“What is your interest?” Matthew asked.
“Is it a crime to want to become more literate?”
“Not all,” Matthew said. “I love literature. In fact, I’ve found a marvelous place. It’s a salon, full of writers and poets. But it is a bit . . . disreputable.”
Anna cocked her head in interest.
“Here we go,” James said, bringing over a pile of a dozen or so books and setting it down with a heavy thump. “Do any of these appeal? Have a look and see. Of course, I can recommend others. Wait. No. Not these. Not these.”
He scooped the books away and returned to the shelves. James was clearly absorbed in his task. Christopher was happily reading his book, which had a horribly scientific title. Lucie and Thomas were at the desk, Thomas helping Lucie go over some phrases: Lucie was learning for Cordelia, and Tom liked languages, since he spoke Spanish with Uncle Gideon and Welsh with his cousins. Angel bless their sweet studious souls, none of them seemed likely to hear Anna and Matthew hatching a dark plot. Nevertheless, Matthew pitched his voice very low.
“Why don’t I come and get you at midnight,” Matthew said. “We can go together. I could use a companion who knows how to have a bit of fun. You might need a disguise, though. No reputable young lady walks the streets of London at midnight.”
“Oh,” Anna said. “I think I can manage something.”
Just before midnight, as promised, Anna heard a tapping at her bedroom window. Matthew Fairchild was there, dancing along the edge. Anna threw it open.
“My my!” he said approvingly. “Are those Christopher’s?”
Anna had dressed herself in her brother’s clothes. The sewing had helped a good deal.
“A disguise,” she said simply.
He laughed, spinning carelessly on the sill. She could see he had been drinking—his reflexes were slow, and he only caught himself a half second before tumbling back out to the ground.
“They suit you better than they suit him, but still . . . we need to get you something nicer than that. Here.”
He pulled the ascot from his neck and handed it to her.
“I insist,” he said. “I could never let a lady go out in inferior menswear.”
Anna felt herself exhaling slowly and smiling as she put on the tie. The two of them jumped from her window, landing noiselessly on the courtyard in front of the house.
“Where is this place?” Anna said.
“A nefarious corner of Soho,” he said with a smile.
“Soho!” Anna was delighted. “How did you find out about it?”
“Oh, just through my wanderings.”
“You do a lot of those.”
“I have a periphrastic soul.”
Matthew was more drunk than he had first appeared. He rolled back on his heels and spun around the occasional lamppost as they walked. He had been like this a lot in recent weeks—what was fun and light about Matthew had taken on an edge. On some level, she felt a bit of worry rising. But this was Matthew, and he did not do well under confinement. Perhaps the summer night had just gotten his spirits particularly high.
The house Matthew took Anna to was deep in the warren of Soho, off of Brewer Street. It was painted black, with a green door.
“You’ll like it here,” Matthew said, smiling at Anna.
The door was opened by a tall, pale man in a maroon frock coat.
“Fairchild,” he said, looking at Matthew. “And . . .”
“Fairchild’s good friend,” Matthew replied.
Anna could feel the intelligence of the vampire’s gaze, as he took her in for a long time. He seemed intrigued, both by her and by Matthew, though his expression was unreadable.
At last he stepped aside and allowed them in.
“You see?” Matthew said. “No one can resist our company.”
The hall was utterly dark—the fanlight had been covered in a velvet drape. The only light came from candles. The house was decorated in a style that Anna thoroughly approved of—heavy green paper run through with gold, velvet curtains and furniture. It smelled of cigars and strange, tiny rose-colored cigarettes and gin. The room was crowded with a mix of Downworlders and mundanes, all elaborately dressed.
Anna noticed many people taking in the sight of her in her men’s clothing and nodding appreciatively. The men seemed pleased or amused, the women either admiring or—interested. Quite a few raked Anna boldly with their eyes, their gazes clinging to the feminine body revealed by her fitted clothes. It was as if in casting off dresses she had cast off society’s expectation of a woman’s modesty and could allow herself to be admired, desired. Her soul soared with new confidence: she felt herself a gorgeous creature, neither a gentleman nor a lady. A gentlewoman, she thought, and winked at one of the only people she recognized: the werewolf Woolsey Scott, head of the Praetor Lupus. He wore a bottle-green smoking jacket and was puffing away on a hookah pipe while holding court for a cluster of fascinated mundanes.
“Of course,” Anna heard him say, “they had a difficult time getting my bathtub into one of the tree houses, but I would hardly leave it behind. One must always bring one’s own bathtub.”
“That’s Somebody Somebody Yeats over there,” Matthew said, indicating a tall, bespectacled man. “He read a new work the last time I was here.”
“And it was wonderful,” said a voice. It came from a woman sitting near where Matthew and Anna stood. She was a stunning warlock with the scaled skin of a snake, colored silver, almost opalescent. Her long green hair tumbled over her shoulders and was strung through with a fine gold mesh. She wore a red gown that clung to her frame. She tipped her head up elegantly toward Matthew and Anna.
“Are all London Shadowhunters so handsome as you?” she asked. She had a German accent.
“No,” Anna said simply.
“Definitely not,” Matthew agreed.
The warlock smiled.
“Your London Shadowhunters are more interesting than ours,” she said. “Ours are very tedious. Yours are beautiful and amusing.”
Someone grumbled something at this, but the rest of the group laughed appreciatively.
“Do sit and join us,” the woman said. “I am Leopolda Stain.”
Most of the people around Leopolda seemed to be fawning mundanes, like the group around Woolsey Scott. One man wore a black robe covered in symbols Anna did not recognize. Matthew and Anna sat down on the rug, against a pile of tasseled pillows that served as a sofa. Next to them was a woman wearing a gold turban scarf pinned with a sapphire.
“Are you two of The Chosen?” she asked Matthew and Anna.
“Certainly,” Matthew said.
“Ah. I could tell from the way Leopolda reacted to you. She is quite wonderful, is she not? She is from Vienna and knows simply everyone—Freud, Mahler, Klimt, Schiele . . .”
“Marvelous,” Matthew said. He probably did think it was marvelous—Matthew adored art, and artists.
“She’s going to help us,” the woman said. “Obviously, we’ve had such troubles here. Why, Crowley wasn’t even recognized here in London! He had to go to the Ahathoor Temple in Paris to be initiated to the grade of Adeptus Minor, which I’m sure you heard about.”
“The moment it happened,” Matthew lied.
Anna bit her lip and looked down to keep herself from laughing. It was always amusing to meet mundanes who had fantastical notions of how magic worked. Leopolda, she noticed, was smiling indulgently at the entire group, like they were adorable but somewhat dimwitted children.
“Well,” the woman continued, “I was an Adept of the Isis-Urania temple, and I can assure you that I was adamant that—”
This was interrupted by a man standing in the middle of the room and raising a glass of something green.
“My friends!” he said. “I demand that we remember Oscar. You must raise your glasses!”
There was a general noise of agreement, and glasses were raised. The man began to recite Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Anna was struck by one of the stanzas:
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,