if Jesse ends up being a traitor and just used Lucie to get him revived form the dead with reverse psychology and has been helping his mother all this time I swear to god—
The word echoed in Cordelia’s ears. Though she had clambered blindly into a fiacre with Matthew, though they were rattling quickly through some part of Paris, she still felt as if she were standing in front of the cabaret, hearing the guard refuse her entrance. I know what I know. You cannot come inside.
Because you are corrupted within, said a small voice inside her. Because you belong to Lilith, Mother of Demons. Because of your own foolishness, you are cursed. No one should be around you.
“Daisy?” Matthew’s worried voice seemed to come from far away. “Daisy, please. Talk to me.”
James wasn’t sure how he’d expected Lucie to respond to their arrival, but he was startled nonetheless at the fear that flashed across her face.
She took a step back, nearly knocking into the boy standing next to her — Jesse Blackthorn, it was Jesse Blackthorn — and flung her hands up, as if to ward them off. As if to ward off James, and her father.
Thomas nodded, not really paying attention. It wasn’t his fault, entirely. He knew that Christopher was simply working through his own thought processes aloud, and Thomas wasn’t really expected to follow along. More just produce the occasional encouraging “Oh, indeed.”
From upstairs, the doorbell chimed. Christopher, interrupted in the midst of explaining the science behind fire-messages, put down his stele, muttered about the interruption, and went upstairs to answer the door.
It wasn’t Thomas’s intention to eavesdrop. But when Christopher’s voice drifted down to him, and he heard, “Oh, hullo, Alastair, you must be here to see Charles. I think he’s upstairs in his study,” he found he could focus on nothing else.
Cordelia and Matthew stood, arm in arm, watching the river flow beneath the bridge. The Seine rolled on from here, she knew, piercing the heart of Paris like a silver arrow just as the Thames did London. “We are not here just to forget,” Matthew said, “but also to remember, that there are good and beautiful things in this world, always. And mistakes do not take them from us; nothing takes them from us. They are eternal.”
She squeezed his gloved hand with her own. “Matthew. Do you listen to yourself? If you believe what you say, remember that it is true for you, too. Nothing can take the good things of the world from you. And that includes how much your friends and family love you, and always will.”
“Don’t just stand there, Alastair,” said Matthew. “Thomas needs you.”
“Daisy, I know you think that I’ve never loved you,” James said, “and that therefore you can’t trust my feelings. But I want to show you something.”
“James took a deep breath. “Daisy,” he said. “I wanted to say — I never apologized.”
She turned, laid the striped dress on the bed. Stayed there, fiddling with its buttons. “For what?”
"Daisy.” Matthew spoke in a low voice, his hand tightening on hers. “I know you are lost in thought. But – listen.”
There was urgency in his voice. Cordelia turned to look behind them, down the long tunnel of the quai – the river on one side, the stone retaining wall rising on the other, the city above them as if they had retreated underground.
Shhhh. Not the wind in the bare boughs, but a hiss and a slither. A bitter smell, carried on the wind.
Demons.“
“Daisy,” James whispered. “Do you have any idea what it would do to me if something happened to you? Do you?”
"Dear Alastair, why are you so stupid and so frustrating, and why do I think about you all the time?”
Matthew laughed a little breathlessly. “I am saying that with you, I have no armor. I feel everything. For better or worse.”
