Chapter 16: Chimes at Midnight

16CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

—Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

Cordelia had been nervous aboutapproaching the Hell Ruelle, given what had happened at the cabaret in Paris, but the doorman (a squat, broad-shouldered fellow with a square jaw and lidless toad’s eyes) gave her only a cursory glance before allowing her in. It seemed she was a known visitor, a fact that Cordelia was not sure whether she should be pleased about. She hadn’t visited the Ruelle that many times, she thought, but it appeared she’d left an impression.

This was the first time she’d ever come to the Downworlder salon alone. She had not told anyone what she was planning. She felt a little guilty about it—Anna had been so kind to her, and Alastair had spent all day with Christopher and Thomas in the Institute library, searching out ways to help her. When she had returned to the Institute from Chiswick House with the others, they had found the boys waiting for them in the chapel. Apparently Christopher had only just returned from Limehouse, where he had purchased an amulet from Hypatia Vex’s magic shop.

“It seems there are loads of these,” he’d said, passing it over to her. It was silver, round like a coin, with a pin on the back that allowed it to be worn as a brooch. “Protective amulets against Lilith specifically. Even mundanes used to wear them, and Shadowhunters did before the protection rituals were invented. It has the names of the three angels who oppose Lilith etched on it, the ones who blessed James’s gun. Sanvi, Sansanvi, Semangelaf.” He traced the Hebrew letters with his fingers before handing the amulet to Cordelia. “It won’t make you not a paladin anymore, but it may discourage Lilith from approaching you.”

That night, after dinner, she’d pinned it to the sleeve of her dark blue dress before clambering out her window—with a silent apology to Alastair, but there was no point telling him where she was going; he would only worry—and hurrying to hail a hansom cab on the street.

She had been too worried about Matthew to sleep. Anna’s words kept echoing in her head: He needs help now. The sort I am afraid I cannot give him, because he will refuse it. Did Anna know about Matthew’s drinking? And regardless of whether she did or not, Cordelia did know—and had not spoken to him about it since they’d returned to London. She’d been too angry, too caught up in protecting herself against the kind of pain her father had caused her.

But Matthew deserved—needed—friends. And instinct told her that if she were to find him, it would be here.

The place was bustling, as usual. Tonight the main salon was done in a kind of deep winter theme, with walls of deep blue, and papier-maché sculptures of snow-burdened trees dangling in midair. The floor was covered with a sort of brilliant false snow, made of what looked like tiny pearls. The tips of Cordelia’s black velvet boots scattered them as she walked; they turned colors as they rose into the air, reflecting miniature rainbows. Everywhere were stamped images of the moon, in various phases—full, half, crescent—in gold paint.

Cordelia was surprised; it did not seem long since she had last been here, and the theme had been a celebration of Lilith, which she had braced herself to endure. She was relieved to see the change and tried to look about unobtrusively, seeking a glimpse of a familiar head of blond curls.

As always, there were sofas and low divans scattered around the salon, and Downworlders crowded onto them, most deep in conversation. There were vampires with powder-white faces, and werewolves in sack suits; faeries dressed as parlormaids, with seaweed curls peeking out from under their mobcaps, moved among the guests, carrying trays of drinks. An unfamiliar warlock with cat’s ears sat across from a round gnome in a pin-striped suit, arguing about the Boer Wars.

But she did not see Matthew. Cordelia blew out a frustrated breath, just as Hypatia Vex herself glided up to her. She wore a silver gown that spread in a pool around her feet, but somehow did not catch on things as she walked—magic, surely—and, atop her head, a massive midnight-blue headdress into the center of which was set a white pearl, the size of a dinner plate and etched to resemble the moon.

“Shadowhunter,” Hypatia said pleasantly, “if you must insist on attending my salon, I’d thank you to take a seat. I cannot tell you how much having Nephilim hovering about unnerves my guests.”

The first time Cordelia had met Hypatia, she had found her terrifying. Now she just smiled politely. “Good evening, Hypatia. Your hat matches your eyes.”

