Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine”
“Matthew,” said James. “Matthew, I know you’re under there. Come out, or I swear on the Angel I will pith you like a frog.”
James was lying atop the billiard table in the Institute’s games room, glaring down over the side.
The ball had been going on for at least half an hour, and no one had been able to find Matthew. James was the one who’d guessed his parabatai was hiding in here: it was one of their favorite rooms, comfortable and handsomely decorated by Tessa. It was papered up to the dado rail with gray and black stripes, and painted gray above that. There were framed portraits and family trees on the walls, and a gathering of comfortable, well-worn sofas and wing chairs. A beautifully polished chess set glowed like a jewel box atop a Dunhill cigar humidor. There was also the massive billiard table that Matthew was currently hiding under.
There was a clatter, and Matthew’s blond head appeared beneath the table. He blinked green eyes up at James. “Jamie, Jamie,” he said, with mock sorrow. “Why must you chivvy a fellow so? I was peacefully napping.”
“Well, wake up. You’re needed in the ballroom to make up the numbers,” said James. “There are a shocking number of girls out there.”
“Damn the ballroom,” said Matthew, scooting out from under the table. He was splendidly turned out in dove gray, with a pale green carnation in his buttonhole. In one hand he clutched a cut-glass decanter. “Bother the dancing. I intend to remain in here and get thoroughly foxed.” He glanced at the decanter and then hopefully up at James. “You can join me if you want.”
“That’s my father’s port,” said James. It was strong stuff, he knew, and very sweet. “You’ll be vilely ill in the morning.”
“Carpe decanter,” said Matthew. “It’s good port. I’ve always admired your father, you know. Planned to be like him one day. Though I once knew a warlock who had three arms. He could duel with one hand, shuffle a deck of cards with the next, and untie a lady’s corset with the third, all at the same time. Now there was a chap to emulate.”
“You’re already foxed,” said James disapprovingly, and reached down to seize the decanter out of Matthew’s hand. Matthew was too quick for him, though, and swung it out of reach while rising up to clasp James’s arm. He yanked him off the table, and in a moment they were rolling on the carpet like puppies, Matthew laughing uncontrollably, James trying to wrestle the bottle away from him.
“Get—off—me!” Matthew wheezed, and let go. James fell backward with such force that the top of the decanter flew off. Port splashed over his clothes.
“Now look what you’ve done!” he lamented, using his pocket handkerchief to do what he could to mop up the scarlet stain spreading across his shirtfront. “I smell like a brewer and I look like a butcher.”
“Piffle,” said Matthew. “None of the girls care about your clothes anyhow. They’re all too busy gazing into your great big golden eyes.” He widened his eyes at James until he looked as if he were going mad. Then he crossed them.
James just frowned. His eyes were large, black-fringed, and the color of pale gold tea, but he’d been tormented too many times at school about his unusual eyes to find any pleasure in their uniqueness.
Matthew held out his hands. “Pax,” he said wheedlingly. “Let it be peace between us. You can pour the rest of the port on my head.”
James’s mouth curved up into a smile. It was impossible to stay angry with Matthew. It was almost impossible to get angry at Matthew. “Come with me to the ballroom and make up the numbers and we can call it peace.”
Matthew rose obediently—however much he’d drunk, he was always steady on his feet. He helped James up with a firm hand and straightened his jacket to cover the wine stain. “Do you want any of the port in you, or do you only want to wear it?” He offered James the decanter.
James shook his head. His nerves were already frayed, and though the port would soothe them, it would also muddle his thoughts. He wanted to remain sharp—in case. She might not come tonight, he knew. But then again, she might. It had been six months since her last letter, but now she was in London. He needed to be prepared for anything.
Matthew sighed as he set the bottle on the mantel. “You know what they say,” he said, as he and James left the room and began to wend their way back toward the party. “Drink, and you will sleep; sleep, and you will not sin; do not sin, and you will be saved; therefore, drink and be saved.”
“Matthew, you could sin in your sleep,” said a languorous voice.
“Anna,” said Matthew, sagging against James’s shoulder. “Have you been sent to fetch us?”
