Chapter 10: Wanderer

10WANDERER

He saw a black shadow: a big raven squatted motionless, staring at Majnun, eyes glowing like lamps. “Dressed in mourning, he is a wanderer like myself,” thought Majnun, “and in our hearts we probably feel the same.”

—Nizami Ganjavi, Layla and Majnun

It always surprised Cordelia, howLondon could be at once overcast and even rainy, and yet also bright enough to sting her eyes. From inside the carriage with Alastair, she blinked against the glare of the milk-white sky, and thought about the clear sunshine in Paris. Her time there was already beginning to seem removed and distant, like the memory of a dream.

They sat in silence as the driver navigated traffic on the Strand. Alastair, even a year ago, would have had a torrent of questions. He now seemed content to wait for Cordelia to speak.

“Alastair,” she said as they swung onto the Mall, with its terraced white facades. “I assume Magnus let you know to come and fetch me?”

Alastair frowned at her. “Cordelia, put gloves on. It’s cold. And yes, Magnus told me you’d just Portaled back. He said that you seemed exhausted after your travels and that you might appreciate being retrieved.”

“Retrieved,”Cordelia muttered. “Makes me sound like luggage. And I haven’t got gloves with me. I must have left them back at the hotel.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Alastair removed his own gloves and began to jam them onto Cordelia’s hands. They were comically too big, but very warm, especially since he’d just been wearing them. She flexed her fingers gratefully.

“I was surprised,” Alastair said. “I would have thought you’d be returning to your house on Curzon Street. You might recall it? The house in which you reside with James Herondale? Your husband?”

Cordelia looked out the window. Carriages, omnibuses, and the like were snarled up around a large stone arch ahead—some sort of monument, though she couldn’t recall which one. Up above, the driver was complaining loudly about the traffic. “I was worried about Maman,” she said. “I oughtn’t to have left with the baby due so soon. In fact, I think I shall stay in Cornwall Gardens at least until the baby is born.”

“Your devotion to family is admirable,” Alastair said dryly. “I’m sure it is unrelated to your having just run off to Paris with your husband’s parabatai.”

Cordelia sighed. “I had my reasons, Alastair.”

“I’m sure you did,” he said, surprising her again. “I wish you’d tell me what they were. Are you in love with Matthew?”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia said. Not that she didn’t have thoughts on the matter, but she didn’t feel like sharing them with Alastair at the moment.

“Are you in love with James, then?”

“Well. We are married.”

“That’s not really an answer,” said Alastair. “I don’t really like James,” he added, “but on the other hand, I also don’t like Matthew very much. So you see, I am torn.”

“Well, this must be very difficult for you,” Cordelia said crossly. “I cannot imagine how you will find it within yourself to go on.”

She made a dismissive gesture, which was spoiled when Alastair burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But those gloves are enormous on you.”

“Humph,” said Cordelia.

“About James—”

“Are we the sort of family that discusses our intimate relationships now?” Cordelia interrupted. “Perhaps you would like to talk about Charles?”

“Generally not. Charles seems to be healing up, and beyond him surviving, I have no further interest in what happens to him,” said Alastair. “In fact, there have been a few touch-and-go moments with my caring about whether he survives. He was always demanding that I adjust his pillows. ‘And now the foot pillow, Alastair,’?” he said, in a squeaky voice that, to be fair, sounded nothing like the actual Charles. Alastair was terrible at impressions.

“I wouldn’t mind a foot pillow,” said Cordelia. “It sounds rather nice.”

“You are clearly in an emotional state, so I will ignore your rambling,” said Alastair. “Look, you need not discuss your feelings about James, Matthew, or whatever other harem of men you may have acquired, with me. I merely want to know if you’re all right.”

“No, you want to know if either of them has done something awful to me, so you can chase them around, shouting,” said Cordelia darkly.

“I could want both,” Alastair pointed out. They had made it out of the traffic finally and were rattling through Knightsbridge, past Harrods, bright with Christmas decorations, and streets crowded with barrow boys selling chestnuts and hot pies.

“I really have been worried about Maman,” Cordelia said.

Alastair’s expression softened. “Maman is fine, Layla, other than weariness. She sleeps a great deal. When she is awake, she grieves for our father. It is her grief that wearies her, I think, not her condition.”

