The Bane Chronicles Page 14

  Magnus had not been angry: he had found himself wishing for a benevolent grace many times himself. He bent and gathered the boy up in his arms. His head lolled against Magnus’s shoulder. In sleep James had looked peaceful and innocent, and wholly human.

  “This just isn’t like him,” Will was saying now as Tessa drew a blanket up over the boy, tucking him in firmly.

  Magnus raised an eyebrow. “He’s your son.”

  “What are you trying to imply?” Will demanded, and for a moment Magnus saw his eyes flash, and saw the boy with messy black hair and glaring blue eyes standing in his drawing room, furious at the whole world and at no part of it more than himself.

  “It isn’t like him,” Tessa agreed. “He’s always been so quiet, so studious. Lucie was the impetuous one, but they are both kind, good-hearted children. At parties Jamie could most often be found curled up in a corner with his Latin, or laughing at a private joke with his parabatai. He always kept Matthew out of trouble as well as himself. He was the only one who could make that indolent boy attend to his studies,” she remarked, with a slight smile that betokened she was fond of her son’s parabatai, no matter what his faults. “Now he is out at all hours, doing the most disgraceful things, and he will not listen to reason. He will not listen to anybody. I understand what you mean about Will, but Will was lonely and wretched in the days when he behaved badly. James has been wrapped in love all his life.”

  “Betrayed!” Will muttered. “Cruelly maligned by my friend and now by my own cherished wife, scorned, my name blackened—”

  “I see you are still fond of histrionics, Will,” said Magnus. “As well as still handsome.”

  They had grown up. Neither of them looked startled at all. Tessa raised her eyebrows, and Magnus saw something of her son in her then. They both had the same expressive, arched brows, giving their faces a look of both inquiry and amusement, though in James’s face the amusement was bitter.

  “Do stop flirting with my husband,” said Tessa.

  “I shall not,” Magnus declared, “but I will pause briefly so that I may catch up on your news. I have not heard from you since you sent word the baby had arrived and both he and his lovely mother were thriving.”

  Will looked surprised. “But we sent you several letters in care of the Morgensterns, who were going to visit the Whitelaws at the New York Institute. It was you who proved to be a shocking correspondent.”

  “Ah,” said Magnus. He himself was not even slightly surprised. This was typical behavior from Shadowhunters. “The Morgensterns must have forgotten to deliver them. How careless.”

  Tessa, he saw, did not look too surprised either. She was both warlock and Shadowhunter, and yet not quite either. The Shadowhunters believed that Shadowhunter blood trumped all else, but Magnus could well believe that many of the Nephilim might be unkind to a woman who could do magic and whom the years did not touch.

  He doubted any of them dared be unkind in front of Will, though.

  “We will be more careful about whom we entrust with our letters in future,” Tessa said decisively. “We have been out of touch for far too long. How fortunate that you are here in London, both for us and for Jamie. What brings you here, business or pleasure?”

  “I wish it were the business of pleasure,” Magnus told her. “But no, it is very dull. A Shadowhunter I believe you know sent for me—Tatiana Blackthorn? The lady used to be a Lightwood, did she not?” Magnus turned to Will. “And your sister Cecily married her brother. Gilbert. Gaston. I have a shocking memory for Lightwoods.”

  “I begged Cecily not to throw herself away on a Lightworm,” Will muttered.

  “Will!” said Tessa. “Cecily and Gabriel are very happy together.”

  Will threw himself dramatically into an armchair, touching his son’s wrist as he passed by, with a light, careful caress that spoke volumes.

  “At least you must admit, Tess, that Tatiana is as mad as a mouse trapped in a teapot. She refuses to speak to any of us, and that includes her brothers, because she says we had a hand in her father’s death. Actually, she says we pitilessly slew him. Everybody tries to point out that at the time of the pitiless slaying her father was a giant worm who had eaten her husband and followed up his meal with a palate-cleansing servant sorbet, but she insists on lurking about the manor house and sulking with all the curtains drawn.”

