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Yes, he resented people constantly thrusting labels of kindness upon him. He especially disliked the epithet that he was “the one with the good heart.” And yet, when push came to shove, he found that he valued being faithful to those that he cared for more than he wished to.

No one ever told him what happened when you had conflicting loyalties, multiple people that you had to keep true to in your heart.

He was now discovering that for himself.

Since the battle with Belial had concluded, the group had become quite heavily divided on the matter of Grace Blackthorn. Christopher- who had, rather miraculously, survived after having fallen victim to a blade coated in demon poison- has urged forgiveness when James told his loved ones what had passed between them. Part of Thomas remembered his own pleas not to forgive with approval, but the other part of his soul – the real part, he suspected – ached at the memory. Alastair had instantly flinched as though he’d been slapped, and Christopher’s lavender eyes shone with the grief of the prophetess Cassandra as he looked at Thomas across that small room.

It had been the first time in Thomas’s life that he did not counsel forgiveness. The first time that he had failed, in the others’ eyes, to fall into his role as the kind one. And yet, what could he do? What could he do, when the glowing embers of Jamie’s golden eyes had smoldered on him, speaking of the violations he had endured at Grace’s hand?

Matthew, for his part, seemed to be at peace with Grace. Thomas suspected that they would never be friends, but he had forgiven her for transgressions that he did not even know of as they had battled the Watchers side by side. Thomas wished to gain council from him, the most unbiased party available; and yet, he could not bring himself to, not when Thomas uttered Grace’s name and was met with a sad, all-knowing smile on Matthew’s bitten lips. He cannot help you, Thomas realized, for he has conflicting loyalties of his own.

Things had become even more difficult when Alastair had chosen to befriend Grace, too.

Thomas had been shocked to come home from patrol one evening to find his beloved sitting beside Grace on the plush red couch that they had chosen together, sipping a floral tea that Grace was evidently partial to. Alastair would always opt for chai and cinnamon-spice, so he must truly be trying to cater to Grace to be drinking what he had once dubbed “glorified rose dew.” They had been deep in a discussion of unusual chemistry reactions when Thomas’s eyes had met Alastair’s; he smiled and beckoned Thomas over, but he shook his head and made his way upstairs. Grace’s eyes followed him, burning into the back of his skull. That hot gaze felt like an open wound for nearly an hour until Alastair arrived and lay down beside Thomas, slipping his hand into his. “I did not think it would bother you so much,” he had whispered into the space between them. “I did not consider that you may think of a wrong against your friends as a wrong against your own person. I will not bring her here anymore, joon, not if it will make you uncomfortable.”

Thomas was not uncomfortable, not really; he was merely curious at the figure that he saw as an intruder in his life, an intruder in his social sphere that he could not and would not shake off. He shook his head. “It’s your house, too.” His voice was more intense than he had intended. “You can have whoever you want here. But… well, I do wonder why. Why have you opened our lives to her?”

Alastair shrugged. “Christopher quite likes her.”

It was true; Christopher, Thomas’s best friend since birth, the boy that he had grown up arm-in-arm with, had taken an unusual liking to Grace Blackthorn. He said that it was because she was in possession of a scientific mind, but Thomas was not sure that this was all. He had seen them laughing together over philosophy books and jokes about honeybees too frequently than to believe that they were no more than lab partners. Remembering Kit, remembering his eyes as he had implored the group to forgive, Thomas flipped over onto his side to meet Alastair’s steady gaze. “That’s true,” he allowed. “But why do you like her?”

Alastair shrugged the shoulder that was not holding him up atop the mattress. “She is a person like me,” he said in a soft tone.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” A note of frustration crept into Alastair’s voice. “I mean that we have both been through similar things. When I look upon Grace, I do not see someone who hurt James. I see someone who herself has been hurt sorely, and who cannot undo the ills that she has inflicted upon others. Someone who, like me, is in desperate want of forgiveness.” Then, more gently, he said, “can you understand that?”

Thomas forced himself to exhale slowly. “I suppose I can,” he said. “But…”

“But what?”

“Her wrongs are not like yours,” Thomas forced himself to say.

Alastair blinked his dark eyes quickly, his surprise obvious. “That’s unfair,” he said.

“She violated at least three people. Perhaps more.” Thomas felt the early signs of anger pooling in his gut again like acid, and his voice was sharper than he intended it to be. “And you, what? Called some children mean names when you were fifteen? Engaged in ridiculous schoolboy pranks? Those wrongs do not compare.”

“It’s not so much a comparison of wrongs as it is the situation itself.” Alastair bit his lip, and in that moment he looked almost painfully vulnerable. “Have you ever been treated as though your life is absolutely worthless? By everyone, but above all by a parent?” He sounded very much as though he knew that the answer was no. Thomas confirmed his suspicions, and Alastair barreled onward. “Grace understands those things. Grace felt the same things as I did, in those moments, and she knows what it is to do anything to ensure survival and sanity. And yet, I have been given the grace and dignity that she has not been given; I have friends, and a family, and forgiveness. I have you. Love of my life,” he said, his voice painfully quiet as he reached out to take Thomas’s hand. As always, Alastair’s skin was warm and comforting; even now, when Thomas’s face was hot with emotion, Alastair was his safe place. “I have you, and I cannot imagine being cast out of the group as Grace has been. No one speaks to her besides myself and Christopher and Jesse, and even that relationship is exceedingly strained. I know what it is to be alone, to have no one. That is no longer my reality, but it is Grace’s.” He paused, giving Thomas a chance to process this. “Can you understand that at least?”