Lounging against the wall was James’s cousin Anna Lightwood, gorgeously dressed in fitted trousers and a pin-striped shirt. She had the Herondale blue eyes, always disconcerting for James to see, as it felt a bit as if his father were looking at him. “If by ‘fetch,’ you mean ‘drag you back to the ballroom by any means possible,’ ” Anna said. “There are girls who need someone to dance with them and tell them they look pretty, and I cannot do it all on my own.”
The musicians in the ballroom suddenly struck up a tune—a lively waltz.
“Crikey, not waltzing,” said Matthew, in despair. “I loathe waltzing.”
He began to back away. Anna seized him by the back of the coat. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, and firmly herded both of them toward the ballroom.
“Stop looking at yourself,” said Alastair, in a weary tone. “Why are women always looking at themselves? And why are you frowning?”
Cordelia glared into the pier glass at the reflection of her brother. They were all waiting outside the grand ballroom at the Institute, Alastair looking perfect in immaculate black and white, his blond hair slicked back with pomade, hands gloved in kidskin.
Because Mother dresses me, but she lets you wear whatever you like, she thought, but didn’t say it, since their mother was standing right there. Sona was determined to dress Cordelia in the height of fashion, even if the height of fashion didn’t suit her daughter at all. For tonight she’d chosen a dress for Cordelia of pale lilac edged with glittering bugle beads. Her hair was swept up into a waterfall of curls, and her swan-bill corset was making her breathless.
Cordelia was of the opinion that she looked awful. Pastels were all the rage in the fashion papers, but those papers expected girls to be blond, small-bosomed, and pale-skinned. Cordelia was decidedly none of those things. Pastels washed her out, and even the corset couldn’t flatten her chest. Nor was her dark red hair thin and fine: it was thick and long like her mother’s, reaching to her waist when brushed out. It looked ridiculous in tiny curls.
“Because I have to wear a corset, Alastair,” she snapped. “I was checking to see if I’d turned plum-colored.”
“You’d match your dress if you did,” Alastair noted. Cordelia couldn’t help but wish her father were there; he always told her she looked beautiful.
“Children,” said their mother reprovingly. Cordelia had the feeling she would address them as “children” even when they were old and gray and sniping at one another from Bath chairs. “Cordelia, corsets not only create a womanly shape, they show that a lady is finely bred and of delicate sensibilities. Alastair, leave your sister alone. This is a very important evening for all of us, and we must be mindful to make a good impression.”
Cordelia could sense her mother’s unease that she was the only woman in the room wearing a roosari over her hair, her worry that she lacked the knowledge of who the powerful people in the room were, when she would have known it immediately in the salons of the Tehran Institute.
Things would all be different after tonight, Cordelia told herself again. It didn’t matter whether her dress was hideous on her: what mattered was that she charm the influential Shadowhunters in the room who could effect an introduction to the Consul for her. She would make Charlotte understand—she would make them all understand—that her father might be a poor strategist, but it was no reason for him to be in jail. She would make them understand that the Carstairs family had nothing to hide.
She would make her mother smile.
The ballroom doors opened and there was Tessa Herondale in rose chiffon, with small roses in her hair. Cordelia doubted she needed to wear a corset. She was already quite ethereal-looking. It was hard to believe she was the woman who had taken down an army of metal monsters.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said. “I did want to bring you in all together and make the introductions. Everyone is just dying to meet you. Come, come!”
She led them into the ballroom. Cordelia had a faint memory of playing here with Lucie when it had been quite deserted. Now it was full of light and music.
Gone were the heavily brocaded walls of years ago and the massive velvet hangings. Everything was airy and bright, the walls lined with pale wooden benches padded with gold-and-white-striped cushions. A frieze of golden birds darting among trees ran above the curtains—if you looked closely, you could see that they were herons. Hung on the walls was an assortment of ornamental weapons—swords in jeweled scabbards, bows carved of ivory and jade, daggers with pommels in the shapes of sunbursts and angel wings.
Most of the floor had been cleared for dancing, but there was a sideboard laden with glasses and pitchers of iced lemonade. A few tables draped in white were scattered around the room. Older married ladies and some younger ones who didn’t have dancing partners clustered at the walls, busying themselves with gossip.
Cordelia’s gaze instantly searched out Lucie and James. She found Lucie at once, dancing with a young man with sandy hair, but she scanned the room for James’s tousled dark hair in vain. He did not seem to be here.