  “She has lost a great deal. She lost her child,” Tessa said. “And she did speak to us that once, in Idris.” She stroked back her son’s hair, her face troubled. Will looked to James and fell silent.

  “Mrs. Blackthorn has come from Idris to her family manor in England specifically so I might visit her, and she sent me a message through the usual Downworlder channels promising me a princely sum if I would come and cast a few spells to increase the attractions of her young ward,” Magnus said, attempting to strike a lighter note. “I gather she wishes to marry her off.”

  Tatiana would not be the first Shadowhunter to seek a warlock’s spells to make her life easier and more pleasant. She was, however, the Shadowhunter offering the best price.

  “Did she?” Will asked. “It’s not as if the girl looks like a toad in a bonnet.”

  Tessa laughed and stifled the laugh against her hand, and Will grinned, looking pleased with himself, as he always had when he’d managed to amuse Tessa.

  “I suppose I should not be casting aspersions on anybody else’s children, since my son is all about in his wits. He shoots things, you know.”

  “I did know that he shoots things,” Magnus said tactfully. “Yes.”

  Will sighed. “The Angel grant me patience so I do not strangle him, and wisdom so I can talk some sense into his great fat head.”

  “I do wonder where he gets it from,” said Magnus pointedly.

  “It is not the same,” said Tessa. “When Will was Jamie’s age, he tried to drive everyone he loved away. Jamie is as loving as ever to us, to Lucie, to Matthew, his parabatai. It is himself he wishes to destroy.”

  “And yet there is no reason for it,” Will said, striking the arm of his chair with his clenched fist. “I know my son, and he would not behave this way unless he felt he had no other choice. Unless he was trying to achieve a goal, or punish himself in some way, because he felt he had done some wrong—”

  You called for me? I am here.

  Magnus looked up to see Brother Zachariah standing in the doorway. He was a slender outline, the hood of his robe down, baring his face. The Silent Brothers rarely bared their faces, knowing how most Shadowhunters reacted to the scars and disfigurement of their skin. It was a sign of trust that Jem showed himself to Will and Tessa in this way.

  Jem was still Jem—like Tessa, he had not aged. The Silent Brothers were not immortal but aged incredibly slowly. The powerful runes that gave them knowledge and allowed them to speak with their minds also slowed their bodies’ aging, turning the Brothers to living statues. Jem’s hands were pale and slender under the cuffs of his robe, still musician’s hands after all this time. His face seemed carved out of marble, his eyes shuttered crescents, the dark runes of the Brothers standing out on his high cheekbones. His hair waved around his temples, darkness shot with silver.

  A great sadness welled up in Magnus at the sight of him. It was human to age and die, and Jem stood outside that humanity now, outside the light that burned so brightly and so briefly. It was cold outside that light and fire. No one had greater cause to know that cold than Magnus did.

  On seeing Magnus, Jem inclined his head. Magnus Bane. I did not know you would be here.

  “I—” Magnus began, but Will was already on his feet, striding across the room to Jem. He had lit up at the sight of him, and Magnus could feel Jem’s attention move from himself to Will, and catch there. Those two boys had been so different, yet at times they had seemed so wholly one that it was strange for Magnus to see Will changed as all humans changed,
while Jem was set apart, to see that both had gone somewhere the other could not follow. He imagined it must be even stranger for them.

  And yet. There was still about them what had always reminded Magnus of an old legend he’d heard of the red thread of fate: that an invisible scarlet thread bound certain people, and however tangled it became, it could not and would not break.

  The Silent Brothers moved the way one imagined a statue would move if it could. Jem had moved the same way coming in, but as Will neared him, Jem took a step toward his former parabatai, and the step was swift, eager, and human, as if being close to the people whom he loved made him feel made of flesh and racing blood once more.

  “You’re here,” said Will, and implicit in the words was the sense that Will’s contentment was complete. Now Jem was there, all was right with the world.