Hypatia’s eyes, whose pupils were the shape of stars, sparkled a bit. Cordelia had known Hypatia long enough to recognize that a bit of flattery was helpful when speaking with her. “Thank you. It was a gift from a sultan. I don’t recall which one.”

“I haven’t any intention of staying and disturbing your guests,” Cordelia said. “I only came to see if Matthew Fairchild was here.”

Hypatia’s perfectly plucked brows rose. “It distresses me that Shadowhunters have decided the place they are most likely to find wayward members of the Enclave is in my salon.”

“He’s not some wayward member of the Enclave,” Cordelia said. “He’s Matthew.”

“Humph,” said Hypatia, but Cordelia thought she saw a flicker of sympathy in Hypatia’s spangled eyes. “Well, it’s likely a good thing you came, regardless. I’d been hoping to speak to you.”

“To me?” Cordelia was astonished. “What about?”

“A private matter. Come with me,” Hypatia said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Round Tom can look after the salon while we’re gone.”

With no idea who Round Tom might be, Cordelia followed Hypatia from the room, trying not to trip on her silver train as it slipped and slid over the false snow.

Hypatia led Cordelia through an arched door and into a small, circular room, in which two plush chairs faced each other across a table inlaid with a chessboard. A rosewood box for the chess pieces had been set to the side, and a tall bookshelf, which oddly held no books, rested against the far wall.

Hypatia sat down and motioned for Cordelia to be seated across the table. Cordelia hoped very much that Hypatia did not want to play a game of chess. Chess was something Cordelia associated with James: with cozy domestic evenings at Curzon Street, where they sat together on the sofa in the light of the fire.…

“Stop daydreaming, girl,” said Hypatia. “Good gracious, you’d think you’d have heard me. I said, ‘So, you’ve become a paladin?’?”

Cordelia sat down hard enough to jounce her spine. Oh, Raziel. She’d been a fool, hadn’t she? “The Cabaret de l’Enfer,” she said. “They told you, didn’t they?”

Hypatia nodded, the pearl in her headdress gleaming. “Indeed. There is quite a gossip network among Downworlders, as you should well know.” She gave Cordelia an appraising look. “Does Magnus know of this paladin business?”

“He does not. And I would ask you not to tell him, but I know you may, regardless. Still. I am asking.”

Hypatia did not respond to Cordelia’s request. Instead, she said: “There have been Shadowhunter paladins before, of course, but—”

Cordelia raised her chin. Might as well make Hypatia say it. “But I’m different?”

“There is no holy light about you,” said Hypatia. She gazed at Cordelia, her starry eyes fathomless. “I have seen the voids between the worlds, and what walks there,” she said. “I have known the fallen angels of the heavenly war, and admired them for their steely pride. I am not one to turn away from shadows. One finds beauty in the darkest of places, and Lucifer was the most beautiful of all Heaven’s angels, once.” She leaned forward. “I understand the urge to reach for such dark beauty, and such power. I have not brought you here to sit in judgment upon you.”

Cordelia said nothing. Far away, she could hear faint laughter from the salon, but she felt as if it were happening on another planet. This was a sort of chess, she realized—a chess game without pieces, played with words and insinuation. Hypatia had not mentioned Lilith by name, yet Cordelia knew Hypatia to be very interested in Lilith indeed.

“You are correct. I am not sworn to an angel,” Cordelia said. “But you do not know who it is I am sworn to, and I am not inclined to say.”

Hypatia shrugged, though Cordelia suspected she was, at the least, disappointed. “So you do not wish to name names. I will find out eventually, I suspect. For when the Shadowhunters discover what you have done, it will be a scandal that rocks the foundations of their world.” She smiled. “But I imagine you know that, and do not care. As a paladin, you are more powerful than any of them now.”

“It was not a power I wanted,” said Cordelia. “I was tricked into taking the oath. Deceived.”

“An unwilling paladin?” Hypatia said. “That’s rather unique.”

“You don’t believe me,” Cordelia said. “Yet I am desperate to sever this bond. There is much I would do for anyone who could tell me how to cease being a paladin.”

