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“No,” Thomas said crossly. He knew it was unfair, but he could not help but feel Alastair had played a sort of trick on him by being home when Thomas had not expected it. “It’s for your mother.”
“Ah. Well, come in, then,” Alastair said, and swung the door wide. Thomas staggered inside and set the basket down on the entryway table. He turned back to Alastair, and immediately launched into the speech he’d prepared on his way over:
“The basket is from my mother and my aunt Cecily. They were concerned that your mother would feel forgotten, since everyone will be at the party tonight. They wanted her to know they were thinking of her. Speaking of which,” he added before he could stop himself, “why aren’t you at the Institute?”
He looked Alastair up and down: Alastair was certainly not dressed like someone planning to attend a party. He was in shirtsleeves, his braces hanging down around his hips, his feet in slippers. He looked sulky and bitten-lipped and ferocious, like a Persian prince from a fairy tale.
A Persian prince from a fairy tale? SHUT UP, THOMAS.
Alastair shrugged. “If I’m leaving for Tehran soon, it hardly seems worth socializing with the Enclave. I thought I’d spend a productive evening at home. Go through some of Cordelia’s books about paladins. See if I could find anything helpful.”
“So Cordelia went to the party on her own?”
“With Anna and Ari. She left a bit early to pick them up.”
An awkward pause fell over the foyer. Thomas knew that the correct thing to say was something along the lines of, Well, I should be off. Instead he said, “So your plan is to brood at home by yourself all night? Rather than going to a party with your friends?”
Alastair gave him a sour look. “They’re not my friends.”
“You say that kind of thing often,” Thomas said. “Almost as though if you repeat it enough, it will become true.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. He was wearing his best black jacket, which strained at the seams over his shoulders. “If you don’t go, I won’t go either. I will stay home, and mice will nibble on me in my despair.”
Alastair blinked. “There’s no reason for that,” he said. “You’ve got every reason to go—”
“But I won’t,” Thomas said. “I will remain at home, despairing, being nibbled upon by mice. It’s your choice.”
Alastair held up one finger for a moment as though to speak, and then let it drop. “Well. Damn you, Lightwood.”
“Alastair?” came a light voice from the parlor. Sona; of course they would have brought her down here, to keep her from having to climb the stairs every day. “Che khabare? Che kesi dame dar ast?” What’s going on? Who was at the door?
Alastair looked darkly at Thomas. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go to your stupid party. But you have to amuse my mother while I get dressed.”
And with that, he turned and stalked upstairs.
Thomas had never been alone with Alastair’s mother. Before he could lose his nerve entirely, he snatched up the fruit basket and brought it into the parlor.
Sona was sitting up, propped on a chaise longue by about a thousand pillows of various rich colors. She was wearing a brocade dressing gown and wrapped in a thick blanket, which rose like a mountain over the hill of her stomach. Not knowing where to look, Thomas carefully put the basket on the table next to her. He explained the nature of the gift while Sona smiled delightedly.
“Oh my,” she said. “That’s so very thoughtful of them. I do feel thought of, and that is a lovely gift in itself.”
“Ghâbel nadâre,” said Thomas. Don’t mention it. It was a gamble—he’d studied Persian on his own, and helped James with the language as well. He knew the phrase meant, It’s not worthy of you, and was a common thing to say when giving a gift. He also wasn’t sure he was pronouncing it properly, and he was fairly sure the tops of his ears were turning red.
Sona’s eyes sparkled. “So many young people learning Persian these days,” she said, as if highly entertained. She leaned forward. “Tell me, where is my son? I do hope he didn’t abandon you at the front door.”
“Not at all,” Thomas said. “I managed to talk him into coming to the Christmas party. He went to change clothes.”
“You managed to talk him into it,” Sona repeated, as if Thomas had claimed that he had sailed around the world in a canoe. “Well, I”—she looked at Thomas closely—“I am delighted that Alastair has a friend who will look out for his best interests, even when he does not. Not like that ahmag Charles,” Sona added, as if to herself. But she was looking at Thomas even more closely than before.
“Charles?” Thomas echoed. Surely Sona had no idea—
“Charles never cared for Alastair,” Sona said. “Not the way he deserves to be cared for. Alastair deserves to have someone in his life who understands how truly wonderful he is. Who suffers when he suffers, and is happy when he is happy.”
“Yes,” Thomas said, “he does,” and his mind raced. Did Sona know he wanted to be that person for Alastair? Did she know that Alastair and Charles had been romantically entangled? Was she giving Alastair and Thomas her blessing? Was he inventing things in his fevered mind? “I think,” he said at last, hardly realizing he was saying it, “that the person most standing between Alastair and happiness is Alastair himself. He is brave, and loyal, and his heart—” He found himself blushing. “I suppose I wish Alastair would treat himself as he deserves to be treated.”
Sona was smiling down into the fruit basket. “I do agree. As a child, Alastair was always gentle. It was only when he went away to school—”
She broke off as Alastair stalked into the room. No one would have guessed he had gotten dressed in a hurry: he was starkly elegant in black and white, his eyes luminous and deep. The curve of his throat was as graceful as a bird’s wing. “All right, Thomas,” he said. “If you’re quite done assaulting my mother with fruit, we might as well be on our way.”
Thomas said nothing as Alastair went across the room to kiss his mother on the cheek; they spoke together in Persian too rapid for Thomas to understand. He only watched Alastair: Alastair being gentle, Alastair being loving, the Alastair Sona had known, but Thomas so rarely ever saw. As Alastair bid goodbye to his mother, Thomas could not help but wonder: If Alastair was so utterly determined to hide that part of himself from Thomas, did it matter that Thomas knew it existed at all?
