“It is what you deserve,” said Matthew, his eyes flashing; James held out a hand toward his parabatai, as if to calm him—just as a loud crash came from the far end of the room.
Without another word, Alastair broke into a run. Knowing what that meant, Cordelia pushed back her chair and dashed after him. Her heavy velvet skirts hampered her, and she reached her parents some moments after Alastair. Her father was on the floor by his chair, clutching his knee and moaning in pain.
Sona was struggling to rise from her chair. “Elias—Elias, are you—”
Her father’s face was beet red, and he seemed to have worked himself up into something of a lather. “I tell you, I should have been my daughter’s suggenes,” Elias snapped. “To be cut out of the ceremony as if I were a shameful secret, well, I can only imagine she was persuaded, but it is an outrage—a deliberate humiliation, and you cannot convince me otherwise!”
He slammed his hand against the floor.
Cordelia’s heart sank into her brocaded boots. She glanced at Alastair, already trying to help Elias to his feet. Quickly, she moved to block the scene from the wedding guests—the ones near enough to see the messy goings-on were staring. Fury went through Cordelia like a lance. How dare her father suggest that he had not had enough of a role in her wedding—they’d had no idea he’d even be attending until his arrival this very morning.
“I’m here,” said a voice at her shoulder. It was James. He touched Cordelia’s arm lightly, then knelt down beside Alastair and seized Elias’s other arm, raising him to his feet.
Elias glared at James. “I do not require your help.”
“As you say,” said James equably. Sona had her face in her hands; Cordelia stopped to touch her mother’s shoulder lightly before glancing after James and Alastair, who were walking Elias away as fast as their feet could take them.
“Father, I think you need a bit of a rest,” Alastair was saying. He spoke evenly, his expression matter-of-fact and calm. This is how he’s managed all these years, she thought.
“Right this way, sir,” James said, and mouthed games room at Alastair, who nodded. Sona had sunk back into her chair; Cordelia hurried after the boys, who were heading for the double doors at the other end of the room. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she went—surely everyone was staring, though she could hear Will and Gabriel chatting loudly, their voices raised, doing their best to distract the guests.
James and Alastair had already disappeared with Elias. She slipped through the double doors after them and found herself in the narrow hallway outside the games room. It was a relief to be alone, if only for a moment; she leaned against the wall, saying a quiet prayer to Raziel. I know I don’t deserve it, but please give me strength.
Voices rose from behind the games room door. She paused; did James and Alastair not realize she’d followed them?
“I suppose,” said Alastair, “that you and your friends will have a great laugh about this later.” He sounded defeated, rather than angry. As bothered as Cordelia often was by Alastair’s stubbornness, the fight being drained from him was worse.
“No one blames you for your father, Alastair,” she heard James respond. “Only for what you yourself have done and said.”
“I have tried to apologize, and to change,” Alastair said, and even through the door Cordelia could hear his voice shake. “How can I make amends for my past when no one will let me?”
When James replied, there was real kindness in his voice. “You must give people time, Alastair,” he said. “We are none of us perfect, and no one expects perfection. But when you have hurt people, you must allow them their anger. Otherwise it will only become another thing you have tried to take away.”
Alastair seemed to hesitate. “James,” he said. “Does he—”
There was a sharp sound, as of something being knocked off a table, and then the familiar noises of Elias retching. Cordelia could hear Alastair telling James to go, that he would manage it. Not sure what else to do, Cordelia made her way soundlessly back to the ballroom.
The wedding luncheon was back in full swing. Glancing around, she saw that the Merry Thieves had all left their table. They were making their way up and down the room, greeting people, fielding congratulations for her and James. Matthew and Anna had a group of guests in fits of laughter; Will was regaling another table with a lengthy, and heavily embroidered, synopsis of a Dickens novel.
She leaned back against the wall. They were doing this for James, she knew, but also for her—distracting people, keeping them amused, making them forget about Elias. It felt such a relief, not to be facing it all alone.