Hypatia sat back in her chair, her gaze thoughtful. “Well,” she said. “Ceasing to be a paladin is easy enough. The trick is to do so and survive. A paladin can be rejected by the one she serves, of course. But whether that rejection would leave you alive afterward… well, I would not bet money on it.”

Cordelia let out a long breath. “I do not think the one to whom I am bound would reject me,” she said. “My master knows I did not seek this out. That I serve unwillingly. That I go unarmed, that I might not even in error lift a weapon in the service of the demon who tricked me.”

“My,”said Hypatia. She seemed, someone despite herself, interested in the drama of the situation. “That is commitment. A Shadowhunter who will not fight.” She shook her head. “Most paladins of demons have served enthusiastically. And the ones who refused to serve were torn apart by their masters, as a warning. You have been lucky, so far.”

Cordelia shuddered. “So, what you’re saying is that it can’t be done?”

“I am saying it is a waste of time to pursue it. Pursue instead the idea of turning your power toward something good.”

“No good can come from an evil power.”

“I disagree,” said Hypatia. “You took on, what, a dozen Naga demons in Paris? And more demons here in London. You truly could become the greatest, most effective Shadowhunter that has ever been known.”

“Even if I were willing to lift my sword in a demon’s name,” Cordelia said, “other demons recognize me as a paladin. They flee from me. It happened just today.”

“So summon them. Then they can’t flee.” Hypatia sounded bored. “You are a paladin. Simply find a place—it’s best if it has a dark history, a place of death or horror, scarred by tragedy—and say the words cacodaemon invocat, and—”

“Stop!” Cordelia held up her hands. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do anything that will summon up demons—”

“Well, all right,” said Hypatia, clearly affronted. “It was just an idea.” She looked at Cordelia narrowly, but before she could say anything, the bookcase slid aside like a pocket door, and Magnus emerged, looking elegant in royal blue.

“Hypatia, my sweet,” he said. “It’s time for us to leave, if we wish to arrive in Paris in time for the evening performance.” He winked at Cordelia. “Always a pleasure to see you, my dear.”

“Paris?” Cordelia echoed. “I didn’t realize you were going—I mean, I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.”

“I thought I’d have a word with Madam Dorothea at the Cabaret de l’Enfer,” he said. “A warlock who claims they can communicate with the dead… well. So many of them are charlatans or fakes.”

“You will never find me near such a grubby place,” Hypatia said, and stood up from her chair. “But there are many other things in the City of Lights to tempt me.” She inclined her head in Cordelia’s direction. “Take care, little warrior.” She gestured toward the main room of the salon. “Your boy is here. He arrived some moments ago, but I was enjoying our discussion too much to mention it. My apologies.”

With that, Hypatia turned and followed Magnus back through the gap of the bookshelf, which slid closed behind them. Cordelia hurried into the main room, where she spotted Matthew at a table by himself, wearing dark green velvet and drinking something fizzy from a tall glass.

He was staring down at his drink, turning the glass around and around, as if it were a scrying bowl and he could see the future in it. Only when Cordelia approached him did he raise his head.

She could see immediately why Anna was worried. There were dark yellow-green circles under his eyes, and bruises at the corners of his mouth. His hands shook as he reached for his glass; his nails were bitten, which she had never seen before—Matthew usually kept his hands immaculate.

“Cordelia?” he said wonderingly. “What are you doing here, in the Ruelle?”

She took the seat across from him. Somehow he had gotten gold paint on his hands, from the glass he was holding, and a little had smeared on his cheekbone as well. It seemed strangely festive, at odds with how unwell he looked. “I came because I thought you would be here.”

“I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

He was right, of course. She had said that, because it was the sensible thing, because not seeing him or James was the sensible path. But nothing in her life was sensible right now. “I was worried about you,” she admitted. “When you didn’t come to Chiswick today. Ariadne said you were doing her a favor, but I wondered…”

“I was doing her a favor,” said Matthew. “A bit of investigative work. I am not entirely useless, you know.”

“I suppose I was worried—not just about you, but that you didn’t want to see me. That that’s why you didn’t come.”

