Chain of Iron Page 9

  She was married, and she was absolutely terrified.

  * * *

  They walked out of the chapel into a burst of applause and cheers that followed them into the Long Hall, and upstairs into the ballroom, where the tables had been set for the wedding feast.

  Cordelia, still hand in hand with James, looked around in wonder. The ballroom had been transformed into a glittering fantasia. Sona had worked tirelessly with Tessa to plan the party, and they’d left no corner of the ballroom untouched, from the candles winking from hundreds of brass sconces to the swaths of gold silk draped at the windows. The golden hues of Cordelia’s gown were echoed again and again, in shimmering pennants and gleaming bells strung from the ceiling. Gold glinted from the ribbons that twined through garlands of tansy and Welsh poppies, and gilded the apples and pears nestled in arrangements of evergreen and white-berried quickbeam. Even the two huge tiered cakes at the center of the lavish spread were iced in gold and ivory.

  There was a truly impressive spread laid out: steaming platters of roast lamb and chicken, thin pounded mutton chops, beef tongue, goose-liver pâté. Another long table was bedecked with cold salmon in a cucumber sauce; a salad of lobster and rice and another of boiled potatoes and pickles; and plump eggs suspended artfully in aspic. Interspersed among the dishes were towers of brightly colored jellies in amber, fuchsia, and green.

  Cordelia exchanged amazed glances with James as their friends crowded around them. Christopher had nicked a pear from a display and seemed disappointed to discover that it was made of wax.

  “Goodness, it’s magnificent,” Cordelia said, gazing around the room.

  “You flatter me, darling,” Matthew said mildly. “I have been saving this waistcoat for a special occasion, though.”

  Cordelia laughed just as James’s parents descended on them—wishing to congratulate them and also, Cordelia suspected, to protect them from being overwhelmed by eager members of the Enclave. Cordelia caught Will’s eye as he beamed at his son, and felt her smile slip. Of all those who believed the fiction of her marriage to James, betraying Tessa and Will was the most difficult to bear.

  “I’m famished,” James whispered to Cordelia as Lucie tried to shoo their well-wishers toward the tables—as the bride and groom, they could not stop to eat until all the guests were settled. She could see the small group of her own family toward the far end of the room, Alastair and Elias helping Sona carefully into a chair. She would have liked to join her family, but Sona had already made it clear that once the ceremony was over, she would expect Cordelia to remain by James’s side. “It’s cruel to have to gaze upon a feast like that and not be able to nab so much as a biscuit.”

  “Is Christopher eating his wax pear?” she whispered back. “That can’t be healthy.”

  Cordelia gave up trying to keep track of all the guests; it was hard even to remember which of them she’d met before and which she hadn’t. James, presumably from years of attending Institute functions, knew almost everyone at least by name. Cordelia found herself relieved by the appearance of anyone she actually knew: Gabriel and Cecily and their toddler son, Alexander, who had been retrieved from the nursery and remained amazingly asleep through the raucous congratulations and cheers. Rosamund Wentworth, who wanted to talk about wedding cakes since “as of course you know, I am also to be married soon. Thoby, stop that and pay attention.” Thomas’s elder sister, Eugenia, recently back from Idris. Henry Fairchild, who simply held Cordelia’s hands and wished her happy with a straightforward sincerity that made her want to cry.

  With help from Lucie and Tessa, the guests were steered into their seats, and James and Cordelia were able to sit down. Lucie had managed to arrange it so most of the friends were sitting together in a cheerful group. Only Anna—off in a corner looking glamorous and chatting to Magnus Bane about Ragnor Fell’s sojourn in Capri—had not joined them. (Cordelia had suggested asking her, but Matthew had said, “Anna is like a cat. You have to let her come to you,” which Christopher had confirmed as true.)

  Serving staff crowded around, bringing them plates piled with bits of everything. Cordelia popped a fig into her mouth, savoring the sweetness spreading across her tongue. She thought of her mother, the figs and honey they had often had on special occasions.

  “Welcome to the family,” Christopher said to Cordelia. “You’re our cousin-in-law now. I’ve never had one of those before.”

