Aunt Tessa had been so glad to have a Shadowhunter visitor, Matthew remembered numbly. She displayed Shadowhunter family coats of arms on her walls to welcome any traveler to the London Institute.
“You never told me,” said Matthew.
Jamie was telling him now. Tom had told him that whatever Alastair said was nonsense. If Matthew had asked his father about what Alastair had said, his father could have told him about Great-Aunt Matty, and they might even have laughed about how absurd it was to think some stupid malicious boy could ever make them doubt their family.
Jamie’s mouth crooked down a little. “Oh, well. I know you have to hear a lot about me and my unfortunate antecedents already. I do not want you to think I am an unbearable nuisance and you got a bad bargain with your parabatai.”
“Jamie,” Matthew said on a wounded breath, as if he had been hit.
“I know it must feel wretched to remember anything hurtful that worm Carstairs said about your mother,” James plunged on. “Especially when she is—she is unwell. The very next time we see him, we will punch him in the head. What do you say to that, Mathew? Let’s do it together.”
Matthew’s father and his mother and his brother and his parabatai had all been trying not to burden him, while Matthew pranced on thinking he was no end of a fine fellow and dealing remarkably by himself. James would not have done what Matthew had. Nor would Christopher or Thomas. They were loyal. They were honorable. When someone had insulted Jamie’s mother, Jamie had thrown him in the river.
Matthew pressed his palm against James’s linen shirt, over the steady beat of his loyal heart. Then Matthew clenched his hand into a fist.
He could not tell him. He could never do it.
“All right, old chap,” said Matthew. “We will do it together. Do you think I could have a moment alone, though?”
James hesitated, then drew back.
“Is that what you want?”
“It is,” said Matthew, who had never wanted to be alone in his life, and never wanted to be alone less than in this moment.
James hesitated again, but he respected Matthew’s wishes. He bowed his head and went out, Matthew assumed to rejoin his sister. They were both good and pure. They should be together, and comfort each other. They deserved comfort as he did not.
After James was gone, Matthew could not keep standing. He fell to his hands and knees in front of the fire.
There was a statue above the fire showing Jonathan Shadowhunter, the first Shadowhunter, praying for the world to be washed clean of evil. Behind him was the Angel Raziel flying to gift him with strength to defeat the forces of darkness. The first Shadowhunter could not see him yet, but he was standing firm, because he had faith.
Matthew turned his face away from the light. He crawled, as his father had crawled across another floor at the beginning of this endless day, until he was in the darkest and farthest corner of the room. He had not believed. He laid his cheek against the cold floor and refused to let himself weep again. He knew he could not be forgiven.
It was long past time for Brother Zachariah to return to the City of Bones. Tessa stood with him in the hall, and touched his hand before he went.
The sweetest woman God ever made, he had heard Henry say earlier. Jem loved Charlotte, but he had his own image of the sweetest this world could offer.
She was always his anchor in cold seas, her warm hand, her steadfast eyes, and it was as if a flame leaped between them and a mad hope. For a moment Jem was as he had been. It seemed possible to be together in sorrow, united as family and friends were, to sleep under the Institute roof and go down in the morning to breakfast, sad but safe in the warmth of a shared hearth and human hearts.
He thought: Yes, ask me to stay.
Good-bye, Tessa, he said.
He could not. They both knew he could not.
She swallowed, her long lashes screening the shine of her eyes. Tessa was always brave. She would not let him take a memory of her tears back to the Silent City, but she called him by the name she was always careful not to call him when anybody but they could hear. “Good-bye, Jem.”
Brother Zachariah bowed his head, his hood falling about his face, and went out into the winter cold of London.
Finally you leave, said Brother Enoch in his mind.
All the Silent Brothers hushed when Brother Zachariah was with Tessa, like small animals in the trees hearing the approach of that which they did not understand. In a way, they were all in love with her, and some resented her for that. Brother Enoch had made it clear he was tired of two names ceaselessly echoing in their minds.
Brother Zachariah was halfway down the street where the Fairchilds lived when a tall shadow struck his across the pale streets.
Brother Zachariah looked up from shadow and saw Will Herondale, head of the London Institute. He carried a walking stick that had once been Zachariah’s, before Zachariah took a staff into his hands.
Charlotte will live, said Brother Zachariah. The child never had a chance to.
“I know,” said Will. “I already knew. I did not come to you for those tidings.”
He should really have learned better by now. Of course Tessa would have sent word to Will, and while Will often traded upon Brother Zachariah’s position as a Silent Brother to command his services and thus his presence, he very seldom spoke to Zachariah of his duties as a Silent Brother, as if he could make Zachariah not what he was by dint of sheer determination.
If anyone could have done it, Will would have been that one.
Will threw him the walking stick, which he must have stolen from James’s room, and confiscated Brother Zachariah’s staff. Jem had asked them to give James his room at the Institute, fill it with their son’s bright presence, and not keep it as some dreary shrine. He was not dead. He had felt when they made him a Silent Brother as if he had been cut open, and all things inside him ripped out.
Only, there was that which they could not take away.
“Carry it a while,” said Will. “It lightens my heart to see you with it. We could all do with lighter hearts tonight.”
He traced a carving upon the staff, the Herondale ring winking by moonlight.
Where shall I carry it?
“Wherever you please. I thought I would walk with you a little way, my parabatai.”
How far? asked Jem.
Will smiled. “Need you ask? I will go with you as far as I possibly may.”
Jem smiled back. Perhaps there was more hope and less sorrow in store for Matthew Fairchild than he feared. None knew better than Jem that someone could be not fully known yet still entirely loved. Forgiven all sins, and dearest in darkness. James would not let his parabatai travel any shadowy paths alone. No matter what catastrophe came, Jem believed the son had as great a heart as his father.
New streetlights showed Will’s and Jem’s silhouettes, walking together through their city, as they had of old. Even though both knew they must part.
Across London the bells rang all together in a sudden terrifying clamor. Frightened birds in mad wheeling flight cast deeper shadows across the city at night, and Jem knew the Queen was dead.
A new age was beginning.