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Chapter Text

James Herondale had never been colder. Knowing the warmth he felt when he was with Cordelia, its truth revealed to him as love only a week before, he now felt the lack of it--of her-- like a bitter wind in his bones.

It was an emptiness that came from within him, not like the cold of the shadow realm, from where Daisy had brought him back, time and time again. And nor was it the cold of that one winter morning, only a few weeks since, when he had sworn upon an altar to never let her go and placed a rune of marriage upon her skin.

James gazed out of the window of the train compartment, watching as the icy rain beat against the glass. He couldn’t help the deluge of thoughts, of feelings, of realizations that drowned him. The years lost, both of his own clarity of mind and the clarity of his feelings for Cordelia, would never be restored, never be returned to him. Nor would they be returned to Cordelia herself: James had been the prisoner, and yet he thought the greatest pain of it all might be how those he loved had suffered during his ensorcellment. They had been wrapped in that same iron chain as he, enduring his senseless infatuation with Grace Blackthorn.

What of Daisy, who had waited for him, had given him so many chances, had sacrificed and endangered herself time and time again for him? How must she have felt, to be tossed aside so many times in favor of a woman who would never even love James in return? How much did his wife despise him, for how James had blindly sullied the precious sweetness of their marriage and home, regardless of if they were real or not?

That was the greatest pain of all. For though Grace had wounded James deeply and irreversibly, in his very soul, he simply could not bear the fact that it was his own actions, intended or not, that had caused Cordelia such agony. Cordelia, so full of her beautiful quiet integrity, humiliated and brought low as James dropped her in the institute ballroom, forced to give up her reputation and bind herself to him due to his foolishness. He could not blame her for giving up on him.

And Matthew-- the other half of James’s heart, his own having been broken hundreds of times from so many unrequited loves over the years. He had held James upright through every anguish caused by Grace’s poison, while James had remained blind to his parabatai’s pain.

He could only think how they must hate him, not knowing the truth of the bracelet’s curse.

James tried to push the thought from his head, told himself that he would be forgiven once they knew what really happened. His sister Lucie had assured him of as much. After James, his father, and Magnus Bane had found her in Cornwall, frolicking on the beach with a mysteriously revived Jesse Blackthorn and the warlock Malcom Fade, he had filled her in on everything. There had been too many secrets between all of them, and James had been eager to lift this one particular burden off his chest. The whole story, as no one but him knew it: the bracelet, the feelings it had locked away within him and the control Belial exerted through it, Grace’s appearance at Curzon Street and Cordelia and Matthew’s subsequent flight to Paris.

“I am ashamed to have been paying so little attention recently as to know if Daisy returns either your feelings or Matthew’s,” she had said in response, with a slight shake of her head. “But I am without a doubt that she deserves the truth of yours, and why they have made themselves known this late. Matthew deserves to know, too, even if it will break his heart to hear of your suffering. But you must allow Daisy to choose for herself between the two of you, knowing the truth of it-- of all of it. And you must make peace with whatever she decides, James. She has been whipped about quite enough I imagine.”

Lucie reminded him so much of their mother in that moment, with that wondrous insightful surety, that faith that all would be well so long as one was honest with those they loved. The image was quickly swept away as she wacked James on the shoulder. “Now quit squinting at me like that and go to the station, you dolt.”

He had done as much, boarded the train that very afternoon feeling somewhat confident that Daisy and Matthew would understand. But that confidence had waned with every kilometer that the train neared Paris. A city of love and art and history that James had dreamed of bringing Daisy to, himself. He could only hope that it was not too late.

James slid his freezing hands into his coat pockets.

In the left, carefully folded, its creases becoming worn as he had thumbed it anxiously, was Matthew’s letter. The truth within it-- of his parabatai’s love for Daisy-- had hurt, but perhaps more agonizing was hearing the fury in Matthew’s words. And how could he not be angry? As far as he knew, James was still hopelessly chasing after Grace, cold smoke where Daisy was fire, leaving his wife to humiliation and possibly even heartbreak.

In the right pocket of his coat, so delicate and small, were Cordelia’s gloves. He didn’t know why exactly he had brought them; only that he had grabbed them when he left the house in search of her the week before and they hadn’t left his grip since. He doubted Cordelia was in any need of them, and was sure that Matthew was outfitting her in the finest Parisian fashions, but they felt significant somehow. A piece of her, a piece of their home, their lives together. James’s stiff fingers curled around them, imagining that her hands were within, but they were but an empty shell of his Daisy, his love, his wife.

He felt rather like Lady Justice, guiding the people towards righteousness with a set of balanced scales in one hand and a sword in the other. Only instead it was James himself who would be judged, he whose mistakes and ill-doings would be set upon the scales. And it was up to Cordelia and Matthew to decide if the sword should come down upon his neck.

Chapter Text

“This one is rather fine, no?” Cordelia dropped the hat onto her head at a dramatic angle and turned to face Matthew across the shop, where he stood examining a display of woven boaters.