“Surely,” he said, “we are not going to have an argument about which of us doesn’t want to see the other one. It does not seem productive.”

“I don’t want to have an argument at all,” said Cordelia. “I want—” She sighed. “I want you to stop drinking,” she said. “I want you to tell your family the truth about what happened two years ago. I want you to reconcile with your parents, and with James. I want you to be brilliant and wonderful, which you are, and happy, which you are not.”

“Just another way that I’ve failed you,” he said quietly.

“You must stop thinking about it that way,” Cordelia said. “You’re not failing me, you’re not failing your family. You’re failing yourself.”

Impetuously, she held out her hand. He took it, closing his eyes as he threaded their fingers together. He was biting his lower lip, and Cordelia remembered in that moment what it was like to kiss him, the taste of cherries and the softness of his mouth. How it had made her forget everything else; how she had felt like the beautiful Cordelia, a princess in a story.

He pressed his thumb into the center of her palm. Circled it there, the pad of his fingertip against the sensitive skin sending a jolt up her arm. Cordelia shivered. “Matthew…”

He opened his eyes. The velvet jacket turned them to a very dark green, the color of fern leaves or forest moss. My beautiful Matthew, she thought, all the more beautiful for being so broken. “Raziel,” he said, his voice ragged. “This is torture.”

“Then we should stop,” Cordelia said in a low voice, but she did not draw back her hand.

“It is a torture I like,” he said. “The best kind of pain. I felt nothing for so long, held every experience and every passion at arm’s length. And then you—”

“Don’t,” Cordelia said softly.

But he went on, looking not at her but inward, as if at an imagined scene. “They used to make a sort of flat dagger, you know, a narrow thing that could slide through the gaps in armor.”

“A misericorde,” said Cordelia. “Meant to deliver the death stroke to a wounded knight.” She looked at him in some alarm. “Are you saying…?”

Matthew laughed a little breathlessly. “I am saying that with you, I have no armor. I feel everything. For better or worse.”

“We should not be talking like this,” Cordelia said. She squeezed his hand, hard, then drew hers back, clasping her own hands together to prevent herself from reaching out to him again. “Matthew, you must tell James—”

“Tell him what?” said Matthew. He was pale, a sheen of sweat across his forehead and cheekbones. “That I love you? He knows that. I’ve told him. There’s nothing to be gained there.”

“I meant, tell him about what happened,” said Cordelia. “At the Shadow Market. The faerie, the potion—it will be easier to tell him than your parents, and then he can help you tell them. Matthew, this secret is like poison in your blood. You have to draw it off. You told me; you must be able to—”

“I told you because you were a stranger to the situation,” Matthew said. “James has known my mother all his life. She is his godmother.” His voice was flat. “I honestly don’t know whether he could truly forgive me for hurting her.”

“I think he would forgive you for anything.”

Matthew rose to his feet, nearly knocking over his glass. He stood for a moment, holding on to the back of his chair; his hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat, and his eyes looked glazed.

“Matthew,” Cordelia said in alarm. “Matthew, what—”

He bolted from the room. Gathering up her wool skirts, Cordelia raced after him, not bothering to retrieve her coat.

She found Matthew outside the Ruelle, on Berwick Street. Bright light from naphtha torches stabbed at her eyes, throwing him into sharp relief against the snow-frosted carriages rattling by. He was on his knees, being sick in the gutter, his shoulders shaking.

“Matthew!”Cordelia started forward in horror, but he waved her back.

“Stay away,” he said hoarsely. He was shivering, his arms wrapped around himself as his body spasmed. “Please—”

Cordelia hung back as passersby swirling around her, none of them giving Matthew a second look. He wasn’t glamoured, but a gentleman being sick in the gutters of Soho was hardly a rare sight.

At last he clambered to his feet and went over to a lamppost; he leaned his back against it, and with shaking hands, he slipped a flask from inside his jacket.

“Don’t—” Cordelia started toward him.