Not that there was time to dwell on it. Tessa was an expert hostess. Cordelia and her family were whisked from group to group, the introductions made, their virtues and values enumerated. She was introduced to a dark-haired girl a few years older than herself, who looked entirely at ease in a pale green dress trimmed with lace. “Barbara Lightwood,” said Tessa, and Cordelia perked up as they curtsied to each other. The Lightwoods were cousins of James and Lucie’s, and a powerful family in their own right.
Her mother fell immediately into conversation with Barbara’s parents, Gideon and Sophie Lightwood. Cordelia fixed her gaze on Barbara. Would she be interested in hearing about her father? Probably not. She was looking out at the dance floor with a smile on her face.
“Who’s the boy dancing with Lucie?” Cordelia asked, which provoked a surprising burst of laughter from Barbara.
“That’s my brother, Thomas,” she said. “And not tripping over his own feet, for a change!”
Cordelia took another look at the sandy-haired boy laughing with Lucie. Thomas was very tall and broad-shouldered, intimidatingly so. Did Lucie fancy him? If she’d mentioned him in her letters, it was only as one of her brother’s friends.
Alastair, who had been standing at the edge of the group looking bored—truthfully, Cordelia had nearly forgotten he was there—suddenly brightened. “Charles!” he said, sounding pleased. He smoothed down the front of his waistcoat. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go pay my respects. We haven’t seen each other in an age.”
He vanished between the tables without waiting for permission. Cordelia’s mother sighed. “Boys,” she said. “So vexing.”
Sophie smiled at her daughter, and Cordelia noticed for the first time the vicious scar that slashed across her cheek. There was something about her vivaciousness, the way she moved and spoke, that caused one not to see it at first. “Girls have their moments,” she observed. “You should have seen Barbara and her sister, Eugenia, when they were children. Absolute horrors!”
Barbara laughed. Cordelia envied her, to have such an easy rapport with her mother. A moment later a brown-haired boy approached and invited Barbara to dance; she was whisked away, and Tessa steered Sona and Cordelia to the next table, where Lucie’s uncle Gabriel Lightwood sat beside a beautiful woman with long dark hair and blue eyes—his wife, Cecily. Will Herondale was leaning against the edge of their table, arms folded, smiling.
Will looked over as they approached, and his face softened when he saw Tessa, and behind her, Cordelia. In him, Cordelia could see a bit of what James would become when he was grown.
“Cordelia Carstairs,” he said, after greeting her mother. “How pretty you’ve become.”
Cordelia beamed. If Will thought she was pretty, perhaps his son thought so too. Of course, due to Will’s prejudice toward all things Carstairs, he probably thought Alastair was perfect and also pretty.
“I hear you have come to London to be parabatai with our Lucie,” said Cecily. She looked nearly as young as Tessa, though since she wasn’t an immortal warlock, one wondered how she managed it. “I am pleased—it is high time more girls became parabatai. It has been a state monopolized by men for far too long.”
“Well, the first parabatai were male,” Will pointed out, in a manner that made Cordelia wonder if Cecily had once found him insufferable, as she found Alastair.
“Times are changing, Will,” said Cecily with a smile. “It’s the modern age. We have electric lights, motorcars…”
“Mundanes have electric lights,” said Will. “We have witchlight.”
“And motorcars are a fad,” said Gabriel Lightwood. “They won’t last.”
Cordelia bit her lip. This was not at all how she wanted the evening to go. She was meant to be charming people and influencing them, but instead she felt like a child banished to the perimeter of adult conversation about motorcars. It was with extreme relief that she saw Lucie abandon Thomas on the dance floor and race over to her. They hugged, and Cordelia exclaimed over Lucie’s pretty blue lace dress, while Lucie stared in horror at Cordelia’s lilac nightmare.
“May I take Cordelia to meet the other girls?” she said to Sona, smiling her most charming smile.
“Of course.” Sona looked pleased. It was, after all, what she had brought Cordelia here for, wasn’t it? To meet the sons and daughters of influential Shadowhunters? Though really, Cordelia knew, more the sons than the daughters.
Lucie took Cordelia’s hand and drew her over to the refreshment table, where a group of girls in colorful dresses had gathered. In the avalanche of introductions, Cordelia caught only a few of their names: Catherine Townsend, Rosamund Wentworth, and Ariadne Bridgestock, who must be related to the Inquisitor. She was a tall, lovely-looking girl a few years older than the others, with brown skin a shade darker than Cordelia’s own.