“I suppose,” Thomas said quietly, and he could.

Thomas had been Alastair’s only advocate for years. He had spent collective hours in the Devil Tavern, telling the other Thieves that Alastair was not the enemy, that he deserved their respect and forgiveness. He would be a hypocrite to go back on those words now, solely because they were not about Alastair.

He looked into Alastair’s dark gaze and smiled slightly. He had the same imploring look that Christopher did, as he had asked the group once upon a time to forgive Grace, to allow her the chance to prove herself. “Alright,” Thomas said, and kissed Alastair on the nose gently. “I’ll work to befriend Grace. Or, barring that, respect her as someone you view as a kindred spirit.”

A small smile played on Alastair’s lips as he spoke, his voice laced with heavy emotion. “Thank you,” he said.

James would not like it, and understandably so. Matthew would be quietly pleased or displeased; Thomas would never know, and it would not impact him either way. Alastair would be grateful, and Christopher…

Well, Christopher would be ecstatic.

-

There was nowhere that Christopher felt more at home than in Uncle Henry’s laboratory, and he was discovering that this feeling was only magnified by Grace’s presence. His heart did an odd little flip as he watched her take precise measurements of purple propellant, dividing it equally between three beakers before them. They glimmered under the light, a kaleidoscope of colors that Christopher was sure he would not have noticed if he were not seeing them reflected in Grace’s goggles. “I do think that it shall be this second one, here,” she said, pointing to the middle beaker and stretching out her hand toward Christopher. “An appropriate flame retardant. Ready the pan, please,” she said, and Christopher extracted a large metal sheet from its place on the wall opposite Grace’s lab table.

“It’s all ready,” Kit said, and Grace nodded. She struck a match and placed it in the first beaker; it ignited into a ridiculously tall column of flame. Christopher placed the pan over it until the fire snuffed itself out, and Grace turned to him.

“Alright,” she said. “As I suspected, that was a spectacularly failed attempt. Time for the second one,” she said, and Christopher readied the pan again, just in case.

But when she placed her match into the beaker…

“What ho!” Christopher’s voice was happy as the fire effectively snuffed itself out. “A success.”

“Yes,” Grace said, smiling brightly as she turned toward Christopher. “A success, indeed. Oh, this is so exciting – we are a full step closer toward refining the written fire-messages to eliminate all charring. Clearer messages, clearer minds.”

Her voice was filled with a delight that Christopher could not have imagined only a few short months ago, when he had only known Grace as a scared girl trying with everything she had to flee an unthinkable situation. She pulled her goggles off her face to meet his eye, and he mirrored her movement; he was pleased to see that she followed appropriate lab safety protocol and left her shining blonde hair up in a tight chignon.

When he blinked his eyes, he realized, not for the first time, that she was beautiful.

It wasn’t so much physical; no. She was pretty, yes, but Christopher always felt that being destined for a meeting of the minds was superior than even the greatest of romances. The intense passion that James and Cordelia shared at the expense of all else was immensely off-putting to him, and he never actively wished to dance with a woman in the admittedly adorable way that he saw Jesse hold Lucie close. He thought briefly of Thomas and Alastair; perhaps, he amended, one could have both romance and the mental connection that he so craved. But Christopher had still never yearned for the soft kisses that his cousin seemed to love. He just wanted to sit with a scientifically-minded woman for hours on end, getting to know the ins and outs of her mind’s chasms and the unique ways in which the gears of her inventive spirit churned. He was fairly sure that Grace wished for the same thing. A man who would keep her safe; a man who would understand her lifelong desire to learn, to create, to build.

And that’s why, the second Grace let go of him, Christopher shoved a shaking hand into his pocket. “Grace,” he said, “might I court you, in my own odd little way?”

She looked at him with wide eyes. For a moment, he feared that she might say no, and he prepared himself to explain his thoughts, explain the ways that he saw them together in his unusual and unorthodox way. A platonic marriage; a soul-deep connection without the physical.

But she smiled crookedly, her expression imperfect and real, and Christopher knew that she understood him. “Yes,” she breathed, and he felt himself grinning wildly.

It was perfect.

-

“Christopher Lightwood asked to court you?” Alastair asked, his voice filled with immense surprise. “Did you accept?”

“You don’t need to sound so shocked,” Grace said, hoping that her laugh was not too obvious. “I know that you do not look at women in this fashion, but I am, in fact, widely thought of as unbelievably beautiful.” Instinctively, she moved her hand upward to brush the scar on her cheek, the one that had marred her pearl-perfect features in quite an exciting and invigorating explosion. “I do not think that one little cut is truly so off-putting.”

“It certainly is not,” Alastair agreed. “I think that it gives character.” His eyes narrowed. “I just am struggling to picture Christopher courting anyone, if I am honest. I knew you were quite fond of each other, but I presumed it to be friendly. I believed you to simply have a meeting of the minds. I must admit that I never considered the prospect of you courting.”

Grace considered how much to tell Alastair of their unconventional courtship. “We have somewhat of an… odd arrangement,” she settled on telling him. Surely he understood what it was to love outside the conventions of society.

Alastair raised an eyebrow and took a sip of the jasmine tea that she had made for him.

“We shan’t engage in the… the carnal aspects of a courtship,” Grace continued. “We… Angel, this is a challenge to explain.” Her voice was more snappish than she wished; to calm herself, she ran her fingers through her long, tangled hair. “Look,” she said. “You and Thomas absolutely have the best relationship I have ever seen, without a doubt. You seem to connect on an emotional level, as well as the physical one. Well, Christopher and I connect on that emotional level. Neither of us are interested in the other nonsense.”