He grinned at her, before making his way over. “Stunning. If you were hoping to seduce a brick of concrete.” Nimbly, as though he were performing a slight of hand, he swept the hat from her head and replaced it with a gaudy feathered one he had drawn from the display. Its multicolored resemblance to the paintings in the impressionist galleries they had toured that morning was remarkable.

Cordelia sniffed, adjusting the new hat so that it sat properly on her head. “I thought the other was quite elegant indeed. Subtle. Understated.”

“Subtle? In this city?” Matthew laughed. “This is a city of passion, of color! There is no room to look so dour in Paris.” He slipped behind her, languid as a spring wind, and gently took her by the shoulders, leading her about the shop to look in the mirror.

“There, you see? Très chic. You’ll seduce much more than a concrete brick in this one.” He brushed the feathers into place affectionately before catching her gaze in the mirror. There was a pause between them as their eyes met, a silent exchange of something Cordelia was hesitant to put a name to.

She couldn’t help but remember the night before, the warm glow of the dance hall they had found their way to after dinner, where they had danced for what felt like hours, one of his hands on her waist, the other in hers. He hadn’t touched her or spoken to her in any way that was unwanted or inappropriate, had been a perfect gentleman in all respects. But she had been unable to ignore the warmth that had filled the various holes in her chest in his presence.

They had stumbled through the snow-laden streets half-drunk and giddy with the sheer enjoyment of the evening, though neither had consumed any alcohol, and parted ways at Cordelia’s hotel room door with a chaste kiss on the cheek. Smiling to herself, feeling truly weightless for the first time in what felt like months, Cordelia had paused to watch Matthew lope down the hall to his room.

“Matthew--” She had found his name slipping from her lips without thinking of it. Only that he was walking away from her, and that she wished him to stop.

His expression was unreadable in the dimly lit hall as he turned back to her.

“Thank you,” Cordelia had said, her voice little more than a whisper. “For everything. You-- you don’t know how much it all means.”

Slowly, so slowly, Matthew had stepped forwards, his shoes near silent on the carpeted floor.

Cordelia’s heartbeat was deafening in her ears.

Matthew took another couple of steps towards her, until they were close. She could smell his musky cologne, feel his breath brush her cheek. They had watched one another for a moment, the space between them taught and crackling. Cordelia thought she could feel the stirrings of something warm in her chest, where coldness had settled.

“I--” Matthew’s voice was soft and thick with what was unsaid. His eyes were black in the dim light. He swallowed again. “I told you that I wouldn’t press my affections upon you, Cordelia.”
Cordelia drew in a swift breath.

“--And I won’t,” He continued, the words coming quickly, as if he were afraid she would say something in response. “But-- only let me tell you that seeing you smile like that, laugh as you did tonight, is its own reward. I said I’d wait for you, Cordelia, and I will. I am. But that doesn’t mean I’ll wait to try and see you smile as you once did.”

Cordelia had tilted her face up to examine his more directly. “You deserve happiness, too, Matthew. Never forget that.”

His eyes briefly shut, as if recoiling from pain, before Matthew had bid her good night and walked down the hall to his room.

In the hat shop the next morning, Cordelia saw in Matthew’s gaze in the mirror that he was recalling the moment, too. He quickly looked away, busying himself with another hat that he drew from the stand and began to examine with a little too much interest.

The tension was gone between them by the time they left the shop. Though Cordelia had been to Paris before, Matthew had been right-- it was different with him than it was with her parents. Their hotel was respectable and elegant, but had a bohemian edge that made her lament Anna’s absence, nestled at the base of Montmartre. The neighborhood was all steep, winding streets webbed by quiet alleys that led towards places of sin and debauchery, but Matthew had knowingly kept them from those.

“It is the streets of Paris that so dominate literature, but I find that its rooftops are criminally underrated.” Cordelia observed as they rounded the corner of their Hotel. She craned her neck to try and manage a better view of a gargoyle that jutted out overhead from a stone church’s bell tower.

Matthew nodded seriously in agreement. “I think I should like to visit Paris as a pigeon someday. I hear they eat like birds in no other city, perhaps save New York.”

Cordelia cocked her head, pondering for a moment. “I was thinking it would be more ideal as a cat. There’d be a certain level of mystique to the experience, a glamour that pigeons may not afford.”

“Surely there is no glamour in eating pigeons.” Matthew pressed a hand to his chest in a dramatic gesture.

“Who said anything about eating pigeons?”

“You did, when you brought up the cat. Have you ever met a Parisian cat? They’re epicures if ever I knew one.”

Cordelia laughed. A light snow had begun to fall, and a powdery dusting brightened the cobbled streets. Small crystals collected on Matthew’s scarf and in his hair. Silver dusting gold, she thought to herself. Without thinking, Cordelia reached up and brushed some from the shoulder of his green wool coat.

Matthew stiffened, and she immediately withdrew her hand. His face had drained of color.

A moment of terror later, she realized it was not her touch that had stilled him, but something he had seen over her shoulder.

Slowly, Cordelia turned.

Outside the hotel, a slim young man stood, his black-clothed figure striking against the growing white of the street. He was as still as stone, his golden eyes wide.

