Chain of Iron

“I should hurry down,” Cordelia said as Risa handed her a small silk handbag and a muff to warm her hands. “James is hardly ever late.”

Risa nodded briskly, which for her was the equivalent of a warm hug goodbye.

It was true, Cordelia thought, as she rustled down the stairway. James was hardly ever late. It was the duty of a fiancé to escort a lady to parties and dinners, fetch lemonade and fans, and generally dance attendance. James had played his part to perfection. All season long he had faithfully partnered her at all sorts of eye-wateringly boring Enclave events, but outside of those occasions, she barely saw him. Sometimes he would join her and the rest of his friends for excursions that were actually enjoyable—afternoons in the Devil Tavern, tea at Anna’s—but even then he seemed distracted and preoccupied. There was little chance to talk about their future, and Cordelia wasn’t sure precisely what she’d say if there was.

“Layla?”

Cordelia had reached the sword-and-stars-tiled entryway of the house, and at first saw no one there. She realized a moment later that her mother, Sona, stood by the front window, having drawn back one of the curtains with a narrow hand. Her other hand rested on her rounded belly.

“It is you,” Sona said. Cordelia couldn’t help noticing that the dark shadows under her mother’s eyes seemed to have deepened. “Where are you off to, again?”

“The Pouncebys’ sledding party on Parliament Hill,” Cordelia said. “They’re dreadful, really, but Alastair’s going and I thought I might as well keep my mind off tomorrow.”

Sona’s lips curved into a smile. “It’s quite normal to be nervous before a wedding, Layla joon. I was terrified the night before I married your father. I nearly escaped on a milk train to Constantinople.”

Cordelia took a short, sharp breath, and her mother’s smile faltered. Oh, dear, Cordelia thought. It had been a week since her father, Elias Carstairs, had been released from his confinement at the Basilias, the Shadowhunter hospital in Idris. He’d been there for months—much longer than they’d first expected—to cure him of his trouble with alcohol, a fact that all three other members of the Carstairs family knew but never mentioned.

They had expected him home five days ago. But there had been no word save a terse letter sent from France. No promise that he would return by the day of Cordelia’s wedding. It was a wretched situation, made more wretched by the fact that neither Cordelia’s mother nor her brother, Alastair, was willing to discuss it.

Cordelia took a deep breath. “Mâmân. I know you’re still hoping Father might arrive in time for the wedding—”

“I do not hope; I know,” Sona said. “No matter what has waylaid him, he will not miss his only daughter’s wedding.”

Cordelia almost shook her head in wonderment. How could her mother have such faith? Her father had missed so many birthdays, even Cordelia’s first rune, because of his “sickness.” It was a sickness that had gotten him arrested in the end and sent to the Basilias in Idris. He was meant to be cured now, but his absence so far was not promising.

Boots clattered down the stairs, and Alastair appeared in the entrance hall, dark hair flying. He looked handsome in a new tweed winter coat, though he was scowling.

“Alastair,” Sona said. “Are you going to this sledding party as well?”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“That isn’t true,” Cordelia said. “Alastair, I was only going to go because you were!”

“I have decided that my invitation was sadly lost in the post,” Alastair said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I can entertain myself, Mother. Some of us have things to do and cannot be out cavorting at all hours.”

“Honestly, the two of you,” Sona scolded, shaking her head. This seemed to Cordelia to be highly unfair. She had only corrected Alastair’s untruth.

Sona placed her hands in the small of her back and sighed. “I ought to speak to Risa about tomorrow. There’s still so much to be done.”

“You should be resting,” Alastair called, as his mother headed down the corridor toward the kitchen. The moment she was out of sight, he turned to Cordelia, his expression stormy. “Was she waiting for Father?” he demanded in a low whisper. “Still? Why must she torment herself?”

Cordelia shrugged helplessly. “She loves him.”

Alastair made an inelegant sound. “Chi! Khodah margam bedeh,” he said, which Cordelia thought was very rude.

“Love doesn’t always make sense,” she said, and at that, Alastair looked quickly away. He had not mentioned Charles in Cordelia’s presence for some months, and though he’d received letters in Charles’s careful handwriting, Cordelia had found more than one tossed unopened into the dustbin. After a moment, she added, “Still, I wish he would send word that he’s all right, at least—for Mother’s sake.”

“He’ll come back in his own time. At the worst possible moment, if I know him.”

Cordelia stroked the soft lambswool of her muff with one finger. “Do you not want him to come back, Alastair?”

Alastair’s look was opaque. He had spent years protecting Cordelia from the truth, making excuses for their father’s “bouts of illness” and frequent absences. Some months ago Cordelia had learned the emotional cost of Alastair’s interventions, the invisible scars he worked so diligently to conceal.

He seemed about to reply when outside the window, the sound of a horse’s hooves echoed, their tromping muffled by the still-falling snow. The dark shape of a carriage came to a stop by the lamppost in front of the house. Alastair twitched the curtain aside and frowned.

“That’s the Fairchilds’ carriage,” he observed. “James couldn’t be bothered to pick you up, so he sent his parabatai to do his job?”

“That is not fair,” Cordelia said sharply. “And you know it.”

Alastair hesitated. “I suppose. Herondale has been dutiful enough.”

Cordelia watched as Matthew Fairchild leaped lightly down from the carriage outside. She couldn’t stop a flash of fear—what if James had panicked and sent Matthew to break things off with her the night before the wedding?

Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself firmly. Matthew was whistling as he came up the front steps. The ground was white with snow, tramped down here and there with boot prints. Flakes had already come to rest on the shoulders of Matthew’s fur-collared greatcoat. Crystals glittered in his blond hair, and his high cheekbones were flushed with cold. He looked like an angel painted by Caravaggio and sugar-dusted with snow. Surely he wouldn’t be whistling if he had bad news to deliver?

Cordelia opened the door and found Matthew on the front step, stamping snow from his balmoral boots. “Hello, my dear,” he said to Cordelia. “I’ve come to bring you to a large hill, which we will both hurtle down on rickety, out-of-control bits of wood.”

Cordelia smiled. “Sounds marvelous. What will we do after that?”

“Unaccountably,” Matthew said, “we will climb back to the top of the hill in order to do it again. It is some kind of snow-related mania, they say.”

“Where’s James?” Alastair interrupted. “You know, the one of you that was supposed to be here.”