“Well, I think it’s unfair to call it nonsense.” Alastair sounded oddly defensive. She supposed this made sense, given that people judged him partly due to harboring passions for other men.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Grace said, frustrated. Why was expressing her feelings so challenging? “I mean, well… consider James and Cordelia,” she said, and Alastair grinned slightly into his tea. “Christopher and I want to be the precise opposite of everything that they are.”

Alastair snorted, clearly trying not to laugh. “I understand, Grace. Do stop insulting my sister’s strange, horribly conventional marriage. It is offensive to traditional unions across the world. And, as we know, they are so cruelly oppressed.”

“I shall endeavor to oblige,” Grace told him. He smiled at her, then, and she punched him lightly on the knee. It was odd, she thought, to meet someone who shared her sense of humor. She had an odd manner of joking, and people did not always pick up on her jests; Alastair did. Thomas once had told Christopher that Alastair was quite silly, and she had to agree. He simply amused himself in his own way.

“You know, as one irregular individual to another, I must say that you and Kit must go out with myself and my Tom sometime,” he said. “We shall endeavor not to subject you to any woeful kissing or similar torrid madness. Though you may need to endure some hand-holding and giggling on Tom’s part. He’s ridiculously chipper sometimes.”

“I find that I do not mind, when it is you. I am quite fond of you,” she allowed, “and I feel that those of us who love fiercely outside the box must stand together. If Thomas can ever come around to me, if he’s willing to give me a chance, I feel that we might find ourselves indulging in weekly parcheesi and charades.”

Alastair smirked. “I would like that,” he said. “But first, let us plan an initial outing, yes?”

Grace felt her stomach sink. It was as she suspected. Thomas did not like her or wish for her company. But he loved both Alastair and Christopher more than he loved his own soul; perhaps, for their sake, he would give her a chance to win him over.

She could only hope that he would.

-

Alastair regretted not telling Grace then that Thomas had already agreed to give her a fair chance. And yet, he felt that it would be unfair to Thomas to spring an already-planned outing on him without first garnering his opinion on the matter. Luckily, he had agreed, and readily; it seemed that Christopher and Tom had engaged in a similar conversation to the one that he and Grace had. “I made the same promise to Kit that I made to you,” Thomas said. “The promise to try. And it is one that I intend to keep.” He paused. “I also asked Matthew about it over the phone, as a sort of impartial party. Unexpectedly, he gave an opinion; he had just gotten done with a bike tour of some Peruvian village, and he seemed to have no filter. He thinks that we are doing the right thing, for what it’s worth.”

“I thought he might,” Alastair said truthfully. He hated to admit it, but he and Matthew were each other’s odd, unwanted mirrors in nearly every way. The thought simultaneously horrified him and provided him with an inane sense of security. He shrugged it off. “In any case, I thought that an outing with them might prove beneficial to your efforts, as well as to their budding and doubtlessly awkward courtship.” He paused. “Not that their wants are awkward, but they are both painfully awkward human beings.”

“I understood,” Thomas said with a chuckle. “And I agree. We have been in a relationship for some time, even if its shape is different from the one they have. We can provide guidance.”

“Yes. Did you know that Grace said that we were the best couple she knew?”

“I mean, she’s correct,” Thomas said, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Undoubtedly. We’re sickeningly adorable. Which positions us well to be the steady hands that assist them in their courtship. Besides,” he said, his voice soft, “no one knows Christopher as you do.”

“That’s true,” Thomas agreed. “And I’m beginning to suspect that no one knows Grace as you do.”

Alastair felt a knot loosen in his chest. He had not even been aware that his body held such tension, but hearing Thomas acknowledge that Grace was important to him made him feel as though a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I suspect so, too,” he said.

-

In the end, the four of them had decided to go to Kensington Gardens for a picnic. Christopher had smiled incredibly widely when Thomas had agreed to meet with both him and Grace, and he knew that he had made the right decision. Christopher was the other half of his soul, his parabatai in all but name and binding runes. If Grace was important enough to Christopher for dreary carriage rides on rainy Monday mornings and late nights showcasing all of his favorite lab equipment, then surely Thomas should set aside his prejudices long enough to give her a chance.

“I promise, Tom, you won’t regret it,” Kit had said, the relief in his voice a palpable force. He reached out to pat Thomas on the shoulder, and the affectionate touch was enough to convince him that all may be well. “She truly does regret her actions; they are something that she must always live with. And, as I said, we only get one life; we must each come to grips with the mistakes of our past and find a way to sleep at night.” He paused. “Is this how you felt in all the years you were forced to defend Alastair to the rest of us Thieves?”

Thomas was oddly taken aback by the question. It was true; their circumstances were strikingly similar. Thomas was shocked to consider that he hadn’t thought so before. “I… I suppose,” he said. “I didn’t think about it that way.”

Christopher blinked once, slowly. Then, at a similar pace, he nodded his head. “Yes, well. As a scientist, it is important to consider all angles of a problem. Perhaps you could look at such situations as a scientific experiment; that is how I approach most social situations.” He paused. “Consider for a moment the sound packages that Grace and I are attempting to add to fire-messages.”

“You’re attempting to what?”

