On the walls hung the Persian miniatures: one depicted a scene from Layla and Majnun, with Layla standing in the doorway of a tent, gazing out. Cordelia had always liked her expression—yearning, seeking. Looking for Majnun, perhaps, or looking for wisdom or answers to her troubles.
She could feel Layla’s yearning in her own longing for this home. She stood here inside it, and yet it was as if it were a lost place. Everything within it called to her; everything had been selected by James with such care and attention, such determination that she would like it.
What had he been thinking? Cordelia wondered, as she went up the stairs to what had been her room. Had he been planning to get rid of it all when Grace became mistress of the house? The miniatures, the chess set, the Carstairs panels over the fireplace? Or could it be true, what he’d said—that he’d never really planned a life with Grace at all?
But that was a dangerous road to go down. Cordelia found the bedroom, like everything, much as she’d left it; she caught up a champagne-colored silk dress from the wardrobe—she’d have to return with something, to bolster the story she’d told Alastair. She carried it downstairs before realizing that hauling around a heavy, beaded dress was not going to help her in her next endeavor. She’d leave it here, on the table near the door, and return for it when she was done.
The cold outside seemed more bitter compared with the warmth inside the house. She wondered idly where Effie had been—asleep downstairs, perhaps, or even out; it might well be her day off.
She touched the Lilith-protection amulet at her throat for reassurance as she reached the end of the street and ducked through an alley, which took her to the brick-lined narrow lanes of Shepherd Market. All was quiet, unusually so: too late for any shopping, too early for the mundanes who prowled this lane at night. Ahead of her rose Ye Grapes, light spilling from its windows. Within the pub a few regulars sat and drank, unaware that just outside was the place her father had been murdered.
A place of death or horror, scarred by tragedy.
She knew where it had happened. James had told her; he had seen the whole thing. She ducked down a narrow street alongside the pub. It was dark here, no gas lamps to pierce the night. Only a milky-colored moon, brushed by threaded clouds, just beginning to rise over the buildings.
She half expected to see her father’s ghost, but that was not unusual. Every once in a while she imagined herself turning and seeing him, smiling at him, saying, Baba joon, as she had when she was very young. To think he had died here, in this dark place that stank of human misery.
She straightened her back. Narrowed her eyes. Thought of Rostam, who had slain the Div-e Sepid, the White Demon.
With a deep breath, she said out loud, her voice echoing from the surrounding stone, “Te invoco a profundus inferni.… Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae!”
She said it again, and then again, calling on the deepest Hell, until the words began to blur together and lose their meaning. She became aware of a strange, muffling silence—as if she had been placed for a moment beneath a glass jar and could no longer hear the ordinary sounds of London: the rattle of carriage wheels, the tramp of feet on snow, the jingle of horse bridles.
And then, cutting through the silence, came the hissing.
Cordelia whirled around. It stood before her, grinning. The demon was humanoid, but both taller and skinnier than any human. It was wearing a long, ragged cloak the color of soot. Its skull was egg-shaped, with burned, puckered skin stretched over it; its eye sockets were skin-covered hollows, and its mouth was a slash, a wound in its face lined with pin-like scarlet teeth.
“My, my,” said the demon in a voice like metal scraped against stone. “You haven’t even drawn a pentagram, nor bear you a seraph blade.” As it spoke, gray liquid drooled from its mouth. “Such a foolish mistake, little Shadowhunter.”
“It is no mistake.” Cordelia spoke in her haughtiest tone. “I am no mere Shadowhunter. I am a paladin of Lilith, Mother of Demons, bride of Sammael. If you lay a hand upon me, she will make you regret it.”
The demon spat, a pellet of gray something. The stench in the alley was sickening. “You lie.”
“You know better,” Cordelia said. “You can surely sense her, all around me.”
The demon’s mouth opened, and a purple-gray tongue resembling a calf’s liver emerged from between its red teeth. The tongue slurped at the air, as if tasting it. Cordelia held still; she had not realized how revolting this would be. Her urge to lay hands on a blade, to slay the thing in front of her, was primal, bred in her blood. She felt her hands clench.
“You are a paladin,” it said. “Well then, paladin, why have you summoned me up from Hell? What does the Mother of Demons wish?”
