Cast Long Shadows (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #2)(13)

Matthew understood that they needed a Silent Brother and a warlock, and they still might not save his mother.

Charles did not return. Matthew had helped his father back to his chair. They sat together in the breakfast parlor as the light turned from the glow of morning to the blaze of day, then faded into the shadows of evening.

Papa’s face looked carved out of old stone. When he spoke at last, he sounded as if he were dying inside. “You should know, Matthew,” he said. “Your mama and I, we were . . .”

Separating. Ending our marriage. She loved another. Matthew braced himself for the horror, but when it came, it was greater than anything he could have imagined.

“We were in anticipation of—of a happy event,” said Papa, his voice catching in his throat.

Matthew stared at him with blank incomprehension. He simply could not understand. It would hurt too much.

“Your mama and I had to wait some time for Charles Buford, and for you, and we thought you were both worth the wait,” said Father, and even in the midst of horror he tried to smile for Matthew. “This time Charlotte was hoping for—for a daughter.”

Matthew choked on his horror. He thought he might never speak another word or eat another bite. He would be choking on horror for years.

We thought. We were in anticipation. It was entirely clear that Father was certain, and had reason to believe, his children were his.

“We were concerned since you and Charles are both now quite grown up,” said Henry. “Gideon, good fellow, has been dancing attendance on Charlotte during Clave meetings. He has always stood your mother’s friend, lending her the Lightwood name and consequence whenever she needed support, and advising her when she wished for good counsel. I am afraid I have never truly understood the workings of an Institute, let alone the Clave. Your mama is a wonder.”

Gideon had been helping his mother. Matthew was the one who had attacked her.

“I had thought we might name her Matilda,” Father said in a slow, sad voice. “I had a Great-Aunt Matilda. She was very old when I was still a young rip, and the other boys used to tease me. She would give me books and tell me that I was smarter than any of them. She had splendid buttery-white wavy hair, but it was gold when she was a girl. When you were born, you already had the dearest fair lovelocks. I called her Aunt Matty. I never told you, because I thought you might not like to be named for a lady. You already have a great deal to endure with your foolish father, and those who cavil at your mother and your parabatai. You bear it all so gracefully.”

Matthew’s father touched his hair with a gentle, loving hand. Matthew wished he would pick up a blade and cut Matthew’s throat.

“I wish you could have known your great-great aunt. She was very like you. She was the sweetest woman God ever made,” said Father. “Save your mother.”

Brother Zachariah glided in then, a shadow amid all the other shadows crowding that room, to summon Matthew’s father to his mother’s bedside.

Matthew was left alone.

He stared in the gathering darkness at his mother’s overturned chair, the dropped scone and its trail of crumbs going nowhere, the greasy remnants of breakfast over the disarranged table. He, Matthew, was always dragging his friends and family to art galleries, always anxious to dance through life, always prattling of truth and beauty like a fool. He had run headlong into a Shadow Market and blithely trusted a Downworlder, because Downworlders seemed exciting, because she had called Shadowhunters brutal and Matthew had agreed, believing he knew better than they. It was not the faerie woman’s fault, or Alastair’s, or the fault of any other soul. He was the one who had chosen to distrust his mother. He had fed his mother poison with his own hands. He was not a fool. He was a villain.

Matthew bowed the fair head that had been passed to him through his father, from his father’s best-loved relative. He sat in that dark room and wept.





Brother Zachariah descended the stairs after a long battle with death, to tell Matthew Fairchild that his mother would live.

James and Lucie had come with Tessa and waited in the hall all this long day. Lucie’s hands were chilled when she clung to him.

She asked: “Aunt Charlotte, is she safe?”

Yes, my darlings, said Jem. Yes.

“Thank the Angel,” breathed James. “Matthew’s heart would break. All our hearts would.”

Brother Zachariah was not so sure of Matthew’s heart, after the mischief Matthew had wrought, but he wanted to offer James and Lucie what comfort he could.

Go to the library. There is a fire lit. I will send Matthew to you.

When he went into the breakfast room, he found Matthew, who had been all gold and laughter, cowering in his chair as if he could not bear what was to come.

“My mother,” he whispered at once, his voice brittle and dry as old bones.

She will live, said Jem, and softened seeing the boy’s pain.

James had known his parabatai’s heart better than Jem. There had been a time when Will was a boy everybody assumed the worst of, with good reason, except for Jem. He did not want to learn harsh judgment from the Silent Brothers, or a less forgiving heart.

Matthew lifted his head to face Brother Zachariah. His eyes told of agony, but he held his voice steady.

“And the child?”

Brother Zachariah said, The child did not live.

Matthew’s hands closed on the edge of his chair. His knuckles were white. He looked older than he had a mere two nights ago.