Christopher’s face cleared. “Oh! Oh yes, I see. Yes, there is a lady.”
“Christopher!” Matthew exclaimed, delighted. “You sly dog! Do I know her?”
“No, I cannot think so,” said Christopher. “She is a mundane.”
“Christopher, you dark horse,” said Matthew. “What is her name?”
“Mrs.—”
“A married lady!” Matthew said, overwhelmed. “No, no. I beg your pardon. Please go on.”
“Mrs. Marie Curie,” said Christopher. “I believe her to be one of the preeminent scientists of the age. If you read her papers, Matthew, I believe you would be most interest—”
“Have you ever met this lady,” said Matthew in dangerous tones.
“No?” said Christopher, heedless of danger as he often was around irate teachers and naked flames.
Christopher had the audacity to look surprised when Matthew began to belabor him mightily about the head and face.
“Watch the test tubes!” cried Thomas. “There is a hole in the floor at the Academy that Professor Fell calls the Christopher Lightwood Chasm.”
“I suppose I hate some people,” offered James. “Augustus Pounceby. Lavinia Whitelaw. Alastair Carstairs.”
Matthew regarded his very own parabatai with deep approval.
“This is why we are chosen warrior partners, because we share such a perfect bond of sympathy. Come to me, Jamie, that we might share a manly embrace.”
He made incursions upon Jamie’s person. James thwacked him over the head with his book. It was a large book.
“Betrayed,” said Matthew, writhing prone upon the floor. “Is that why you insist on carrying about enormous tomes everywhere you go, that you might visit violence upon innocent persons? Done to death by my best friend—my heart’s brother—my own dear parabatai—”
He snagged James around the waist and brought him crashing to the floor for the second time that day. James hit Matthew with the book again, then subsided, leaning his shoulder against Matthew’s. They were both thoroughly rumpled, but Matthew did not mind being rumpled for a good cause.
Matthew jostled James, very thankful that he had brought up Alastair and provided Matthew an opening to tell his secret.
“Alastair is not so bad,” said Thomas unexpectedly from the sofa.
They all looked at him, and Tom curled up like an earwig under their scrutiny but persisted.
“I know what Alastair did to James was wrong,” Thomas said. “Alastair knows that very well too. That was why he was prickly whenever it was mentioned.”
“How is that different from his usual ghastly demeanor?” Matthew demanded. “Besides him being particularly noxious the day everybody else’s parents came to the Academy.”
He paused to consider how to tell them, but that gave Thomas a chance to speak.
“Yes, exactly. Everybody’s papa came but Alastair’s,” Thomas said quietly. “Alastair was jealous. Mr. Herondale came rushing to Jamie’s defense, and nobody came for Alastair.”
“Can one truly blame the man?” asked Matthew. “Had I such an insufferable toad of a son, and were he blessedly to be sent away to school, I am not sure I could bring myself to blast my sight with his visage until the accursed holidays carried him back to me again.”
Thomas did not look convinced by Matthew’s sound argument. Matthew took a deep breath.
“You do not know what he said to me the day we were expelled.”
Tom shrugged. “Some nonsense, I expect. He always speaks the most shocking nonsense when he is overset. You shouldn’t listen to him.”
James’s shoulder was tense against Matthew’s. James had been the chief object of Alastair’s malice. Thomas clearly intended to defend Alastair stoutly. This line of argument was bound to upset either James or Thomas. Matthew was not about to soothe his own feelings at the expense of Jamie’s or Tom’s.
Matthew gave up. “I cannot imagine why anyone would listen to him.”
“Oh well,” said Tom. “I like his nonsense.” He looked wistful. “I think Alastair masks his pain with cleverly turned phrases.”
“What absolute bosh,” said Matthew.
Thomas was too nice, that was Thomas’s problem. Really, people would let you get away with being the worst sort of scoundrel if you simply had a secret sorrow or did not rub along terribly well with your father.
It was definitely something to look into.
His papa was the best papa in the world, so Matthew had no opportunity to be cruelly oppressed or sadly neglected. Perhaps Matthew should spend his time brooding over a forbidden passion like James was currently doing.
Matthew decided to give unrequited love a try. He stared out the window with all the pensive force he could muster. He was preparing to pass a hand across his fevered brow and murmur “Alas, my lost love” or some other such rot when he was abruptly rapped upon the head with a book.
Honestly, Jamie was lethal with that thing.
“Are you quite well, Matthew?” Jamie inquired. “Your face suggests you are suffering from an ague.”
Matthew nodded, but he ducked his head down against Jamie’s coat and stayed there for a moment. It had never occurred to Matthew that Alastair might be jealous of James’s father. He could not imagine being jealous of anybody’s papa. Having the best papa in the world, Matthew would be perfectly satisfied with him.
If only he could be certain that Henry was his papa.
Early in the morning, Matthew unstoppered the faerie’s vial and tipped a drop in among the cranberries for his mama’s scones. The scones came out of the oven plump, golden, and smelling delicious.
“You are the best boy in London,” said Cook, giving Matthew a kiss.
“I am entirely selfish,” declared Matthew. “For I love you, Cook. When shall we be married?”
“Get along with you,” said Cook, waving her wooden spoon in a menacing fashion.
When Jamie was a little boy, he had his own beloved special spoon. The family always reminisced about this. It embarrassed Jamie to death, especially when Uncle Gabriel presented him with a spoon at family gatherings. Fathers thought all sorts of sorry jests were a fine idea.
Jamie kept the spoons Uncle Gabriel gave him. When asked why, he said it was because he loved his Uncle Gabriel. James was able to say such things with a sincerity that would shame anyone else.
After James said that, Uncle Will loudly asked what was the point in even having a son, but Uncle Gabriel looked touched. Uncle Gabriel loved Anna and Christopher, but Matthew was not sure he entirely understood his children. James greatly resembled his Aunt Cecily, and tried very hard at being a Shadowhunter, while Christopher might not be aware any of them even were Shadowhunters. Uncle Gabriel was especially fond of James. Of course, who would not be?
Matthew stole the spoon to give to James.
“I suppose that is for some absurd jest,” said Charles Buford when he saw the spoon at breakfast. “I wish you would grow up, Matthew.”
Matthew considered this, then stuck his tongue out at Charles. His puppy was not allowed in the breakfast parlor, because Charles Buford said Oscar was not hygienic.
“If you would simply make an effort to be sensible,” said Charles.
“I shan’t,” said Matthew. “I might sustain a strain from which I would never recover.”
His mother did not smile at his theatrics. She was staring at her teacup, to all appearances lost in thought. His father was watching her.
“Is Mr. Gideon Lightwood coming to conduct you to Idris this morning?” Matthew asked, and pushed the plate of scones toward his mother.
Mama picked up a scone, buttered it liberally, and took a bite.
“Yes,” she said. “I would thank you to be civil to him this time. You can have no idea, Matthew, how much I—”
Mama stopped speaking. Her small hand flew to her mouth. She sprang to her feet as if trying to take action in an emergency, in the manner she always did. Under Matthew’s horrified gaze, tears shimmered in her eyes and abruptly spilled in two long, bright tracks down her face. In the morning light, Matthew discerned a faint tinge of violet in her tears.