“What a pretty dress,” Ariadne said to Cordelia, her voice warm. Her own gown was of flattering wine-colored silk. “I believe that’s the shade they call ‘ashes of roses.’ Very popular in Paris.”
“Oh, yes,” Cordelia said eagerly. She’d known so few girls growing up—just Lucie, really—so how did one impress them and charm them? It was desperately important. “I did get this dress in Paris, as a matter of fact. On Rue de la Paix. Jeanne Paquin made it herself.”
She saw Lucie’s eyes widen in concern. Rosamund’s lips tightened. “How fortunate you are,” she said coolly. “Most of us here in the poky little London Enclave rarely get to travel abroad. You must think us so dull.”
“Oh,” said Cordelia, realizing she had put her foot in it. “No, not at all—”
“My mother has always said Shadowhunters aren’t meant to have much of an interest in fashion,” said Catherine. “She says it’s mundane.”
“Since you’ve spoken of Matthew’s clothes admiringly so often,” said Ariadne tartly, “should we assume that rule is only for girls?”
“Ariadne, really—” Rosamund began, and broke off with a laugh. “Speak of the devils,” she said. “Look who’s just come in.”
She was looking toward the far doors of the ballroom, through which two boys had just spilled. Cordelia saw James first, as she always did. He was tall, beautiful, smiling: a painter’s vision in black and white with tousled ebony hair.
She heard Lucie groan as the girls whispered among themselves: she caught James’s name in the whispers, and then a second name in the same breath: Matthew Fairchild.
Of course. James’s parabatai. It had been years since Cordelia had seen him. She remembered a slim blond boy. Now he was a well-built young man, his hair darkened to bronze, with a face like a dissipated angel.
“They are so handsome,” said Catherine, sounding almost pained. “Don’t you think so, Ariadne?”
“Oh—yes,” Ariadne said hastily. “I suppose.”
“She only has eyes for Charles,” said Rosamund. Ariadne turned red, and the girls went off into gales of laughter. All but Lucie, who rolled her eyes.
“They’re just boys,” she said.
“James is your brother,” said Catherine. “You cannot be objective, Lucie! He is gorgeous.”
Cordelia had begun to feel a certain dismay. James, it seemed, was not her discovery alone. He and Matthew had stopped to laugh with Barbara and her dance partner; James had an arm slung over Matthew’s shoulder and was smiling. He was so beautiful it was like an arrow in the heart to look at him. Of course she was not the only one to have noticed. Surely James could have his pick of girls.
“Matthew isn’t bad-looking either,” said Rosamund. “But so scandalous.”
“Indeed,” Catherine added, eyes sparkling. “You must be careful of him, Miss Carstairs. He has a reputation.”
Lucie began to turn an angry shade of pink.
“We should guess who James will ask to dance first,” said a fair-haired girl in a pink dress. “Surely you, Rosamund; you are looking so lovely tonight. Who could resist you?”
“Ah, yes, who will be graced by my brother’s attentions?” drawled Lucie. “When he was six, he threw up in his own shoe.”
The others girls pointedly ignored her as the music began once more. Someone who appeared to be Rosamund’s brother came to claim the fair-haired girl for a dance; Charles left Alastair and came across the room to take Ariadne’s hand and whisk her onto the floor. Will and Tessa were in each other’s arms, as were both sets of Lucie’s aunts and uncles.
A moment later Matthew Fairchild approached the table. He was suddenly startlingly close to Cordelia. She could see that his eyes were not dark, as she had thought, but a deep shade of green like forest moss. He bowed slightly to Lucie. “Might I have this dance?”
Lucie cast a glance back at the other girls that Cordelia could read as clearly as words on a page. She was not concerned about Matthew’s reputation, the look said. Head held high, Lucie sailed out onto the dance floor with the Consul’s second son.
