Cordelia closed her eyes. For a moment she was back in the motorcar, and the road was unrolling before her, the wind in her hair. She had left her agony behind for those hours. She could glimpse that liberty again in Matthew’s words, in the picture he painted of a city of wonders. The thought of leaving sodden, heartbreaking London behind made her feel free. Free the way she wanted to be. Free the way Matthew was free.
But my mother, she thought. And then remembered what Sona had said to her just that afternoon: I do not want you hovering over me, doting on me until the baby comes…. What I want for you above all things is that you follow the truth of your dreams. No scorn, no shame, no part of society’s opinion matters more than that.
“My father,” she said, instead. “His funeral—”
“Will not be for at least a fortnight,” said Matthew. It was true—the bodies of the murdered were to be kept in the Silent City until they had been purified; they had, after all, been used in a demon-summoning ritual. “If we are still in Paris, I promise you, we will travel to Idris for it.”
Cordelia took a deep breath. “Paris,” she whispered, testing it out. “But—I have nothing with me. I left Curzon Street in one dress and ruined shoes.”
Matthew’s eyes lit. “In Paris, I will outfit you in a whole new wardrobe of clothes! All the latest styles, all the best dressmakers. In Paris we can be whomever we wish.”
“All right,” she said, still looking straight at Matthew. “Let’s go to Paris. On one condition.”
Matthew’s expression blossomed with shock and pleasure; he clearly had not thought this was how the conversation would go. “Anything,” he said.
“No drinking,” she said. She knew she was treading on delicate ground, but it was important. She thought of the broken bottle in the snow at the Shadow Market. Of Matthew stumbling, slipping during the fight in Nelson Square. She had not wanted to see it, but if there was anything she had learned from her marriage, it was that looking away from truth helped nothing. She could do this for Matthew, as no one had ever done it for her father. “A little champagne, wine, as you like, but not—like my father drank. Not to get drunk.”
Something flickered in his dark green eyes. “You are serious?” he said. “I agree to this and you will come with me?”
“Never more serious,” said Cordelia. “We could leave tonight. There is always an evening train.”
“Then yes,” he said, “yes, yes. In Paris, with you, I will not need to forget.” He kissed her hand and released it, rising to his feet. “I will leave a message for James with the porter. He can deliver it in the morning. I shall tell him there is no need to worry. He can let the others know—tell them whatever he likes—Anna will be delighted, perhaps she will come and visit with us.”
And she would leave messages for her mother and brother, Cordelia thought. They would still worry, but that couldn’t be helped. She felt flushed with energy, an almost physical longing to be moving, traveling, free of constraint, with the wind at her back and the sound of a train whistle in her ears. “Matthew,” she said. “In Paris, will you be able to forgive yourself?”
He smiled at that—a real smile; his face lit up, and Cordelia could not help but think that it was a face that would open any door in Paris to them. “In Paris,” he said, “I shall be able to forgive all the world.”
“All right,” Cordelia said. In her mind, she was dancing down the Rue Saint-Honoré. There was music, light, joy, the promise of a future that would not be empty, and all with Matthew, her steadfast friend, by her side. “Let’s find me a coat.”
Fleeing out into the darkness of London was well and good, but James realized quickly it wasn’t going to help him find Cordelia. He could try to guess where she’d gone, but the two most obvious places—Cornwall Gardens and the Institute—both seemed unlikely to him. If she were as upset as he guessed, the last thing she would want would be questions she could only half answer. Nor, knowing Cordelia, would she want sympathy, and certainly not anything she might interpret as pity. Cordelia would rather be set on fire than pitied.
In the end, there was nothing for it: he took shelter under the colonnades outside Burlington Arcade and set up to make a Tracking rune. It felt uncomfortable to Track Cordelia—a small voice in the back of his head said that if she wanted him to know where she was, she would have left a message. But she’s proceeding on the basis of mistaken information, he snapped back at the voice. She needs to know. I have to tell her, about the bracelet at least. Then she can make up her own mind about what to do, but at least I can provide her with all the facts.
With one of her gloves in hand—delicate, kidskin, with a tracery of embroidered leaves—James activated the Tracking spell. The familiar tugging feeling led him on a zigzag route through Piccadilly, to New Bond Street, and through the shadowed lanes toward Marylebone. He had nearly fetched up on the front steps of Matthew’s flat when he realized that it was his destination.
His steps slowed. Cordelia had gone to Matthew? It was good she had gone to a friend, of course—and Anna was unlikely to be home, or alone if she was—and other than Anna, Cordelia was closest to Matthew of all the Merry Thieves. But then, Matthew had been one of the first to know of James’s relationship with Grace, had even comforted him when it ended four months past. (James felt sick, remembering.) Perhaps she’d thought Matthew would understand best.
He kicked the snow off his boots before entering the lobby, where the porter was chatting to a tall chap with a long, narrow face and a dog on a leash. The porter glanced over at James with a polite nod.
“Can you ring up to Matthew Fairchild’s flat?” James asked, slipping Cordelia’s glove into his pocket. “I need to speak with him, and—”
At that moment, the dog made a lunge for James, who realized two things very quickly: the lunge was friendly, and the dog was familiar. “Oscar?” he said, laying a hand on the retriever’s head.
Oscar wagged his tail so hard his whole body vibrated.
“Well, a friend of Oscar is a friend of mine,” said the narrow-faced man, and held out a hand for James to shake. “Gus Huntley. I’ll be watching Oscar while Fairchild’s away.”
“James Herondale. Matthew’s away?” James stopped petting Oscar. “What do you mean, away?”
“I was going to tell you.” The porter looked aggrieved. “He left maybe twenty minutes ago, off to the Paris train. Had a pretty young lass with him too. Said she was his cousin, but they didn’t look a bit alike.” He winked.
“He borrowed a ladies’ coat and shoes off me before he went too,” said Huntley. “My sister will be furious, but Fairchild’s got a convincing way about him.”
“If she had red hair, then no, she’s not his cousin,” said James, weighing the possibility that Matthew and Anna had departed suddenly for Paris, and discarding it. Anna would never have needed to borrow a coat. “That’s my wife.”
A terrible and awkward silence descended. The porter looked at James in some alarm. “What’d you say your name was? Herondale?”
James nodded. It felt very odd, somehow, giving his name out to mundanes, but the porter only rifled through the desk papers and handed over a folded letter, addressed to James in Matthew’s scrawled hand. “He left this for you,” he said. “Probably clear the whole thing up.”