“Make it possible to send voice-notes via fire-message. It was Grace’s idea; as telephones are currently all the rage with the mundanes, it seems quite possible with the appropriate experimentation and methods. In any case, I viewed the problem of getting our voices to move through space as a simple movement of sound waves. I wondered whether sound waves may be able to carry from one point to another; remember the string-and-cup system we had as children, where we placed paper cups on either sides of a string to communicate between ourselves and Matthew?” Thomas nodded, and Christopher continued. “Well, it did not work. But then Grace, who is brilliant, offered up the idea of containing our voice within small packets of static and sending the sound that way. When the packet got to point B, she said, we could come up with a way to unravel it and ensure that the speech came through solidly.”

“That’s… quite interesting?” It was, but Thomas did not see what it had to do with the Grace situation.

“Well, look at Grace herself as we examined the vocal sounds. From one perspective, Grace has caused James serious harm, and we cannot write that off. But on the other hand, Grace-”

“-Is a victim herself,” Thomas finished, and Christopher nodded. He looked elated, at the prospect that Thomas might have come to the conclusion on his own, but he was only remembering what Alastair had said earlier. That he saw in Grace a kindred spirit.

“I was already convinced to give her a chance,” Thomas said, because it was true.

“Oh! Oh, good,” Christopher said, sounding oddly relieved. “Well, best hope it’s a nice day, then, if we’re to have an outdoor picnic.”

When the day had approached, it was in fact beautiful outdoors. Thomas stood with Alastair near the ornamental Italian gardens in the center of the park, the lake and waterfall before them a beautiful backdrop for their outing. The sun reflected on the pool to make its surface glimmer blue, though Thomas knew that to stick even a finger in the water would cause him to feel unclean for days regardless of how much he bathed. But to look was a pleasure, so he sat down on the ground very near the water and beckoned for Alastair to join him. He lay out a blanket and smiled as he plopped to the ground, his eyes shining even in the shadow of the boater hat that he had worn for their promenade. “It’s so very nice here,” he said.

“If even you cannot find something to be grumpy about, it must be the greatest day of the year.”

Alastair shot him a glare. “Oh, shut up, you. I’m not eternally a grouch.”

“You are quite grouchy, and I love that about you. It restores some balance to the world.”

“I concede that it would, on such a ridiculously sunny day. Tell me, do you sometimes worry that the sunspot may sport a smiling face that’s simultaneously nauseatingly chipper and terrifying?”

“No, that never occurred to me. What is happening in the recesses of your mind?” Thomas looked at Alastair curiously. “Truly, I do wish to know what goes on in there. You confound me in the best possible way.”

“That was not a thought that I can take credit for, I don’t think.” Alastair looked sour. “It was a cursed image in one of Zachary’s picture books.”

“That sounds like a horror unfit for print.” Thomas shuddered at the thought.

“Oh, believe me, it was. I’ll show it to you next time we find ourselves at Cirenworth. If I had to experience it, than you must also.”

Before Thomas could respond, Christopher appeared and waved awkwardly with a hand that was holding a picnic basket. A small carton went flying from it; Thomas was relieved when it landed on their blanket, closed and sealed. Grace’s arm was tucked underneath Kit’s other one, and Thomas thought with amusement that he felt the need to choose between chucking his food and releasing Grace. “Hullo, Thomas. Hullo, Alastair,” he said, and Grace let go of his arm. She plopped down unceremoniously into a puddle of skirts; their sky-blue silk bellowed out around her knees and glimmered as brightly as the pools nearby did.

“Grace,” Alastair said, bumping her hand with his fist. “And Christopher. Hello to you, too.”

Grace began to lay out the contents of her basket in a businesslike and efficient manner. Thomas was struck with the same odd feeling that he had when Grace had completed the fire-messages; Christopher had been unconscious, and Grace had found her way around the laboratory on her own very quickly. Her hands moved with the same speed and precision that they had then, and Thomas had to remind himself that Grace, for all her finery and frippery, was actually an incredibly intelligent and precise sort of person. She doled out the sandwiches equally among the four picnickers and spoke in a voice flatter than Thomas thought she intended. “I hope that you do not mind finger sandwiches. They’re all I truly know how to make. Egg and cress, and ham and cheese. Does that suit you?”

“It suits wonderfully,” Alastair said, his voice bright. “Especially because I have mango chutney. We can add it to the ham sandwiches. Do you like chutney?”

“I’ve never had it,” Grace said. “What does it taste of?”

“Mango, primarily, hence its name. Really, Grace, I expected a far more perceptive inquiry from a smart woman such as yourself,” Alastair’s tone was playful, and both Grace and Thomas laughed. After a moment, a moment where he was clearly debating whether or not to take offense on Grace’s behalf, Christopher chuckled, too. He understands, Thomas thought with almost ridiculous emotion. He sees Alastair’s sense of humor for what it is.

 He turned to smile at Christopher, who opened up a large bowl that Grace had set before them to display a wide array of scones. “There’s blackberry jam here, and clotted cream,” she said, pointing at two little jars beside the scones.

“Blackberries are my favorite,” Alastair said, his voice warmer than Thomas had heard it around anyone besides himself and Cordelia. “How did you know that?”

“They’re my favorite, too,” Grace said, equally animated. “Really, it’s as though we were cut from the same cloth.” She smoothed out her dress and set a scone on a small porcelain plate. “There are blackberry scones in here, too, but most are sultana.”

“Did you make them?” Alastair raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said that you only knew how to make sandwiches, so perhaps these simply materialized.”

“No,” Grace said. “Kit did.”

“What ho,” Christopher put in.

Thomas felt himself blink slowly. “You did?” It was almost impossible to imagine his cousin in a kitchen.

