“About you?” Alastair said. His dark eyes were somber. “No.”
Of course not. Of course he doesn’t mean you.
“No,” Alastair went on. “I have presented this move to Tehran to myself, to you, to my sister, as a chance for a fresh start. They were words my father always spoke, every time we left a place we had made a home and set out for somewhere new. ‘A fresh start.’” His voice was bitter. “It was never the truth. We were moving to get away from the problems my father had created—from his debts, his drinking. As if he could outrun them. And I—” His eyes were haunted. “I never wanted to be like him, I fought so hard not to be like him. And yet I find myself planning to run away. To do what he would do. Because I’m afraid.”
Thomas kicked the blanket off his lap. The carriage rocked under his feet as he moved to sit on the opposite bench beside Alastair. He wanted to put his hand over Alastair’s but held back. “I have never thought of you as afraid,” he said, “but there is no shame in it. What are you afraid of?”
“Change, I suppose,” Alastair said, a little desperately. Outside, the branches of trees whipped back and forth in the wind. Thomas could hear a dull roaring sound—thunder, he guessed, though it was oddly muffled. “I know that I must change myself. But I don’t know how to do it. There is no instruction manual for becoming a better person. I fear that if I remain in London, I will only continue hurting the people I’ve hurt before—”
“But you have changed,” Thomas said. “Without being instructed on how to do so. The person you were when we were at school wouldn’t have rushed to help me when I got arrested. Wouldn’t have followed me in the first place, to make sure I was safe. The person you used to be wouldn’t have looked after Matthew. Wouldn’t be reading book after book about paladins to try to help his sister.” Thomas’s hands were shaking. It felt like a terrible risk, saying these things to Alastair. As if he were stripping away protective gear, leaving himself vulnerable. He swallowed and said, “I wouldn’t feel the way I do about you if you were the same person now that you were last year.”
Alastair looked at him. He said, his voice husky, “I thought you liked me last year.”
Thomas stared at him. And, unexpectedly, Alastair started to smile. “I was teasing you,” he said. “Thomas, you—”
Thomas kissed him. He caught Alastair by the lapel of his coat, and then he was kissing Alastair, and both their mouths were cold and then not cold at all. Alastair arched up against him as the carriage lurched, his hands twining in Thomas’s hair. He pulled Thomas against him, hard and then harder.
Thomas’s pulse beat hotly in every part of his body. Alastair pressed his mouth against his, his lips finding ways to tease and explore, and then their mouths were open, their tongues sliding against each other, and the carriage lurched hard, throwing them both to the floor.
Neither of them cared. They had landed on Thomas’s discarded blanket. Thomas tore at Alastair’s coat, yanking the buttons free. He wanted to feel Alastair, feel the shape of him, not just crumpled wool under his hands. Alastair was on top of him; behind Alastair he could see the sky through the windows. It was riven by storm, the clouds slashed through with a bloody channel of fire.
Thomas struggled out of his own coat. Alastair was leaning over him, his eyes black as a starless night. He opened the collar of Thomas’s shirt and kissed his throat. He found the notch of Thomas’s collarbone and licked it, making stars explode behind Thomas’s eyes.
He tore at Thomas’s shirt. The buttons came free, and he shoved Thomas’s undershirt up, baring his chest. “Look at you,” Alastair said, in a low voice. “Beautiful. You’re so beautiful, Tom.”
Thomas felt tears burn behind his eyes. He tried to tell himself not to be ridiculous, but that little buzzing voice in the back of his head, the one that mocked him when he was fanciful, was silent. There was only Alastair, who bit and kissed and licked at him until he was writhing and crying out, until he was pulling Alastair’s shirt free, running his hands over Alastair’s bare skin, silk pulled tight over hard muscle.
He rolled over, pinning Alastair beneath him. His naked skin against Alastair’s was driving him out of his mind. He wanted more of it. More of Alastair. Alastair’s bare chest was gorgeous, marked with old scars, his nipples peaked in the cold air. Thomas bent his head and circled one with his tongue.
Alastair’s whole body arched. He whimpered low in his throat, clawed at Thomas’s back. “Tom. Tom—”
With a slamming lurch, the carriage struck hard against something. Thomas heard the wheels scream, the whinny of the horses as the whole thing tilted to the side. A clap of thunder, loud as the crack of a whip, sounded overhead as the carriage came to a grinding halt.
Alastair was already sitting up, buttoning his shirt. “Bloody hell,” he said. “What was that?”
“We must have hit something.” Thomas did his best to put his clothes back as they had been, though half his buttons were torn. “You’re all right?”
“Yes.” Alastair looked at Thomas, then leaned over and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. A second later he was throwing the carriage door open and leaping out.
Thomas heard him hit the ground, heard him suck in his breath. There was a bitter smell on the air, he thought as he clambered after Alastair, like charcoal. “Bloody hell,” Alastair said. “What is all this?”
A moment later, Thomas was leaping out of the carriage after him.
“Well,” Matthew said as Tatiana’s shriek faded on the air, “I think we can all agree that that’s one invitation we should turn down.” He looked around the room at the others, all of whom seemed stunned, even Anna. “We should at least wait until Charles gets back with the First Patrol.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say we should wait for Charles,” said Anna, who was already drawing a seraph blade from her belt.
“Tatiana’s a madwoman,” said Matthew. “There’s no telling what she’ll do.”
“She’ll break the doors down,” Jesse said. “Those things with her—they’re Shadowhunters. Demons in Shadowhunter skin. They can come inside the Institute.”
“Jesse’s right,” said Grace, who had begun to shake again. “Mama’s only making it an invitation now because it amuses her to force you to do what she wants.”
“So if we don’t go down there,” said Cordelia, “she and her demon companions will burst in here.”
“Then we’ll all go,” James said, “and hold her off at the front door. The Sanctuary’s locked; there’s no other way in.” He turned to the others, who were busy laying hands on whatever weapons they had. Most had a seraph blade or two; Ari had her khanda, Jesse the Blackthorn sword. “I think Jesse and I should go outside and confront her in the yard. The rest of you remain at the entryway, as defense. Keep the false Silent Brothers from trying to creep around and get inside. I’ll try to keep her talking, at least until Charles and the First Patrol return—”
“Jesse isn’t trained, though,” Matthew said, buckling on his weapons belt. “Let me go outside with you. She demanded a Fairchild, didn’t she?”