James, her husband, who was hers but would never belong to her, was as beautiful to her as he had always been.

There was a certain question that had begun to drift into Cordelia’s head over the past couple of days. She had repeatedly set it aside, pushed it away, both wanting and fearing what would come of resolving it.

In that moment, it made itself clear to her, and Cordelia had her answer.

Chapter Text

All actions have consequences, Jamie bach, James’s father had once told him. We are like pieces on a chessboard: once a move is made, it cannot be unmade, only remedied in another turn.

James let out a shaky breath. Daisy had always been the better chess player.

Standing outside the hotel, which was tucked in a small square in Montmartre that he had tracked his wife and his parabatai to, James was at a loss for what to say, what to do.

Daisy-- his wife-- was wearing blue, a coat James didn’t recognize that was the color of a winter sky at dawn. Her dark red hair was beneath a hat, but much of it had come loose from its pins and fell about her shoulders. Matthew, beside her, was dressed impeccably as ever in a tailored coat of pine green that struck a tasteful contrast against Cordelia’s hair. His face had drained of color upon seeing James across the square, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

Cordelia turned to follow Matthew’s gaze, and James’s vision tunneled further, seeing only her: the set of her brow, the bow of her lips, the elegant arch of her nose. And of course those eyes-- steady and fierce and intense as coffee. How could he have ever found beauty in Grace’s eyes, the color of grey smog, when before him were those of darkest midnight, of the whirling Thames at dusk?

Daisy, James thought. Daisy, my Daisy. His yearning for her struck him as though he were surfacing from under a freezing sea. He felt the memory of loving her in his bones, where love for her had grown quietly over the years, unseen and unheard, beneath the surface like roots before a sprout. And he longed for her now-- longed to rush to her and draw her into his arms, to hear her laugh and to feel her lips, soft and warm and sweet under his own.

But there was so much space between them. So much pain and misunderstanding and shame and heartbreak, and it had all been his doing.

Across the square, their eyes met.

Shah-mat, James thought to himself. The king is dead.

It was not anger in Cordelia’s eyes, nor sadness, both of which James had anticipated and feared.

Worse, it was joy. Laughter. Happiness. A Cordelia who was free from the weight of her father’s death and of Lillith’s hold on her. Before him stood a Cordelia who had just stepped off the stage at the Hell Ruelle, imbued with light and power and pride.

And Matthew had returned it to her.

James felt a sudden urge to turn and rush back to the train station, but he was too late. That spectacular, beautiful light had faded from Cordelia’s eyes the instant she had seen him.

“James,” she said, his name slipping from her lips on an exhale. The snow had begun to fall more heavily, muffling the sound, and she and Matthew were still some distance away, but James understood her perfectly nonetheless. He would always hear her, when she spoke his name. Like a beacon calling to a ship lost on a stormy sea.

He longed to throw himself at her feet and explain it all, but the three of them simply stood there in silence. It was agony. Agony within James’s chest as he took in the apprehension on the faces of the two people he loved the most in the world.

“Daisy,” he began, walking toward them across the square. His voice sounded strained and desperate to his own ears. Cordelia watched him, warily, from beneath snow-dusted eyelashes, waiting for him to continue. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold.

James’s breath hitched. “I need to speak to you,” He said, glancing back and forth between his wife and his parabatai, “To both of you. To explain. About-- about Grace.”

Her name seemed to break the spell of stillness that had settled between them. Cordelia, in an instant, averted her eyes from his with a lift of her chin, straightened, and strode past him towards the hotel.

“Daisy--” James started after her, but Matthew had caught his arm and held him back.

James whirled to face his parabatai. “Let me go.” Matthew’s grip was iron, painless yet unrelenting. “Let me go, Math.”

But Matthew wasn’t looking at him. His brows were knit as he gazed after Cordelia. There was an expression of such longing, such agony in his green eyes that James felt a twist in his stomach.

“You really do love her, don’t you?” James tore free of Matthew’s grip and stumbled a step away. He despised the resentful tone in his voice, but he couldn’t help it.

Matthew flinched, and turned to face him. “You cannot possibly find loving Daisy to be such an abhorrent concept.”

“No--” James shook his head with ferocity. “No! Dammit, Math, just allow me to explain. To apologize. Please.”

“Apologize for what? For loving Grace?” Matthew’s tone had an air of mocking, and his cheeks were flushed. Tufts of golden hair stuck up from his head. “How could I ask you to not follow your heart? I have followed my own, as you likely will have noticed by now.”

Frustration, hot and white, lashed through James like the kickback of a gun. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, tight. “I hope you are not comparing your love for Daisy to mine for Grace.”

Matthew’s face screwed up into angry confusion. “Why ever not? Do you think I am incapable of loving as you do? What is wrong with you, James?”

