Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,117

Cordelia whispered. She was stunned. The breaking off of a promised engagement was a serious matter, undertaken usually only when one of the parties in question had committed some kind of serious crime or been caught in an affair. For Charles to break his promise to Ariadne while she lay unconscious was appalling. People would assume he had found out something dreadful about Ariadne. When she awoke, she might be ruined.

Anna did not reply to Cordelia. She only raised her head and looked at Ariadne’s face, a long look like a touch.

“Please don’t die,” she said, in a low voice, and rose to her feet. Catching up her walking stick, she strode from the infirmary, leaving Cordelia staring after her in surprise.

* * *

Lucie set her notebook aside. Matthew was drawing circles in the air with a forefinger and frowning lazily, as if he were a pasha looking over his court and finding them to be ill-mannered and unprepared for inspection.

“How are you, Luce?” he said. He had moved to sit beside her on the settee. “Tell the truth.”

“How are you, Matthew?” Lucie retorted. “Tell the truth.”

“I am not the one who saw the ghost of Gast,” said Matthew, and grinned. “Sounds like an unfinished Dickens novel, doesn’t it? The Ghost of Gast.”

“I am not the one who nearly tumbled off a rope I should easily have been able to climb,” said Lucie quietly.

Matthew’s eyes narrowed. They were extraordinary eyes, so dark you could only tell they were green if you stood close to him. And Lucie had, many times. They were close now, close enough that she could see the slight scruff of golden hair along his jawline, and the shadows under his eyes.

“That reminds me,” he said, and rolled up his sleeve. There was a long graze along his forearm. “I could use an iratze.” He aimed a winning smile at her. All Matthew’s smiles were winning. “Here,” he added, and held out his stele to her. “Use mine.”

She reached to take it from him, and for a moment, his hand closed gently around hers. “Lucie,” he said softly, and she almost closed her eyes, remembering how he had put his coat around her in the street, the warmth of his touch, the faint scent of him, brandy and dry leaves.

But mostly brandy.

She looked down at their entwined hands, his more scarred than hers. The rings on his fingers. He began to turn her hand over in his, as if he meant to kiss her palm.

“You are a Shadowhunter, Matthew,” she said. “You should be able to scale a wall.”

He sat back. “And I am,” he said. “My new boots were slippery.”

“It wasn’t your boots,” said Lucie. “You were drunk. You’re drunk now, too. Matthew, you’re drunk most of the time.”

He released her hand as if she had struck him. There was confusion in his eyes, and visible hurt as well. “I am not—”

“Yes, you are. You think I can’t recognize it?”

Matthew’s mouth hardened into a narrow line. “Drink makes me amusing.”

“It does not amuse me to watch you hurt yourself,” she said. “You are like a brother to me, Math—”

He flinched. “Am I? No one else has such complaints about what I do, or my desire for fortification.”

“Many are afraid to mention it,” said Lucie. “Others, like my brother and my parents, do not see what they do not want to see. But I see, and I am worried.”

His lip curled at the corner. “Worried about me? I’m flattered.”

“I am worried,” said Lucie, “that you will get my brother killed.”

Matthew did not move. He remained as still as if he had been turned to stone by the Gorgon in the old stories. The Gorgon was a demon, Lucie’s father had told her, though in those days there were no Shadowhunters. Instead gods and demigods had walked on the earth, and miracles had showered down from the heavens like leaves from a tree in autumn. But there was no miracle here. Only the fact that she might as well have stabbed Matthew in the heart.

“You are his parabatai,” said Lucie, her voice shaking slightly. “He trusts you—to be at his back in battle, to be his shield and sword, and if you are not yourself—”

Matthew stood up, nearly upending the chair. His eyes were dark with fury. “If it were anyone else but you, Lucie, saying these things to me—”

“Then what?” Lucie also rose to her feet. She barely reached Matthew’s shoulder, but she glared at him anyway.