Which was commendable of her, Cordelia thought, but it did leave Cordelia alone with a group of girls she was not sure liked her. She could hear a few of them whispering that she seemed terribly pleased with herself, and she thought she caught her father’s name, too, and the word “trial”—
Cordelia stiffened her spine. She had made a mistake in mentioning Paris; she would not compound it by seeming weak. She gazed out upon the dance floor, a smile glued to her lips. She caught sight of her brother, now in conversation with Thomas Lightwood. The two boys sat casually on a rout-seat together, as if they were exchanging confidences. Even Alastair was doing a better job of charming the influential than she was.
Not far from them, leaning against a wall, was a girl dressed in the height of fashion—men’s fashion. Tall and almost painfully slender, she had dark, dark hair like Will and James did. Hers was cut short and smoothed down with pomade, the edges finger-combed into careful curls. Her hands were long, ink-and-tobacco-stained and beautiful to look at, like the hands on a statue. She was smoking a cheroot, the smoke drifting up past her face, which was unusual: fine-boned and sharp edged.
Anna, Cordelia realized. This was Anna Lightwood, Lucie’s cousin. She was certainly the most intimidating person in the room.
“Oh, my,” said Catherine, as the music rose. “It’s a waltz.”
Cordelia glanced down. She knew how to dance: her mother had engaged an expert instructor to teach her the quadrille and the lancer, the stately minuet and the cotillion. But the waltz was a seductive dance, one where you could feel your partner’s body against yours, scandalous when it had first become popular. She’d never learned it.
She very much wanted to dance it with James. But he probably didn’t even wish to dance at all; he probably wanted to talk with his friends, as any young man would. She heard another spate of giggles and whispers, and Catherine’s voice saying, “Isn’t she that girl whose father—”
“Daisy? Would you like to dance?”
There was only one boy who called her that. She looked up, incredulous, to see James standing in front of her.
His beautiful hair was disorderly, as it always was, and more charming for that: a lock of it fell over his forehead, and his lashes were thick and dark over his pale gold eyes. His cheekbones arched like wings.
The group of girls had fallen into a stunned silence. Cordelia felt as if she might be floating.
“I don’t,” she faltered, having no idea what she was saying, “quite know how to waltz.”
“Then I shall teach you,” James said, and a moment later they had whirled out onto the dance floor.
“Thank goodness you were free,” James said with frank cheerfulness as they moved among the other couples, searching for a space. “I was afraid I’d have to ask Catherine to dance, and all she talks about is how scandalous Matthew is.”
“Glad to be of service,” said Cordelia, a bit breathless. “But I truly can’t waltz.”
“Oh, neither can I.” He grinned and spun to face her. She was so close to him, and they were touching, his hand on her forearm. “At least not well. Shall we agree to try not to mash each other’s toes?”
“I can try,” Cordelia said, then gave a small squeak as he drew her into his arms. The room swam for a moment. This was James, her James, and he was holding her, his hand on her shoulder blade. He took her other hand and placed it firmly on his arm.
And then they were off, and she was doing her best to follow. She had learned that much at least: how to be led in a dance, how to respond to your partner’s hinted movements. James danced well—nothing surprising there, given how graceful he was—and he made it easy to follow him.
“Not bad,” James said. He blew at the lock of hair dangling over his forehead, but that only made it fall farther into his eyes. He grinned ruefully as Cordelia forced herself through sheer exercise of will not to reach up and push it back. “Still, always embarrassing when your parents dance better than you do.”
“Humph,” Cordelia said. “Speak for yourself.” She caught sight of Lucie dancing with Matthew a few feet away. Lucie was laughing. “Maybe Catherine is in love with Matthew,” she suggested. “Maybe he holds a dark fascination for her.”
“That would be exciting. And I assure you, nothing exciting has happened to the London Enclave in a very long time.”
Dancing with James was its own reward, of course, but it occurred to Cordelia that it might also be useful. “I was just thinking how very many people there are in the Enclave, and how little I know of them. I know you and Lucie, of course.…”
“Shall I give you a bit of the tour of the rest of them?” he asked, as they executed a complicated turn. “Perhaps a few pointers on who everyone is will make you feel more at home?”
She smiled. “It would, thank you.”
“Over there,” he said, and indicated Ariadne and Charles, dancing together. Her wine-colored dress glowed under the lights. “Charles you know, and with him is Ariadne Bridgestock, his fiancée.”
“I didn’t know they were engaged!”
James’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You know Charles is nearly assured of the position of Consul when his mother steps down after her third term. Ariadne’s father is the Inquisitor, a very advantageous political alliance for Charles… though I’m sure he loves her as well.”
