He was expecting it to still be night, but the sky was bleached by morning, the stars turned invisible against the near-white of the sky. The only color to be found in the sky was the dark gray of clouds, curling like ghosts around the fading moon. It was raining a little, cold pinpricks against James's skin. He sat down on the stone step of the Academy's back door, lifted a palm to the sky, and watched the silvery rain dash down into the hollow of his hand.
He wished the rain would wash him away, before he had to face yet another morning.
He was watching his hand as he wished that, and he saw it happen then. He felt the change creeping over him and saw his hand grow darkly transparent. He saw the raindrops pass through the shadow of his palm as if it was not there.
He wondered what Grace would think, if she could see him now.
Then he heard the crunch of feet running, pounding against the earth, and his father's training made James's head jerk up to see if anyone was being chased, if anyone was in danger.
James saw Matthew Fairchild running as if he was being chased.
Astonishingly, he was wearing gear that he had not, as far as James knew, been threatened into. Even more astonishingly, he was participating in degrading physical exercise. He was running faster than James had seen anyone run in training--maybe faster than James had ever seen anyone run ever--and he was running grimly, face set, in the rain.
James watched him run, frowning, until Matthew glanced up at the sky, stopped, and then began trudging back to the Academy. James thought he would be discovered for a moment, thought of jumping up and racing around to another side of the building, but Matthew did not make for the door.
Instead Matthew went and stood against the stone wall of the Academy, strange and solemn in his black gear, blond hair wild with wind and wet with rain. He tipped his face up to the sky, and he looked as unhappy as James felt.
It made no sense. Matthew had everything, had always had everything, while James now had less than nothing. It made James furious.
"What's wrong with you?" James demanded.
Matthew's whole body jerked with shock. He swung to face James, and stared. "What?"
"You might have noticed life is less than ideal for me at this time," James said between his teeth. "So give up making a tragic spectacle of yourself over nothing, and--"
Matthew was not leaning against the wall any longer, and James was not sitting on the step. They were both standing up, and this was not a practice on the training grounds. James thought they were really going to fight; he thought they might really hurt each other.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, James Herondale," Matthew sneered. "I forgot nobody could do a single thing like speak or breathe in this place without incurring your extremely judgmental judgment. I must be making a spectacle over nothing, if you say so. By the Angel, I'd trade places with you in a second."
"You'd trade places with me?" James shouted. "That's rubbish, that's absolute swill, you would never. Why would you do that? Why would you even say it?"
"Maybe it's the fact you have everything I want," Matthew snarled. "And you don't even seem to want it."
"What?" James asked blankly. He was living in opposites land, in which the sky was the earth and the name of every day started with Y. It was the only explanation. "What? What do I have that you could possibly want?"
"They will send you home any time you like," Matthew said. "They're trying to drive you away. And no matter what I do, they won't chuck me out. Not the Consul's son."
James blinked. Rain slithered down his cheeks and down the neck of his shirt, but he hardly felt it. "You want . . . to be chucked out?"
"I want to go home, all right?" Matthew snapped. "I want to be with my father!"
"What?" James said blankly, one more time.
Matthew might insult the Nephilim, but no matter what he said he always seemed to be having a marvelous time. James had believed he was enjoying himself at the Academy, as James himself could not. James had never thought he might really be unhappy. He'd never even considered Uncle Henry.
Matthew's face twisted as if he was going to cry. He stared off determinedly into the distance, and when he spoke his voice was hard.
"You think Christopher's bad, but my father is so much worse," Matthew said. "A hundred times as bad as Christopher. A thousand. He's been practicing being terrible for much longer than Christopher. He's so absentminded, and he can't--he can't walk. He could be working on some new device, or writing a letter to his warlock friend in America about a new device, or working out why some old device literally exploded, and he would not notice if his own hair was on fire. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not making a joke--I have put out fires on my own father's head. My mother is always busy, and Charles Buford is always running after her and acting superior. I'm the one who takes care of my father. I'm the one who listens to him. I didn't want to go away to school and leave him, and I've been doing all I can to get chucked out and go back."
I don't take care of my father. My father takes care of me, James wanted to say, but he feared it might be cruel to say that, when Matthew had never had that unquestioning security.
It occurred to James that one day there might be a time when his father did not seem all-knowing, able to solve everything and be anything. The thought made him uncomfortable.
"You've been trying to get expelled?" James asked. He spoke slowly. He felt slow.
Matthew made an impatient gesture, as if chopping invisible carrots with an invisible knife. "That is what I've been trying to tell you, yes. But they won't. I have been doing the best impression of the worst Shadowhunter in the world, and yet they won't. What is wrong with the dean, I ask you? Does she want blood?"
"The best impression of the worst Shadowhunter," James repeated. "So you don't--believe in all that stuff about violence being repulsive, and truth and beauty and Oscar Wilde?"
"No, I do," Matthew said hastily. "I really like Oscar Wilde. And beauty and truth. I do think it's nonsense that because we are born what we are, we cannot be painters or poets or create anything--that all we do is kill. My father and Christopher are geniuses, do you know that? Real geniuses. Like Leonardo da Vinci. He was a mundane who--"
"I know who Leonardo da Vinci is."
Matthew glanced at him and smiled: it was The Smile, gradual and illuminating as sunrise, and James had the sinking feeling that he might not be immune after all.
"'Course you do, James," said Matthew. "Forgot who I was talking to for a moment there. Anyway, Christopher and my father are truly brilliant. Their inventions have already changed the way Shadowhunters navigate the world, the way they battle demons. And all Shadowhunters everywhere will always look down on them. They will never see what they do as valuable. And someone who wanted to write plays, to make beautiful art, they would throw a
way like refuse from the streets."
"Do you--want that?" James asked hesitantly.
"No," said Matthew. "I can't draw for toffee, actually. I certainly can't write plays. The less said about my poetry the better. I do appreciate art, though. I'm an excellent spectator. I could spectate for England."
"You could, um, be an actor," James suggested. "When you talk everyone listens. Especially when you tell stories."
Also there was Matthew's face, which would probably--go over well onstage or something.
"That's a nice thought," said Matthew. "But I think I would rather not get thrown out of my home and still see my father occasionally. Also, I do think violence is terrible and pointless, but--I'm really good at it. In fact, I enjoy it. Not that I'm letting on to our teachers. I wish I was good at something that could add beauty to the world rather than painting it with blood, I really do, but there you have it."
He shrugged.
James did not think they were going to fight after all, so he sat back down on the step. He felt he wanted a sit-down. "I think Shadowhunters can add beauty to the world," he said. "I mean, for one thing--we save lives. I know I said it before, but it's really important. The people we save, any one of them could be the next Leonardo da Vinci, or Oscar Wilde, or just someone who is really kind, who spreads beauty that way. Or they might just be someone who--someone else loves, like you love your father. Maybe you're right that Shadowhunters are more limited, that we do not get the full range of possibilities mundanes get, but--we get to make the mundanes' lives possible. That's what we're born to. It is a privilege. I'm not going to run away from the Academy. I'm not running away from anything. I can bear Marks, and that makes me a Shadowhunter, and that's what I will be whether the Nephilim want me or not."
"You can be a Shadowhunter without going to the Academy, though," said Matthew. "You can be trained in an Institute, like Uncle Will was. That's what I wanted, so I could stay with Father."
"I could. But--" James hesitated. "I didn't want to be sent home. Mother would have to know why."
Matthew was silent for a little while. There was nothing but the sound of the falling rain.