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Cordelia felt her heart soften. She could tell Matthew was nervous, though he hid it well. She had been badly shaken last night. She remembered his arms around her as she stood under the gaslight on the Boulevard de Clichy, fiacres rumbling by like trains. She had told him he had been nothing but kind to her, and it was true.
As she poured out a cup of tea, Matthew said, “I thought today we could visit the Musée Grévin? It has wax sculptures, and a hall of mirrors that resembles the inside of a kaleidoscope—”
“Matthew,” she said. “Tonight I would like to return to the Cabaret de l’Enfer.”
“I didn’t think—”
“That I enjoyed myself?” She fiddled with her spoon. “I suppose I didn’t, exactly, but if—if that was truly my father—I want to know the truth. I would like to ask Madame Dorothea a question to which only my father would know the answer.”
He shook his head, disarranging his blond curls. “I can’t say no to you,” he said, and Cordelia felt herself flush. “But—only as long as we can spend today just enjoying ourselves. And not thinking about ghosts, or dire warnings. Agreed?”
Cordelia agreed, and they spent the day sightseeing. Matthew insisted on taking the little Brownie camera he had bought, so in the Musée Grévin, Cordelia obligingly posed with wax versions of the pope, Napoléon, Victor Hugo, Marie Antoinette, and various figures in rooms set with scenes from the French Revolution, some of which were so lifelike it felt very strange to walk into the midst of them.
Matthew declared himself in need of fresh air, so they flagged down a fiacre to take them to the Bois de Boulogne. “Everything is better in Paris,” he said as they rolled past the Opéra and slowly made their way down the Rue Saint-Lazare, “except, perhaps, the traffic.”
Cordelia had to agree: as they passed the Arc de Triomphe and approached the Bois de Boulogne, what seemed like hundreds of carriages poured in a flood toward the entrance, mingled with cars tooting their horns, riders on horseback, groups of bicyclists, and crowds and crowds of people on foot. The fiacre, trapped in the throng, was buffeted slowly down an allée lined with trees, which ended at the edge of a lake, where a cheerfully rowdy group of young students were determinedly having a picnic despite the cold weather.
As they crawled gratefully out of the cab, Cordelia could not help but think about the picnic in Regent’s Park that had been her early introduction to the Merry Thieves. She thought of Christopher eating lemon tarts, of Thomas’s easy smile and Anna’s laughter, of Lucie’s inquisitiveness, of James—
But she would not think of James. She could not help a wistful glance at the picnicking students, though they seemed to her so very young—younger than herself and her friends, though they were likely in university. They did not know of the Shadow World, did not see it, did not imagine what lurked beyond the thin scrim of illusion separating them from a darker universe.
She envied them.
Eventually, she and Matthew found an unoccupied park bench and settled on it. Matthew tipped his face up to the pale winter light; in its glare, Cordelia could see how tired he looked. Matthew had the delicacy of extremely pale skin, to go with his fair hair; it showed every bruise and shadow, and right now the crescents below his eyes were dark, as if they had been painted on. Of course, he had been up half the night, Cordelia reminded herself with a pang of guilt, holding her hand as she drifted in and out of restless sleep.
“Matthew,” she said.
“Hmmm?” he asked, not opening his eyes.
“I thought perhaps we should discuss,” she said, “my brother and your brother.”
Matthew did not open his eyes, but he went still. “Alastair and Charles? What about them?”
“Well,” said Cordelia, “it cannot have escaped your notice—”
“It hasn’t.” She didn’t think she’d heard Matthew’s voice so cool before, certainly not when directed at her. She remembered the first time she’d really met him, how she’d wondered if he disliked her, how he’d charmed her anyway. Fair hair, sideways looks, a blur of a smile. “I am not an idiot. I have seen the way Charles looks at your brother, and the way your brother does not look at him. Love, unrequited.” Now he did open his eyes. They were a very light green in the sunlight. “And to be fair, I doubt my brother did anything to deserve the kind of love he clearly felt himself.”
“Really? You think Charles felt so much as all that for Alastair? He was the one who wanted it kept secret.”
“Ah, because of his career, I’m sure.” Matthew bit off the words. “I suppose it depends on your definition of love. Love that will give up nothing, love that one is willing to sacrifice for a more comfortable life, is not love, in my opinion. Love should come above all other things.”
The intensity of his words startled Cordelia. She felt them as a sort of accusation: Should she have been willing to give up more, sacrifice more for James? For Lucie? For her family?
“Never mind,” Matthew said, in a gentler tone. “I believe Alastair’s affections no longer rest with Charles, so the whole business will fade away in time. I find I have a bit of a headache. We should talk about something else.”
“I’ll tell you a story, then,” Cordelia said. “Maybe something from the Shahnameh? Would you like to hear about the defeat of Zahhak, the evil Serpent King?”
Matthew’s eyes lit up. “Absolutely,” he said, settling back against the bench. “Spin me a tale, my dear.”
James rose feeling still tired, as if he’d barely slept at all. He went to the washstand and splashed ice-cold water on his face, which woke him up promptly. He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror—tired eyes, drooping at the corners; wet black curls; a sharp downturn to the corner of his mouth he didn’t recall having before.
No wonder Cordelia doesn’t want you.
He told himself, savagely, to stop it, and went to get dressed. As he was buttoning his cuffs, he heard a rustle in the hall outside his room, as if a curious mouse was in the corridor. He reached the door in two strides and threw it open. With no surprise whatsoever, he found Lucie—in a lace-trimmed blue dress, looking unseasonably summery—standing right behind it, glaring at him.
“If it isn’t Secret Princess Lucie,” he said mildly. “Come to visit her terrible family.”
Lucie put her hand on his chest and walked him back into the bedroom. She kicked the door shut behind her. “We need to talk, before we go downstairs.”
