Chapter 2
TWO
Matthew was dreaming of green grass and Christopher when a klaxon brought him gasping out of sleep. His nerves were screaming, heart pounding, as the clangor went on and on, but Shadowhunter reflexes had already brought him to his feet.
Matthew had often had misgivings about what the Angel Raziel had gifted to his chosen warriors.
But in times like this, he was grateful.
He hardly had to think as he stripped off his nightclothes, threw on a black shirt and trousers, kicked his feet into boots, and slid a dagger and a seraph blade into his belt.
He left his shirt loose to cover the weapons and ran to the door of his stateroom, where Oscar was already pacing and barking anxiously.
They raced out into the corridor together.
The sound of the ringing alarm bells seemed to cut through the fog of night.
Matthew hastily traced a hearing rune onto his inner wrist, where the cuff of his shirt would hide it, and listened hard.
Distant noises sprang into focus. He could hear past the alarm now, hear running feet on the promenade deck, voices raised in distress.
Oscar seemed to be able to hear them too. He took off, sprinting, and Matthew matched his pace. He passed Oscar on the steps, and burst out onto the deck with his dog at his heels.
The alarm had stopped ringing. It was almost a quiet night, without the sound of wind. At the far end of the promenade, Matthew could see a small group of people gathered. Several of them held lamps, which cast a moving light over the scene in front of them.
The captain was there, looking grim behind his mustache, and doing his best to hold back a curious crowd.
Several of the players from the theater company were gathered around as well, including the man who had played Prospero.
Matthew did not see Melody, but he did recognize Sylvain, who was kneeling by a body on the ground.
A moment later Matthew had pushed through the crowd and dropped down beside Sylvain.
Only then did he recognize the man sprawled on the wood of the promenade deck.
It was the American businessman, Bart Morrow, pale as death, his blank eyes rolled up to the sky.
He was soaking wet, his hair and clothes choked with seawater.
Matthew could hear the whispers all around: drowned, must have fallen overboard, what a tragedy. He realized the alarms had been those meant to alert the crew to a man overboard.
“Is there a doctor on this ship?” demanded Prospero. His wig and mustache were gone—the latter must have been stuck on with spirit gum for the performance— revealing a thin upper lip and a narrow, bony face.
“He’s being fetched now,” said the captain. “Though what good he’ll be able to do…”
Matthew reached out to feel the pulse in Morrow’s neck. As he did so, he pushed aside the man’s stiff collar, and saw a long slashing cut along the left side of his neck. It was not bleeding, but then, only the living bled.
Dutifully, he pressed his fingers to Morrow’s throat, but there was no pulse to be felt. Matthew sat back on his heels. “He’s dead,” he said, flatly.
“Did anyone see him go over?” he heard the captain say.
He was staring down at Morrow’s face, which was ghastly white.
A line from The Tempest came into Matthew’s head, more an irritant than a revelation: Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. “Did he fall or—was it a suicide?”
“He was lurching about on the deck earlier tonight,” said Orville Cole, who had pushed to the front of the crowd and was staring avidly. “Like he was drunk.”
Matthew thought of Bart Morrow sitting in the audience at the play, his back straight, his eyes fixed on the stage. Matthew knew drunks. He didn’t think Morrow was one. But that wasn’t exactly concrete proof of anything.
Matthew felt a snarl growing in the back of his throat, as if he’d swallowed a small, angry animal. Perhaps a weasel or a vole. “That’s just not true—”
“Excuse me.” A hand clamped down on the back of Matthew’s shirt. He found himself hauled to his feet— not, to his surprise, by one of the actors, but by Sylvain. “There’s been an issue with your dog. He’s gotten out of your room and is biting passengers.”
Matthew, incensed at this slander of Oscar, twisted around to glare at the other boy. “Oscar’s never bitten anyone in his life.”
“Eh?” The captain was squinting over at them. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing serious. We’ll manage it,” said Sylvain, who was already dragging Matthew away from the crowd around Morrow’s body, Oscar following in their wake.
At which point a very surprising thing happened.
Matthew waited until they were out of sight of the other passengers, having turned down the narrow stairs that led to the staterooms, before he tried to yank himself free of Sylvain’s grip.
He didn’t think it would take much; mundanes couldn’t match the strength of Shadowhunters.
But Sylvain hung on. And not with an enormous amount of effort either. Matthew narrowed his eyes. “All right then, what exactly—”
They had reached a long corridor of closed doors, clearly passenger quarters. Sylvain made a beeline for the door of room 11 and shouldered it open, and a moment later he, Oscar and Matthew were inside a stateroom that looked much like Matthew’s own.
Sylvain let go of Matthew instantly and slammed the door shut behind him, sliding the bolt closed to lock them in. Lamps were burning on either side of the narrow bed, drenching them both in blurry yellow gaslight.
Sylvain leaned back against the door. He was breathing hard. Clearly keeping hold of Matthew hadn’t been easy, which, Matthew thought, was some satisfaction at least. “You,” Sylvain said.
Matthew raised his eyebrows. “Moi,” he said. “Is there a reason you’ve dragged me here?”
Sylvain looked at him incredulously. “Really? You haven’t guessed?
” He raised his injured left hand and began to unwrap the bandages.
“You were about to say too much. And show too much,” he said, as the bandages fell away.
He turned his hand so Matthew could see the back of it, where the Voyance rune was darkly inked.
“You’re a Shadowhunter,” Sylvain said. “And so am I.”