  “All Shadowhunters are related already,” Matthew said, tucking his flask into his breast pocket and deftly intercepting a passing waiter with a tray of champagne flutes. He abstracted two and passed one to James with a flourish. “You were already ninth cousins once removed, most likely.”

  “Thank you for that distressing analysis,” Cordelia said, raising her own glass in a mock formal toast. “I shall be an honorary Thief, I hope.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see,” said Matthew, his eyes twinkling. “How you are at thievery and such.”

  “It really is excellent, all this, you know,” Christopher said. “I mean, even though the whole wedding is… you know… because…”

  Thomas jumped in before Christopher could find his words. “Expensive, yes,” he agreed loudly. “But it’s well worth it, I say.”

  “Anyway, it’ll be quite a lark that you have your own house now, James,” Christopher went on. “No more drafty Devil Tavern rooms.”

  “The Merry Thieves gathering in respectable surroundings,” said Matthew. “Who would have thought?”

  “I like the Devil Tavern rooms,” protested James.

  “I like a fire in the grate that doesn’t get rained out,” said Thomas.

  “You are not to send your things from the Devil Tavern to my new house,” James said sternly. “It is not a storage facility for my misbegotten friends.”

  Cordelia said nothing as the boys burst into protests and chatter. She was grateful to them all for taking everything in stride, for not hating her for marrying James. They seemed to understand the situation despite its complexities.

  On the other hand, they were all going on about the new house, and not for the first time today, she thought, At the end of this party, I don’t go home with my mother and father and Alastair. I go home with my husband to our house. Their house. The house she knew nothing about at all, not even its location.

  Her mother had been impatient with Cordelia’s decision to let James handle the purchase and readying of the house. Gentlemen, Sona had said, had no idea about decorating things, and didn’t Cordelia want to put her own stamp on it? Make sure it would be a house she’d be willing to live in the rest of her life?

  Cordelia had just said she was content to let James make it a surprise. His parents were buying it, she had thought to herself, and it would be his after the divorce. Perhaps he would want to live in it with Grace.

  She glanced down the row of tables, unable to help herself. Grace was there, seated beside Charles, silent and beautiful as always. Ariadne sat on her other side—Cordelia had nearly forgotten that Grace was now living with the Bridgestocks. It was all very odd.

  Suddenly Charles rose to his feet and headed toward them, looking worryingly pleased with himself.

  Matthew had seen him too. “My brother heaves into view on the horizon,” he said to James in a low voice. “Careful. He looks very happy about something.”

  “The new Mr. and Mrs. Herondale!” Charles called out, and Matthew rolled his eyes. “Might I be the first to offer my congratulations?” He extended his hand to James.

  James took it and shook. “You are not the first, Charles, but we appreciate it no less.”

  “What an excellent wedding,” Charles went on, looking up at the rafters of the Institute above them as if taking in the room for the first time. “We’ll have quite the wedding season this year, what?”

  “What?” said James, and then, “Oh, of course, yourself and… Miss Blackthorn.”

  Matthew took a long sip of champagne.

  Cordelia studied James’s
face, but James betrayed nothing. He smiled pleasantly at Charles, and as always Cordelia was both impressed by and a little frightened by the impenetrability of the Mask—her name for the unreadable, blank expression James deployed to great effect whenever he wished to disguise his feelings. “We shall look forward to toasting your health and happiness in this very hall soon enough, Charles.”

  Charles departed. Matthew raised a glass. “That is what in Paris they call sang-froid, Monsieur Herondale.”

  Cordelia privately agreed. The Mask frightened her sometimes, when she could not tell what James was thinking, but it certainly had its uses. Wearing it, James seemed invulnerable.

  “Is that a compliment?” Christopher asked curiously. “Doesn’t it mean ‘cold blood’?”

  “Coming from Matthew, it is definitely a compliment,” Anna said with a laugh; she’d appeared at the table quite suddenly, Magnus Bane in tow. He was wearing a light blue tailcoat with gold buttons, a gold waistcoat, taupe knee breeches, and buckled boots. He looked like pictures Cordelia had seen of men at the court of the Sun King.

  “You all know Magnus Bane, of course?” Anna gestured to the tall figure standing next to her.

