Both Will and Tessa were looking at Sona, as if waiting for her reaction.
Cordelia’s mother exhaled slowly and straightened, her dark eyes passing from Cordelia to James. “Cheshmet roshan,” she said, and inclined her head toward Will and Tessa. “I have given my blessing.”
A broad smile spread across Will’s face. “Then we have no choice but to give our blessing too. Cordelia Carstairs,” he said, “the Carstairs and the Herondales will be bonded even more closely now. If James could have chosen his wife from all the women in all the worlds that are or ever were, I would wish for no other.”
Tessa laughed. “Will! You cannot compliment our new daughter only on the chance of her last name!”
Will was grinning like a boy. “Wait until I tell Jem—”
The door burst open, and Lucie spilled in. “I was just listening at the door,” she announced, with no shame whatsoever. “Daisy! You are to be my sister!”
She raced to Cordelia and embraced her. Alastair came into the room, too—quiet, but smiling when Cordelia looked at him. It was so close to the joyous scene Cordelia had always dreamed of. She had only to try to forget that Will might have wished for her to join his family, but if James had been free to choose, he would have chosen someone else.
* * *
It was only later that night that Cordelia learned what had happened to Tatiana, from Alastair—who, she assumed, had heard the story from Charles.
Tatiana had been shown relative leniency. It was the general opinion of the Enclave that the death of her son had broken her mind, and that though what she had done in response—sought out the help of dark warlocks to engage with her in necromancy and dark magic—was reprehensible, she had been maddened by grief. They all recalled the loss of Jesse and pitied her; rather than be locked up in the Silent City, or have her Marks stripped, Tatiana would be sent to live with the Iron Sisters in the Adamant Citadel.
Almost prison, but not quite, as Alastair described it.
Grace would move in with the Bridgestocks. Apparently Ariadne had insisted; Alastair theorized that it was also a way for the Bridgestocks to save face and make it look as if Ariadne and Charles’s engagement had been dissolved amicably.
“How odd,” said Cordelia. She wondered why Ariadne had made such a demand. Even if she didn’t want to marry Charles, why would she want to live with Grace? Then again, Cordelia suspected there was more to pretty Ariadne Bridgestock than met the eye.
“There is more,” Alastair said. He was sitting at the foot of his sister’s bed. Cordelia was propped against her pillows, brushing out her long hair. “Our father is to be released.”
“Released?” Cordelia sat bolt upright, her heart pounding. “What do you mean?”
“The charges against him have been resolved,” said Alastair, “the whole messy business deemed an accident. He will be returning to London in a fortnight.”
“Why would they let him go free, Alastair?”
He smiled at her, though his eyes did not light up. “Because of you, just as you wanted. You did it, Cordelia—you are a hero now. That changes things. For them to try your father for a crime of negligence he no longer remembers—it would be an unpopular gesture. People want to see things set right, after so much loss and horror. They want to see families reunited. Even more so because of the baby.”
“How do they know about the baby?”
Alastair’s eyes darted away from hers—his tell, the small sign that he was lying, which he had displayed since he was a small child. “I don’t know. Someone must have told them.”
Cordelia could not speak. It was all she had wanted, for so long. Free her father, save her family. It had been her mantra, the words she had chanted over and over to herself as she fell asleep at night. Now she did not know how she felt.
“Alastair,” she whispered, “the reason I went to the Silent City with Matthew and James was to talk to Cousin Jem. I know Mâmân wanted Father to go to the Basilias as a patient. I thought perhaps if we told the Clave of his sickness—and it is a sickness—they might let him be treated there instead of imprisoned.”
“Ah, by the Angel, Cordelia.” Alastair covered his eyes with his hands for a long moment. When he dropped them, his dark eyes were troubled. “You would have been all right with that? With everyone knowing about his drinking?”
“As I said to you before, Alastair. It is not our shame. It is his.”
Alastair sighed. “I don’t know. Father always refused to go to the Basilias. He said he disliked the Silent Brothers, but I think he was always worried they would see through him to the truth. I imagine that is why he always kept Cousin Jem away from our family.” He took a deep breath. “If what you want is for him to go to the Basilias, you should write to him and tell him so. You were the last of the family who did not know his secret. That you do now might well make a difference.”
Cordelia set her hairbrush down, relief coursing through her at last. “That is a good idea. Alastair—”
“Are you happy, Layla?” he said. He pointed to the Herondale ring on her hand. “I know that is what you wanted.”
