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“It seems to be the lot of the living to have tragedy visited upon them,” Jessamine mused.
“We were all very brave then,” said Tessa. “I wonder sometimes if it is easier to be brave when one is young, before one knows truly how much there is to lose.”
She felt somewhere in the core of her heart the truth of what her mother had just said. And one should put truth in books, she thought, but this would never be the sort of thing she put in the pages of The Beautiful Cordelia. Books were about experiencing joy. This was the raw and awful stuff of life. It was much too terrible.
James knew that under the songs and jokes, the careful deflection, his father was a man who felt things deeply. He himself was like his father in that way: they both loved intensely, and could be intensely hurt.
“But what does it mean if it is true?” James whispered. “If I am descended from a Prince of Hell?” It means nothing about who you are, said Jem. Look at your mother, your sister. Would you claim some flaw in them? You are your mother and father’s son, James. That is what matters. What has always mattered.
If you saw humanity as I can see it, Uncle Jem said. There is very little brightness and warmth in the world for me. There are only four flames, in the whole world, that burn fiercely enough for me to feel something like the person I was. Your mother, your father, Lucie, and you. You love, and tremble, and burn. Do not let those who cannot see the truth tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind.
James looked exhausted, Cordelia realized. He had come far out of his way to tell her this news, so that she did not have to hear it from people who didn’t know Thomas or care about him or his friends.
Alexa, play "Down Bad" by Taylor Swift
Surprised, Cordelia said, “Oh, did Lucie ask you to fetch me along?” James hesitated. “Yes. She did.”
HE WANTS YOU THERE TOO
“Once more unto the breach,” he announced, and began to climb.
“Certainly not!” Jessamine looked shifty. “Ghosts are completely honest. I keep telling you, it was mice who knocked your silver mirror behind the desk and broke it.” “It appears clear that if ghosts are liars, they are terrible liars,” said James.
His lip curled at the corner. “Worried about me? I’m flattered.” “I am worried,” said Lucie, “that you will get my brother killed.”
Instead gods and demigods had walked on the earth, and miracles had showered down from the heavens like leaves from a tree in autumn. But there was no miracle here. Only the fact that she might as well have stabbed Matthew in the heart. “You are his parabatai,” said Lucie, her voice shaking slightly. “He trusts you—to be at his back in battle, to be his shield and sword, and if you are not yourself—”
“I am a Herondale. We love but once.” “That is only a story.” “Haven’t you heard?” James said bitterly. “All the stories are true.”
The rhythmic slap of the tidal river against the granite piers of the bridge was as familiar to James as a lullaby. Blackfriars was a special place in his family: it figured in quite a few of his parents’ stories. He usually found it comforting here. The river rolled on, regardless of the turmoil in the lives of the people who crossed the bridge or boated across the water. They could leave no real mark on the river, as their troubles left no real mark on time.
People were wont to dismiss Matthew—because of his clothes, because of his jokes, because of the way he took nothing seriously. They assumed he was liable to break, to give way when things became difficult. But he wasn’t. He was holding James up now, as he always had—and making it look easy, as he always had.
MATTHEW FAIRCHILD MY BELOVED
Somewhere along the way, James sensed, Matthew had lost faith in most things. It would be easy for him to keep his faith in Lucie, but faith alone was not love.
“We do not get to choose when in our lives we feel pain,” said Matthew. “It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”
“Tell me, Matthew,” he said. “Tell me the name of the shadow that is always hanging over you. I can become a shadow. I could fight it for you.” Matthew squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. “Oh, Jamie,” he sighed. “What if I said there is no shadow?” “I would not believe you,” said James. “I know what I feel in my own heart.”
The light of Cortana. He saw her there, the blade in her hand, her hair like fire. She cut at the creature on James’s back, and with a searing pain it tore away from him, Cortana sunk deep into its body. It fell away, tumbling down the steep incline of the roof.
Together she and Cortana were a poem written in fire and blood.
“If you want to share the truth with me, I would be glad to hear it, but it is your choice, Daisy.”
“I don’t fancy being stabbed; I am far too young and beautiful to die.”
“Sometimes grief and worry must take the form of action,” said Cordelia. “Sometimes it is unbearable to sit and wait.”
“We could rob the Hell Ruelle,” said Thomas. “And wear masks,” said Lucie eagerly. “Like highwaymen.”
“And let it not be said that Matthew Fairchild is a fool. At least, let it not be said in my hearing. I would find it very hurtful.”
“That’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it, really? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves—one who gives you everything.”
“Orange is not the color of seduction, Christopher. Orange is the color of despair, and pumpkins.