“Baking’s not so different from science, really,” Christopher said. “You just have to follow the recipe, get the measurements right…”

“You know, I do think I can understand that,” Alastair said. “It’s a rather droll list of tasks that you need to complete extremely precisely or you wind up with a woebegone output.” He spread some jam and cream on one of the sultana scones and bit into it. In Thomas’s view, he was putting a lot of faith in Christopher’s cooking skills; it was more than likely that his cousin had used salt rather than sugar. But Alastair looked content and nodded approvingly. “It’s delicious,” he said. “Tom, try this.”

Thomas felt weary, but Alastair held his scone up to his lips. He saw no way out; he took a small bite, and found himself incredibly surprised. “This is good,” he conceded. “How…”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Tom,” Kit said. “A good chemist is a good baker, and vice versa.”

“Quite,” Grace agreed. “You truly should have more faith in him.” She clicked her tongue chidingly, and Alastair chuckled. Christopher, for his part, seemed distracted by counting the raisins in the two scones before him. Thomas wondered why this was an important task, or even one that Christopher had thought to do, but he did not care. “So, Thomas,” Grace said, her voice light and airy. It sank Thomas’s stomach. Now that Grace was addressing him directly, and in such a kind tone, he would have to engage with her in time, and the pressure felt heavy. It was not that he didn’t wish to speak with her, but he felt that a lot was riding on this discussion. Social interaction had never been his strong suit. But Grace, seeming not to notice this, barreled on. “Christopher tells me that you’re something of a poet. I’m hopeless with any turn of phrase, so what’s it like to be verbally inclined?”

“I don’t know that I’d call myself a poet,” Thomas responded, because it was the first thing he’d think of. This was met by a chorus of groans from both Christopher and Alastair, the latter of whom asserted that Thomas was the best poet he had ever known. That seemed excessive, but his chest warmed with satisfaction. “Alright,” he said. “I suppose I’m somewhat fanciful. As for what it’s like to be… verbally inclined?”

“That was the first phrase I thought of. I’m rather regretting not coming up with a better one now,” Grace informed him, adjusting her blond curls.

“It’s a fine phrase,” Thomas reassured her. “But it’s a challenging question to answer. I have always been… as I am.”

“Yes,” Christopher said, licking jam off his fingers. “We all can only be as we are. Perspectives are an interesting thing.”

“I suppose I agree with that.” Alastair had polished off his sultana scone, and now little crumbs lined his mouth. Thomas wiped them off with his thumb, and Grace smiled brightly at Alastair’s affronted expression. Alastair continued. “I suppose it’s as though you asked me what it is like to enjoy music, or if you asked yourself of Christopher what it is like to have a scientific mind. It eludes the rest of us, but it is horribly obvious to the person in question. Such a basic inquiry that it has no answer.”

“Alastair, don’t you want any blackberry scones?” Grace asked this question, in Thomas’s opinion, too intensely.

“Sultana is fine,” he said. “I wish for you to have the blackberry ones. I can always get my own at Candella.”

Thomas looked at Alastair with wide eyes. As though echoing his thoughts, Grace said, “well, you must like me quite a bit to make such a sacrifice.”

Alastair rolled his eyes. “You look as though you haven’t had sustenance in weeks. You’re too skinny. I’d prefer that you consumed whatever you wished so that you did not expire on the spot.”

“It would be awkward for you to explain if I keeled over here and now,” Grace agreed.

“Yes, or if you wasted away in your flat, poor Christopher would be the recipient of a barrage of inquiries.”

“I would not wish that,” Christopher said earnestly. “I’m dreadfully awkward, I’d surely find myself in the Silent City.”

“I’d have to visit you and ask for the honor of your opinion,” Grace quipped, leaving Thomas to wonder what that was all about.

Alastair unwrapped his sandwich. “As the entire premise of this hypothetical is you having met a slow demise, I’m not too sure that you would have the capacity to visit anyone.”

“I’m sure I would figure something out. Never underestimate an enterprising woman.” Grace opened her sandwich and applied some of Alastair’s chutney to the bread; Thomas did likewise.

“I would never underestimate you, Gracie,” Kit informed her gallantly.

“Yes. You do seem… rather brilliant,” Thomas said, feeling like a flower withering under too much sunlight. Too much pressure. “I believe you to be one of the smartest of our set.”

“She is among the smartest of our set,” Christopher said proudly. “She is one of the sharpest minds that the Nephilim have ever held among their ranks; it is for this reason that I…”

“Wish to hitch your cart to me?” Grace’s voice was flat, but Thomas thought that it sounded something like Alastair’s tone when he was telling a dry joke.

Christopher scratched his head. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

“Well, so long as you aren’t marrying me solely for the sizeable dowry that Tatiana Blackthorn left me, I suppose all is well.”

Alastair blanched. “You have a dowry?”

“You sound so surprised,” Grace said, biting into her sandwich. “Angel,” she said, her eyes comically wide. “That’s spicy. Why did you not tell me so?”

Alastair chuckled.

“That was quite mean,” Grace chided him. “I’ll find a way to get you back.”

“Do you like it, though?”

Grace took another small bite. “I concede that it has a very full flavor, when I go into it knowing that there is spice contained within it. I simply expected a sweet mango jelly.” She took another bite, apparently deciding that she liked it. “In any case, your surprise at my dowry is sensible, as I obviously do not have one. All my mother had to her name were cobwebs and rotting food.” She turned to Christopher. “So I hope that suits you.”

“Thomas came with a rather poor dowry as well,” Alastair said seriously. “Just old diaries and lists of all the foods that he had eaten on any given day.”

“Why did you list out your daily menu?” Grace’s voice held genuine curiosity.