“It’s water,” he said hoarsely. He drew a linen handkerchief from his breast pocket and cleaned his hands and face. His sweat-damp hair hung into his eyes. There was something intensely painful about watching him, Cordelia thought. About the contrast between his expensive clothes and monogrammed handkerchief and his bruised eyes and trembling hands.

He put the flask away, balled up the handkerchief, and hurled it into the gutter. He raised his bloodshot green eyes to hers. “I know what you said inside. That you wanted me to stop drinking. Well, I’ve been trying. I haven’t had alcohol since—since yesterday.”

“Oh, Matthew,” Cordelia said, wanting to go to him, to put her hand on his arm. But something about his posture—spiky, defensive—held her back. “I don’t think it’s quite that simple. One cannot just stop.”

“I always thought I could,” he said emptily. “I thought I could stop anytime I liked. Then I tried, in Paris, our first day. And I was vilely sick.”

“You hid it well,” she said.

“I could barely manage twelve hours,” he said. “I knew—in that state—I could be of no use to you. It’s not an excuse, but it is why I lied about stopping. I had not brought you to Paris so you could spend time watching me convulse and clutch the floor.”

Cordelia knew she could tell him how foolish that had been, how she would have preferred to hold his hand as he screamed out for brandy than to be lied to. But now did not seem the time; it would be like kicking Oscar.

“Let us get you back to your flat,” Cordelia said. “I know things that can help—I remember, the times my father tried to stop—”

“But he never did succeed, did he?” Matthew said bitterly. The cold air ruffled his hair as he let his head fall back against the lamppost. “I’ll go home,” he said wearily. “But—alone.”

“Matthew—”

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he said. “I never did.” He shook his head, his eyes closed. “I can’t bear it. Cordelia. Please.”

In the end, all he would allow her to do was flag down a hansom cab and watch while he climbed inside. As it drove off, she saw, illuminated by gaslight, that he was hunched over, his face in his hands.

Cordelia turned back toward the Hell Ruelle. She needed to find a runner who could deliver a message—several messages—as quickly as she could.

---

Jesse was not at dinner that night. Which, Will and Tessa said, was entirely to be expected: he’d had his protection ceremony done that day, in the Silent City, and though Jem had said everything had gone well, it was natural for him to be tired.

But Lucie still looked worried, though she tried to hide it, and James was even more sure that Jesse’s mood had something to do with Grace. He picked listlessly at his food as his family’s voices rose and fell around him: the Christmas tree had been misplaced by Bridget and she and Tessa were checking every closet in the Institute one by one; also, Tessa and Will agreed that Alastair Carstairs was a very well-mannered young man; also, remember when he and James had to deal with the unpleasantness at James and Cordelia’s wedding, hurrying a drunk Elias away from the reception party before he made a scene. Which only reminded James of Cordelia, as everything did these days.

When dinner had ended, James retreated to his room. He shucked off his dinner jacket and was in the process of unlacing his boots when he saw a piece of paper stuck into the corner of his mirror.

He plucked it up, frowning. Someone had scrawled the word ROOF on it in capital letters, and he had a fairly good idea who. James caught up a wool coat and headed for the stairs.

To reach the roof of the Institute required climbing up through the attic and unlatching a trapdoor. The roof was steeply slanted in most places; only here, at the top of the stairs, was there a flat, rectangular space surrounded by an iron fence, whose finials ended in pointed fleur-de-lis. Leaning against the dark fence was Jesse.

It was a clear night, the stars glittering like diamonds made of frost. London lay spread out under a silvery moon, the smoke from chimneys rising in black columns to stain the sky. Rooflines were crusted in sugary white.

Jesse wore only his dinner jacket—an old one of James’s, it was much too short on him, the sleeves coming only halfway down his forearms—and no coat or scarf. Here, the wind blew off the Thames, bringing with it an icy chill, but if Jesse noticed, he gave no sign.

“You must be freezing,” James said. “Do you want my coat?”

Jesse shook his head. “I am freezing, I think. It is still hard for me to tell, sometimes, exactly what my body is feeling.”

“How did you know about the roof?” James asked, coming to stand beside Jesse, next to the fence.

