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

“Gosh,” said Eustace Larkspear. “It would be something to have a father like that.”

“I heard he was mad,” said Alastair, and let out a bark of laughter. “You’d have to be mad, to marry a creature with infernal blood and have children who were—”

“Don’t,” said little Thomas quietly. To everyone’s surprise, Alastair rolled his eyes and desisted.

Matthew wanted to be the one who had made Alastair stop, but Thomas had already done it and Matthew could not think of any way to stop Alastair permanently short of challenging him to a duel. He was not even sure that would work. Alastair was not a coward, and would probably accept the challenge and then talk twice as much. Besides which, getting into fights was not precisely Matthew’s style. He could fight, but he did not think violence solved many problems.

Aside from the problem of demons laying waste to the world, that was.

Matthew left the tower top abruptly and wandered the halls of the Academy in a foul mood. Despite his commitment to dark brooding, he knew he was duty bound not to lose track of Christopher and Thomas Lightwood for long.

When he was six, Matthew’s older brother, Charles Buford, and his mama had left the house for a meeting at the London Institute. Charlotte Fairchild was the Consul, the most important person of all the Shadowhunters, and Charles had always been interested in her work instead of resenting the bothersome Nephilim for taking up her time. As they prepared to go, Matthew had stood in the hall crying and refusing to let go of his mother’s dress.

Mama had knelt down and asked that Matthew please take care of Papa for her while she and Charles were gone.

Matthew took this responsibility seriously. Papa was a genius and what most people considered an invalid, because he could not walk. Unless he was carefully watched, he would forget to eat in the excitement of invention. Papa could not get on without Matthew, which was why it was absurd that Matthew had been sent to the Academy in the first place.

Matthew liked to take care of people, and he was good at it. When they were eight, Christopher Lightwood had been discovered in Papa’s laboratory performing what Papa described as a very intriguing experiment. Matthew had noticed that there was now a wall missing in the laboratory, and he took Christopher under his wing.

Christopher and Thomas were real cousins, their fathers brothers. Matthew was not a real cousin: he only called Christopher’s and Thomas’s parents Aunt Cecily and Uncle Gabriel, and Aunt Sophie and Uncle Gideon, respectively, out of courtesy. Their parents were only friends. Mama had no close family and Papa’s family did not approve of Mama being Consul.

James was Christopher’s blood cousin. Aunt Cecily was Mr. Herondale’s sister. Mr. Herondale ran the London Institute, and the Herondales tended to keep to themselves. Unkind people said it was because they were snobbish or thought themselves superior, but Charlotte said those people were ignorant. She told Matthew the Herondales tended to keep to themselves as they had experienced unkindness due to Mrs. Herondale being a warlock.

Still, when you ran an Institute, you couldn’t be completely invisible. Matthew had seen James at various parties before and tried to acquire him as a friend, only Matthew was impeded because he felt he should contribute to parties being a success and James tended to be in a corner, reading.

It was usually a simple matter for Matthew to make friends, but he did not see the point unless it was a challenge. Friends who were easy to get might be easy to lose, and Matthew wanted to keep people.

It had been rather shattering when James seemed to actively dislike Matthew, but Matthew had won him over. He still was not entirely sure how, which made him uneasy, but James had recently referred to himself, Matthew, Christopher, and Thomas as the three Musketeers and d’Artagnan, from a book he liked. Everything had been going splendidly aside from missing Papa, but now James was expelled and everything was ruined. Still, Matthew could not forget his responsibilities.

Christopher had a tempestuous relationship with science, and Professor Fell had commanded Matthew not to let Christopher come into contact with any flammable materials after the last time. Thomas was so quiet and small they were always losing him, rather like a human marble, and if left to his own devices he would inevitably roll toward Alastair Carstairs.

This was a hideous situation with only one bright side. It was a simple matter to locate Thomas when he was lost. Matthew only had to follow the sound of Alastair’s irritating voice.

Unfortunately this meant being forced to behold Alastair’s irritating face.

He found Alastair soon enough, gazing out a window, with Thomas shyly standing at his elbow.

Thomas’s hero worship was inexplicable. The only things Matthew could find to like about Alastair were his extraordinarily expressive eyebrows, and eyebrows did not make the man.

“Are you very sad, Alastair?” Matthew heard Thomas ask as he approached, bent on retrieval.

“Stop bothering me, pipsqueak,” said Alastair, though his voice was tolerant. Even he could not strongly object to being adored.

“You heard the low, snaky serpent,” said Matthew. “Come away, Tom.”

“Ah, Mother Hen Fairchild,” sneered Alastair. “What a lovely wife you will make for somebody one of these fine days.”

Matthew was outraged to see Thomas’s tiny smile, though Thomas quickly concealed it out of respect for Matthew’s feelings. Thomas was meek and much afflicted by sisters. He seemed to think Alastair being rude to everyone was daring.