Hidden in Lucie’s practicality was a great kindness, she knew—Thomas had lost his sister and was desperate for something to do, some action to take. Lucie was giving him just that.
“Espionage it is,” he said. “At last, something to look forward to.”
James had gone to Shadowhunter Academy for only a few months; he’d met Thomas, Matthew, and Christopher there, and they’d promptly blown up a wing of the school. They’d all been expelled, save Thomas, who hadn’t wanted to stay at the Academy without his friends and returned to London willingly at the end of the school year.
Thomas is more than just kind, and Christopher more than beakers and test tubes, Matthew more than wit and waistcoats. Each of you follows his own star—but you are the thread that binds all four together. You are the one who sees what everyone needs, if anyone requires extra care from their friends, or even to be left alone. Some groups of friends drift apart, but you would never let that happen.”
“So I am the one who cares the most, is that it?” “You have a great power of caring in you,” Cordelia said, and for a moment, it was a relief to say those words, to say what she had always thought about James.
“That is not love. That is a test. And love should not be tested like that.”
YES CORDELIA CARSTAIRS YOU ABSOLUTE QUEEN
“When all this business is over…” “Yes, yes,” Cordelia said, starting back up the stairs. “I really do like tea!” James shouted from the bottom of the steps. “In fact, I love it! I LOVE TEA!” “Good for you, mate!” yelled the driver of a passing hansom cab.
My sweet summer children. my ship of ships.
“I wouldn’t have said anything, but—for Charles to become engaged again, after he knew how unhappy you were about Ariadne—Alastair, I don’t want anyone to be cruel to you. I want you to be with someone who will make you happy.”
Carstairs really are just Ride or Die for their family and it is simultaneously beautiful and painful.
“He’s not cruel. You don’t know him. He and Grace have an understanding. He explained it to me. Everything Charles does is so he and I can be together.” There was something mechanical about the words, as if they had been rehearsed.
WHAT ABOUT THOMAS AND YOUR DATE IN PARIS?!?!
“Perhaps being dead has made you forget how perilous life is,” said Lucie.
Will sat down beside his wife and pulled her into his lap. “I am going to kiss your mother now,” he announced. “Flee if you will, children. If not, we could play Ludo when the romance is over.” “The romance is never over,” said James glumly.
James hadn’t moved. He was looking at Cordelia, and his eyes had darkened, from the color of a tiger’s eyes to something richer and deeper. Something like the gold of Cortana when it flashed in the air.
“You’ve destroyed a very important scene in which Cordelia is romanced by a pirate king.” “Piracy is unethical,” said Thomas. “Not in this case,” said Lucie. “You see, the pirate king is secretly the son of an earl—”
“We are Shadowhunters,” he said. “We do not wait to be saved by others. We save ourselves. We here in London are as equipped as any member of the Clave to solve this problem, and it will be solved.”
Alastair returned Charles’s glance and looked away; Lucie sensed Thomas’s shoulder tense beside hers.
JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR DATE ALREADY. ALISTAIR, YOU DESERVE BETTER THAN DISCOUNT PERCY WEASLEY
Beauty could tear at your heart like teeth, she thought, but she did not love James because he was beautiful: he was beautiful to her because she loved him.
She understood now why poets said love was like burning. The heat of it was all through her and in her, and all she wanted was more—more kisses, more touches, to be devoured by this like a forest by wildfire.
“I thought he seemed all right, for a demon,” said Christopher. “You know.”
Christopher doesn't get a lot of screen time, but what he does have is GOLD
“Magnus Bane?” said Matthew, with a mixture of amazement and horror.
MAGNUS BANE HAS ENTERED THE CHAT!
“It’s a bit complicated,” said James. “Hello, Magnus. It’s good to see you.” “Last time I saw you, you were facedown in the Serpentine,” Magnus said cheerfully. “Now you’re fiddling with a Pyxis. I see you have decided to follow in the long Herondale tradition of poor decision-making.” “So have I!” said Lucie, determined not to be left out.
“Matthew, do shut up,” said Thomas. “Mr. Bane doesn’t want to talk about waistcoats.” “Untrue,” said Magnus. “I always want to talk about waistcoats.
James sighed. “Matthew, you would be a terrible spy. You might not break under torture, but you’d tell someone anything they wanted to know in exchange for a nice pair of trousers.”
“In days past, when I knew your parents well, they probably would have been spearheading this plan.” He stood up. “But now they are no longer children. They are parents, and thus devoted to something they love more than their own lives. So indeed, perhaps they should not be told.”