“Lucie showed me,” Jesse said. “I like to come up here. It makes me feel as if I’m as I once was—traveling freely through the air above London.” He cast a glance at James. “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t wish I were a ghost again. It’s the loneliest thing you can imagine. The whole city beneath your feet, swirling around you, yet you cannot touch it, affect it. You cannot speak to the people you pass. Only the dead answer and those few, like your sister, who can see the dead. But most are not like Lucie. Most fear and shun us. The sight of us is, to them, a curse.”

“And yet you miss this one bit of it,” James said. “That’s understandable. It used to be that when I slept, I would sense Belial. See the shadowy realms he inhabits. Now, when I sleep, I see nothing. And it frightens me, that nothing. One should dream.”

Jesse looked off toward the river. There was something contained about him, James thought, as if he had been through so much that it would take a great deal to shock or upset him now. “I saw Grace this morning,” Jesse said. “She told me everything.”

James felt his hands grip the railing hard. He had guessed, and yet… “Everything?” he said quietly.

“About the bracelet,” Jesse said. “Her power. About what she did to you.”

The metal of the fence was icy, but James found he could not let go of it. He had worked so hard to control who knew what had happened to him. He knew it would happen someday—knew any relationship he could have with Cordelia depended on her knowing—and yet when he thought of saying the words Grace controlled me, made me feel things, do things, he wanted to retch. How pitiable Jesse must think he was—how weak.

He heard his own voice as if from a distance. “Have you told anyone?”

“Of course not,” Jesse said. “It’s your secret, to share as you wish.” He looked back out at the city. “I considered not telling you,” he said. “That Grace confessed to me. But that seemed like another betrayal, even of a small kind, and you deserve the truth. You must decide how to tell your friends, your family, in your own time.”

With a great effort, James unclenched his fists from around the iron railing. He shook them, trying to restore feeling to his fingertips. “I have told no one,” he said. “I suppose Grace told you that the Silent Brothers wish to keep this fact a secret—”

Jesse nodded.

“—but that will only be a temporary reprieve for me.”

“A reprieve?” Jesse looked surprised. “You don’t wish to tell your friends, your family?”

“No,” James said quietly. “It feels to me as if telling them would be like reliving every moment of what happened. They would have questions, and pity, and I could bear neither.”

There was a long silence. Jesse looked at the face of the moon, visible through a break in the clouds. “Belial used my hands to kill people. To kill Shadowhunters. I tell myself over and over there was nothing I could have done, but I still believe somehow, in my heart, I could have stopped it.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” said James. “You were being controlled.”

“Yes,” Jesse said, and James heard his own words again, echoed back to him. You were being controlled. “Do you pity me?”

“No,” James said. “At least—it isn’t pity. I feel anger that you were wronged. Sorry for the hurt caused to you. Admiration for the way in which you have faced it.”

“Do not think so little of your friends,” said Jesse, “and of Cordelia, as to imagine they will feel differently than that.” He looked down at his hands. “I know they will be angry,” he said. “With Grace. I am furious at her. Sickened by what she did. And still…”

“Still she is your sister. No one would blame you if… you forgave her.”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “For so many years, she was the only person in my life who loved me. She was my little sister. I felt as if I had been born to protect her.” He gave the faintest of smiles. “You must know what I mean.”

James thought of all the scrapes Lucie had gotten into over the years, the many times he’d had to rescue her from tree-climbing adventures gone too far, overturned rowboats, and warlike ducks, and nodded.

“But how can I forgive Grace for doing to you what Belial did to me?” Jesse said wretchedly. “And when Lucie finds out—she adores you, you know. She has always said she could not have asked for a better brother. She will want to kill Grace, and will not thank me for standing in her way.”

“The Clave’s laws against murder will stand in her way,” said James, finding that despite everything, he could smile. “Lucie is tempestuous, but she has sense. She will know that you would never have approved of what Grace did.”

