He rolled aside, Orville half atop him, as the other man’s fist slammed into the floor beside his head. This would have been enough to annoy anyone, and Matthewwas already out of patience. He grabbed hold of Orville by the front of his shirt andflunghim.
Orville smashed headlong into the dresser. Matthew started to scramble up, and found himself hauled to his feet by Sylvain, who let his hands linger on Matthew’s shoulders a moment longer that strictly necessary. “Nom de l’ange,” Sylvain murmured, as Orville—who should by all rights have been knocked out by his collision with the furniture—stumbled to his feet, blood streaming down his face. He gazed wild-eyed at Sylvain and Matthew.
“InterferingShadowhunters,” he hissed, and leaped again—this time something silver flashed in his hand; he brought it down, and Matthew felt the impact as it struck his chest. He staggered back against the wall as Sylvain let out a cry and caught at Orville’s arm. The weapon Orville had been holding fell with a clatter to the floor as Orville clawed for Sylvain’s face.
Sylvain ducked and came up, ramming his fist into Orville’s chin. The man stumbled but Sylvain didn’t let up—he slammed Orville with blow after blow, driving him backward until he collapsed, bloody and stunned, onto the narrow bed.
Sylvain whipped around to catch hold of Matthew, who stood with his hand pressed to his chest, his ears ringing.Christopher, Matthew thought, and a moment later Sylvain had hold of him, his face white, his dark eyes distraught. “Matthew—are you all right—let me see—”
Matthew caught Sylvain’s hand in his. “I’m fine,” he said. “It was a stage knife. Look.” He indicated where the remains of the knife had fallen, the blade having retracted into the handle.
Sylvain said nothing, only shuddered once and stepped back. Matthew ached to ask him ifhewas all right, but the other boy had already turned on Orville, his rage plain in his voice as he said, “You crawling worm. You’re not a fan of this theater troupe. You’re athrall.”
Matthew had guessed as much himself. Thralls, also called darklings and subjugates, were servants of vampires, exchanging their services and their blood for the vampire’s favor and protection, or even the promise that one day they, too, would be made immortal.
“Not for all of them,” sniveled Orville. His face was already beginning to darken with bruises, and his voice was thick with blood. “Just for Miss Melody. Iwasa fan. I was her biggest fan. And now I am her greatest protector—”
“If she has murdered her brother, you will not be able to protect her from the justice she must face,” said Sylvain. “Nor will we allow you to try.”
Orville clasped his bloody hands together. “It was self-defense! He—he meant to take advantage of her! He drugged me with that cursed cigar, knowing she would drink my blood and feel its ill effects—”
Ah, Matthew thought. A puzzle piece had just clicked into place. The odd herbaceous scent of the cigar smoke he’d noticed as he passed Orville Cole and Bart Morrow on the deck. Melody’s strange performance, not long after.
“Why be so foolish as to share cigars with Mr. Morrow?” Matthew demanded. “You must have known who he was—that he was Melody’s brother, and wished her ill.”
Orville bared his teeth. They were very human teeth, blunt and square. “I was trying to find out what he wanted. Miss Melody was terrified when he boarded the ship. She begged me to befriend him, to learn what I could.” His voice rose to a whine. “I didn’t know the cigars were laced with hawthorn.”
Hawthorn. Like belladonna, the herb acted as a narcotic on vampires.
“Miss Morrow fed on you before she went onstage,” Sylvain said, clearly thinking aloud. “The hawthorn—that is why she stumbled through her performance—and after that, she—”
There was a high-pitched sound. The shriek of a bat, Matthew realized, and leaped to put himself between Sylvain and the open doorway just as it filled with vampires: all members of the theater troupe, dressed in an odd combination of ordinary clothes and bits of costume. Pallid as wraiths, they poured into the room like boiling milk overspilling a saucepan.
Matthew sensed Sylvain go rigid at his side. Matthew himself felt sick to his stomach. He knew vampires, had befriended many. And yet, surrounded as the two Shadowhunters were at the moment by the furious undead—faces set and angry, teeth bared to show the gleam of fangs—he could not help but feel their presence as alien, dangerous. Monstrous.
He looked desperately among them for Melody, but did not see her anywhere. The most familiar face was that of Virgil, who pushed through the tight knot of vampires to stand before Sylvain and Matthew, staring at them dispassionately. It looked as if it had been some time since he’d fed: the veins at his temples and his neck were black beneath his skin, like twists of wire.
“Kill them!” Orville screamed. He was up on his knees on the bed, his face horribly eager. “They’re Shadowhunters! Kill them both!”
There was a murmur from the crowd, but to Matthew’s surprise, Virgil—who was clearly in charge—shook his head. “Not yet. Tie them up. Put them in the costume room and bar the door.”
And though Matthew and Sylvain did their best to fight, that was exactly what happened.
* * *
The “costume room” turned out to be another cabin, this one crammed with steamer trunks and clothing racks. Sylvain walked around the room like a guard marching about the perimeter of a jail. Here and there he knocked on the wood as if to test its strength, though the vampires had taken not just their weapons but their steles—without the ability to draw runes, breaking down the doors or walls by force would only bring the vampires running.
Sylvain glanced down at where Matthew sat on the floor, among a bundled pile of silk and velvet costumes. A black swan feather that had come free from a cloak drifted past on the still air, brushing Matthew’s cheek with the lightest of touches.
“Are you all right?” Sylvain asked, his voice sounding as if it were being squeezed through a constricted throat.He was badly bruised from the fight in Melody’s room; the skin around his left eye was already darkening.
Matthew nodded. “You’re just stirring up dust, you know.”
Sylvain sighed and sat down beside Matthew, amid the costume pile. He leaned his back against the wall, his shoulder bumping Matthew’s lightly. “Don’t youwantto get out?” he said.
“Not really,” Matthew said. “No.”
Sylvain turned his head to stare at Matthew, his eyes narrowed. The only light in the room came through a single porthole window; it seemed to strike sparks from his black eyes. “You can’t have given up.”