James didn’t sound as if he entirely believed that, though to Cordelia’s eyes, Charles was gazing down at his fiancée quite adoringly. She hoped James hadn’t become cynical. The James she remembered was anything but cynical.
“And that must be Anna,” she said. It could not have been anyone else than the cousin Lucie had described in her letters: beautiful, fearless, always dressed in the finest clothes Jermyn Street had to offer. She stood laughing as she spoke with her father, Gabriel, near the door to the withdrawing room.
“Anna indeed,” said James. “And there is her brother, Christopher, dancing with Rosamund Wentworth.”
Cordelia moved her gaze to a slim boy in glasses she recognized from photographs. Christopher, she knew, was one of James’s close friends, along with Matthew and Thomas. He was glumly dancing with a furious-looking Rosamund.
“Alas, Christopher is far more at home with beakers and test tubes than he is with female company,” said James. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t pitch poor Rosamund into the refreshment table.”
“Is he in love with her?”
“Lord, no, barely knows her,” said James. “Besides Charles and Ariadne, Barbara Lightwood has an understanding with Oliver Hayward. And Anna is always breaking someone’s heart. Beyond that, I’m not sure I can think of any romances brewing in our set. Though having you and Alastair here might bring us some excitement, Daisy.”
“I didn’t realize you remembered that old nickname.”
“What, Daisy?” He was holding her close as they danced: she could feel the heat of him all up and down her front, making her prickle all over. “Of course I remember it. I gave it to you. I hope you don’t intend me to stop using it.”
“Of course not. I like it.” She forced herself not to move her gaze from his. Goodness, his eyes were startling up close. They were the color of golden syrup, almost shocking against the black of his pupils. She had heard the whispers, knew people found his eyes odd and alien, a sign of his difference. She thought they were the color of fire and gold, the way she imagined the heart of the sun. “Though I don’t think it suits me. Daisy sounds like a pretty little girl in hair ribbons.”
“Well,” he said. “You are at least one of those things.”
And he smiled. It was a sweet smile, the kind she was used to from James, but there was an edge to it, a hint of something more—did he mean she was pretty, or a little girl? Or did he just mean she was a girl? What did he mean? Goodness, flirting was vexing, Cordelia thought.
Wait, was James Herondale flirting with her?
“A number of us are having a picnic in Regent’s Park tomorrow,” he said, and Cordelia felt her body tighten. Was he about to ask her to accompany him somewhere? She would have preferred a private ride or walk in the park, but she would accept a group outing. In truth, she would have accepted a visit to Hades. “On the chance that Lucie hasn’t already mentioned it to you—”
He broke off: suddenly he was looking past her, at someone who had just come into the room. Cordelia followed his gaze and saw a tall woman, thin as a scarecrow in the black of mundane mourning, with gray-streaked hair dressed in the style of decades ago. Tessa was hurrying toward her, a concerned look on her face. Will was following.
As Tessa reached her, the woman stepped aside, revealing the girl who had been standing behind her. A girl dressed all in ivory, with a soft waterfall of white-gold curls gathered back from her face. The girl moved forward gracefully to greet Tessa and Will, and as she did so, James dropped Cordelia’s hands.
They were no longer dancing. James turned away from Cordelia without a word and strode across the room toward the newcomers. She stood, frozen in confusion, as James bent to kiss the hand of the stunningly beautiful girl who had just walked into the room. Titters rose on the dance floor. Lucie had stepped back from Matthew, her eyes wide. Alastair and Thomas both turned to look at Cordelia with expressions of surprise.
At any moment, Cordelia knew, her mother would notice that she was drifting in the middle of the dance floor like an abandoned tugboat and charge toward her, and then Cordelia would die. She would die of the humiliation. Cordelia was scanning the room for the nearest exit, ready to flee, when a hand grasped her arm. She was spun around and into an expert grip: a moment later she was dancing again, her feet automatically following her partner’s.
“That’s right.” It was Matthew Fairchild. Fair hair, spicy cologne, a blur of a smile. His hands were gentle as he swept her back into the waltz. “Just—try to smile, and no one will notice anything happened. James and I are practically interchangeable in the public consciousness anyway.”
“James—left,” Cordelia said, in shock.
