“Marrying me to any girl wouldn’t be a good match.”
Matthew turned his head sharply to the side, and saw that Sylvain was no longer staring at the ceiling. He was on his side, his head pillowed on his bent arm, his gaze on Matthew. His eyes were dark as the lowest fathoms of the sea.
“I understand,” Matthew said softly. He wondered if he should say something else: that he more than understood, that he was partly, if not entirely, like Sylvain. That he could love a man just as easily as he could love a woman.
But that implied that he could love properly, Matthew thought. Did it matter what kind of attractions he felt, when every attempt he’d ever made at a romantic relationship had been a disaster? Perhaps love was like alcohol that way.Some people could manage their relationship with it, but he would never be one of them.
A small line appeared between Sylvain’s eyebrows. “What about you?” he said. “You are the son of the Consul, you and yourparabataiare famous. James Herondale and Matthew Fairchild.” He didn’t sound bitter now, just curious. “Everything you and your friends have done— why would you leave after working so hard to make your world safe?”
Matthew propped himself up on his elbow. From here, he was looking down at Sylvain, whose hair was tumbled around him on the pillow like a halo in reverse. His long lashes cast shadows on the top of his cheekbones. Matthew felt his heart wrench slightly, as it always did when he saw beautiful things.
“I was a drunk,” he said. Sylvain had been honest with him; he could at least be honest back. “And I am not a drunk now, but every day it’s hard, and perhaps harder when I am in London and must always remember that though we made our city safe, we could not save everyone. And the person we didn’t save, the one who died—I see his face every time I close my eyes.”
Sylvain exhaled sharply, as though Matthew had touched him with his hand. The look on his face remindedMatthew of the way James had looked, in Edom, of the shadow growing each day in his eyes.
Sylvain’s gaze flicked away. He sat up, and Matthew realized he could see the faint blue stripe in Sylvain’s shirt. Light was coming into the room through the porthole window, bringing color with it.
“It’s dawn,” Sylvain said, swinging his legs off the bed without another look at Matthew. “We should go to the chapel.”
FOUR
The chapel was not quite what Matthew had imagined. He had pictured a wood-lined room with pews and an altar, somewhere Sunday services could be held for spiritually inclined passengers. Instead it was more of a drawing room. As if it had been intended originally as a place for passengers to play cards, read, and smoke cigars, it was a carpeted room filled with round, white-draped tables, the porthole windows hung with slightly dusty velvet curtains. The only thing that seemed to mark it out as a chapel was a somewhat makeshift altar at one end. A large gold crucifix anchored a drapery of silk cloth, and a several-branched candlestick sat beside it, unlit.
A number of the chairs and tables had been moved to the edges of the room to create space for the large cot thathad been placed in the center. On the cot lay the sheet-draped body of—Matthew assumed—Bart Morrow.
“Unfortunate,” Sylvain noted, glancing around the room. “I doubt this place is consecrated. The vampires may be able to come in any time they like.”
“Then we’d better have a look at the body before they can get to it,” Matthew said grimly, and approached the cot. As he gingerly drew back the sheet, he saw that someone had made the effort to arrange Bart Morrow’s body in a peaceful position. His eyes had been closed and his hands were folded across his chest. Matthew felt his stomach lurch; it was the same position they had put Christopher in when they’d laid him out on the bier in the Sanctuary of the London Institute. Though Christopher had looked like he was sleeping, and Morrow was very clearly and definitely dead.
“What’s wrong?” said Sylvain. “Do you see something?”
Matthew snapped himself back to attention. Pushing back his revulsion, he reached to open the dead man’s mouth to check his gums. They were gray. He drew his hand back, noting the way Morrow’s skin seemed almost shriveled, drawn tightly to his bones.
“He was drained of blood,” Matthew said, wearily. “Come look.”
Sylvain joined Matthew beside the dead man’s body. With a clinical disinterest, he examined Morrow’s throat and the cut Matthew had noticed before. “Someone made this slash to hide the puncture wounds from fangs,” he said. “I’d guess they were in a hurry—it’s a messy job.”
“Is thereanyother reasonable explanation for this that isn’t vampires?” said Matthew hopefully. “Anything else that could have happened to him?”
“Eels,” Sylvain said. “Giant eels.”
Matthew looked at him sharply, then realized Sylvain was joking—or at least as close to joking as he got.
Matthew’s mind was racing. Somehow he’d managed to travel around the world for nearly a year without a single peep of trouble from Downworlders or demons, and now this, on what was essentially his voyage home.
“What do we do?” Sylvain said. His arms were crossed, his eyes fixed on Morrow’s dead body.
Matthew held up a hand. “Hear me out,” he said. “Nothing. I suggest we do nothing.”
Sylvain’s eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself. As you said before, they’ve broken the Accords—we can’t do nothing.”
“I know.” Matthew scrubbed at his eyes, feeling suddenly tired. “I wasn’t suggesting we doabsolutelynothing. I was suggesting we send a fire-message to the Clave, sothey can have Shadowhunters waiting when we disembark in Constantinople. It would be better if we didn’t have to handle this on our own.”
“But if we wait,” said Sylvain, reasonably enough, “whoever did this may kill to feed again.”
“I’ve known quite a few vampires,” Matthew said. “Most don’t want trouble with Shadowhunters. Most are willing to live by the Accords. The ones who are dedicated killers, who feed on human death, are much more careful than this. They know how not to get caught. This feels like an act of panic. One of these vampires attacked Morrow, then threw his body overboard, hoping to cover up what they’d done. Which does not to me seem like a premeditated act.”
“Premeditated or not,” Sylvain said, “murder is murder.”