“Is she angry at me?” Cordelia hadn’t realized she was going to say such a thing until it was already out of her mouth.

“For going to Paris? No, not at all. She was quite calm when we got your note; calmer than I’d expected, I must say. She said that if your dreams had taken you to Paris, then she was happy. I don’t recall anyone ever saying that about me when I went to Paris,” he added. “It is a dreadful chore, being the eldest.”

Cordelia sighed. “I oughtn’t to have gone, Alastair—if it hadn’t been for her, for Lilith, I don’t think I would have. But I am useless. I cannot protect anyone. I cannot even pick up my sword.”

“Cortana.” He looked at her, a strange expression in his dark eyes. She knew they had the same eyes—black, only a shade lighter than the pupil—but on Alastair, she recognized that their light transformed his face, softening its severity. That they were striking. She had never thought that about her own eyes; she supposed people didn’t consider themselves that way. “Layla, I have to tell you something.”

She tensed. “What is it?”

“I couldn’t keep Cortana in the house,” he said, “or with me, due to some rather—unfortunate visitors.”

They were passing Hyde Park; it was a green blur outside Cordelia’s window. “Demons?”

Alastair nodded. “Raveners,” he said. “Spy demons. I could have managed them myself, but with Maman… Don’t worry,” he added hastily, seeing her expression. “Thomas helped me hide it. I won’t tell you where, but it’s safe. And I haven’t seen a Ravener since I locked it away.”

She wanted desperately to ask him where he had hidden it, but knew she couldn’t. It was silly, but she missed Cortana terribly. I’ve so changed myself, she thought, that I do not know if Cortana would choose me again, even if I were no longer Lilith’s paladin. It was a miserable thought.

“Thomas helped you?” she said instead. “Thomas Lightwood?”

“Oh, look, we’re here,” said Alastair brightly, and threw the door of the carriage open, leaping from it before it had quite stopped rolling.

“Alastair!”Cordelia hopped down after her brother, who seemed none the worse for his plunge and was already paying the driver.

She looked up at the house. She was fond of it—fond of the calm white front, the shiny black 102 painted on the rightmost pillar, fond of the quiet, leafy London street. But it was not home, she thought, as she followed Alastair up the front path to the door. This was her mother’s house—a refuge, but not home. Home was Curzon Street.

Cordelia suspected Risa had been peering out a window, as she appeared immediately to whisk the front door open and usher them inside. She pointed accusingly at Cordelia’s trunk, which sat in the middle of the entryway.

“It just appeared,” she complained, fanning herself with a dish towel. “One moment not there, then poof! It gave me quite a turn, I tell you. Tekan khordam.”

“Sorry, Risa dear,” said Cordelia. “I’m sure Magnus didn’t mean for it to startle you.”

Risa muttered as Alastair lifted the trunk and began heaving it up the stairs. “What did you buy in Paris?” he complained. “A Frenchman?”

“Be quiet, he’s asleep,” said Cordelia. “He speaks no English, but he can sing ‘Frère Jacques’ and he makes excellent crêpes suzette.”

Alastair snorted. “Risa, are you going to help me with this?”

“No,” Risa said. “I am going to take Layla to khanoom Sona. She will be much happier once she has seen her daughter.”

Cordelia slipped out of her coat and waved a guilty goodbye to Alastair before following Risa down the corridor to her mother’s bedroom. Risa put a finger to her lips before glancing in; a moment later, she was ushering Cordelia into the dimly lit space and closing the door behind her.

Cordelia blinked, her eyes adjusting to the faint light of the fire and the bedside lamp. Sona lay in bed, propped up in a sitting position against a mountain of colorful pillows, a book in her hands. Her belly looked rounder than when Cordelia had seen her only a week before, and her face was sallow and tired, although she smiled at Cordelia brightly.

Cordelia felt a terrible rush of guilt. “Maman,” she cried, and hurried to the bed to carefully embrace her mother.

“Welcome back,” her mother said, brushing her hand through Cordelia’s hair.

“I’m sorry, Maman. I oughtn’t to have gone—”

“Don’t fret.” Sona set her book down. “I told you that the most important thing was to do what would make you happy. So you went to Paris. What’s the great harm?” Her dark eyes searched Cordelia’s face. “I used to think that it was most important to endure, to stay strong. But unhappiness, over time… it poisons your life.”