“Because I was sick as a child. Rather a lot,” Thomas muttered. “I was not expected to live into adulthood.”

“Oh, I actually did know of that, but I forgot. That sounds absolutely horrid, Thomas. I’m sorry.”

Something in Grace’s voice was so genuine that Thomas forgot to be unsure of her. “Yes, well, I’m sure it had nothing on your experiences.”

“It’s not a contest,” Grace told him. “If the four of us wished to compare tragedies, I surmise that we would be here all day.”

“It would be a woefully inefficient use of our time as well,” Alastair said. “Especially when I know for a fact that there are paddle-boats on the other side of the park a mere 20 minutes’ walk away. I would much rather gamble with fate on the shaky Serpentine waves than go over our nightmare childhoods point after dismal point.”

Thomas wrapped Alastair’s hand in his and laughed; Grace exchanged a look with his hamsar-am that he could not quite interpret. Amusement? Validation? He did not know; he did not care. “That’s Alastair-speak for ‘I am excited to try out the paddle-boats and I hope you lot will do so with me.’”

“It’s really not,” Alastair said dourly, but his eyes held hope as his thumb stroked the back of Thomas’s hand slowly. “It’s a thinly-veiled inquiry about whether or not you might wish to try the paddle-boats. If you do not feel invigorated at the prospect, I can just drag Tom back later and cast the two of us out onto the open seas alone.”

“You sound as though we’re to find ourselves marooned in the ocean,” Thomas informed him.

“It’s far murkier and dirtier than an ocean,” Alastair responded grimly.

Thomas shrugged. “Yes, but we’re far less likely to drown.”

“I, for one, would like to try the paddle-boats,” Christopher said, smiling crookedly at Grace.

She grinned back, and Thomas felt an unrecognizable pang in his chest. “I must admit that I’m curious how they work.”

“We must take one apart,” he agreed.

“I’m not sure that’s legal,” Thomas informed him. “We’d probably just be chucked out of the park.”

“I’d settle for close inspection,” Christopher said.

“Good,” Alastair told him dryly. “You’d better.”

“Wait,” Grace said. “Before we go, I have dessert.”

Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “Is it flowers?”

“What? No. Why would it be flowers?”

“You eat flowers rather a lot. Jasmine and rose teas; lavender scones. Honeysuckle jellies. I just wished to know, so I could brace myself.”

Grace rolled her eyes and pulled a bowl out of her picnic basket. “No, you dunce. It’s lemon tarts.”

Christopher looked as though it had turned out to be his birthday, and Grace shot him a small half-smile. “I made them for you,” she said. “Thomas and Alastair can share, but I certainly thought primarily of you as I cooked them. I love you best. Don’t tell them.”

“Wow,” Alastair deadpanned. “I’m offended.”

“In any case, you’re not the only chemist here,” Grace said, and held a lemon tart to Christopher’s lips.

He took a bite, looking positively elated. “This is why you’re my perfect match,” he said.

Against his trepidations, the little voice that expressed the truth of Thomas’s thoughts had to agree.

-

The paddle-boats stood next to an ice cream stand on the edge of Hyde Park. Christopher stood licking his lemon ice cone as he looked on at the boats, trying to figure out their functionality as Thomas and Alastair chatted animatedly beside him. Apparently only two people could fit on a single boat; Christopher was slightly put out by this, as he wished to continue integrating his betrothed with his most treasured friend. And yet, he was also filled with an odd feeling; he found himself wishing to spend some time alone with Grace, too. It was an odd, dichotomous emotion, but not an altogether bad one.

“I think,” Grace said, taking a spoonful of her vanilla ice, “that we are going to completely outdo Alastar and Thomas at this paddle-boating race. We have the advantage of figuring out their mechanisms; Thomas and Alastair only are able to blindly paddle along, hoping that the tides might deign to take them in an appropriate direction.”

Christopher scratched his head. “There’s a race?”

Grace shrugged. “I thought that we might wish to make it one, you know. As a friendly competition.”

“Do you think they will go for it?”

“Only one way to find out,” Grace said, and turned to Thomas. “Might we make a wager?”

Thomas sounded confused in his response. “What kind?”

“A race about the outskirts of the lake. The loser must purchase yet another ice cream for the winners.”

“That does not sound healthy,” Thomas responded, and Alastair whacked him on the arm.

“Don’t be a wet blanket,” he chided. “Of course we will take your bet, and win handily.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Grace said.

“I would. Your legs are tiny little things, and you have skirts to worry about when operating the paddles. Surely that will cause you to plod along at a significantly slower rate.”

“And Thomas’s knees will be at the same height as his chest when he sits down,” Grace said. “I’d call those handicaps even.”

“Rude,” Thomas muttered, but Christopher thought that his friend might be smiling. “Well, you’re assuming that my weight hasn’t capsized the boat, so I suppose I should not be too offended.”

Christopher felt a spark of panic. “Is that a possibility?”

“No,” Alastair said with finality. “The boats can hold my Tom. And he will win the race, because of his leg strength.” He glared at grace, a spark of competition in his eyes. “You’ve no idea how horribly strong his legs are.”

“What ho,” Christopher said sadly.

Still glaring at Alastair, Grace hopped into a boat that the operator had pulled up for them; she sat on the right side, and Christopher on the left. Both of them had small paddles made of wood beneath their feet. Apparently, they were meant to pump them and propel the boat along the lake my some spinning mechanism under the boat. “I believe that it’s likely a wheel, perhaps one with gear teeth” Christopher told Grace, who nodded knowingly. “Likely operated by some sort of giant rubber band.”

