Chapter 5 #3
“One night we were alone in the Institute when a distress call came in from a clan of vampires in Pigalle. I cautioned Lucas that we had to wait—that we could not go out alone, for if something was bad enough to threaten a whole clan of vampires, how could we defeat it on our own? But he only shook his head. He did not believe there was anything we could not handle if the two of us were together.” Sylvain’s voice shook.
“We argued, and he left without me. I was about to rush into the night after him when I recalled—fire-messages. They were brand new then. I sent one to the largest group of patrolling Shadowhunters, telling them they must make haste to the address I gave them, letting them know what was happening. Then I followed Lucas. But I was too late.”
“Sylvain,” Matthew murmured. “You don’t have to—”
Sylvain turned and buried his face against Matthew’s shoulder.
In a muffled voice, he said, “But I do. I have wanted to tell you this since I met you. I have never told it to anyone else, never, but if these creatures are to return, and to put an end to us, then I cannot bear that it should be without my having ever told Lucas’ story. ”
Matthew could understand that, better than perhaps Sylvain imagined. He often found himself wishing to speak of Christopher, even to strangers; he would silence himself, but the stories, untold, seemed to float inside his chest like bubbles of air that restricted his breathing.
“The Pigalle vampires had summoned a demon,” Sylvain said.
“It turned on them, as demons do, and tore them apart. I arrived along with the other Shadowhunters to find the place awash in blood. The demon was gone, and Lucas was dead—he had died killing it. Its poison had left him almost unrecognizable, but I knew him. I knew him at once.” Sylvain’s voice was a whisper.
“When you told me that you lost someone whose face you see in your dreams at night—I know exactly how that is. It happens to me too. I see Lucas’ smile, his eyes.
I feel a part of me has been ripped away and will never be healed. ”
Matthew laid a hand on Sylvain’s head, stroking the silk of his curling hair.
“The person I lost—Christopher— was one of my best friends. Almost a brother. We had known each other all our lives.” Matthew could taste tears in the back of his throat, or perhaps it was the salt of the air, so full of the sea.
“I know it is not the same. I know that to lose your parabatai is a unique sort of pain, for I almost lost James. And I know it because my godfather lost his parabatai, and that loss has shaped his whole life. But—Will has had a life. He has had love, and happiness.”
Sylvain lifted his faced to Matthew’s. “How?”
“Will told me once that the grief becomes a part of you. That it transforms into a reflection of the love you had for the person you lost. And he told me that you have to forgive yourself. It is not your fault, Sylvain, what happened to Lucas. It is not your fault, any more than what happened to Christopher…” Matthew spoke slowly, with a full realization of the meaning of the words for the first time.
“… is my fault. Has anyone else blamed you for what happened to Lucas?”
Sylvain was sitting up. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and said, “No, but—”
“No, because you are not to blame. Yet you blame yourself. Because if it is your fault, then you could have changed things. You could have had Lucas for longer, you could have had a different life. You could have had control. There is so much pain for us in accepting that we have no hand in fate, that sometimes tragedies simply happen. That we are a people who put ourselves in danger over and over and therefore sometimes we will lose others, or be lost ourselves. We can’t bear that, so we tell ourselves there is something we could have done. It isn’t true.”
“I try not to think about him.” Sylvain half-closed his eyes. “But he seems to be everywhere I look.”
“So let him be there,” Matthew said, thinking of Christopher in his dreams, looking at him with angry eyes.
It was his own anger against himself, of course.
Christopher would never blame him for anything.
“He is not Banquo’s ghost, accusing you of murder.
When you see him you are seeing a memory and memories are a gift. Surely you would not want—”
The door flew open. Matthew and Sylvain scrambled to their feet, straightening their clothes, as the vampires came in.
One by one they followed Virgil into the small, costume-strewn room.
They moved with unnerving silent grace, their steps making no sound on the floorboards, their faces like a procession of pale masks.
Matthew recognized a few of them: the boy who had replaced Melody as Ariel, the vampires who had been with Virgil on deck earlier.
Matthew had not noticed, he had been too intent on Sylvain, but the light through the porthole window had dimmed: it was nearly sundown.