Cordelia sat down in the chair by the bed and took her mother’s hand. “Was it really so terrible, with Baba?”

“I had you and Alastair,” Sona said, “and that always made me happy. As for your father… I can only mourn the life we never had, that we could have had, if he—if things had been different. But you cannot fix someone, Cordelia,” she added. “In the end, if they can be fixed at all, they must do the repairs themselves.”

She sighed and looked at the flames dancing on the hearth.

“When I brought us to London,” Sona went on, “it was to save our family. To save your father. And we did. You did. And I will always be proud of you for that.” She smiled wistfully. “But what brought us here is over. I think perhaps it’s time we consider leaving London.”

“Return to Cirenworth?” Cirenworth was their country house in Devon, now closed up and uninhabited, with sheets over the furniture and blackout curtains at the windows. It was odd to think of going back there.

“No, Layla, to Tehran,” Sona said. “I’ve been estranged from my aunts and cousins there for too long. And since your father is gone…”

Cordelia could only stare. Tehran, where her mother had been born; Tehran, whose language and history she knew as she knew her own hands, but a place she had no memory of living, whose customs she was not wholly familiar with.

“Tehran?” Cordelia echoed. “I—but we live here.” She was nearly too shocked to speak. “And we could not go now. The Enclave needs us—”

“You have done enough for the Enclave,” said her mother. “You can be a powerful Shadowhunter in Persia, too, if that is what you desire. Such are needed everywhere.” Spoken like a true parent, Cordelia thought. “Layla, I am not saying you must come to Tehran. You have a husband here; of course it would be reasonable for you to remain.”

Cordelia sensed that her mother was treading lightly, delicately, around the topic of her marriage. She wondered dismally what her mother thought had gone wrong between her and James. Or perhaps she only sensed some sort of trouble? She was offering Cordelia an escape, either way.

“Alastair has already said he will come,” Sona said. “Risa, too, of course. With the new baby, I will require both their help.”

“Alastair said he will go?” Cordelia was astonished. “To Tehran? And take care of the baby?” She tried to imagine Alastair burping a baby and sweepingly failed.

“There is no need to repeat everything I say, Layla. And you need not decide this moment.” Sona patted her belly; her eyes were closing in tiredness. “I’m in no state to move thousands of miles away tonight. First I must bring this one into the world. Then you can decide what it is you want.”

She closed her eyes. Cordelia kissed her mother’s forehead and went out into the hall, where she found Alastair lurking in the corridor. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You knew about all this? You agreed to move to Tehran without saying a word to me?”

“Well, you were in Paris. Besides, I thought Maman should tell you, not me.” Cordelia could not see his expression in the darkness of the corridor. “I don’t have anything to stay here for—not really. Perhaps you do, but our situations are different.”

Cordelia could only look at him silently. She could not bring herself to tell him how she felt it all slipping away from her: James, Matthew, Lucie. Her purpose as a Shadowhunter, the wielder of Cortana. What would it be like for her, to lose all that, and her family too, and still remain in London?

“Maybe not,” she said finally. “Maybe they are more similar than you think.”

It was fully two miles’ walk between the Institute and his house, but James wanted the time to himself. London swirled around him, in all its vivid life. Fleet Street itself, with its journalists and barristers and businessmen, on to Leicester Square, where hundreds were queuing outside the Alhambra Theatre for tickets to the winter ballet. Tourists raised glasses to each other in the glowing windows of the brasserie of the Hotel de l’Europe. By the time he reached Piccadilly Circus it was growing dark, and the lights around the statue of Eros were haloed in clouds of dancing snowflakes. The traffic was so busy it had come to a standstill; a raging sea of Christmas shoppers poured past him from Regent Street, laden with brown-paper parcels. A red-faced man who was carrying a giant stuffed giraffe and had clearly been to Hamleys bumped right into him, seemed about to say something rude, then saw his expression and backed away hastily.

James had not glamoured himself, as his winter clothes covered his runes. He could hardly blame the man for rushing off, though; when he caught glimpses of his reflection in the shopwindows as he passed, he saw a young man with a white, stony face who looked as if he had just received some kind of terrible news.

The house on Curzon Street felt as if it had been abandoned for months, rather than days. James kicked the ice and snow off his boots in the entryway, where the bright wallpaper reminded him of the first time he’d brought Cordelia here. So pretty, she’d said. Who chose it?