  “It’s my understanding,” Cordelia said, “that the question is never whether you know Magnus Bane. The question is always whether Magnus Bane knows you.”

  “Oh, I like that,” Anna said, clearly pleased. “Very clever, Daisy.”

  Magnus, to his credit, looked a bit abashed. It was a strange effect alongside his general level of glamorousness; he and Anna—in a polished black suit and sky-blue waistcoat, her family’s ruby necklace at her throat—made quite a sartorial pair. “Congratulations. I wish you and James all the happiness in the world.”

  “Thank you, Magnus,” Cordelia said. “It’s good to see you. Do you think there’s any chance you’ll be staying in London permanently?”

  “Perhaps,” said Magnus. He had been in and out of London for the past few months, sometimes present, often away. “First I must depart for the Cornwall Institute, to undertake a project there. Tomorrow, in fact.”

  “And what project is that?” Matthew asked. “Something glamorous, secret, and admirable?”

  “Something dull,” Magnus said firmly, “but well paying. I’ve been assigned the task of conducting a survey of the spell books at the Cornwall Institute. Some may be dangerous, but others could be indispensable in the hands of the Spiral Labyrinth. Jem—Brother Zachariah, I should say—will be accompanying me; it seems he is the only Shadowhunter trusted by both the Clave and the Spiral Labyrinth.”

  “You’ll be in good company, then,” Cordelia said. “But I’m sorry that you’ll be leaving London. James and I were hoping to invite you to dinner at our new house.”

  “Not to worry,” Magnus said, “you will not be without my radiance for long. I should be back in a fortnight. And then we celebrate.”

  Matthew held up a hand. “I demand to also be invited to dinner with Magnus. I will not be scorned.”

  “Speaking of scorning,” murmured Lucie. Out of nowhere had appeared Ariadne Bridgestock, looking quite lovely in a rose-colored dress with gold passementerie braiding.

  “There you are,” Ariadne said. “James, Cordelia. Congratulations.” Then, without pause, she turned to Anna. “Would you take a turn about the room with me, Miss Lightwood?”

  Cordelia exchanged a look of interest with Matthew, who gave a tiny shrug. His ears had perked up, though, like a cat’s.

  Anna’s posture changed; she had been lounging with her hands in her pockets, but now she straightened up. “No one else is wandering about the ballroom, Ariadne.”

  Ariadne worried at a fold of her dress with her fingers. “We could talk,” she said. “It might be nice.”

  Cordelia tensed; Ariadne was opening herself up to a cutting riposte. But instead Anna only said, “I don’t think so,” her tone very flat, and walked off without a word.

  “She’s a more complicated person than she pretends,” Magnus offered to Ariadne.

  Ariadne didn’t seem to welcome the sympathy. Her eyes flashed. “I know that better than almost anyone.” She nodded stiffly at James and at Cordelia. “Again, I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

  Cordelia felt an odd urge to wish her luck in battle, but there was no time: she had departed, her head held high in the air.

  “Well,” Magnus said, toying idly with the gold flower tucked into his buttonhole. A peony, Cordelia noted, dipped in gold. “It’s hard not to admire her spirit.”

  “She is very determined,” said Lucie. “She approaches Anna at every dance and party, always with some sort of request.”

  “Has Anna been responsive?”

  “Not judging by her social calendar,” James said. “Every time I see her, she’s squiring some new lady about the town.”

  “She and Ariadne certainly have a history,” said Thomas. “We just don’t quite know what it was.”

  Cordelia thought of Anna kneeling by Ariadne’s sickbed, murmuring softly, Please don’t die. She had never mentioned the moment to anyone. Anna, she felt, would not like her to do so.

  Magnus didn’t comment; his attention had been caught by something else. “Ah,” he said. “Mr. Carstairs.”

  It was Alastair, determinedly approaching Cordelia and James. Magnus, as if sensing the advent of an awkward situation, excused himself and slipped away smoothly into the crowd.

  Cordelia regarded Alastair worriedly—did he really feel obligated to brave the den of Merry Thieves to offer his congratulations? It appeared that he did: spinning toward his sister with a near-military precision, he said sharply, “I’m here to offer my felicitations to both of you.”

