Instead she shoved the knife into his hands. “There you go, boy,” she said. “Take your time.”
He thought for a moment that she smiled, but it might have been a trick of the light. She was gone in a rustle of dry grass, leaving James standing before the gates, rusty blade in hand, like Sleeping Beauty’s least successful suitor. With a sigh, he began to cut.
Or at least, he began to try. The dull blade sliced nothing, and the briars were as thick as the bars on the gates. More than once he was stuck sharply by the wicked points of the thorns.
His aching arms soon felt like lead, and his white shirt was spotted with blood. This was ridiculous, he told himself. Surely this went beyond the obligation to help a neighbor. Surely his parents would understand if he tossed the knife aside and went home. Surely—
A pair of hands, white as lilies, suddenly fluttered between the vines. “Herondale boy,” whispered a voice. “Let me help you.”
He stared in astonishment as a few of the vines fell away. A moment later a girl’s face appeared in the gap, pale and small. “Herondale boy,” she said again. “Have you a voice?”
“Yes, and a name,” he said. “It’s James.”
Her face disappeared from the gap in the vines. There was a rattling sound, and a moment later a pair of briar cutters—perhaps not entirely new but certainly serviceable—emerged beneath the gates. James bent to seize them.
He was straightening up when he heard his name called: it was his mother’s voice.
“I must go,” he said. “But thank you, Grace. You are Grace, aren’t you? Grace Blackthorn?”
He heard what sounded like a gasp, and she appeared again at the gap in the vines. “Oh, do please come back,” Grace said. “If you come back tomorrow night, I shall sneak down to the gates here and talk with you while you cut. It has been so long since I spoke with anyone but Mama.”
Her hand reached out through the bars, and he saw red lines on her skin where the thorns had torn her—James raised his own hand and for a moment, their fingers brushed. “I promise,” he found himself saying. “I will come back.”
2 ASHES OF ROSES
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine”
“Matthew,” said James. “Matthew, I know you’re under there. Come out, or I swear on the Angel I will pith you like a frog.”
James was lying atop the billiard table in the Institute’s games room, glaring down over the side.
The ball had been going on for at least half an hour, and no one had been able to find Matthew. James was the one who’d guessed his parabatai was hiding in here: it was one of their favorite rooms, comfortable and handsomely decorated by Tessa. It was papered up to the dado rail with gray and black stripes, and painted gray above that. There were framed portraits and family trees on the walls, and a gathering of comfortable, well-worn sofas and wing chairs. A beautifully polished chess set glowed like a jewel box atop a Dunhill cigar humidor. There was also the massive billiard table that Matthew was currently hiding under.
There was a clatter, and Matthew’s blond head appeared beneath the table. He blinked green eyes up at James. “Jamie, Jamie,” he said, with mock sorrow. “Why must you chivvy a fellow so? I was peacefully napping.”
“Well, wake up. You’re needed in the ballroom to make up the numbers,” said James. “There are a shocking number of girls out there.”
“Damn the ballroom,” said Matthew, scooting out from under the table. He was splendidly turned out in dove gray, with a pale green carnation in his buttonhole. In one hand he clutched a cut-glass decanter. “Bother the dancing. I intend to remain in here and get thoroughly foxed.” He glanced at the decanter and then hopefully up at James. “You can join me if you want.”
“That’s my father’s port,” said James. It was strong stuff, he knew, and very sweet. “You’ll be vilely ill in the morning.”
“Carpe decanter,” said Matthew. “It’s good port. I’ve always admired your father, you know. Planned to be like him one day. Though I once knew a warlock who had three arms. He could duel with one hand, shuffle a deck of cards with the next, and untie a lady’s corset with the third, all at the same time. Now there was a chap to emulate.”
“You’re already foxed,” said James disapprovingly, and reached down to seize the decanter out of Matthew’s hand. Matthew was too quick for him, though, and swung it out of reach while rising up to clasp James’s arm. He yanked him off the table, and in a moment they were rolling on the carpet like puppies, Matthew laughing uncontrollably, James trying to wrestle the bottle away from him.
“Get—off—me!” Matthew wheezed, and let go. James fell backward with such force that the top of the decanter flew off. Port splashed over his clothes.
“Now look what you’ve done!” he lamented, using his pocket handkerchief to do what he could to mop up the scarlet stain spreading across his shirtfront. “I smell like a brewer and I look like a butcher.”
“Piffle,” said Matthew. “None of the girls care about your clothes anyhow. They’re all too busy gazing into your great big golden eyes.” He widened his eyes at James until he looked as if he were going mad. Then he crossed them.
James just frowned. His eyes were large, black-fringed, and the color of pale gold tea, but he’d been tormented too many times at school about his unusual eyes to find any pleasure in their uniqueness.
Matthew held out his hands. “Pax,” he said wheedlingly. “Let it be peace between us. You can pour the rest of the port on my head.”
James’s mouth curved up into a smile. It was impossible to stay angry with Matthew. It was almost impossible to get angry at Matthew. “Come with me to the ballroom and make up the numbers and we can call it peace.”
Matthew rose obediently—however much he’d drunk, he was always steady on his feet. He helped James up with a firm hand and straightened his jacket to cover the wine stain. “Do you want any of the port in you, or do you only want to wear it?” He offered James the decanter.
James shook his head. His nerves were already frayed, and though the port would soothe them, it would also muddle his thoughts. He wanted to remain sharp—in case. She might not come tonight, he knew. But then again, she might. It had been six months since her last letter, but now she was in London. He needed to be prepared for anything.
Matthew sighed as he set the bottle on the mantel. “You know what they say,” he said, as he and James left the room and began to wend their way back toward the party. “Drink, and you will sleep; sleep, and you will not sin; do not sin, and you will be saved; therefore, drink and be saved.”
“Matthew, you could sin in your sleep,” said a languorous voice.
“Anna,” said Matthew, sagging against James’s shoulder. “Have you been sent to fetch us?”
Lounging against the wall was James’s cousin Anna Lightwood, gorgeously dressed in fitted trousers and a pin-striped shirt. She had the Herondale blue eyes, always disconcerting for James to see, as it felt a bit as if his father were looking at him. “If by ‘fetch,’ you mean ‘drag you back to the ballroom by any means possible,’ ” Anna said. “There are girls who need someone to dance with them and tell them they look pretty, and I cannot do it all on my own.”