Chain of Iron
Matthew came to his feet. “Alastair, if you’re lying, I swear on the Angel—”
“Stop!” Charlotte held up a commanding hand. “Alastair. Say what you mean. Now.”
“As I said.” Alastair’s lip was curled, his head back; he looked every inch the arrogant bastard he’d been at the Academy. “I was in Golden Square when Thomas was passing through. I also heard Lilian Highsmith scream. I saw Thomas run to help her. She was already dying when he got there. He never harmed her. I’ll swear to it.”
Matthew sat back down with a thump. Thomas stared at Alastair with a dazed expression. Gideon looked pleased, if not a little bit baffled by everyone else’s stunned expressions.
“Er—what?” said Christopher—speaking for them all, James felt.
Bridgestock sneered. “So it’s coincidence on top of coincidence, then. Tell me, Carstairs, what possible reason could you have had to be in Golden Square at the same time as Thomas Lightwood?”
“Because I was following him,” Alastair said, raking the Inquisitor with a disdainful gaze. “I’ve been following Thomas for days. I knew he was going out on these insane night patrols by himself, and I wanted to make sure that he was safe. Cordelia is fond of him.”
“You’re the one who’s been following me?” Thomas said, astonished.
“You knew someone was following you?” Matthew demanded. “And you didn’t say anything? Thomas!”
“Everyone be quiet,” said Charlotte; she didn’t raise her voice, but something in the pitch of it reminded everyone why she’d been elected Consul.
Thomas was still looking as if he might faint. Alastair was studying his nails. It was Bridgestock who broke the ensuing silence first. “This is preposterous, Charlotte. Carstairs is lying to cover up for his friend.”
“They’re not friends,” said James. “One of us might lie for Thomas. Not Alastair.”
“Then he’s probably mad with grief over his father’s death. Either way he’s not credible,” Bridgestock snarled.
“And yet we are going to hear him out, and Thomas as well, because that is the task that is appointed to us,” Charlotte said icily. “Thomas and Alastair both will be held here in the Sanctuary until they can be tried by the Mortal Sword.”
“You cannot make that decision without me,” Bridgestock objected. “I would try them right now, if not for the fact that the Mortal Sword is currently in Paris.” He said the word “Paris” with surprising loathing.
“Fortunately, Will and Tessa will be here tomorrow morning, with the Sword,” said Charlotte, exchanging a swift look with Gideon. “Now, Maurice, I fear your eagerness to make your arrest known has only stoked panic. You had best come with me to the courtyard, to communicate that the Enclave has the matter well in hand. The identity of the accused will not be released until after the Mortal Sword is employed tomorrow.”
Bridgestock gave Charlotte a long, furious look, but he had no choice. She was the Consul. With an oath, he stalked from the room; he would have slammed the doors behind him, James was sure, if not for the fact that Cordelia had shoved herself through the gap. She raced past the Inquisitor without a glance and threw her arms around Alastair. “I heard,” she said, pressing her forehead to her brother’s shoulder. “I was outside with Eugenia. I heard everything.”
“Ghoseh nakhor, hamechi dorost mishe,” Alastair said, stroking his sister’s back. James was surprised to realize he understood. Everything will be all right. “Listen to me, Layla.” Alastair lowered his voice. “I haven’t wanted to fret you, but Mâmân has been told by the Silent Brothers to keep to her bed, for the sake of her health and the baby’s. I do not think we should worry her more. Tell her I’m spending the night at the Institute to keep Christopher company.”
Cordelia blinked back tears. “Yes—I’ll send a runner with a message, but—will she believe that? You hardly know Christopher.”
Alastair kissed Cordelia’s forehead. As he did, he closed his eyes, and James felt the strange sense that he was getting a rare glimpse at the intensity of Alastair’s true feelings. “She’ll just be glad to think I have a friend, I suspect.”
“Alastair—”
“This room has become entirely too crowded,” said Charlotte, looking worriedly after the Inquisitor. “All of you, save Alastair and Thomas, clear out—you, too, Gideon. We must be seen to be cooperating. You do understand that.”
“Indeed,” said Gideon, in a tone that indicated that he very much didn’t. He smiled at Thomas, who was still looking dazed. “But it’s ridiculous just leaving them here—they need blankets, food—they’re not being tortured, Charlotte.”
Charlotte looked indignant. “Indeed not. They’ll have everything they need. Now, Gideon, Christopher, Matthew, James—and you, too, Cordelia—you must go.”
Reluctantly, the Merry Thieves began filing out of the Sanctuary, each of them stopping to lay a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and murmur an encouraging word. As Cordelia released her brother reluctantly, joining her friends, she murmured—loud enough for James to hear, “If they don’t have the Mortal Sword here by tomorrow morning, I’ll break you out with Cortana.”
“I heard that!” Charlotte scolded. She held herself very straight, as befitted a Consul, but James could have sworn her face wore the faintest trace of a smile as she closed the iron doors of the Sanctuary behind them, locking Thomas in with Alastair Carstairs.
18
GOBLIN MARKET
One set his basket down,
One rear’d his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav’d the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
—Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
“So what is this contraption?” Christopher wondered aloud, prodding gingerly at the adamas object Thomas had retrieved from Golden Square. It sat squatly in the middle of the round table in the upstairs room of the Devil Tavern; around the table were ranged James, Matthew, Christopher, Lucie, and Cordelia. Anna sat on her own in a wing-backed chair with stuffing sprouting from its arms. Several bottles of whiskey stood half-empty on a windowsill.
Anna had arrived at the Devil sometime in the afternoon, only waving away the question when the others asked her whether she had learned anything. “I warned him,” she’d said, sinking down into the armchair and declining offers of tea or sherry. “I knew Thomas was going out on his own last night, and I warned him not to do it. I must not have been convincing enough.”
Anna so rarely expressed self-doubt that the others, including Cordelia, stared in amazement for a moment. It was Matthew who broke the silence. “We all warned him, Anna, but Thomas is a bloody-minded stubborn bastard. Though quite tiny when he was young, and really,” he added, “rather adorable, like a guinea pig or a mouse.”
James thwacked Matthew gently on the back of the head. “I believe what he means to say is that it cannot be the responsibility of one’s friends to prevent one from doing something one believes is right,” he said. “It is, however, the job of one’s friends to rescue one from the consequences of one’s actions when it all goes skew-whiff.”