They would not have much luck running, though Matthew did not intend to run.
He stood beside Sylvain, doing his best to look natural, as the last of the vampires came into the room.
It was Melody Morrow, her face very pale as she swept a look over Matthew, then lowered her eyes.
He checked quickly to make sure he could see the gold chain around her neck.
Virgil smirked a bit as he glanced over Sylvain and Matthew. “Having a last cuddle before the end?” he said. “How romantic.”
“The end of what?” Matthew said pleasantly. “You don’t want to kill us. I know you don’t.”
He could tell Sylvain was looking at him quizzically. It took a great deal not to look back; the best thing they could do now was appear confident and unworried.
Virgil made a face. He had a narrow, mobile actor’s countenance, the kind that showed emotion easily.
At the moment, he looked annoyed. “You haven’t left us much choice,” he said.
“We are not fools. If we don’t get rid of you now, there will be dozens of Shadowhunters lying in wait for us in Constantinople when we dock. ”
“It’s not fair,” said the curly-haired boy. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“They believe we have,” said Virgil. “They believe one of us has committed a murder.”
There was a murmur among the crowd. Matthew said, “May we speak with Miss Doyle, before you murder us and toss us into the sea?” He held up a quelling hand.
“I know that might seem the simplest solution, but I can promise you it isn’t.
The Clave knows we are aboard this ship.
If we vanish, there are those who will look for us, and not stop looking.
You will always be glancing over your shoulders. ”
My friends will find you. They will kill you. Matthew did not say the words, and indeed they were only a small amount of comfort—he would still be dead—but he knew them to be true.
Even as Virgil hesitated, Melody pushed her way forward through the crowd. Her expression was grave. “Go ahead,” she said, and when Virgil started to protest, she shook her head. “Let the Shadowhunters speak. They are right—we do not want the ill will of the Clave if we can avoid it.”
Matthew looked at Sylvain, who shrugged and then nodded as if to say he’d no idea what Matthew’s plan was, but he supported it. Encouraged, Matthew said, “Let me tell you what I think happened, Miss Melody, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.”
She looked even more grave. “All right.”
“Your real name isn’t Melody Doyle, it’s Melody Morrow,” said Matthew. “Bart Morrow was your brother. Your parents, who were very wealthy, had passed away, leaving Bart as your guardian.”
A faint alarm had crept into Melody’s expression, but she only nodded. “Continue.”
Matthew said, “You lived a sheltered life with Bart, until you encountered a vampire who bit you—and turned you. You went through it all—the death, the change. When you rose again, you were likely desperate to see someone from your old life. Most vampires are, which is why I am guessing that you were turned by a vampire who abandoned you. Left you cruelly to rise alone, to face a new and terrifying world without guidance.”
The room was very still. All of the vampires were staring at Matthew, as if they had never heard a nonvampire speak with compassion of their experience: of the shock of death-in-life, the loneliness. Probably they had not.
“You ran to Bart, who had always taken care of you,” said Matthew.
“But he had already buried you, already considered you dead. When you came to him, he thought he was seeing an evil spirit. Even when you told him what had happened, he responded in the worst way possible. He called you a demon and a devil—he said you were damned for eternity. You fled from him, and somehow you found the Palmer players. A theater troupe of vampires on the eve of a world tour. They took you in.”
“They found me,” Melody whispered. “I had broken into an old theater. I was desperate to find a place I might sleep during the day. I was starving when they discovered me, close to death. After they saved my life, I begged Virgil to bring me along with them when they left Ohio. I had always liked acting, and I wanted nothing more than to get as far as possible from my brother.”
“And you’d thought you’d escaped him entirely, I’d guess, when he turned up suddenly on the Majestic.
You were puzzled at first when he pretended not to know who you were, but I saw how nervous you were at dinner when the captain seated you at the same table as Bart.
Not to mention the way he reacted when you said you’d had a brother but he was dead. ”
Melody lifted her chin. “He was dead to me. Even then, I thought—”
“That he might have come in the spirit of reconciliation? Drawn to the Majestic by brotherly love or some hope of forgiveness? But he hadn’t, of course. You had something he wanted. The Queen of Night.”