  “I knew you would come,” said Tessa, rising from her son’s side to go after her husband, toward Jem. Magnus saw Brother Zachariah’s face glow at the sound of her voice, runes and pallor no longer mattering. He was a boy again for an instant, his life just beginning, his heart full of hope and love.

  How they loved each another, these three, how they had suffered for each another, and yet how much joy they clearly took from simply being in the same room. Magnus had loved before, many times, but he did not ever recall feeling the peace that radiated out from these three only from being in the others’ presence. He had craved peace sometimes, like a man wandering for centuries in the desert never seeing water and having to live with the want of it.

  Tessa, Will, and their lost Jem stood together in a tight knot. Magnus knew that for a few moments nothing existed in the world but the three of them.

  He looked at the sofa where James Herondale lay, and saw that he was awake, his gold eyes like watchful flames teaching the candles to burn brightly. James was the young one, the boy with his whole life ahead of him, but there was no hope or joy in his face. Tessa, Will, and Jem looked natural being together, but even in this room with those who loved him better than life, James looked utterly alone. There was something desperate and desolate about his face. He tried to lean up on one elbow, and collapsed back against the cushions of the sofa, his black head tipped back as if it were too heavy for him to bear. A Herondale ring glittered on his finger, a silver bracelet on his wrist.

  Tessa, Will, and Jem were murmuring together, Will’s hand on Jem’s arm. Magnus had never seen anyone touch a Silent Brother like that, in simple friendship. It made him ache inside, and he saw that hollow ache reflected on the face of the boy on the sofa.

  Obeying an impetuous impulse, Magnus crossed the room and knelt down by the couch, close to Will’s son, who looked at him with tired golden eyes. “You see them,” James said. “The way they all love one another. I used to think everyone loved that way. The way it is in fairy tales. I used to think that love was giving and generous and good.”

  “And now?” Magnus asked.

  The boy turned his face away. Magnus found himself facing the back of James’s head, seeing his mop of black hair so like his father’s, and the edge of his parabatai rune just under his collar. It must be on his back, Magnus thought, above the blade of his shoulder, where an angel’s wing would be.

  “James,” said Magnus in a low, hurried voice. “Once your father had a terrible secret that he thought he could not tell to a soul in the world, and he told me. I can see that there is something gnawing at you, something you are keeping hidden. If there is anything you want to tell me, now or at any time, you have my word that I will keep your secrets, and that I will help you if I can.”

  James shifted to look at Magnus. In his face Magnus thought he caught a glimpse of softening, as if the boy were releasing his relentless grip on whatever was tormenting him. “I am not like my father,” he said. “Do not mistake my despair for nobility in disguise, for it is not that. I suffer for myself, not for anyone else.”

  “But why do you suffer?” Magnus said in frustration. “Your mother was correct when she said you have been loved all your life. If you would just let me help you—”

  The boy’s expression shut like a door. He turned his face away from Magnus again, and his eyes closed, the light falling on the fringe of his eyelashes.

  “I gave my word I would never tell,” he said. “And there is not a living soul on this earth who can help me.”

  “James,” Magnus said, honestly surprised by the despair in the boy’s tone, and the alarm in Magnus’s voice caught the attention of the others in the room. Tessa and Will looked away from Jem and to their son, the boy who bore Jem’s name, and as one they all moved over to where he lay, Will and Tessa hand in hand.

  Brother Zachariah bent over the back of the sofa and touched James’s hair tenderly with those musician’s fingers.

  “Hello, Uncle Brother Zachariah,” James said without opening his eyes. “I would say that I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m sure this is the most excitement you’ve had all year. Not so lively in the City of Bones, now is it?”

  “James!” Will snapped. “Don’t talk to Jem like that.”

  As if I am not used to badly behaved Herondales, Brother Zachariah said, in the way Jem had always tried to make peace between Will and the world.

  “I suppose the difference is that Father always cared what you thought about him,” said James. “And I don’t. But don’t take it personally, Uncle Jem. I do not care what anybody thinks.”