“Because you would not insult Daisy so.” James felt the burn of tears in the back of his throat, and willed them away. He never wept, not since he was a child, but this whole situation was so vexing, so uniquely unsolvable. “Because I did not choose to love Grace. I was cursed. Ensorcelled by evil magic at my grandfather’s bidding. A slave to her whim and desire for years of my life.” He took a shaky breath. Matthew was the second to hear of this, after Lucie, and James felt the weight leave him like a boulder off his back. “And no, Math. I think of all of us you are the most capable of loving. You being here is proof of that.”

Matthew was silent, his green eyes round. Something of his fury had fallen away, revealing bewilderment and horror. “Are you being serious, James?”

James nodded curtly.

“How?”

“The bracelet. Grace put it on me years ago, in Idris. I-- While it was on, it kept me from thinking about it, kept me thinking about her instead, and how much I loved her. All the while, I didn’t, not at all. Tatiana was working with Belial to try and control me through my feelings for Grace. It was she who made me burn down Blackthorn Manor. At least this is what Grace told me, after the bracelet came off.”

Matthew looked out onto the square, which had emptied since the snow had begun to fall in earnest. His face had smoothened into an expressionless mask, devoid of his previous anger as he tried to comprehend what James was telling him.

“It has been many years now that you’ve been behind a veil--unreachable and unable to understand. Now I see that it was Grace who walled you away.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I can’t say I’m all that surprised. We all knew that she was poison to you.” Matthew paused, took in a breath. “And so now you have freed yourself from Grace’s clutches, one way or another, and you've come to tell Cordelia--”

“And you, Math. She has kept me from seeing your pain as much as Cordelia’s. I’ve been rendered blind, and I hate myself for it.”

“Cordelia’s…” Matthew turned to look at him, his eyes wary. “Do you love her, James? Can you have loved her, all the while under Grace’s power?”

James swallowed. He had not anticipated that this would be the hardest part. That, by admitting his love for Cordelia, he would be hurting Matthew, breaking his parabatai’s heart. “Yes. I love her. I’ve loved her since she tended my bedside when I had the scalding fever, when we were fourteen. But I only came to know it a week ago, when the bracelet broke.” He chose to leave out the exact circumstances of the bracelet’s breaking: his lips on hers and his hand cupped around the softness of her breast, on the floor of their study while the fireplace raged beside them.

A muscle twitched in Matthew’s jaw, and he nodded. “Good.” He looked away from James again, over to the hotel. “Good. I see now what I must do.”

“What must you do?”

Matthew nodded again. “Uncle Jem once disappeared into the shadows, and I shall do the same. I should have known this--whatever it was-- wouldn’t last.” He gave a short laugh. “You know, Some things are more precious because they don't last long. He’s never wrong, is he?”

“Wilde,” James said, recognizing the quote as one from The Picture of Dorian Gray, “No, he isn’t. But he didn’t last very long himself. I have no wish for you to disappear, and neither does Daisy, I’m sure of it. And you know that had there been a choice for my parents, neither of them would have let Uncle Jem go.”

James grabbed Matthew gently by the shoulders and angled him so they faced one another. Whither thou goest, I will go. “We will figure this out, the three of us. I only came to try to redeem myself, if only slightly. I am ashamed of how I have treated those that I love. And-- and I cannot bear to think of my actions and how they have hurt the two of you. Besides,” He continued, with a meager little laugh, “I don't even know if Daisy returns my feelings.”

Matthew shook his head again, this time with a wry smile and a tired laugh to match. “Of course she loves you, James. It’s rather obvious, just from how she looks at you. And she told me as much, a while ago now.”

James blinked. He had suspected she was at least attracted to him, but it was surprising to hear it spoken out loud. And painful-- for it hurt all the more to think of Daisy, loving him all the while, unable to understand why he couldn’t love her back. He could only imagine how much else in his life he had missed. Lucie’s entanglement with Jesse Blackthorn, Christopher’s latest scientific discoveries, and the mysterious story behind Thomas’s tattoo. Were his life a play, he would have been viewing it through a gap in a curtain for years now. Upon drawing it back, James now saw that entire acts were happening onstage that had been completely out of his view.

Matthew shook his head. “Anna always says I am drawn to hopeless affections. Doomed by heartbreak, solitude in perpetuity. It is my penance.” His whole body seemed to slump and he covered his face with his hands.

Agony shot through James, seeing his friend like this. “Penance for what, Matthew? Won’t you tell me what haunts you?”

But Matthew just smiled that brilliant smile of his, though it was hollow, and his eyes were sad. He straightened and dusted snow from his coat. “I’ll talk to her. To Cordelia. Ask her to hear you out. I owe her greatly, and the least I could give is the knowledge-- the truth--of your caring.”

James could do nothing but watch in silence as his parabatai turned and walked through the snow across the square, before slipping through the glass doors of the hotel.

He did not follow.

Chapter Text

The setting sun illuminated the snow-covered streets of Paris as it set, imbuing the city with an air of magic not unlike a landscape of Faerie. Regardless, the city’s inhabitants had remained in their homes for the evening, leaving the neighborhood quiet and the coat of snow on the ground untouched.