Jesse looked out toward the silver ribbon of the Thames. “I had hoped we would be friends, you and I,” he said. “I had imagined us training together, perhaps. I had not imagined this. And yet…”

James knew what he meant. It was something of a bond, this peculiar connection: both of them had had their lives warped and twisted by Belial and Tatiana. Both bore the scars. He almost felt as if he should shake Jesse’s hand; it seemed the manly sort of thing to do, to seal the agreement that they were to be friends from this moment on. Of course, if it had been Matthew, he would not have cared at all about manly agreements—Matthew would simply have hugged James or wrestled him to the ground or tickled him until he was breathless.

But Jesse was not Matthew. No one was. Matthew had brought anarchic joy into James’s life, like light into a dark place. With Matthew, James felt the unspeakable happiness that came from being with one’s parabatai, a happiness that transcended all other things. Without Matthew… the image of Chiswick House came unbidden into his mind, with its smashed mirrors and stopped clocks. The symbol of sadness frozen in time, never-ending.

Stop,James told himself. Focus on the present. On what you can do for Jesse.

“Come with me, tomorrow,” he said, rather suddenly, and saw Jesse raise an eyebrow. “I won’t tell you where—you’ll have to trust me—but I think you will find it rewarding.”

Jesse laughed. “All right,” he said. “I trust you, then.” He frowned down at his own hands. “And I believe you were right. I am freezing. My fingers are turning quite blue.”

They scrambled back through the trapdoor and made their way through the attic, which James suspected had not changed much since his parents had been young. Jesse returned to his room, and James to his, only to discover that Bridget had slid a slightly crumpled envelope halfway under his door. It seemed that while he had been on the roof, Neddy had come to the Institute with a message for him.

A message from Cordelia.

---

It turned out that Anna’s plan, which Ariadne had assumed involved a complex series of maneuvers that would somehow produce Winston the parrot, consisted of them using an Open rune to get into the Bridgestocks’ house through a back entrance and commencing a lightning raid on the home Ariadne had lived in since she’d moved to London.

She found she rather enjoyed it. She led Anna immediately to the conservatory, where Winston’s gold cage usually held pride of place. Her stomach swooped when she saw that it was not there. What if her parents, in their anger at her, had sold Winston or given him away?

“He’s likely just in another room,” Anna whispered. They had both been whispering since they entered the house, though Ariadne knew it was empty and the servants, in their quarters downstairs, would be unlikely to hear anything. And they were both wearing Soundless runes. Still, there was something about the dark house that invited whispering.

They searched through the ground floor, Anna shining her witchlight rune-stone into every corner. Having found nothing, they moved upstairs, creeping along the carpeted floors to Ariadne’s bedroom.

Ariadne noticed several things the moment she stepped into her former room. First was Winston, perched in his cage, which had been placed on her desk. A small dish of nuts and seeds sat beside it. Winston flapped his wings happily at the sight of her.

“There you are,” Anna said, glancing over at Ariadne, who was relieved, but… The second thing she’d noticed was the state of her bedroom. She had expected it to be stripped down, removed of everything that might remind her parents of her. Instead everything was in its place, pin straight. The jewelry she had not taken with her was in an open velvet box on the dresser, along with her cosmetics and comb. The remainder of her clothes hung pressed in the wardrobe. Her bed was neatly made.

They are keeping up appearances,she realized. For themselves, not for anyone else. They are keeping up the fiction that I might return at any moment. She could imagine the scenario they envisioned—Ariadne fleeing back to Cavendish Square, the tears of regret on her cheeks, her mother fussing over her as she told them of the wide world and its cruelties, of the beliefs she’d entertained that she knew now were wrong. Why, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever come to think that she loved—

“Pretty bird,” called Winston hopefully.

“Oh, Winston,” Ariadne murmured, and passed a shelled peanut through the bars of his cage. “Never fear, I hadn’t forgotten you. You’re coming with us.” She looked around; ah, here was her purple afghan, folded at the foot of the bed. She picked it up to unfold it.

Winston glanced over at Anna, who had flung herself on Ariadne’s bed and was watching their reunion with amusement. “Anna,” he said.

