James wanted to ask Matthew to tell him more. What mistakes have you made, Math, that you cannot forgive yourself for? What is it that you are drowning in bottles, and glasses, and silver flasks? Now that I can see you clearly, I see you are unhappy, but why, when you are more loved and loving than anyone else I know?
But the house was full of people, and Cordelia needed him, and there was no time or chance just now. “I know, myself,” James said, “what it is like to live with a darkness inside you. One that you fear.”
Matthew drew his hand back, knotting his scarf around his neck. His cheeks were already pink with cold. “I have never seen darkness in you.”
“Nor have I known you to make such grave mistakes as you say,” said James. “But if you did, you know that I would do all I could to help you fix them.”
Matthew’s smile was a flash in the dark, illuminated only by distant streetlights.
“I know you would try,” he said.
27 WAKE WITH WINGS
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine”
Ariadne had been waiting outside the house on Curzon Street long enough for her fingers and toes to have gone numb. As night approached, she had watched the lamplighter come with his ladder and sparking tool, and the lights had gone on inside James and Cordelia’s house too. She had been able to see them through the drawing-room window: Thomas and Christopher, James and Cordelia, Matthew and Anna.
She had not minded Anna going off to Curzon Street after the battle at the Institute. Of course she would want to see her friends and cousins. But home had been miserable and tense: Grace had locked herself in her bedroom, and Mrs. Bridgestock was crying in the parlor, as she believed Mr. Bridgestock should not have gone alone to the Adamant Citadel. Goodness knew, she said, what that Tatiana Blackthorn would do to him.
Ariadne had grown used to creeping out of the house using the servants’ entrance. Anna would not mind her coming to Curzon Street, she told herself; she was friendly enough with the Merry Thieves and had fought side by side with Thomas and Christopher that morning. It was not until she’d reached the house itself that she’d lost her courage.
She could see Anna through the drawing-room window, her lean body sprawled in an armchair, her hair a soft dark cap, fine and straight as silk. Her smile was gentle, her blue eyes soft, and Ariadne realized in that moment that the Anna of her memory had never really vanished. She is still here, Ariadne thought, hesitating on the doorstep. Only not for me.
After that, she could not go in, and found herself waiting by a nearby streetlight until the door of the house opened and Matthew emerged, wearing an outsized tweed overcoat. He spoke with James in the doorway for several minutes before departing; Ariadne ducked behind a leafless tree to prevent him catching sight of her.
The sun had gone down by the time Thomas, Christopher, and Anna stepped out into the frost-sharp night. Their breath came out in clouds as they descended the stairs. Catching sight of her, Thomas and Christopher exchanged a look of surprise before approaching; Ariadne was dimly aware that they were greeting her and telling her she had impressed them during the fight that morning. She returned the compliments, though she was acutely aware of Anna, who had paused on the stairs to light a cheroot.
She wanted Anna to come down the steps. She wanted to take her hand, here on the street in front of Christopher and Thomas. But the boys were already bidding them goodbye and loping off down the lane, the sound of their chatter and footsteps swallowed up quickly by fog and snow.
“Ari.” Anna joined her on the pavement, the tip of her cheroot glowing as cherry red as her ruby pendant. “Taking a walk?”
“I wanted to see you,” Ariadne said. “I thought we could—”
“Go to the Whispering Room?” Anna blew a smoke ring and watched it drift on the cold air. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. Tomorrow afternoon, if you—”
“I was hoping we could go to your flat.”
Anna said nothing, only watched the smoke ring come apart in pieces on the air. She was like starlight, Ariadne thought: it seemed warm and radiant and near, but was in truth uncountable miles away. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I have an assignation tonight.”
Ariadne supposed she ought to have known. Anna had been clear: nothing in her life, about her life, would change for Ariadne’s sake. Still, she felt a dull hurt, as if she had been struck with an unsharpened blade. “Today,” she said, “when we were in the courtyard—when we were first attacked—you pushed me behind you.”