“Yes, I do think so. Likely the paddles connect to the rubber band and rotate the wheel, which creates the energy to propel the boat forward.”

“I always found the movement from potential energy into kinetic motion fascinating,” Kit said. They rested at the side of the lake as the operator helped Thomas and Alastair into their own boat; much as Grace had predicted, Thomas looked small as he folded into the box beside a laughing Alastair. “Do you fancy that it’s the unwinding of the band that moves the boat? Or the friction of the wheel against the water’s surface?”

“Probably both,” Grace told him, and he nodded approvingly. “I think that the two are intimately linked.”

“Quite right,” Christopher said. He paused, biting his lip. “I wonder if we can use that in our efforts to send voice packets.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, if we could somehow wind a sort of magical rubber band about the packages, we might be able to use the communication runes that made the fire-messages work to unwind it and spin the voice note out.”

“That sounds like rather a good idea theoretically,” Grace agreed, “but I’m not sure how we would make it happen, practically.”

“Perhaps a propellant similar to the ones I used in the early days of the fire-messages?”

Grace frowned, her pink lips a hard line. “Didn’t that make you and all of your silly friends lose your mind for nearly ninety minutes?”

“I must admit it did,” Christopher conceded. “But-”

Alastair’s voice rang out from the other boat. “Are you intentionally going to give us a head start by driveling on about Angel knows what?” Kit’s eyes widened, and Alastair rolled his. “I cannot hear your conversation from here, so I am merely assuming it drivel. It likely is not. I’m sure you are discussing something that will forever alter the fabric of our society.”

“We are!” Christopher said, eager to share his hypothesis. “We-”

“-Shall tell them about that later,” Grace interrupted, placing a hand on his shoulder. She keeps me right,” Christopher thought, his heart unfurling in his chest like a well-cultivated rose. “Now, we have a competition to win. I do intend to have the hazelnut ice cream this time.”

“Alright,” Thomas said affably. Alastair mumbled something about his beloved being awful at trash-talk, and Thomas’s cheeks flushed pink. “On your marks, get set…”

“Go,” Grace said, clearly wishing to have the last word. They began to paddle quickly across the water, and Thomas shoved his hand in the lake. Alastair looked completely horrified, but he began to use the force held in his arms to propel them forward more quickly.

“Do stop cheating, Tom,” Christopher called out.

“No, I don’t think I will.” Thomas’s tone was kind.

“It’s alright,” Grace said. “Let’s conserve energy by going steadily.”

“What?”

“Look at Alastair,” she said. He moved incredibly quickly. “He can’t possibly keep that momentum up this entire time, even if he is currently ahead. He’ll exhaust eventually, and we shall pull ahead. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Christopher reassured her. He really wasn’t. He didn’t particularly care about winning one way or the other.

Grace and Christopher moved steadily, in tandem. Kit was not surprised to see that her hypothesis was correct; eventually Alastair did slow down, and he lost speed even more quickly than Grace had anticipated. Thomas kept his hand in the water even though he had stopped moving it several minutes ago, and Christopher thought that he saw Alastair glaring at the hand as he and Grace passed them and pulled ahead. “What do you suppose he’s upset about?” Christopher was genuinely curious; Grace knew Alastair far better than he did even though they both counted him a friend.

“The lake water is disgusting,” Grace said. “I assume that he rues the fact that Thomas will touch him and all of his belongings with that hand in the near future.”

Christopher nodded. “That is reasonable. Let us make a pact not to rub murky water on one another.”

“I completely agree. That seems a good pact.”

They were solidly in the lead at this point; Grace turned toward Thomas and Alastair’s paddle-boat and stuck her tongue out in a rather juvenile gesture. Kit couldn’t help but smile. He was happy for Grace, immensely glad for the fact that she finally felt comfortable enough to try and make up for lost time.

And when they won, Alastair elbowed her while mumbling a ridiculous rhyme about losers being the true winners. Grace posited that second place simply meant ‘first loser,’ and Alastair stuck out his tongue in a mirror of her previous gesture.

Thomas rolled his eyes with a smile, and Christopher thought that he might be glad to see Alastair making up for years of sorrow, too.

-

Grace had not been certain what to expect from Thomas Lightwood, but she was finding that she rather liked him.

She rather liked him a lot.

But she wasn’t sure whether the feeling was mutual. Perhaps he still only could see her as the person who had hurt his lifelong friend. It would make sense, she thought with deep remorse; there was no true way for her to atone for the sins of her past. And yet, she was trying; she hoped that he would see that. She hoped that, for now, trying would be good enough.

They sat down, Grace and Christopher now holding new ice creams as they sat across from Thomas and Alastair. They were in a field of flowers, now, and Grace instinctively began to do what she had always done around fresh blooms. She picked them off the ground, stems intact, and began to thread the green strands together through bites of ice cream as Christopher laughed gleefully with Thomas and Alastair.

She had almost completed a crown when Alastair raised an eyebrow and looked at her. “What are you doing?” His tone was snappish, but Grace knew that he was genuinely interested.

“Making flower crowns,” she told him. “When I was a girl, I used to find solace in creating them for myself and… and Jesse.” Saying his name hurt sometimes. They had been so close, once, and they had been trying to patch up their relationship in recent months. And yet it still felt that there was a painful wedge between them, a great divide that she felt unable to fully bridge. “I always adored the bleeding hearts most.”

“Bleeding hearts?” Thomas looked alarmed.

“Yes, the bloody ones I ripped from the chests of innocents,” Grace deadpanned.