“That’s right,” Ariadne said, pleased. Usually when Winston looked at people he said, “Brazil nut?”

“Trouble,” said Winston, now gazing askance at Anna. “Anna. Trouble.”

“Winston,” Ariadne said, and now she could see that Anna was trying hard not to laugh, “that is a very rude thing to say. She is helping me rescue you so we can be together again. It’s her flat we’re taking you to, so you had best behave yourself.”

“Ariaaaadne,” Winston said in an almost frighteningly perfect imitation of her mother calling for her. “Pretty bird? Brazil nut?”

Ariadne rolled her eyes and tossed the afghan over his cage. “Bird,” Winston said thoughtfully from beneath it, and then fell silent.

She shook her head ruefully as she turned back to Anna, and then stopped as she realized that Anna’s expression had lost its mischief. She seemed quietly serious now, as if lost in thought.

“What is it?” Ariadne said.

Anna was quiet a moment, and then said, “I was only wondering—do you still want to be called Ariadne? It’s the name that your… well, you know, Maurice and Flora gave you. And you were also Kamala. Which is quite a lovely name. Not that Ariadne is not also a lovely name.” Her mouth quirked again. “It ought to be your choice, I think. What you wish to be called.”

Ariadne was touched, and a little startled. It was something she herself had been considering, but she would not have expected Anna to have thought of it. “It is a good question,” she said, leaning against the dresser. “Both names were given to me. As names are, of course; they represent a sort of gift, but also, I think, a set of expectations. My first family thought I would be one sort of girl, but I am not that girl. My second also had expectations of who I would be, and I am not that girl either. Yet those names are still a part of who I am. I think I would like to be named something new, that binds the two together. I thought,” she said shyly, “Arati. It was my first grandmother’s name. She always said it referred to divine fire, or to praising the Angel with a lamp in hand. It makes me think of being a light in darkness. And that is something I would like to be. I would ask to be called Ari,” she added, “for that honors the name I have had for the past twelve years.”

“Ari,” Anna said. She was leaning back on her hands, looking up at Ariadne, her blue eyes very intent. Her collar was loose, her dark curls just touching the back of her neck. The line of her body was graceful, her back slightly arched, the curves of her small, high breasts just visible beneath her shirt. “Well. That name should not be hard to remember, given that I’ve been calling you by it for quite some time. Ari,” she said again, and the sound was different than it had been before—a caress.

A future seemed to open before Ari in that moment. A more honest future, one in which she was who she wished to be. Right now she knew she was crossing a sort of bridge, from her old life to the new one, and Anna was in that in-between place with her. A place of transformation, where there was no commitment, no vows or promises, only an understanding that everything was changing.

She sank down on the bed beside Anna, who turned to her, a question in her eyes. Ari reached out and stroked her hand along the curve of Anna’s cheekbone. She had always loved the contrasts of Anna’s face: her sharp, angular bones, her lush red mouth.

The blue of Anna’s eyes darkened as Ari traced the line of her jaw, then her throat, coming to rest on the top button of her shirt. Ari leaned forward and kissed Anna’s neck—kissed her fluttering pulse point, daringly licked the hollow at the base of her throat. She thought Anna tasted of tea, dark and bittersweet.

Anna caught at Ari’s waist, her hips, pulled her closer. Said, her breath uneven, “Ari, should we—?”

“It need not mean anything,” Ari whispered. “It need only be because we want to. Nothing more.”

Anna seemed almost to flinch—and then her hands buried themselves in Ari’s hair, her mouth finding Ari’s, nipping at her lower lip, their tongues curling together. Ari had always let Anna take the lead before, but now they sank onto the bed together, Ari undoing Anna’s shirt, her hands smoothing across soft, pale skin, the rise and fall of slim curves, Anna gasping into her mouth.

Anna’s arms rose to twine about her, and everything else—Ari’s parents, her future in the Enclave, her imaginary flat—was forgotten in the tide of fire that swept across her skin as she luxuriated in the touch and feel of Anna, of Anna’s clever hands, of the pleasure given and received between them, as strong and shining and delicate as flame.