Cordelia was thankful for her warm coat, a deep blue lambswool lined with fur that had been a gift from Matthew, and the ermine muff her hands were tucked into. A hat that she had purchased at the shop was tucked snugly around her ears, and she had left her hair to spill out from beneath it, curls running like a river of fire down her back.

She took a deep breath, surveying the square. This one was around the corner from the hotel, and it overlooked the city. It was the penultimate evening before the new year, and Paris seemed to be holding its breath, a calm of subdued quiet before the revelry the next night that would bring in 1904. A lamplighter teetered on a ladder nearby, and when he at last set the gas lamp alight, it illuminated the figure of a black-clad man standing by the edge of the square. Cordelia’s breath caught in her throat.

Cordelia had known James would be there, had trusted Matthew’s direction without question, but her heart still fluttered annoyingly in her chest when she saw him. As if sensing her approach, he turned to face her. James had always been beautiful. He was beautiful in summer, with the sun on his cheeks and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. And he was beautiful in autumn, with his coat collar turned up to brush his cheekbones and a chilly wind rifling his dark hair.

But there was something different about the way he stood out in a snowy landscape, dressed in winter wool the color of ink, like a poem in black and white. He blinked at her, took her in with wide golden eyes illuminated by the sun. “You came.”

“I wasn’t going to.” She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and the cold bit at her fingertips before she slid them back into her muff. “But Matthew convinced me.” James smiled. “As ever, I am greatly indebted to my Parabatai.”

There was a silence between them for a moment, occupied by Matthew’s absence from the scene. Cordelia had left him in the hotel’s salon, where he had taken up conversation with a lively group of fellow hotel guests, eying the shelves of liquor behind the bar more than Cordelia would have liked. James cleared his throat. “You look beautiful, Daisy. I— I hope you’ve been well.”

The words sounded strange coming from his mouth, and they caught Cordelia off guard. She realized she had never heard him speak so plainly before. She had suspected at moments that he had found her beautiful, based on meticulous observation of his expressions, but he had never said so directly.

“Yes, I— yes. We have both been well. Paris is a marvelous city.” Though she tried for normalcy, her words came out quavering and thin. “I’ve been many times before, but in winter it is truly magical.”

“So it is.” James’s eyes darted to the horizon, before drawing back to meet her gaze. It occurred to Cordelia that he might be nervous. He took a quick breath and stepped towards her. “I won’t dance around my point, Daisy.” He wrung his gloved hands. “I— I’ve come to explain. To apologize. To make amends. And— and to plead for forgiveness.”

Cordelia looked away, watching as the lamplighter finished his work in the square and made his way down the cobbled street. “You have done nothing unforgivable, James. That your— devotion to love has been so unyielding is nothing to apologize for. There is no offense to be amended—”

“My unyielding love… nothing to be amended… Did Matthew tell you nothing of it?”

“No,” Cordelia replied with a shake of her head, “But he didn’t need to, James. I understand the situation perfectly.” Her cheeks flushed at the memory, at the humiliation she had endured in loving him as she did, loving him through it all.

“No, Daisy, you don’t. Please, I—” James’s voice took on the strain of anguish. “So much has changed, so much has happened in the past week since you left Curzon street. I— I wanted to come after you both, right away, went to the train station and everything. But I had to go to Cornwall, to go after Lucie.”

Cordelia’s eyes flicked to him. “Lucie? What does she have to do with any of this?”

“She—”

Cordelia’s heart dropped to her stomach. Lucie. There was so much between them that remained unsaid. “James, she’s not—”

James shook his head. “No! No, she’s alright, she’s fine now. She’s with my father. But you must understand that we thought she was in serious peril. I’ll tell you the whole story, but I need you to know why I’ve come. I cannot go without saying it any longer.”

Cordelia wasn’t sure she was breathing. “Go on, then,” she whispered, “say it.”

James swallowed, nodding, his shoulders sagging in relief. “Do you remember,” James began, “The summer your mother planted chrysantemums in Cirenworth’s eastern garden?”

“No matter how much she watered them, they never bloomed. None of us understood why they just kept wilting.”

James smiled, remembering, too. They had discovered later in the summer that an old decayed wall lay just beneath the soil, keeping the flowers from properly taking root. It had been a source of hilarity for the children, watching Sona fuss over their wilted stems all summer to no avail, and had resulted in a subsequent end to her interest in gardening.

When James spoke, his voice was quiet. “I was made to love you, Daisy. As those flowers were made to take root in the earth. I have been kept from it, held back from loving you as I should have. But I must tell you, Daisy—” He stepped closer to her, and they were indeed close enough now that she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “—Daisy, In my blood and skin and the marrow of my bones is love for you. It is a part of me, and it has been for many years.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to speak, wanting to fill the space between them with the words she was so used to wrapping herself in as a buffer between them. James continued. “But I have caused you pain in the ignorance of my own heart. And although I cannot provide excuses, I must relay some sort of an explanation.”

“An… explanation.” The echo was all that Cordelia could muster in her bewilderment. She blinked. “Go on.”

