James was very still, yet oddly, the Mask had not gone up. Cordelia could see what he was thinking, feeling. The agonized look in his eyes. He was letting himself feel all of it, she thought, and more than that. He was letting himself show it.
“Your father asked me for five thousand pounds,” he said. “Where he thought I would get it, I can’t imagine. He told me I should ask my parents. He insinuated that they had so much money they would not even notice it. He said it was for Cirenworth. That he could not afford the costs of the house. I don’t know whether that was the truth.”
“I have no idea,” Cordelia whispered, though plenty of alternate possibilities presented themselves. Gambling debts. Unpaid loans. Unsettled scores. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her body felt like fire and ice—burning and freezing with rage and despair. “If I had only known he was in trouble, I could have helped him.”
“No,” James said quietly. “You couldn’t have.”
“I could have stopped him from going out into the streets, in the snow—”
“He didn’t die from lack of money,” James said. “Nor did he die from the cold. He was murdered.”
Cordelia knew that James was being reasonable, but she had no use for reason. She wanted to explode with fury, wanted to destroy something. “You didn’t need to give him five thousand—you could have given him a little bit, a little money to get him safely home.”
Something flickered in James’s eyes. Anger. She had never seen those golden eyes furious before, not at her. She felt a sick sort of gladness: now, instead of feeling nothing, she felt rage. She felt despair. She felt the agony of hurting James, the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
“Had I given him any money at all, he would have gone out to spend it at the pub, and he still would have been staggering drunk and he still would have been killed. And you would still be blaming me, because you don’t want to think that his own choices—”
“Cordelia.”
She turned, saw Alastair standing at the entrance to the narrow corridor. He was backlit by witchlight; it turned the edges of his hair to light, reminding her of the time he’d dyed it. “Brother Enoch says if you wish to say goodbye, it has to be now.”
Cordelia nodded mechanically. “I’m coming.”
She had to edge past James before she turned to go; as she did, their shoulders brushed. She heard him sigh in frustration before following her. Then they were back out in the square and trailing Alastair into the Ossuarium, where Sona stood by Elias’s body. Brother Enoch was there, too, motionless, his hands folded in front of him like a priest’s.
James had paused by the double doors. Cordelia didn’t look at him; she couldn’t. She took Alastair’s hand and crossed the marble floor to where her father lay. Alastair drew her close against his side. Her mother stood very still, her eyes red and swollen, her head bent.
“Ave atque vale,” Alastair said. “Hail and farewell, Father.”
“Ave atque vale,” Sona echoed. Cordelia knew she should say it too, the traditional farewell, but her throat was too tight for words. Instead she reached out and took her father’s hand, exposed where the sheet was turned back. It was cold and rigid. Not her father’s hand at all. Not the hand that had lifted her up when she was small, or guided her bladework as she trained. Gently, she set it on his chest.
Her body stiffened. Elias’s Voyance rune—the rune every Shadowhunter had on the back of their dominant hand—was missing.
She heard Filomena’s voice again, echoing through the empty sailcloth factory. He took from me. My strength. My life.
Her strength.
Enoch, she thought. Do you know if Filomena di Angelo had a Strength rune?
Silent Brothers couldn’t look surprised. Still, Cordelia sensed a sort of startlement radiating from Enoch. He said, I do not know, but her body is in Idris, with Brother Shadrach. I will ask him to examine her, if this is important.
It is very important, she thought.
Enoch nodded almost imperceptibly. The Consul will be here soon. Do you wish to remain, and to receive her?
Sona passed a hand across her eyes. “Honestly, I cannot bear it,” she said. “All I wish is to go home, and to have my children with me—” She broke off, smiling weakly. “My apologies, of course, Layla. You have your own home.”
“James won’t mind if I stay with you tonight, Maman,” said Cordelia. “Will you, James?” She glanced over at James, wondering if the traces of their argument would show in his eyes. But he was expressionless, the Mask firmly in place.