And he’d felt a moment of pride when he told her he’d been the one to pick it out. Pride that he’d chosen something she liked.

He moved through the rooms, turning up the gas lamps, through the dining room and past the study, where he and Cordelia had played so many games of chess.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a flicker of light. Still in his coat, he headed downstairs to the kitchen, where he was utterly unprepared to be greeted by a bloodcurdling scream.

A moment later he had a dagger in his hand and was facing off with Effie over the kitchen counter. She was wielding a wooden spoon like a gladiator, her gray pompadour trembling.

“Cor,” she said, relaxing as she recognized him. “I wasn’t expecting you back.”

“Well, I’m not back for long,” said James, putting the dagger away. “As it happens, I’m going to be staying at the Institute for at least a few days. Shadowhunter business.”

“And Mrs. Herondale?” said Effie, looking curious. She was still holding the spoon.

“She’s gone to her mother’s. Until the baby is born.”

“Well, nobody told me,” Effie said crossly. “Nobody tells me anything.”

James had begun to develop a headache. “I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you’d pack some of her things in a trunk for her. Someone will be along to fetch it tomorrow.”

Effie hustled out of the kitchen; James thought she seemed relieved to have a specific task to accomplish, or perhaps she was just happy to get away from her knife-wielding employer. He was really winning over the populace today.

James continued through the house, lighting lamps as he went. It had grown dark outside, and the light glowed against the windowpanes. He knew he ought to pack his own trunk, though he had clothes and weapons at the Institute, things he had left there in his old bedroom. He couldn’t decide if he should bring a few items with sentimental value; he both didn’t want to be without them, and didn’t want to contemplate the idea that he would not be returning soon to Curzon Street, to live here with Cordelia.

Everything here reminded him of her. He had known it before, in the back of his mind, but now it was obvious that every decision he’d made in the decorating of the house had been made in the hope of pleasing Cordelia, imagining what would bring her delight. The chessboard in the study, the Persian miniatures, the carved panel over the fireplace that incorporated the Carstairs crest. How could he not have known this at the time? From the beginning they had only agreed to be married a year; he had believed himself in love with Grace, but in the design of the house he’d supposedly hoped they would share someday, he had given Grace no thought at all.

The bracelet’s work had been subtle. It was likely that he had wondered at the time why Grace was not more at the forefront of his mind. But the bracelet would have made sure such thoughts flickered briefly and were quickly extinguished. He could not now re-create the way he had thought of things then. It was strange, not to have been aware of his own feelings, and so infuriating, to be aware of them now, when it was too late.

He found himself standing at the fireplace in the drawing room. Atop the mantel were the broken pieces of the silver bracelet. Effie must have picked them up from the floor where James had left them.

He could not bring himself to touch them. They lay where they were, dull gray in the candlelight. The inscription written on the inside—LOYAULTé ME LIE—had been cut in half along with the band. The two matched crescents seemed only a broken trinket, not capable of destroying anyone’s life.

And yet it had destroyed his. When he thought of what he’d felt for Grace—and there had been feelings, physical and unnatural, and even worse, what he’d believed he felt—it made him nauseated, deep down, in a way that was both violent and violating. His feelings, twisted; his love, directed wrongly; his innocence, turned to a weapon against him.

He thought of Grace, in the Silent City. In the dark, alone. Good. I hope she rots there, he thought, with a bitterness that was utterly unlike him. A bitterness that would, under other circumstances, have made him ashamed.

An orange glow like a candlelight suddenly appeared and drifted in through the open window. It was a sheet of paper, folded like a letter, but on fire and rapidly being consumed. It landed gently atop the piano, where the lace doily under it immediately caught fire as well.

Christopher,James thought immediately.

He put the fire out and brushed the ashes from the edges of the paper. When he turned it over, only two words were still readable. James was fairly sure they said front door.

Curious, he went to the front door and opened it. There he indeed found Christopher, lurking on the steps and looking sheepish.

“Is this yours?” James asked, holding up the burnt scrap. “And what’ve you got against doorbells?”

“What I do,” Christopher said, “I do in the name of the advancement of science. How did it work, by the way?”

“Well, most of the message is burnt away, and you owe me one lace doily,” James said.