James took a deep breath, relieved, and continued. “When we were fourteen, Grace Blackthorn, who was my friend at the time— a friendship that was borne of my pity for her situation, and nothing more— asked me to use my shadow power to steal a bracelet from her mother’s study. She told me it had been her birth mother’s, kept from her by Tatiana in a locked box that only my hand, derived of solidity, could retrieve.

“I did so, and gave it to Grace with the excitement of a boy who was eager to please a friend. For she was a friend to me at a time, and I think that I was hers, too, in some odd way. She asked me to wear the bracelet in her stead, since her mother would surely notice that it was stolen if she saw it upon Grace’s wrist. And so I did.

“I do not understand the particulars of how it worked, the dark magic that thing was imbued with as to twist my mind and will so horrifically as it did. But I do know how it subsumed my heart and allowed Grace and her mother to control me.

“For years, I thought that I loved her. I had no choice— when I was away from her I was in pain, and when she called I was summoned without choice or consideration. There were moments I would remember how I loved you, like a sweet taste on the back of my tongue, and long for it, though I was kept from it with an iron grip upon my mind.

“I did not come to Paris to beg, or to declare my right to your forgiveness. I only cannot bear the thought that you and Matthew should be in a sort of pain that I have caused, and thinking it was my intent. To think, this whole time, how repulsive my actions must seem— how careless and unfeeling for you and Math. I have been a slave to Grace’s whim for nearly four years of my life. You must understand that hurting you the way I have was never my intent, nor even my decision. I only wish that I could have kept myself from the two of you, as to keep from wounding you.”

He shook his head, blinking furiously.

“But I remember it all now, Daisy. I remember when you lay beside me in my bed as I fevered at Cirenworth, the first stirrings of love gathering in my chest like warmth under a ray of sunlight. For that’s what you are, Cordelia, the light that brings life, the light that brings color into the world, the light that breaks apart the darkness of hell. I remember dropping your hands in the London Institute ballroom, and the anger in your eyes as you held me accountable at the picnic the next day. I remember every hour together at Curzon street. I remember the Whispering Room. I remember it all, and I loved you through it all, more than I can put into words.

“I did not come with any particular hopes or schemes, only a desperate longing for the two of you to not think that my behavior has in any way been a reflection of some fault of yours. And although it is vain, and I have no expectations of receiving forgiveness or unconditional love from the two of you, I cannot help but long to not be hated. Not pitied, either, but perhaps understood. And— well, to be honest in a way that is entirely new to me, I’ll say that I long to make our marriage a real one, Daisy, to have you as my wife.”

Finally finished, James scanned her face for any response, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.

“James—” Cordelia tucked her hands further into her muff. So much had been said, spilled on the table with no way to stop the flood. I was made to love you. I remember it all. To have you as my wife. “Grace, did she really?” The horror of it was unimaginable.

James nodded. He was as white as a sheet. “It’s all true.”

“You were a child. How could she?”

“You were a child, too.” James’s eyes flicked to the horizon, where the sun was just beginning to slip below the Paris skyline. “Perhaps the worst of it is the effect this mess has had on you. She controlled me, made me think I loved her, but it doesn’t change the way I’ve acted, or the consequences of my ignorance.”

“No,” Cordelia said, thinking of the city around them, the glances and whispers from ladies in the clave about her lack of self-respect, and, far away, a grand house burned to ash. “It doesn’t.”

She wished she could be the same girl she had been a year ago, who would have flung her arms around him and given forgiveness without hesitation. And she wished she could be the righteous girl she had been that very summer, who had told him off in Regent’s Park for his misdemeonor at the ball. But she wasn’t. She was now but a shell of that girl. The world was now all the more complicated, between a drunken and dead father and a tie of loyalty to the mother of demons and a best friend who didn’t always tell the truth.

Cordelia looked up at James’s face. He was biting his lip, watching her, awaiting her response to all he had said. Indeed, he was a different boy from who he had been that summer. His eyes were clearer, his face more emotive and readable. And there was one emotion that Cordelia now read, plain as day, upon his face. One that assured her that all the change she herself had undergone meant that she had become a woman the very same way the boy in front of her had become a man.

She opened her mouth to speak.

“Miss Cordelia Carstairs? Miss Carstairs!”

Cordelia tore her gaze from James. A man in a grey suit had appeared by the edge of the square. It was a porter, from the hotel. He sagged with relief upon seeing her.

“What ever’s the matter?” Her mind instantly went to thoughts of Matthew, alone in the bar. Feeling him tense beside her, she figured James had thought the same.

“Excuse me for interrupting, Miss. And good evening to you, Sir. But I was sent to find you at once. A missive for you, Miss Carstairs. From your brother, it says. You must hear it immediately.” He held out a small slip of paper.

Cordelia took it from him.

Layla,

You must return home immediately. Our sibling has arrived early, and the doctor is worried for Maman’s health. He fears that, should her condition worsen, she may not survive the birth of the baby. She needs the both of us now, to bring her strength. Come at once.

