There was a murmur among the crowd. Matthew said, “May we speak with Miss Doyle, before you murder usand toss us into the sea?” He held up a quelling hand. “I know that might seem the simplest solution, but I can promise you it isn’t. The Clave knows we are aboard this ship. If we vanish, there are those who will look for us, and not stop looking. You will always be glancing over your shoulders.”
My friends will find you. They will kill you. Matthew did not say the words, and indeed they were only a small amount of comfort—he would still be dead—but he knew them to be true.
Even as Virgil hesitated, Melody pushed her way forward through the crowd. Her expression was grave. “Go ahead,” she said, and when Virgil started to protest, she shook her head. “Let the Shadowhunters speak. They are right—we do not want the ill will of the Clave if we can avoid it.”
Matthew looked at Sylvain, who shrugged and then nodded as if to say he’d no idea what Matthew’s plan was, but he supported it. Encouraged, Matthew said, “Let me tell you what I think happened, Miss Melody, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.”
She looked even more grave. “All right.”
“Your real name isn’t Melody Doyle, it’s Melody Morrow,” said Matthew. “Bart Morrow was your brother.Your parents, who were very wealthy, had passed away, leaving Bart as your guardian.”
A faint alarm had crept into Melody’s expression, but she only nodded. “Continue.”
Matthew said, “You lived a sheltered life with Bart, until you encountered a vampire who bit you—and turned you. You went through it all—the death, the change. When you rose again, you were likely desperate to see someone from your old life. Most vampires are, which is why I am guessing that you were turned by a vampire who abandoned you. Left you cruelly to rise alone, to face a new and terrifying world without guidance.”
The room was very still. All of the vampires were staring at Matthew, as if they had never heard a nonvampire speak with compassion of their experience: of the shock of death-in-life, the loneliness. Probably they had not.
“You ran to Bart, who had always taken care of you,” said Matthew. “But he had already buried you, already considered you dead. When you came to him, he thought he was seeing an evil spirit. Even when you told him what had happened, he responded in the worst way possible. He called you a demon and a devil—he said you were damned for eternity. You fled from him, and somehow you foundthe Palmer players. A theater troupe of vampires on the eve of a world tour. They took you in.”
“Theyfound me,” Melody whispered. “I had broken into an old theater. I was desperate to find a place I might sleep during the day. I was starving when they discovered me, close to death. After they saved my life, I begged Virgil to bring me along with them when they left Ohio. I had always liked acting, and I wanted nothing more than to get as far as possible from my brother.”
“And you’d thought you’d escaped him entirely, I’d guess, when he turned up suddenly on theMajestic. You were puzzled at first when he pretended not to know who you were, but I saw how nervous you were at dinner when the captain seated you at the same table as Bart. Not to mention the way he reacted when you said you’d had a brother but he was dead.”
Melody lifted her chin. “He was dead to me. Even then, I thought—”
“That he might have come in the spirit of reconciliation? Drawn to theMajesticby brotherly love or some hope of forgiveness? But he hadn’t, of course. You had something he wanted. The Queen of Night.”
Beside Matthew, Sylvain made a noise of realization. “The necklace she wears,” he said. “The diamond.”
Matthew nodded. It was Cordelia who had told him once about the Daria-i-noor and the Koh-i-noor, two famous diamonds with Persian names; the first meantocean of light, and the second,mountain of light. Great jewels were often given fanciful names, she’d said, sounding tickled at the romance of it all. The memory had stirred in Matthew when he’d read Bart’s letter. What if the Queen of Night was not a person at all, but a jewel? One that Bart Morrow wanted, but could not get his hands on, as it was around his sister’s neck?
“I left everything else behind,” Melody said, lifting her hand to the chain at her throat. “I told Bart I would vanish, that he could tell the world I was dead, that he could have all Father’s money. All I wanted to keep was this—” She drew the pendant out, and even in the dim light of the room the diamond seemed to glow. Matthew wondered how he’d ever thought it was paste. “—because it was a gift from my grandmother.”
“Once Bart was onboard, he must have sent you a message,” said Sylvain. “Telling you to come to his room. Perhaps saying that if you signed certain papers, he would leave you alone.”
“Exactly that.” Melody dropped her hand from the pendant.
“But he was taking no chances,” said Matthew. “He drugged you, using Orville, your thrall, as the unwitting conduit for a dose of hawthorn. He thought it would make you weak and compliant. And you were happy enough to sign the contract he presented you, signing over all your worldly goods to him. But then he demanded the diamond. And that you would not give.”
“He attacked me,” Melody said. “He had a stake with him. Crosses. He held a crucifix against my arm until the skin burned, then kicked me to the floor. I saw in his eyes he meant to kill me. Hewouldhave killed me. I didn’t mean to hurt him. But I had to fight back, and—”
“And humans are so fragile,” Virgil said, with a touch of melancholy in his voice.
“I snapped his neck,” Melody said sadly. “And I ran to Virgil and the others afterward, not knowing what to do. If Bart disappeared, there would certainly be a hue and cry raised. So—”
“So you had to hide the body,” Matthew said. “You threw him overboard, hoping his death would be written off as a suicide.”
“We didn’t know there were Shadowhunters onboard,” Virgil said. “Perhaps, if we had, we would have gone to you first.”
“What would you have said?” asked Sylvain.
“The truth,” Matthew said. “That this was a clear-cut case of self-defense.” He turned to Virgil. “There is no need for us to take any action or involve the Clave. No crime against the Accords has been committed.”
Virgil narrowed his eye. “I know that to swear on the name of the Angel is for the Shadowhunters a very serious thing. Swear on that name that you will take no action against us, nor cause any action to be taken.”
Matthew exchanged a quick look with Sylvain. Sylvain turned to Melody and to Virgil, and fixed them both with a steady look. “I swear on Raziel’s name.”
“I swear it too,” said Matthew. “On Raziel’s name.”
