Matthew could hear the whispers all around:drowned, must have fallen overboard, what a tragedy. He realized the alarms had been those meant to alert the crew to a man overboard.
“Is there a doctor on this ship?” demanded Prospero. His wig and mustache were gone—the latter must have been stuck on with spirit gum for the performance— revealing a thin upper lip and a narrow, bony face.
“He’s being fetched now,” said the captain. “Though what good he’ll be able to do…”
Matthew reached out to feel the pulse in Morrow’s neck. As he did so, he pushed aside the man’s stiff collar, and saw a long slashing cut along the left side of his neck. It was not bleeding, but then, only the living bled.
Dutifully, he pressed his fingers to Morrow’s throat, but there was no pulse to be felt. Matthew sat back on his heels. “He’s dead,” he said, flatly.
“Did anyone see him go over?” he heard the captain say. He was staring down at Morrow’s face, which was ghastly white. A line fromThe Tempestcame into Matthew’shead, more an irritant than a revelation:Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. “Did he fall or—was it a suicide?”
“He was lurching about on the deck earlier tonight,” said Orville Cole, who had pushed to the front of the crowd and was staring avidly. “Like he was drunk.”
Matthew thought of Bart Morrow sitting in the audience at the play, his back straight, his eyes fixed on the stage. Matthew knew drunks. He didn’t think Morrow was one. But that wasn’t exactly concrete proof of anything.
Matthew felt a snarl growing in the back of his throat, as if he’d swallowed a small, angry animal. Perhaps a weasel or a vole. “That’s just not true—”
“Excuse me.” A hand clamped down on the back of Matthew’s shirt. He found himself hauled to his feet— not, to his surprise, by one of the actors, but by Sylvain. “There’s been an issue with your dog. He’s gotten out of your room and is biting passengers.”
Matthew, incensed at this slander of Oscar, twisted around to glare at the other boy. “Oscar’s never bitten anyone in his life.”
“Eh?” The captain was squinting over at them. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing serious. We’ll manage it,” said Sylvain, whowas already dragging Matthew away from the crowd around Morrow’s body, Oscar following in their wake.
At which point a very surprising thing happened. Matthew waited until they were out of sight of the other passengers, having turned down the narrow stairs that led to the staterooms, before he tried to yank himself free of Sylvain’s grip. He didn’t think it would take much; mundanes couldn’t match the strength of Shadowhunters.
But Sylvain hung on. And not with an enormous amount of effort either. Matthew narrowed his eyes. “All right then, what exactly—”
They had reached a long corridor of closed doors, clearly passenger quarters. Sylvain made a beeline for the door of room 11 and shouldered it open, and a moment later he, Oscar and Matthew were inside a stateroom that looked much like Matthew’s own.
Sylvain let go of Matthew instantly and slammed the door shut behind him, sliding the bolt closed to lock them in. Lamps were burning on either side of the narrow bed, drenching them both in blurry yellow gaslight.
Sylvain leaned back against the door. He was breathing hard. Clearly keeping hold of Matthew hadn’t been easy, which, Matthew thought, was some satisfaction at least. “You,” Sylvain said.
Matthew raised his eyebrows. “Moi,” he said. “Is there a reason you’ve dragged me here?”
Sylvain looked at him incredulously. “Really? You haven’t guessed?” He raised his injured left hand and began to unwrap the bandages. “You were about to say too much. And show too much,” he said, as the bandages fell away. He turned his hand so Matthew could see the back of it, where the Voyance rune was darkly inked. “You’re a Shadowhunter,” Sylvain said. “And so am I.”
THREE
Matthew flicked his gaze down to his own right hand. Of course—he’d fled from his room so quickly at the sound of the alarm that he’d forgotten to cover up his Voyance rune.
He looked sideways at Sylvain. The other boy was staring at him with an odd expression, one Matthew couldn’t quite read. “When did you know?” Matthew said.
Sylvain leaned back against the wall of his stateroom. It was papered in gold fleur-de-lis against a blue background, which, Matthew thought, was at least appropriate. “I guessed,” he said. “You certainlyaren’tMatthew Worthing, aristocratic son of a viceroy. Though I did enjoy your description of what that sort of life would be like.” To Matthew’s surprise, he smiled, a smile that litup his face, making his dark eyes glow. “But I wasn’t sure until I saw your Voyance rune peeking out from your cuff on the deck.”
This made Matthew feel slightly better. He might not have guessed Sylvain was a Shadowhunter, but Sylvain hadn’t been wearily waiting for him to catch on since the previous evening. He’d only just realized himself.
Not, Matthew thought, that he ought to care that much what Sylvain thought. Or be thinking about how his smile made his eyes glow. “So your last name isn’t Allard,” he said.
“No. It’s Verlac. And you—are Matthew Fairchild?”
Matthew blinked. “How did you guessthat?”
“You’re the Consul’s son,” Sylvain said, as if that explained everything. “Does she know where you are?”
Matthew shook his head. “She knows I’m traveling. Not where I am precisely. Why?”
