Chain of Iron
“Maybe I should be,” said Cordelia.
“Absolutely not,” said James. “It’s your choice, Daisy, what you want to do. If you want us to tell anyone. But I agree with Matthew. You’ve done nothing wrong—you’re no danger as long as you don’t pick up a weapon—and the Mother of Demons has reason to fear us.” He put his hand to his belt, where the revolver rested. “We’ve defeated worse than Lilith.”
“She’s not even a Prince of Hell, and we’ve defeated two of those today,” Thomas pointed out.
Cordelia clamped her lips together tightly, as if she were struggling not to cry. Christopher looked terribly alarmed. “Oh, what ho, tears,” he said helplessly. “Ghastly—not that you shouldn’t cry if you wish, of course. Cry like the blazes, Cordelia.”
“Christopher,” said James darkly. “You are not helping.”
Cordelia shook her head. “It’s not Christopher. Or—I suppose it is, but it’s not Christopher making me sad. It’s only … I had not realized—you really think of me as your friend, all of you?”
“Oh, darling,” said Anna affectionately. “Of course we do.”
I do not think of you as a friend, James thought, but all he said was, “We will manage this together, Daisy. We will never leave you alone.”
The swift winter night came, falling like a knife between one moment and the next, casting the drawing room into gold-tinged shadow. Matthew was first to leave, having borrowed a tweed overcoat from James, who walked him to the door and stood leaning against the jamb, exhausted, while Matthew pulled on his gloves.
“You’re certain you don’t want to borrow our carriage?” James asked, for the fifth time, as Matthew glanced up at the gray-black sky.
“No, I’ll catch a hansom at Oxford Street. Might as well walk a bit. Clear my head.”
“Let me know if it works.” James brushed a flake of snow from Matthew’s shoulder; it wasn’t falling, but the wind was sending flurries skirling down the streets.
“We cannot keep all this a secret,” Matthew said. He looked tired, the shadows under his eyes pronounced. “We will have to at least tell your parents.”
James nodded. “I had planned to tell them tomorrow, all of it—hopefully Lucie can fill in the bits we don’t know. But with Belial on the horizon, we can’t keep this a secret from them. Save the part about Cordelia and Lilith, of course.”
“I agree,” said Matthew. “Perhaps Magnus will have some idea how the enchantment between them can be broken.” He put his gloved hand over James’s bare one where it rested on his shoulder. James could feel the slight tremor in Matthew’s touch; Matthew had drunk a little port in the drawing room, but it wouldn’t be enough. He’d be wanting to get home, not to rest but to drink until he could.
So silly of me. Who knew toys had sharp edges?
“You were not there,” Matthew said. “You did not see how happy she was when she thought Wayland the Smith had chosen her to be his paladin. I—I know what it is like, to do something you thought was good, and have it turn out to be a terrible mistake.”
James wanted to ask Matthew to tell him more. What mistakes have you made, Math, that you cannot forgive yourself for? What is it that you are drowning in bottles, and glasses, and silver flasks? Now that I can see you clearly, I see you are unhappy, but why, when you are more loved and loving than anyone else I know?
But the house was full of people, and Cordelia needed him, and there was no time or chance just now. “I know, myself,” James said, “what it is like to live with a darkness inside you. One that you fear.”
Matthew drew his hand back, knotting his scarf around his neck. His cheeks were already pink with cold. “I have never seen darkness in you.”
“Nor have I known you to make such grave mistakes as you say,” said James. “But if you did, you know that I would do all I could to help you fix them.”
Matthew’s smile was a flash in the dark, illuminated only by distant streetlights.
“I know you would try,” he said.
27
WAKE WITH WINGS
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine”
Ariadne had been waiting outside the house on Curzon Street long enough for her fingers and toes to have gone numb. As night approached, she had watched the lamplighter come with his ladder and sparking tool, and the lights had gone on inside James and Cordelia’s house too. She had been able to see them through the drawing-room window: Thomas and Christopher, James and Cordelia, Matthew and Anna.
She had not minded Anna going off to Curzon Street after the battle at the Institute. Of course she would want to see her friends and cousins. But home had been miserable and tense: Grace had locked herself in her bedroom, and Mrs. Bridgestock was crying in the parlor, as she believed Mr. Bridgestock should not have gone alone to the Adamant Citadel. Goodness knew, she said, what that Tatiana Blackthorn would do to him.
Ariadne had grown used to creeping out of the house using the servants’ entrance. Anna would not mind her coming to Curzon Street, she told herself; she was friendly enough with the Merry Thieves and had fought side by side with Thomas and Christopher that morning. It was not until she’d reached the house itself that she’d lost her courage.
She could see Anna through the drawing-room window, her lean body sprawled in an armchair, her hair a soft dark cap, fine and straight as silk. Her smile was gentle, her blue eyes soft, and Ariadne realized in that moment that the Anna of her memory had never really vanished. She is still here, Ariadne thought, hesitating on the doorstep. Only not for me.
After that, she could not go in, and found herself waiting by a nearby streetlight until the door of the house opened and Matthew emerged, wearing an outsized tweed overcoat. He spoke with James in the doorway for several minutes before departing; Ariadne ducked behind a leafless tree to prevent him catching sight of her.
The sun had gone down by the time Thomas, Christopher, and Anna stepped out into the frost-sharp night. Their breath came out in clouds as they descended the stairs. Catching sight of her, Thomas and Christopher exchanged a look of surprise before approaching; Ariadne was dimly aware that they were greeting her and telling her she had impressed them during the fight that morning. She returned the compliments, though she was acutely aware of Anna, who had paused on the stairs to light a cheroot.
She wanted Anna to come down the steps. She wanted to take her hand, here on the street in front of Christopher and Thomas. But the boys were already bidding them goodbye and loping off down the lane, the sound of their chatter and footsteps swallowed up quickly by fog and snow.
“Ari.” Anna joined her on the pavement, the tip of her cheroot glowing as cherry red as her ruby pendant. “Taking a walk?”
“I wanted to see you,” Ariadne said. “I thought we could—”
“Go to the Whispering Room?” Anna blew a smoke ring and watched it drift on the cold air. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. Tomorrow afternoon, if you—”