Alastair

Chapter Text

The next hour was a great whirlwind of packing and preparing to leave for London, as Cordelia and Matthew wrestled their Parisian silks and satins into trunks and suitcases. James sent a runner to the Paris Institute about the use of their portal to return to London, and a response came back at once, inviting them to come immediately. It was eight by the time they stumbled through the doors of the Institute. A heavy snowfall had begun, whitening the stained glass windows and quieting the city streets. James caught Cordelia’s eye as she unwound the scarf she had coiled around her throat, and she quickly looked away, turning to help Matthew with a carpet bag filled with colorful cravats. Through the chaos of their departure from the hotel, he had found himself watching for any indication of her feelings about it all: a smile in his direction, a knowing glance. But now he knew that this was how Cordelia protected herself in moments of vulnerability. He would not be granted access to her now. He knew that they were the same in that way, turning inwards in times of unhappiness or confusion. But though it was selfish in such a moment of crisis, he was desperate to know the truth of her feelings.

They found the Institute’s inhabitants at dinner, and rather than disrupt the meal, they were quickly ushered downstairs to the portal by Marcel Verlac, the head of the Paris Enclave. He firmly grasped James’s hand in greeting as they were introduced, and pursed his lips at Matthew upon hearing his relation to Charles, who had so recently caused such great trouble for his Institute. For Will and Tessa, however, he had many high praises for the help they had provided.

“Although,” He considered, with a heavy French accent, “I am not too sure about your father, Monsieur ‘eronale. ‘e simply would not stop raving about ze ducks at ze Lac de Gravelle. ‘Worse than demons,’ ‘e said!”

James gave a brief smile before they swept through the portal into the darkness of the London Institute.

From there, it was a short and tense carriage ride to Kensington. It was odd, being back at Cordelia’s family home. The events of the past few months had been some of the most monumental and frankly endangering of his life, and yet it felt like it was only yesterday that he had walked Cordelia home that summer after they had visited Emmanuel Gast’s flat. How, despite Grace’s influence, he had paused to notice the delicate wisps of hair that curled at Cordelia’s temples, having escaped from her chignon. He supposed that he had loved her even then.

With a quick word to the porter about their bags, James flew up the stairs to the townhouse, following Matthew and Cordelia. Brother Enoch stood in the foyer, unsurprised to see them. With a look from him surely silently conveying the situation, Cordelia rushed up the stairs without a word to go be with her family. The Silent Brother followed behind her.

James and Matthew suddenly found themselves idle, hovering awkwardly in the foyer of the Carstairs home. It was quiet, the falling snow outside muffling the sounds of the city, but muffled cries came from the upper floors of the house.

James cleared his throat. “Shall we— let’s have a seat by the fire, then?”

The evening melted away into night, time growing slow and thick as the fire lazily flickered in the hearth. James could hear Cordelia’s voice— he knew he’d always hear it, wherever she was, somehow. Matthew was eyeing the decanter on the far side of the sitting room dangerously, his green eyes black in the soft light.

Matthew had always been somewhat of a mystery to James; his secrets were a part of him, and James had easily loved his Parabatai despite them. But now the distance was a chasm yawning between them. And James didn’t know if it were Matthew lost at sea or himself.

“Did you tell her?” Matthew asked. His voice was quiet and steady, but it made James jump regardless. “Everything?”

James swallowed. “Yes.”

“And…” Matthew looked away. “Did she… What did she say?”

“Nothing. She said nothing, really. The runner came just then with the note from Alastair. I don’t know what she’ll say. I— I can’t ask that of her, now. If her mother—” Sona, though generally healthy and strong, was old to be delivering a baby, and the thinness of her shoulders and hollows beneath her eyes had not gone unnoticed by James.

Matthew said nothing, but looked over at the staircase.

They did their best to ignore the sounds coming from upstairs, to little avail. James tried to busy himself by pulling a book from the shelf and flipping through it. It was in Persian, and though he had taught himself much of the language, he was of little clarity of mind to understand any of it.

After what must have been an hour, James could bear it no longer, and pulled himself to his feet. Matthew was on the sofa across from him, his elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging between his shoulders. He was not asleep, James could tell, as Matthew’s hands were fiddling with a glass of clear liquid, nervous gestures James knew well from years of watching his Parabatai drink. He prayed it was water.

Matthew looked up.

James cleared his throat. “I’m going upstairs to check on D-- to check on things.”

Before Matthew could respond, a wail cut the silence. They looked at each other for a moment in panic, and recognition, before rushing up the stairs.

They found Alastair on the landing of the third floor, closing the door to Sona’s room behind him. Sweat plastered his dark hair to his head, and the tracks of tears ran down his cheeks. Blood speckled his shirt. The sound of a baby crying came from the room behind him.

Alastair looked at James and Matthew with a bewildered expression, as if he thought he may have dreamt them up. “I have a baby brother,” he said, as if he hadn’t quite realized it himself yet. “And my mother is dead.”

He slumped against the wall, put his head in his hands, and began to weep.

James couldn’t think of what to say or what to do. It was as if he were in the Silent City all over again, agonizing over how to comfort his wife upon the death of her father.

“Alastair--” he began.