“They’re a type of flower,” Alastair told Thomas, who visibly relaxed.

“Dicentra, yes,” Christopher elaborated, clearly feeling the need to clear up the misunderstanding that Grace herself had created. “They’re native to eastern Asia and North America.”

“Oh.” Thomas scratched his freckled nose. “Sorry, Grace.”

“It’s fine,” she said with a half-smile. “I was making a joke. Here, Kit,” she said, placing the crown that she’d made on his head. “I did not have dicentra, but there’s quite a lot of lonicera.”

“Honeysuckle,” Alastair said to Thomas.

Thomas glared. “I can see that, yes.”

“I just wished to make sure,” he said, and Thomas kissed him on the nose as Grace began to weave another crown. This one took a much shorter time – she knew it would, once she got the hang of it. Once the chain of flowers- marigolds, this time – reached a suitable length, she tied it off to create the loop of a crown.

“Alastair, do bend over, please. This is yours.”

“A golden crown fit for a proud, strong king,” Thomas said, and Alastair bent to let Grace put it over his black hair. It stood out starkly, and Thomas looked slightly surprised when he adjusted it and kept it upon his head. “I do quite like it,” he told Alastair, who smirked. He picked one of the marigolds off the ground and tucked it behind Thomas’s ear, and Grace rolled her eyes at the intimate display.

“I’m about to make Thomas one too. Rest assured, he shan’t be excluded.” She turned to a patch of wildflowers in varying hues and began to string them together. “And he shall get a multicolored crown as well. Truly, it’s like winning the lottery.”

“It is?” Christopher looked astonished, and Grace glared. “Ah. Right, then. It is.”

“Very good, my Kit,” she said, trying out Alastair’s sweetly-possessive endearment just to see how it sounded. Christopher’s eyes lit up, and she knew that she had done the right thing. The first time she had heard Alastair say my Tom, she had wondered why he was speaking of Thomas as an extension of himself, or an item that he was holding onto; but when she had heard Thomas call Alastair his Alastair right back, she realized that it was not a possessive phrase. It was a statement of closeness, of proximity, of each being the other’s safe place. She felt that for Christopher, too, and was pleased to see that this had come through in the expression.

Thomas and Alastair exchanged a look, but she barely noticed it as she continued stringing the flowers together. Twirling off the ends of the crown, she smiled at him, placing it on his head.

“You’re benighted now as well,” Grace told him.

Alastair made a small sound and glanced away; Grace did not even attempt to guess what it indicated.

“Well, then,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I suppose I had better make myself one too, then. I don’t wish to be a peasant among an army of princes.”

“No, no,” Christopher said, removing his own crown from his head. “You are… you are the queen, Grace.” He placed it upon her blond hair, and it nestled above the loose braid plait that already framed her temples. Christopher gave her that small lopsided grin that she so adored and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “There,” he said. “You look fierce.”

You look fierce. The perfect endearment.

-

After saying goodbye to Grace and Christopher – and watching Thomas receive quite the awkward hug from his tiny slip of a friend – Alastair walked alongside his hamsar-am back toward their Cornwall Gardens home. His Tom met his stride, but did not speak, instead opting to turn the flower crown about in his hands over and over again with an intense expression. “I cannot believe we lost the competition,” Alastair said in the worst impression of a surly voice. Then, with more conviction, “I truly cannot believe that you shoved your hand into the serpentine. Do you know how many animals have defecated there?”

Thomas chuckled. “Please do calm down. I washed my hands for a good ten minutes in the WC by the ice cream cart.”

“You did,” Alastair conceded. “Well, I suppose you at least did not wipe your hands upon me.”

“Why would I do that?” Thomas said innocently, his eyes comically wide. “I love you.”

“Fair enough,” Alastair ground out. “You’d sooner wipe them on Grace, I suppose.”

As he expected, the question hidden in the statement was obvious to Thomas, who placed the floral wreath back on his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I realized when you allowed her to string marigolds into your hair that you must truly care for her. As though she were a sort of sister to you.”

“I suppose that does describe the nature of our relationship,” Alastair said with forced lightness.

“I also noticed that she and Christopher really do bring out the best in each other. I am glad that he has found someone to make him happy, as you make me.”

“Something like that,” Alastair agreed. “The nature of their courtship is different, but…”

“The affection is real. The love is there.” Thomas nodded, his tone heavy in a way that Alastair could not quite define. “Love comes in many forms, all of them beautiful. I am glad that each of them seems to have found precisely what they wish for.”

“Yes,” Alastair agreed, a sense of pride curling in his chest. “It is wonderous. We ought to send them a congratulations card filled with glitter and confetti.”

“Oh, Angel, no,” Thomas said, laughing. “We mustn’t do such a cruel thing to them.”

Alastair sighed. “No, I suppose not. You keep me right, even when it ruins my fun.”

Thomas shrugged. “Someone has to.” He paused. “Just so you know, I find that I rather like Grace’s company as well. She’s… well, she’s doing her best, isn’t she? And I suppose that sometimes, that’s all we can do.”

“An astute observation,” Alastair said, and let Thomas continue.

“I think that she is, at her core, a good person. As we all are, us and Kit. If today were the first time we had met, I would be looking forward to spending the rest of our lives as great friends. I will say that much.” He paused. “I think that within a few months I will get there. To that place of excited anticipation of many years as her friend.”

Alastair felt himself exhale; he had not felt so light all day, and it had been an exceptionally good day. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said in a hushed voice. “So glad.”

And Thomas reached out to take his hand, and he knew that the future was even brighter than he had begun the day believing.