Chain of Iron

“Those were attacks in full daylight,” said James. “This is normal, or as normal as things get for Nephilim. We’ve stopped being used to it, but people die on patrol. Not that I advocate pretending it didn’t happen because you’ve ordered an ice sculpture, mind you—”

He broke off. Two guests had entered the room, and Rosamund and Thoby had already rushed to greet them. Even through the crowd, Cordelia knew who they were: there was Charles, his red hair set off by his black tailcoat, and beside him, Grace. Her dress was a cloud of ivory net, worn over an ice-blue satin underskirt.

She looked at Cordelia for a long moment, her gray eyes wide. Then she glanced away.

“I wouldn’t have thought Charles would have come,” Cordelia said, struggling to seem unaffected. “Isn’t he being packed off to Paris tomorrow?”

“First thing in the morning, along with my parents, but Charles is determined to put on a good face.” James was no longer looking at Grace and Charles. He had practice, Cordelia supposed; it was not the first time she and James had seen Grace at a party, though it had not happened since their wedding. He never looked at her long, nor went to speak to her, but Cordelia, tuned as she was to his moods, could always sense his distraction. “My apologies—we have quite lost the thread of the dance.”

“And you were doing such a good job setting an example,” said Cordelia. James laughed, but it sounded brittle as glass. Cordelia glanced back: Rosamund seemed to be gesturing for Grace to come with her to join some of the other unmarried girls, but Grace only shook her head and turned to Thoby.

A moment later Thoby had taken Grace by the hands and spun her out onto the dance floor. Rosamund looked after the two of them, her mouth open. Charles shrugged and walked off.

Cordelia couldn’t help but stare—there was nothing in the etiquette books that said one couldn’t dance with the host of a party, be he engaged, married, or single. But to enter a dance in the middle was odd, and for Grace to have asked Thoby—as she clearly had—was a startling breach. It would certainly win her no friends among Rosamund’s set.

And the look on Thoby’s face wouldn’t help. He was gazing down at Grace as they floated across the floor as if he had never beheld a more enchanting creature. If Charles minded, it wasn’t apparent: he was heading determinedly across the room toward Alastair, who stood alone by a pillar, looking weary.

“What’s wrong?” said James. “Daisy?”

It was a great irony, she thought, that he knew her so well. And a greater one that he had once left her on a dance floor and now she was going to leave him, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Alastair,” she said, drawing her hands from James’s. She hurried away, not looking back, darting through the maze of dancers till she burst out the other side.

Charles had already reached Alastair and was leaning casually against the pillar beside him. Alastair looked—well, Alastair looked expressionless, or would to someone who didn’t know him. Cordelia knew by his slumped posture—he was nearly sliding down the pillar—and the tightly fisted hands in his pockets that he was quite upset.

“I know you read mundane newspapers too,” Charles was saying, as Cordelia approached. “I wondered if you noticed the recent murder in the East End. It’s the sort of thing that seems as if it shouldn’t interest us, but on closer examination—”

Cordelia stepped up to Alastair, blinking demurely. She knew people were watching. She wanted to give them no reason to talk. “Charles,” she said, smiling with too many teeth, “I believe that you agreed to stay away from my brother.”

Charles raised a superior-looking eyebrow. “Cordelia, dear. Men have disagreements among themselves sometimes. It’s best to leave them be to sort it out.”

Cordelia looked at Alastair. “Do you wish to converse with Charles?”

Alastair shuffled upright. “No,” he said.

Charles flushed. It made his freckles stand out like angry dots. “Alastair,” he said. “Only a coward needs to be rescued by his little sister.”

Alastair’s expressive eyebrows flickered. “And only an ass puts other people into situations in which they need to be rescued at all.”

Charles took a deep breath, as if he were about to shout. Cordelia moved swiftly between him and her brother; her smile was starting to make her face ache. “Charles, go away now,” she said. “Or I will tell everyone how your aunt and uncle must go rushing off to Paris to rescue the Clave from your blunder.”

Charles’s lips tightened. And somehow, oddly, in that moment, she saw Matthew in him—she could not imagine why. They could not have been two more different people. If Charles were only kinder, more understanding, perhaps Matthew would not—

Cordelia blinked. Charles had said something, undoubtedly something cutting, and stomped off. As he did, she noticed that they were indeed being watched—by Thomas. He was gazing at them from across the room, seemingly arrested in mid-motion. Behind him, James had rejoined his friends and was chatting with them, one hand lightly on Matthew’s shoulder.

Several things happened at once. Thomas, seeing Cordelia looking at him, blushed and turned away. The music ended, and the dancers began to stream off the floor. And Grace left Thoby without a word and came up to James.

Matthew and Christopher had been laughing together; Matthew stopped, staring, as Grace said something to James and the two of them stepped a bit apart from the others. James was shaking his head. The silver bracelet glimmered on his wrist as he gestured.

“Do you want me to go over and break your husband’s legs?” Alastair said quietly.

“He can hardly run away screaming if Grace approaches him,” Cordelia said. “He must be polite.”

“As you were polite to Charles?” said Alastair, smiling crookedly. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Layla, I’m grateful. But you don’t need to—”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cordelia saw James break away from Grace. He came toward her, pausing only to nod a greeting at a few passersby. He was white as a sheet, but otherwise the Mask was firmly in place. “Alastair,” he said, coming close. “Good to see you. Are your parents well?”

Alastair had told her she didn’t need to be polite. But politeness had its uses. James wore his manners like a suit of armor. A suit to match the Mask.

“Well enough,” said Alastair. “The Silent Brothers recommended my mother rest at home after all the excitement of the wedding. My father did not want to leave her.”

Some of this was doubtless true, and some of it wasn’t. Cordelia didn’t have the heart for investigation. She no longer had the heart for the party at all. James hadn’t betrayed their agreement, but it was clear that it caused him pain to be in the same room with Grace.

The worst part was that she could sympathize. She knew what it was like to be near to the person you loved yet feel as if you were a million miles away.

“James,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “I find I have rather a desire to play chess.”

That brought a smile from him, though only a slight one. “Of course,” he said. “We shall depart at once.”

“To play chess?” Alastair muttered. “Married life sounds thrilling.”