Chapter 6
SIX
Matthew stared at Oscar. Oscar stared back, at least as much as a golden retriever could be said to stare. Mostly he gazed hopefully, and moved his ears around.
“I don’t know where he is either,” Matthew said. “And yes, I did go to his room and knock on the door and moon around like a pillock. If Sylvain was there, he didn’t open the door. So no, I’m not doing it again.”
Oscar’s ears drooped. Matthew knew how he felt.
Everything, he thought, had seemed to be going well after he and Sylvain had resolved things with the vampires.
He’d even encouraged Sylvain to try on some of the hats in the costume room and was working on convincing him that he would look excellent in a toga when Sylvain had gone quiet.
Matthew had asked him what was wrong, but all Sylvain had said was that he was very tired.
He’d excused himself to his room, and Matthew hadn’t seen him since—which, given that it was now their last night at sea, was very worrying.
Tomorrow they would arrive in Constantinople, and as much as Matthew was looking forward to seeing James and Cordelia, he felt a hollowness inside when he thought he might not see Sylvain again.
As in truly, never again. The thought made him feel as if he had not gotten his sea legs yet, and the boat was sliding back and forth under him.
Matthew had been sitting on the edge of the bed. He slid to the floor now, and caught a glimpse of himself in the pier glass screwed to the opposite wall. He looked pitiable indeed, a mess of blond hair, untucked shirt, and bare feet. He glared at himself and turned back to Oscar.
“He came before when he heard you barking,” he said, thoughtfully. He laid a hand on his dog’s head. “Go on,” he said. “Go and find Sylvain.”
Oscar bounded up, his tail wagging. Matthew rose and followed Oscar to the door.
They both peeked out into the hall before Matthew swung the door wide; luckily it was deserted.
Surely most of the other passengers were at dinner, but Matthew hadn’t had the heart to go; he knew perfectly well he’d just spend the time staring at Sylvain.
Oscar bounded off down the corridor, tail wagging.
After closing the door, Matthew went back to sitting on the bed.
He felt angry at himself, and resentful about the anger.
Half his mind said he hadn’t done anything wrong, and the other half said that this was just another in a long series of his romantic failures.
Those he had loved vainly over the years seemed to him to have nothing in common with each other: he was the constant in every fiasco.
Surely it was his fault. He could not seem to stop himself from giving his heart to those unable to receive it.
Though it had not seemed as if Sylvain were so unavailable…
The door to his room opened. Matthew sat up straight as Oscar bounded into the room, tail wagging, and behind him—Sylvain. Sylvain looked as if he had come from dressing for dinner. His shirt was untucked, his cuffs undone. He wore slippers, not shoes, and no jacket. He was scowling.
“You sent your dog to fetch me?” he said.
“To be fair, I didn’t think it would work,” said Matthew. “Good boy, Oscar,” he added, but Oscar, replete with the sense of a job well done, had already fallen asleep on his cushion in the corner.
Matthew leaned against the bedpost. “Where have you been?” he said to Sylvain. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Sylvain looked down at his slippered feet. “I can tell when I am not wanted,” he said.
“I really don’t think you can,” Matthew said. “And you are being very melodramatic. But I also very much wanted to see you.”
“In the costume room, when you spoke to Virgil,” Sylvain said, “and you told him you liked your life the way it was. At first, I was only happy for you. Then I realized what you meant—you like your life exactly as it is. No changes or additions.”
“I am not so foolish as to think one can live one’s life without changes happening,” said Matthew. “By the time I return to London, many things will have changed. I may well have a new brother or sister, I—”
“But that is a good change. Whereas I would just bring complication to your life. I didn’t just leave Paris because I lost Lucas.
I left Paris because my father wanted me to take over the Institute, and it was the last thing I wanted to do.
I couldn’t make my father understand that, after what happened, I could not bear to send people out on patrols where they might die.
I don’t want to be responsible for any more death.
He wouldn’t listen. I left under cover of darkness.
I took ships so he couldn’t track me. I would be bringing you a lot of trouble. ”
“You think the tale of you and your parents is a drama? You have no idea what I have gone through with my own parents. I want to help you. Don’t you understand? When you care for someone, the idea that they’d share their burdens with you is not something you dread. It is a gift.”