“She seeks knowledge of the doings of the Prince of Hell Belial,” Cordelia said, which was true enough.
“I would be a fool to betray Belial,” the demon said. Cordelia was not sure she had ever heard a demon sound hesitant before.
“You would be a fool to cross Lilith,” she said. She folded her arms and stared the demon down. It was all she could do, of course; she didn’t have so much as a knitting needle on her with which to fight the demon if it came to that. But the demon didn’t know that. “And Belial does not know I am asking you this. Lilith does.”
After a moment, the demon said, “Your mistress rages at Belial because he occupies her realm of Edom. ‘There shall Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest,’ ” it said in a high voice; it was unnerving to hear a demon quote a holy text. “But Edom is not his goal. He is moving, ever moving. He builds an army.”
“They wake,” Cordelia said, and the demon hissed through its scarlet teeth.
“Then you know,” the demon said. “Belial found them, empty vessels. He has filled them with his power. They wake and rise and do his bidding. And the Nephilim will be ended.”
A cold shiver went up Cordelia’s spine. “Empty vessels? What do you mean?”
“The dead,” said the demon, looking amused, “who are not dead. I will not say more.”
“You will answer—” Cordelia cut herself off. She caught up her witchlight rune-stone from her pocket and raised it, light spilling out between her fingers. In its illumination, she saw a score of slinking shadows. Small demons, perhaps twice the size of a typical cat. Each had a hard-shelled body, with sharp, protruding mandibles. They scuttled along on razored claws. One was an annoyance, but a group could de-flesh a human being in less than a minute.
Paimonite demons.
They had blocked the mouth of the street. Cordelia began to regret not having brought any weapons. She very much did not want Lilith to appear, but it was probably a preferable result to being torn apart by Paimonites.
The larger demon laughed. “Did you really think you’d only summoned me?” it purred. “You called out into Hell, and Hell will answer.”
Cordelia held out a hand as if to hold back the Paimonites. “Stop,” she commanded. “I am a paladin of Lilith, Mother of Demons—”
The larger demon spoke. “These are too stupid to understand you,” it said. “Not every demon plays the great Game, you know. Many are simply foot soldiers. Enjoy your battle.”
Its mouth stretched impossibly wider, grinning and grinning as the Paimonites scuttled forward. More were joining them, clambering over the neighboring wall, spilling into the alley like blackbeetles through a filthy hole in the ground.
Cordelia tensed. She would have to run. She had no choice. Either she would outrace the Paimonite demons, or she would die; there were simply too many of them to fight.
A Paimonite broke free of the pack and lunged at her. She darted aside, dealing it an almighty kick. It flew against the wall as the larger demon laughed, and Cordelia began to run, even as the other Paimonites closed in like a dark and moving river—
A gunshot rang out, tremendously loud. A Paimonite blew apart, spattering green and black ichor. A second shot, and this time Cordelia saw the force of it fling one of the smaller demons backward, where it smashed against the window of Ye Grapes and disintegrated.
The other small demons began to panic. Another shot, and another, smashing the Paimonites apart like stepped-on bugs. They began to scatter, chittering in terror, and Cordelia raised her witchlight.
Out of the shadows came James, an avenging angel with pistol in hand. He was coatless, and his gun seemed almost to glow in the clear cold, the inscription on its side shining: LUKE 12:49. She knew the verse by heart. I have come to bring a fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.
James held the pistol trained now on the tall demon, who moved quickly to put Cordelia between itself and James. James looked past it, at Cordelia, his eyes communicating a silent message.
Cordelia dropped to the ground. She fell as she’d been trained to do, letting her legs drop out from beneath her, catching herself on her feet and hands, twisting, poised to spring. She saw the demon open its red-toothed mouth in surprise, just as James pulled the trigger. The look of surprise remained as a bullet shot straight into the demon’s mouth; it blew apart, vanishing into ashes.
Silence. Not the silence that had descended after Cordelia had spoken the summoning spell; she could hear the sounds of London again. Somewhere in the distance were three mundanes, already quite drunk, calling out in rowdy voices their intention to get “bloody pissed” at Ye Grapes.
But James was utterly silent. When she rose to her feet, he made no move to help her, only stared with blazing eyes. His face was white; his jaw was set in an expression Cordelia recognized as a rare emotion for James: absolute, incandescent rage.