The thought of going through with his wedding to Cordelia while still wearing the bracelet made him ill at ease. He reminded himself to take it off, when he was back at home. Removing it might be a slight to Grace, but leaving it on felt like a slight to Cordelia. He had decided when it had all happened that he would not betray his wedding vows by word or deed. He might not be able to control his heart or his thoughts, but he could remove the bracelet. That much lay within his power.
At the other side of the room, Polly was ordering around a small team of brownies. They had set up a stage at the far end of the room, on which sat, indeed, a large glass tank of water. A pair of brownies moved candelabras around to provide theatrical lighting, and others scampered about, clearing the floor to make way for an audience.
The stairs rattled; Matthew was hurrying down, his bright hair the color of candlelight in the haze of the bar. He had taken off his jacket and was in shirtsleeves and a green-and-blue-striped waistcoat. He flipped himself over the staircase banister and landed on the stage. Standing behind the tank, he held up his hands for quiet.
The din continued unabated, however, until the first Sid brought his massive fists together above his head and shouted, “Oi! Quiet or I’ll crush your mangy skulls!”
“That’s right!” agreed the other Sid; apparently they had put their differences behind them.
There was a fair bit of grumbling, and a nearby werewolf muttered, “Mangy! Well!” But eventually, the crowd quieted down.
“Steady on,” James whispered. “How is a mermaid going to get down the stairs?”
There was a pause, and Christopher, who had taken off his spectacles to clean them, said, “How did the mermaid get up the stairs?”
Thomas shrugged.
“Good evening, my friends!” Matthew called, to a smattering of polite applause. “Tonight we have something truly exceptional to present to you in honor of an old friend of the Devil. You have been kind enough to tolerate the presence of us Merry Thieves for several years now—”
“We just thought you Shadowhunters were raiding the place,” Polly spoke up with a smirk, “and taking your time about it.”
“Tomorrow, one of us—the first of us—marches to his doom and joins the ranks of you poor married sods,” Matthew continued. “But tonight, we send him off in style!”
Hoots and cheers accompanied shouted jests and pounding on tables. A satyr and a squat horned creature near the front stood up and pantomimed a lewd embrace, until someone threw a sausage at them. At the piano, one of the hobgoblins struck up a light comic tune. Music filled the room, and Matthew held up his witchlight. Glimmering, it illuminated a figure descending the stairs.
James wondered for a moment whether this was the first time someone had used a witchlight rune-stone as stage lighting before he realized what he was looking at and his mind went blank. Christopher made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Thomas stared wide-eyed.
The mermaid had human legs. They were long and really quite shapely, James had to admit, loosely draped in diaphanous skirts made of woven exotic seaweeds.
Unfortunately, from the waist up she was the front half of a gaping, staring fish. Her scales were shiny metallic silver and reflected the light in a way that almost, but not quite, distracted from her dinner-plate-size, unblinking yellow eyes.
The audience went mad, cheering and hooting twice as loudly as before. One of the werewolves howled, “CLARIBELLA!” in a mournful, yearning voice.
“May I present,” Matthew cried with a grin, “Claribella the Mermaid!”
The crowd whistled and banged their approval. James, Christopher, and Thomas struggled to find words.
“The mermaid’s backward,” said James, having regained some of his vocabulary—though perhaps not all of it.
“Matthew hired a reverse mermaid,” Thomas agreed. “But why?”
“I wonder what kind of fish she is,” said Christopher. “Are mermaids a specific kind of fish? Sharks, or herring, or such?”
“I had kippers for breakfast this morning,” Thomas said sadly.
The backward mermaid began to swing her hips side to side, with the ease of a practiced cabaret dancer. Her mouth bobbed open and closed in rhythm with the music. Her small fins, on either side of her body, flapped.
To Matthew’s credit, the rest of the Devil Tavern crowd seemed to be unironic admirers of Claribella and her performance. When her dance was finished she retreated behind her tank, at least in part to protect herself from her most ardent devotees.