For the first time, Sylvain looked up from his feet and met Matthew’s eyes. “You mean that? You care for me?”
“Of course I do,” Matthew said. “I thought you were the one who was unmoved by me.”
“Unmoved by you?” Sylvain looked incredulous. “How could you ever think that?”
He stalked across the room to Matthew, who was still on the bed. Kicking off his slippers, Sylvain clambered onto the bed, causing Matthew to scramble back until he was leaning against the pillows stacked against the headboard. Sylvain leaned down over him, their faces inches apart.
“You cannot imagine I am unmoved by you,” Sylvain said.
“Matthew. Mathieu.” His soft voice caressed the name; his lips brushed Matthew’s cheek.
Matthew shivered, and reached for Sylvain, pulling him closer.
“Even before we met, I had seen pictures of you and thought you were the most beautiful creature that existed in the world,” Sylvain said, letting Matthew draw him close until Sylvain straddled his hips.
“And when we did meet, at that table, I wanted to crawl across it so I could kiss your mouth.”
Sylvain pressed his lips against Matthew’s—a hard, sweet, sharp kiss. His dark eyes glowed. Heart pounding in his chest, Matthew said, “That would have been very alarming for the other diners.”
“And when I did kiss you,” Sylvain said, his hand cupping Matthew’s cheek, “I only wanted to keep kissing you. To kiss you forever.”
Matthew let his head fall back. Sylvain, straddling him, might have been the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. Sylvain’s cheeks were flushed, his hair a wild tumble of soft black, his shirt loose, showing the pale, silky skin underneath. “So kiss me,” he said. “Kiss me forever.”
Sylvain’s eyes flashed. A moment later his mouth came down hard against Matthew’s and Matthew was pushing himself up against Sylvain, taking the kiss he was given and giving it back with all the force of his desire.
Sylvain tasted of tooth powder and salt, and he moaned when Matthew licked his lower lip and then his throat, and then they were pulling at each other’s clothes, their shirts coming away with the sound of tearing cloth and the murder of buttons.
Sylvain’s bare skin was hot against Matthew’s, and it felt like smooth, warm marble, soft and scarred at the same time.
Matthew could not stop stroking and touching him, and Sylvain moaned, his eyelashes fluttering, his hips grinding down as Matthew arched up, and then Sylvain’s hand slid under the waistband of Matthew’s trousers and Matthew felt his eyes roll up in his head.
Sylvain’s strokes were rough and gentle, then gentle and rough, and Matthew had forgotten that his body was made not just for fighting but also for the pleasure of being loved.
He shuddered in Sylvain’s arms, gasping as he clung to him as if he were clinging for life to a branch in a fast-moving river.
“Oh, please,” he said, without being quite sure what he was asking for, and Sylvain pressed his forehead to Matthew’s and whispered in French for him to let go, to let go and to fall.
Matthew let go. Not to fall, but to fly.
* * *
In the dream, Matthew was walking across green grass, under a sun the color of white roses.
In the distance he could hear the voices of boys calling back and forth energetically, as if engaged in a game. Matthew began to hurry. It seemed suddenly very important that he catch them before they moved beyond his ability to hear.
He raised his voice to call out to them, but his shout made no sound. The distant laughter sharpened, and something came bouncing across the grass toward him. Matthew bent to retrieve it. It was a child’s ball, painted with gold paint that had worn away badly.
“That’s mine,” said a boy’s voice.
Matthew looked and saw Christopher. Not a younger Christopher, or a Christopher as he had been the last time Matthew had seen him: his clothes torn and stained with blood.
This was a Christopher all in funeral white, pale as the sky, with red runes of mourning and grief painted upon his clothes.
This was Christopher as he must have looked when they laid him on the bier in Idris, before his body was set alight and he was burned away to ash.
His gaze met Matthew’s. There was no anger in his eyes. Only that calm, curious, steadfast gentleness that was the real Christopher Lightwood.
“Kit,” Matthew said, softly. The chill in his blood was rapidly vanishing, replaced by a sorrow that he knew would always be there.
A sorrow he would always be grateful for, because it marked the place where Christopher had once been.
It was a memorial, a reminder of how much better it was to have a Christopher to mourn, than never to have had a Christopher at all. “Kit, I miss you.”