Alastair looked up at him, his expression scathing. “Get out of this house. You too, Fairchild. The good you have done for this family. You are a curse upon us all. Get out, and stay away.”

James glanced at the door. He thought he could hear Cordelia’s voice, though it wasn’t clear if she was weeping or murmuring softly, comforting the baby. Perhaps both. It’s not my fault, he longed to say, none of it was my fault. 

Behind him, Matthew slipped away back down the stairs. Alastair watched him go with lifeless eyes before dragging his gaze back up to James. He watched him in silence for a minute.

“Now you, Herondale. Be gone.” His voice was hollow and cold.

“Cordelia will want--”

“How could she want anything to do with you, the way you have treated her?”

James felt his face grow hot. "How could you know what happened between us? Don't presume to--"

"She's my sister, you bastard," Alastair hissed, "I can tell when her heart has been broken."

“I--” A sudden pain lashed through James, and he gasped. It came from the place on his skin where his Parabatai rune lay, a pulsating burn that afield itself to his chest, making it hard to breath. He clutched his arm to his chest.

Alastair watched him with wide eyes. “What’s wrong--”

“--Matthew--” James could only gasp, before rushing down the stairs after his Parabatai. He flung open the heavy door, stumbled out into the wintry night, and stopped short at the top of the stairs to the townhouse.

He knew instantly that the image before him would haunt him for the rest of his life. The neighborhood was dark, silent, still. A bright figure stood out, standing in the middle of the cobbled street. He glowed like a hellish beacon, his image translucent and flickering as if his presence in this world was tenuous at best. His face was as horrible as it had ever been: pale and entirely unhuman, and alarmingly like James’s own. His fingers were slightly too long and too white, and two dark stab wounds marred the starched white of his suit jacket. Worst of all, though, was Matthew beside him, barely conscious, on his knees. The figure gripped James’s Parabatai tightly by his golden hair, holding him upright, a slim silver blade pressed to his throat.

“Hello, James,” Belial said.

James’s ears were ringing, panic flooding him. He said nothing.

Belial sighed. “It seems as though I am here at a somewhat inconvenient time. I have had my fill of waiting though, and I intend to get what I need this very night.”

“Let him go, Grandfather.” James knew it was useless to ask, but his lips couldn’t form any other words. A small trickle of blood ran from Matthew’s temple. Had he been struck?

“I, the same as you, I’m sure, have had quite enough of all this dancing around. Let us make this simple. I know how much you love him, this Parabatai of yours.” Belial spit the word out as though it were a curse. “So let us make the simplest of trades, dear Grandson: you, for him.”

And it really was that simple. Somehow, in the different altercations he and his friends had been in with Belial, there had always been an alternate route, a way out of Belial’s tricks and manipulations. Cordelia’s bravery, Matthew’s wit, Lucie’s belief, Christopher’s scientific research, Thomas’s kindness. They had saved him, time and time again, from what he now saw was inescapable. In this moment, it was just him, James, who still had so very much to lose, and Belial, who had just that much to gain, and Matthew, who was very soon like to die.

“So, James. What do you say? What will it be?” Belial was smiling, as though he knew he had already won.

A bead of blood appeared where Belial’s blade pressed against Matthew’s throat.

The answer was easy. It burbled to James’s lips, and he opened his mouth to speak.

The door swung open behind him, and to James’s brief feeling of relief before an enormous wave of horror, Cordelia stepped out onto the stoop.

Her hair was loose and tangled, her clothes astray, and her face wet with tears, but she had never been more beautiful. Her dark eyes flicked to James, to Belial, to Matthew, crumpled in the Demon’s grip, and back to James again.

“James,” She breathed, "What--? I-- I don’t have— Cortana— it--it’s—hidden.”

Another person, just as valuable to James, had entered the equation. The nightmare only worsened. Another weapon to use against him. It made his answer all the more simple.

They would solve this, he knew, without him. His friends and family had fought many threats of this caliber before and came away victorious. This time, though, he wouldn’t be there to see it. Or rather, he would, but from a different angle altogether.

James turned to face Cordelia. “To the last hour of my life,” he whispered, “whenever it may end. And Daisy,” he said, taking in the sight of her for what could be the last time, “if it comes down to it, you must let it end.”

He committed her to his memory, for however much longer it would last. Her voice, the way it made words on a page come to life. The grip of her hands on Cortana’s hilt. Blood-red hair sliding between his fingers.

He cleared his throat.“I hope you can someday forgive me, Cordelia.”

Perhaps it was indeed better to have loved and lost than to have never been loved at all. James faced his grandfather and spoke once more. “I consent to your terms. My body is yours. Let me be your vessel."

The pain struck him behind the eyes first, and his vision went black.

Distantly, he could hear Cordelia begin to scream. Daisy, he thought with desperation, clinging to the memory of her as it was torn from him, My Daisy.

James fell to his knees.

Somewhere in the distance, a tolling bell announced that midnight had come. Faint cheers echoed down the snow-blanketed streets of Kensington. In the great city of London, the new year had just begun.

And then there was only pain.

The end lol.