  James regarded him. “I suppose you at least have enough social grace to know the right things to say,” he said quietly, “even if you can’t bring yourself to sound like you mean them.”

  Alastair’s mouth set in a hard line. “No credit for the attempt, then?”

  Stop, Cordelia thought. She knew Alastair was not always like this—she knew he could be kind, sweet, vulnerable even. She knew her father had broken his son’s heart a dozen different ways, and Alastair was doing the best he could with the pieces. But it didn’t help for Alastair to behave like this, to retreat behind a cold facade as cutting as glass.

  The way James retreated behind the Mask.

  “We are brothers now, Alastair,” James said, “and you are welcome in our house. I will be civil to you and I hope you will be civil to me, for Cordelia’s sake.”

  Alastair looked a little relieved. “Of course.”

  “But you had best be good to her,” James said, still in an even, calm tone. “Because my hospitality lasts exactly as long as Cordelia finds your presence pleasing.”

  “Of course,” Alastair said again. “I would expect nothing else.” He turned to Thomas, who had been staring fixedly down at his plate. “Tom,” he said carefully. “If I could talk to you for a moment—”

  Thomas stood up, almost knocking over the table. Cordelia looked at him in astonishment.

  “I told you before that if you spoke to me again, I would throw you into the Thames,” said Thomas. His normally open, friendly face was twisted into an expression of fury. “You might at least have chosen a warmer day to take your plunge.”

  “Stop.” Cordelia threw down her napkin. “Alastair is my brother, and I love him. And this is my wedding day. No one will be throwing my family members into the Thames.”

  “Honestly, Thomas,” said Lucie, looking at her friend with disappointment. Thomas clenched his fists at his sides.

  “Now,” said Cordelia. “Will someone tell me what this is all about?”

  There was an awkward silence. Even Alastair didn’t look at her. He made an odd sort of sound, in the back of his throat. “This is—unbearable,” he said. “It is not to be endured.”

  “It is what you deserve,” said Matthew, his eyes flashing; James held out a hand toward his parabatai, a
s if to calm him—just as a loud crash came from the far end of the room.

  Without another word, Alastair broke into a run. Knowing what that meant, Cordelia pushed back her chair and dashed after him. Her heavy velvet skirts hampered her, and she reached her parents some moments after Alastair. Her father was on the floor by his chair, clutching his knee and moaning in pain.

  Sona was struggling to rise from her chair. “Elias—Elias, are you—”

  Her father’s face was beet red, and he seemed to have worked himself up into something of a lather. “I tell you, I should have been my daughter’s suggenes,” Elias snapped. “To be cut out of the ceremony as if I were a shameful secret, well, I can only imagine she was persuaded, but it is an outrage—a deliberate humiliation, and you cannot convince me otherwise!”

  He slammed his hand against the floor.

  Cordelia’s heart sank into her brocaded boots. She glanced at Alastair, already trying to help Elias to his feet. Quickly, she moved to block the scene from the wedding guests—the ones near enough to see the messy goings-on were staring. Fury went through Cordelia like a lance. How dare her father suggest that he had not had enough of a role in her wedding—they’d had no idea he’d even be attending until his arrival this very morning.

  “I’m here,” said a voice at her shoulder. It was James. He touched Cordelia’s arm lightly, then knelt down beside Alastair and seized Elias’s other arm, raising him to his feet.

  Elias glared at James. “I do not require your help.”

  “As you say,” said James equably. Sona had her face in her hands; Cordelia stopped to touch her mother’s shoulder lightly before glancing after James and Alastair, who were walking Elias away as fast as their feet could take them.

  “Father, I think you need a bit of a rest,” Alastair was saying. He spoke evenly, his expression matter-of-fact and calm. This is how he’s managed all these years, she thought.

  “Right this way, sir,” James said, and mouthed games room at Alastair, who nodded. Sona had sunk back into her chair; Cordelia hurried after the boys, who were heading for the double doors at the other end of the room. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she went—surely everyone was staring, though she could hear Will and Gabriel chatting loudly, their voices raised, doing their best to distract the guests.