“In the costume room, when you spoke to Virgil,” Sylvain said, “and you told him you liked your life the way it was. At first, I was only happy for you. Then I realized what you meant—you like your life exactly as it is. No changes or additions.”
“I am not so foolish as to think one can live one’s life without changes happening,” said Matthew. “By the time I return to London, many things will have changed. I may well have a new brother or sister, I—”
“But that is a good change. Whereas I would just bring complication to your life. I didn’t just leave Paris because I lost Lucas. I left Paris because my father wanted me to take over the Institute, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t make my father understand that, after what happened, I could not bear to send people out on patrols where they might die. I don’t want to be responsible for any more death. He wouldn’t listen. I left under cover of darkness. I took ships so he couldn’t track me. I would be bringing you a lot of trouble.”
“You think the tale of you and your parents is a drama? You have no idea what I have gone through with my own parents. I want to help you. Don’t you understand? When you care for someone, the idea that they’d share their burdens with you is not something you dread. It is a gift.”
For the first time, Sylvain looked up from his feet and met Matthew’s eyes. “You mean that? You care for me?”
“Of course I do,” Matthew said. “I thought you were the one who was unmoved by me.”
“Unmovedby you?” Sylvain looked incredulous. “How could you ever think that?”
He stalked across the room to Matthew, who was still on the bed. Kicking off his slippers, Sylvain clambered onto the bed, causing Matthew to scramble back until he was leaning against the pillows stacked against the headboard. Sylvain leaned down over him, their faces inches apart.
“You cannot imagine I am unmoved by you,” Sylvain said. “Matthew.Mathieu.” His soft voice caressed the name; his lips brushed Matthew’s cheek. Matthew shivered, and reached for Sylvain, pulling him closer. “Even before we met, I had seen pictures of you and thought you were the most beautiful creature that existed in the world,” Sylvain said, letting Matthew draw him close until Sylvainstraddled his hips. “And when we did meet, at that table, I wanted to crawl across it so I could kiss your mouth.”
Sylvain pressed his lips against Matthew’s—a hard, sweet, sharp kiss. His dark eyes glowed. Heart pounding in his chest, Matthew said, “That would have been very alarming for the other diners.”
“And when I did kiss you,” Sylvain said, his hand cupping Matthew’s cheek, “I only wanted to keep kissing you. To kiss you forever.”
Matthew let his head fall back. Sylvain, straddling him, might have been the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. Sylvain’s cheeks were flushed, his hair a wild tumble of soft black, his shirt loose, showing the pale, silky skin underneath. “So kiss me,” he said. “Kiss me forever.”
Sylvain’s eyes flashed. A moment later his mouth came down hard against Matthew’s and Matthew was pushing himself up against Sylvain, taking the kiss he was given and giving it back with all the force of his desire. Sylvain tasted of tooth powder and salt, and he moaned when Matthew licked his lower lip and then his throat, and then they were pulling at each other’s clothes, their shirts coming away with the sound of tearing cloth and the murder of buttons.
Sylvain’s bare skin was hot against Matthew’s, and it felt like smooth, warm marble, soft and scarred at the same time.Matthew could not stop stroking and touching him, and Sylvain moaned, his eyelashes fluttering, his hips grinding down as Matthew arched up, and then Sylvain’s hand slid under the waistband of Matthew’s trousers and Matthew felt his eyes roll up in his head. Sylvain’s strokes were rough and gentle, then gentle and rough, and Matthew had forgotten that his body was made not just for fighting but also for the pleasure of being loved. He shuddered in Sylvain’s arms, gasping as he clung to him as if he were clinging for life to a branch in a fast-moving river. “Oh,please,” he said, without being quite sure what he was asking for, and Sylvain pressed his forehead to Matthew’s and whispered in French for him to let go, to let go and to fall.
Matthew let go. Not to fall, but to fly.
* * *
In the dream, Matthew was walking across green grass, under a sun the color of white roses.
In the distance he could hear the voices of boys calling back and forth energetically, as if engaged in a game. Matthew began to hurry. It seemed suddenly very important that he catch them before they moved beyond his ability to hear.
He raised his voice to call out to them, but his shout made nosound. The distant laughter sharpened, and something came bouncing across the grass toward him. Matthew bent to retrieve it. It was a child’s ball, painted with gold paint that had worn away badly.
“That’s mine,” said a boy’s voice.
Matthew looked and saw Christopher. Not a younger Christopher, or a Christopher as he had been the last time Matthew had seen him: his clothes torn and stained with blood. This was a Christopher all in funeral white, pale as the sky, with red runes of mourning and grief painted upon his clothes. This was Christopher as he must have looked when they laid him on the bier in Idris, before his body was set alight and he was burned away to ash.
His gaze met Matthew’s. There was no anger in his eyes. Only that calm, curious, steadfast gentleness that was the real Christopher Lightwood.
“Kit,” Matthew said, softly. The chill in his blood was rapidly vanishing, replaced by a sorrow that he knew would always be there. A sorrow he would always be grateful for, because it marked the place where Christopher had once been. It was a memorial, a reminder of how much better it was to have a Christopher to mourn, than never to have had a Christopher at all. “Kit, I miss you.”
A moment later, he felt Christopher’s arms around him, a tight hug that he returned, gripping the back of Christopher’s jacket as if he could hold him forever. “I am always with you,” Kit said. “Wherever there is an invention that is not quite working, I am there.”
Matthew laughed; it was the first time he had ever laughed in a dream. “You were a great inventor, Kit.”
“The past is not lost to us, or gone forever,” said Kit, even as he drew back from Matthew. He had started to grow more translucent around the edges. “It remains a part of who we are. Even if you were to forget me, I would still be a part of you.”
“I won’t ever forget you,” Matthew said, but Kit was already fading, vanishing into the green-tinged air. Matthew watched him go, but without sorrow this time. He knew he would see him again.
* * *
Matthew woke up, and it was a gentler waking than he had known for a long time. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, reaching for the painful sorrow he always felt when he broke free of his dreams. It did not come. There was sorrow there, of course, but it was not the agony of a new wound; it was merely a presence, a reminder, like a healed scar.
He rolled onto his side, and found that Sylvain, beside him, was awake. He lay with his head pillowed on his hand, his dark eyes fixed on Matthew. He said, “A nightmare, then?”
