It’s nothing, she wanted to say. She wanted to force a smile, not to burden him, for she knew men did not like to be burdened by women. Her mother had told her.
But she could not make the smile come. This was Christopher, with his blunt honesty and kind smile. Christopher would know she was lying.
“I thought you hated me,” she whispered. “I thought you would never be able to stand to see me again, because of my mother. Because of what she did to your family.”
He did not laugh at her, or recoil, only looked at her with a level gaze. “I suspected you might think something like that,” he said. “But Grace, I have never blamed you for your mother before. I will not start now. What she did was vile. But you are not vile. You have done wrong, but you are trying to make it right. And such trying is not easy.”
Grace felt tears burn against the backs of her eyes. “How are you so wise? Not about science, or magic, I mean. About people.”
At that, he did smile. “I am a Lightwood. We are a complicated family. Someday I shall tell you all about it.” He reached a hand through the bars, and Grace, relieved beyond measure that there might be a someday, took hold of his hand. It was gentle and warm in her own, scarred by acid and ichor, but perfect. “Now, I want to help you with your trying.” He looked down the hallway outside the cell.
“Cordelia?” he called out. “It’s time.”
* * *
Thomas felt his heart sinking lower and lower with each minute of the Enclave meeting. He hadn’t expected it to go well, but neither had he expected it to go quite this badly. Once Charles had announced that he was standing with Bridgestock against his own family, the debate quickly deteriorated into a screaming match.
Thomas longed to get to his feet, to shout out something cutting, something that would shame and damn Charles for his betrayal, something that would make the Enclave see how ridiculous, how vicious this all was. But words had never been his strength; he sat, with Eugenia white-faced and incredulous beside him, his head aching with the strain of it all. He felt clumsy and oversized and utterly useless.
As the adults around him muttered among themselves, Thomas tried to catch Matthew’s eye. Matthew, he imagined, must be sickeningly shocked by Charles’s words, but he seemed determined not to show it. Unlike James, or Anna, who sat stone-faced and unmoving, Matthew had flung himself back in his chair as if he were posing for a louche Parisian artist. He had his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him and was examining his cuffs as if they held the secrets of the universe.
Matthew, turn around, Thomas thought urgently, but his attempt at Silent Brother–like communication failed him. Alastair glanced over, but Thomas’s view of him was cut off by Walter Rosewain, who had risen to his feet （almost knocking off his wife Ida’s hat） and begun shouting, and by the time Rosewain sat down again, Matthew had slipped out of his pew and was gone.
Quickly, Thomas caught James’s eye. Despite the strain of the situation, James nodded, as if to say, Go after him, Tom.
Thomas didn’t need to be told twice. Anything was better than sitting here, helpless to change the course of events. Thomas would always rather have something to do, some tool in his hand, some path to follow, no matter how narrow or dangerous. He rose and hurried out of the pew, stepping on several feet as he did so.
He raced through the Institute to the foyer, not bothering to pause and catch up his coat. He pushed his way out into the cold, only to see Matthew’s borrowed carriage already rolling out the Institute gates. Bloody hell.
Thomas wondered if his parents would mind if he helped himself to their carriage and gave chase. They probably would, if he was being honest with himself, but—
“We can take my carriage.” Thomas spun in surprise to see Alastair standing behind him, calmly holding Thomas’s coat. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “Clearly I was going to follow you. There’s nothing I can do in there, and Cordelia’s already gone.”
Gone where? Thomas wondered, but there was no time to process the thought: he took his coat from Alastair and shrugged it on, grateful for the warmth. “I’m going after Matthew,” he said, and Alastair gave him a dark look that clearly said, Yes, I knew that. “And you don’t like Matthew.”
“After what Charles has just done, your friend Matthew will be desperate for a drink,” Alastair said. There was nothing accusing or contemptuous in his tone; it was matter-of-fact. “And I have much more experience looking after drunks than you do. Even talking them out of drinking, sometimes. Shall we go?”
Thomas started to object, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he was objecting to, but the Carstairs carriage had already rolled into the courtyard, the driver swaddled against the cold in a thick blanket. Alastair had hold of Thomas’s sleeve and they were marching down the steps; a moment later, they were in the carriage as it began to lurch across the ice-slippery courtyard.
On the way to the terrible Christmas party at the Institute, Thomas had told himself to enjoy the time he had in the carriage with Alastair. Though Alastair had been in an odd mood that night, with a sort of suppressed excitement to him, as if he were considering whether or not to spill a secret.
He hadn’t, of course, spilled anything; still, Thomas had enjoyed being in such an intimate space with him. And, he had told himself, it was all right to enjoy it, as long as he kept in mind that Alastair was not going to be a permanent fixture in his life. That Alastair was most likely leaving as soon as his sibling was born.
He tried to enjoy it now, but his stomach was too knotted up over James and his family, over Matthew, over everything that had happened. The carriage bounced over a rut in the road; Thomas steadied himself and said, “He’s stopped drinking, you know.”
Alastair looked out the window. He blinked against the wintery light and said, “He’s still a drunk. He’ll always be a drunk, even if he never drinks again.” He sounded weary.
Thomas stiffened. “If you’re going to say that sort of thing to him—”
“My father stopped drinking a dozen times,” said Alastair. “He would go weeks, months, without a drink. Then something would happen—a disappointment, a minor setback—and he would begin again. Have you ever wanted something,” he said, looking at Thomas with a sudden directness, “something you knew you should not have, but that you could not keep away from? Something that occupied all your waking and dreaming thoughts with reminders of how much you wanted it?”
Thomas was once again conscious of the intimacy of the space he shared with Alastair. He remembered Barbara giggling about kissing Oliver Hayward in his carriage: the shared private space of it, the pleasure of misbehaving. He was also sure he was probably turning tomato red above his collar. “Matthew needs to hear that there is hope.”
“I didn’t say there was no hope,” Alastair said quietly. “Only that it is a difficult journey. It’s best for him to know that, so he can be prepared for it.” He rubbed at his eyes with a gesture that made him seem younger than he was. “He needs a plan.”
“He has one,” said Thomas, and he found himself explaining Christopher’s treatment plan, weaning Matthew off alcohol gradually and deliberately. Alastair took this in with a thoughtful look.