  And yet he made a habit of making an exhibition of himself, as Will had put it, and Magnus had no doubt it was deliberate. He must care what someone thought. He must be doing all this for a purpose. But what purpose could it be? Magnus wondered.

  “James, this is so unlike you,” Tessa said worriedly. “You have always cared. Always been kind. What is troubling you?”

  “Perhaps nothing is troubling me. Perhaps I have simply realized I was rather boring before. Don’t you think I was boring? All that studying, and the Latin.” He shuddered. “Horrible.”

  There is nothing boring about caring, or about an open, loving heart, said Jem.

  “So say all of you,” replied James. “And it is easy to see why, the three of you, falling over yourself to love one another—each more than the other. And it is kind of you to trouble yourselves about me.” His breath caught a little, and then he smiled, but it was a smile of great sadness. “I wish I did not trouble you so.”

  Tessa and Will exchanged looks of despair. The room was thick with worry and parental concerns. Magnus was beginning to feel bowed under by the weight of humanity.

  “Well,” he announced. “As educational and occasionally damp as this evening has been, I do not wish to intrude on a family reunion, and I really do not wish to experience any family drama, as I find with Shadowhunters that it tends to be extensive. I must be on my way.”

  “But you could stay here,” Tessa offered. “Be our guest. We would be delighted to have you.”

  “A warlock in the hallowed chambers of a Shadowhunter Institute?” Magnus shuddered. “Only think.”

  Tessa gave him a sharp look. “Magnus—”

  “Besides, I have an appointment,” Magnus said. “One I should not be late for.”

  Will looked up with a frown. “At this time of night?”

  “I have a peculiar occupation, and keep peculiar hours,” said Magnus. “I seem to recall you coming to me for assistance quite a few times at odd hours of the night.” He inclined his head. “Will. Tessa. Jem. Good evening.”

  Tessa moved to his side. “I will show you out.”

  “Good-bye, whoever you are,” said James sleepily, closing his eyes. “I cannot recall your name.”

  “Don’t mind him,” Tessa said in a low voice as she moved with Magnus toward the exit. She paused in the doorway for a moment, looking back at her son and the two men who stood with him. Will and Jem were shoulder to shoulder, and from across the
room it was impossible to miss Jem’s slighter frame, the fact that he had not aged, as Will had. Though, there was in Will’s voice all the eagerness of a boy when he said, in answer to a question Magnus did not hear, “Why, yes, of course you can play it before you go. It is in the music room as always, kept ever the same for you.”

  “His violin?” Magnus murmured. “I did not think the Silent Brothers cared for music.”

  Tessa sighed softly and moved out into the corridor, Magnus beside her. “Will does not see a Silent Brother when he looks at James,” she said. “He sees only Jem.”

  “Is it ever difficult?” he asked.

  “Is what difficult?”

  “Sharing your husband’s heart so entirely with someone else,” he said.

  “If it were different, it would not be Will’s heart,” Tessa said. “He knows he shares my heart with Jem as well. I would have it no other way—and he would have it no other way with me.”

  So much a part of one another that there was no way to be untangled, even now, and no wish to be so. Magnus wanted to ask if Tessa was ever afraid of what would happen to her when Will was gone, when their bond was finally severed, but he did not. It would with luck be a long time until Tessa’s first death, a long time before she entirely realized the burden of being immortal and yet loving that which was not.

  “Very beautiful,” Magnus said instead. “Well, I wish you all the best with your little hellion.”

  “We shall see you again before you leave London, of course,” said Tessa in that tone of hers she had had even as a girl, that brooked no contradiction.

  “Indeed,” Magnus said. He hesitated. “And, Tessa, if you ever need me—and I hope if you do, it will be many long, happy years from now—send me a message, and I will be with you at once.”

  They both knew what he meant.

  “I will,” said Tessa, and she gave him her hand. Hers was small and soft, but her grip was surprisingly strong.

  “Believe me, dear lady,” Magnus told her with an assumption of lightness. He released her hand and bowed with a flourish. “Call me and I come!”