Christopher nodded solemnly and withdrew a small notebook and a pencil from his jacket. He began to make a note. “It will be added to the list of friends’ possessions that I must replace, due to the exigencies of—”

“Science. I know,” James said. “Well, come in then.” He couldn’t help smiling as Christopher came in and hung up his coat—a little ragged around the cuffs where it had been burned and stained with various acidic compounds. His light brown hair stuck up around his head like duckling fluff. He seemed absolutely familiar and unchanged in a way that felt like a bit of light in a dark world.

“Is Cordelia here?” Christopher asked as James led him into the drawing room. They both sprawled into armchairs, Christopher tucking his little notebook back into his jacket.

“No,” James said. “She has decided to remain at her mother’s house for the time being. Until the baby is born, at least.”

He wondered how many times he was going to have to say those same sentences. They were already beginning to drive him mad.

“Of course,” Christopher said firmly. “That makes complete sense. It would be strange, in fact, if she was not staying with her mother, so close to the birth of her new sibling. It is my understanding that when a baby is to be born, as many people as possible must gather around to, ah, well. You know.”

James raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway,” Christopher went on before James could reply, “I was speaking with Thomas and we were wondering… I mean to say he thought, and I agreed, that… well, Matthew had sent a note saying he was in Paris and having a fine time with Cordelia and he’d explain when he returned. And now you and Matthew and Cordelia are all back from Paris, but Cordelia isn’t here and…”

“Christopher,” said James calmly. “Where is Thomas?”

Christopher’s ears turned pink. “He went to talk to Matthew.”

“I see,” James said. “You got me, and Thomas got Math. The better for wheedling information out of at least one of us.”

“It’s not like that,” Christopher said, looking miserable, and James felt like a cad. “We’re the Merry Thieves—one for all, and all for one—”

“I think that’s the Three Musketeers,” said James.

“There were four Musketeers, if you count D’Artagnan.”

“Christopher…”

“We’ve never had a fight,” Christopher said. “I mean, none of us with each other, at least nothing serious. If you’ve had a falling-out with Math… we want to help repair it.”

Despite himself, James was touched. As close as he and Christopher had been for years, he’d understood that Christopher would rarely, if ever, be willing to discuss something as irrational as feelings.

“We need each other,” Christopher said simply. “Especially now.”

“Oh, Kit.” James felt a pressure at the back of his eyes. A yearning came over him to seize Christopher and hug him, but knowing that would merely alarm his friend, he stayed where he was. “Math and I are not at each other’s throats. It’s not like that. Nor are either of us angry with Cordelia, or she with us. Things between us are just—complicated.”

“We need Cordelia, too,” said Christopher. “And Cortana. I’ve been reading about paladins—”

“You heard about the Inquisitor, I assume? What happened to him when he went after Tatiana?”

“I am fully informed,” said Christopher. “It seems Belial may soon make his next sally, and without Cordelia, or her sword…”

“Lilith also hates Belial,” said James. “She would not prevent Cordelia from wielding Cortana against him, if it came to that. Still, Cordelia does not want to act while Lilith holds the reins, and I do not blame her.”

“No,” Christopher agreed. “At least Belial does not have a body to possess, as he did with Jesse Blackthorn.”

“You know about Lucie and Jesse, I assume…?”

“Oh, yes,” said Christopher. “I met him at the family meeting last night. He seems a nice enough chap, though he won’t let me run experiments on him, which is unfortunate.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Maybe when things calm down, he’ll reconsider.”

“Maybe,” said James, who doubted it. “In the meantime, we must have a meeting—those of us who know about Cordelia and Lilith—and discuss what can be done.”

Christopher frowned. “Does Jesse know about Cordelia and Lilith? Because Lucie will want him to come to any meeting we have.”

“And he should,” said James. “He knows Belial in a way none of the rest of us do. Even me.” He rubbed at his eyes. He felt exhausted, as if he had traveled back from Paris via train instead of Portal. “I’ll tell him.”

“And I shall send a bevy of my new fire-messages to everyone coming to the meeting,” Christopher said, excited.

“No!” James protested, and then, as Christopher blinked worriedly, he said, “We can just send runners.”

“And fire-messages,” said Christopher.

James sighed. “All right. I shall notify the runners. And the fire brigade.”