“I know,” said Matthew. “Very bad form. One should not leave a lady on the dance floor unless something is actually on fire. I’ll have a word.”
“A word,” Cordelia echoed. She was beginning to feel less stunned and more angry. “A word?”
“Several words, if it will make you feel better?”
“Who is she?” Cordelia said. She almost didn’t want to ask, but it was better to know the truth. It was always better to know the truth.
“Her name is Grace Blackthorn,” said Matthew quietly. “She is the ward of Tatiana Blackthorn, and they have just come to London. Apparently she grew up in some hole in the country in Idris—that’s how James knows her. They used to cross paths in the summers.”
It is a girl who does not live in London, but she is about to arrive here for an extended stay.
Cordelia felt sick to her stomach. To think she had thought that Lucie was talking about her. That James could have felt those feelings about her.
“You look ill,” Matthew observed. “Is it my dancing? Is it me personally?”
Cordelia drew herself up. She was Cordelia Carstairs, daughter of Elias and Sona, one of a long line of Shadowhunters. She was the inheritor of the famous sword Cortana, which had been passed down through the Carstairs family for generations. She was in London to save her father. She would not fall apart in public.
“Perhaps I’m nervous,” she said. “Lucie did say you didn’t like many people.”
Matthew gave a sharp, startled laugh, before schooling his face back into a look of lazy amusement. “Did she? Lucie’s a chatterbox.”
“But not a liar,” she said.
“Well, fear not. I do not dislike you. I hardly know you,” said Matthew. “I do know your brother. He made my life miserable at school, and Christopher’s, and James’s.”
Cordelia looked over at James and Grace reluctantly. They made a stunning picture, his dark hair and her fair icicle beauty. Like ashes and silver. How, how, how could Cordelia ever have thought someone like James Herondale would be interested in someone like her?
“Alastair and I are very different,” Cordelia said. She didn’t want to say more than that. It felt disloyal to Alastair. “I like Oscar Wilde, for instance, and he does not.”
The corner of Matthew’s mouth curled up. “I see you go directly for the soft underbelly, Cordelia Carstairs. Have you really read Oscar’s work?”
“Just Dorian Gray,” Cordelia confessed. “It gave me nightmares.”
“I should like to have a portrait in the attic,” Matthew mused, “that would show all my sins, while I stayed young and beautiful. And not only for sinning purposes—imagine being able to try out new fashions on it. I could paint the portrait’s hair blue and see how it looks.”
“You don’t need a portrait. You are young and beautiful,” Cordelia pointed out.
“Men are not beautiful. Men are handsome,” objected Matthew.
“Thomas is handsome. You are beautiful,” said Cordelia, feeling the imp of the perverse stealing over her. Matthew was looking stubborn. “James is beautiful too,” she added.
“He was a very unprepossessing child,” said Matthew. “Scowly, and he hadn’t grown into his nose.”
“He’s grown into everything now,” Cordelia said.
Matthew laughed, again as if he was surprised to be doing it. “That was a very shocking observation, Cordelia Carstairs. I am shocked.” But his eyes were dancing. “Did James tell you about tomorrow?”
“He did say there was some sort of excursion—a picnic, I think. I am not sure if I am invited, though.”
“Of course you’re invited. I’m inviting you.”
“Oh. Can you do that?”
“I think you’ll find I can do whatever I want, and I usually do.”
“Because the Consul is your mother?” Cordelia said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve always hoped to meet her,” Cordelia said. “Is she here tonight?”
“No, she’s in Idris,” he said, with a gracious half shrug. “She left a few days ago. It’s unusual for the Consul to live in London—she’s rarely here. The Clave requires her.”
“Oh,” said Cordelia, struggling to hide her disappointment. “How long will she be—”
Matthew spun her in a surprising twirl that left the other dancers looking at them in puzzlement. “You will come to the picnic tomorrow, won’t you?” he said. “It will keep Lucie amused while James moons after Grace. You want Lucie to be happy, don’t you?”
“Of course I do—” Cordelia began, and then, glancing around, realized that she had not seen Lucie in some time. No matter how she craned her head and searched among the dancers, she did not see her friend’s blue dress, or the glint of her brown hair. Puzzled, she turned to Matthew. “But where is she? Where did Lucie go?”