“I thought you might be angry,” she said. “You were so furious with James when you thought he was trying to compromise me.”
“I did not think at the time that he would be willing to marry you,” Alastair said apologetically. “But he has stood up and claimed you in front of the world. That is a gesture that is meaningful. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She almost wanted to tell Alastair the truth—that James was sacrificing more than he guessed—but she could not, any more than she could tell her mother. He would be angry; Sona would be crushed. “I have what I wanted,” she said, unable to bring herself to say that she was happy, “but what of you, Alastair? What of your happiness?”
He glanced down at his hands. When he looked back up at her, his smile was crooked. “Love is complicated,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“I know I love you, Alastair,” Cordelia said. “I should not have eavesdropped on you and Charles. I have only ever wanted you to talk to me, not to overhear you.”
Alastair flushed and rose to his feet, avoiding her eyes. “You should sleep, Layla,” he said. “You’ve had an eventful day. And I have an important matter to attend to.”
Cordelia leaned forward to glimpse him as he left the room. “What kind of important matter?”
He ducked his head back into the room with a rare grin. “My hair,” he said, and vanished before she could ask him anything else.
23 NO ONE WHO LOVES
Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.
—J. M. Barrie, The Little Minister
Lucie could not help but be impressed, despite her conviction that it was wrong to be impressed by one’s parents. Her mother had thrown together the traditional engagement party for James and Cordelia at a moment’s notice, but it was so lovely one would have guessed she had spent weeks planning it. The ballroom was bright with festive witchlights and candles, the walls hung about with ribbons in wedding gilt. Lace-draped tables bore plates of sweets, all in the theme of yellow and gold: iced lemon pastries stuffed with cream, cut-glass dishes of crystallized fruit, bonbons in fancy gold wrappings on an epergne, yellow plum and apricot tartlets. There were tumbling arrangements of flowers in urns on pillars around the ballroom: peonies, creamy camellias, sheaves of tall yellow gladioli, sprays of mimosa, pale gold roses and daffodils. The room was full of happy people—the quarantine was over, and everyone wanted to gather and gossip and congratulate Will and Tessa on the happiness of their offspring.
Yet Tessa, even as she slipped an arm around Will’s waist and smiled at Ida Rosewain, who had arrived in a simply enormous hat, looked worried. Lucie guessed most people wouldn’t see it, but she was a trained observer of her mother’s moods, and besides—she was worried herself.
She should have been filled with delight. Her brother and her closest friend were to be married. This was a moment to be happy ever after. But she knew the truth—both James and Cordelia had told her—that the marriage was a sham, a formality to save Cordelia’s reputation. Tessa and Will did not know, nor did anyone want to tell them. Let them think James would be happy with Cordelia. Let them think it was all real. Lucie wished she thought it was real herself, and if that could not be the case, she wished she had someone to talk to about it. The Merry Thieves had all decided to treat the marriage as if it were a lark on James’s part, and she could hardly voice her worries to Cordelia and make her feel even worse than she surely did already.
Perhaps life was not like books. Perhaps life was never going to be like that. Her brother, elegant in black and white, had joined her parents in greeting guests. Gabriel and Cecily had just arrived with Anna, Alexander, and Christopher and distributed embraces and congratulations; Thomas had already come with his family. The Fairchilds had also arrived earlier, Matthew breaking away immediately from his family to make a beeline for the games room. Meanwhile, Charles was wandering around shaking hands and generally taking credit for the end of the attacks. The sound of carriages rattling into the courtyard made its own sort of odd music as the room began to fill up: the Bridgestocks arrived, Ariadne thin but bright-eyed—and with them, Grace Blackthorn.
Lucie tugged anxiously at the locket around her throat. Grace was lovely as new spring in a pale green dress, her silver-blond hair caught up in a waterfall of curls. Having seen Chiswick House up close, Lucie wondered again that Grace always seemed so splendidly turned out when she lived in a large pile of dirty bricks.
Well, she had lived there. She lived with the Bridgestocks now, and would until her marriage to Charles. This was not a celebration for Grace, Lucie thought, looking at the other girl’s pale face as she greeted Will and Tessa. James was perfectly composed, both he and Grace almost painfully polite as he received her congratulations. Did Grace mind? Lucie wondered. She was the one who had broken it off with James—she was marrying Charles—and Lucie did not want to forgive her for breaking James’s heart.