With one of her gloves in hand—delicate, kidskin, with a tracery of embroidered leaves—James activated the Tracking spell. The familiar tugging feeling led him on a zigzag route through Piccadilly, to New Bond Street, and through the shadowed lanes toward Marylebone. He had nearly fetched up on the front steps of Matthew’s flat when he realized that it was his destination.
His steps slowed. Cordelia had gone to Matthew? It was good she had gone to a friend, of course—and Anna was unlikely to be home, or alone if she was—and other than Anna, Cordelia was closest to Matthew of all the Merry Thieves. But then, Matthew had been one of the first to know of James’s relationship with Grace, had even comforted him when it ended four months past. （James felt sick, remembering.） Perhaps she’d thought Matthew would understand best.
He kicked the snow off his boots before entering the lobby, where the porter was chatting to a tall chap with a long, narrow face and a dog on a leash. The porter glanced over at James with a polite nod.
“Can you ring up to Matthew Fairchild’s flat?” James asked, slipping Cordelia’s glove into his pocket. “I need to speak with him, and—”
At that moment, the dog made a lunge for James, who realized two things very quickly: the lunge was friendly, and the dog was familiar. “Oscar?” he said, laying a hand on the retriever’s head.
Oscar wagged his tail so hard his whole body vibrated.
“Well, a friend of Oscar is a friend of mine,” said the narrow-faced man, and held out a hand for James to shake. “Gus Huntley. I’ll be watching Oscar while Fairchild’s away.”
“James Herondale. Matthew’s away?” James stopped petting Oscar. “What do you mean, away?”
“I was going to tell you.” The porter looked aggrieved. “He left maybe twenty minutes ago, off to the Paris train. Had a pretty young lass with him too. Said she was his cousin, but they didn’t look a bit alike.” He winked.
“He borrowed a ladies’ coat and shoes off me before he went too,” said Huntley. “My sister will be furious, but Fairchild’s got a convincing way about him.”
“If she had red hair, then no, she’s not his cousin,” said James, weighing the possibility that Matthew and Anna had departed suddenly for Paris, and discarding it. Anna would never have needed to borrow a coat. “That’s my wife.”
A terrible and awkward silence descended. The porter looked at James in some alarm. “What’d you say your name was? Herondale?”
James nodded. It felt very odd, somehow, giving his name out to mundanes, but the porter only rifled through the desk papers and handed over a folded letter, addressed to James in Matthew’s scrawled hand. “He left this for you,” he said. “Probably clear the whole thing up.”
“No doubt a very good explanation for everything,” said Huntley, who had retreated behind Oscar.
“And the Paris train leaves from…？” James said.
“Waterloo,” said the porter, and James fled back into the night—followed, he suspected, by at least two pitying stares.
* * *
James elected to take a hansom cab to the station, which he realized very quickly was a mistake. Though it was past rush hour, the streets were crowded—not only were there commuters returning late from work, but the London evening was well underway and the city’s revelers were hurrying to dinner, drinks, and the theater. His hansom soon came to a dead stop on Waterloo Bridge in a mass of omnibuses, carriages, and horses. The thumping and rattling of the wheels made it hard for James to read Matthew’s note, but familiarity with his parabatai’s looping, evocative script helped. By the time they inched to the end of the bridge, he had read it three times.
Jamie,
I never thought to write such a letter as this to you, my dearest friend, but I hope that when it finds you, you are happy. By now you will know that Cordelia and I have gone to Paris. This was not a lightly considered decision. Though I knew what you and Cordelia have was not a real marriage, I had sworn that I would respect it, and respect also what seemed to me the clear possibility that, being Daisy’s husband, you would fall in love with her.
I understand now that you will not be happy unless you are with Miss Blackthorn. I know that you promised Daisy that you would stay away from Grace, and it seems that you cannot, which bespeaks how much you must love her. Cordelia is proud. You know that as well as I do. She would tell herself she must endure the situation, but I love her, and I cannot bear to see her suffer for the next year. I hope you will forgive me—I think you will forgive me. You must see that in the situation we have now, there are four unhappy people. Surely you, too, wish that were not the case. Surely you care for Daisy even if you do not love her, and want her to be happy. And surely you will forgive me for keeping the secret of my feelings for her from you—I had never meant to speak of them to anyone, before tonight.