He eyed Alastair’s bright yellow-white hair with some astonishment. Cordelia waited for him to continue, with great hope that he would say you look like a turnip, but he didn’t.

“You look well,” he finished.

The boys looked at each other in silence as Lucie raced down the steps and threw her arms around Cordelia. “I am so very, very delighted to see you!” she said, in her breathless way. For Lucie, everything was always very, very, very something, be it beautiful or exciting or horrid. “Darling Cordelia, we shall have so much fun—”

“Lucie, Cordelia and her family have come to London so that you and Cordelia can train together,” said Tessa in her gentle voice. “It will be a great deal of work and responsibility.”

Cordelia glanced down at her shoes. Tessa was being kind in repeating the story that the Carstairs had come to London in a hurry because of Cordelia and Lucie needing to be parabatai, but that wasn’t the truth.

“Well, you must remember being sixteen yourself, Mrs. Herondale,” said Sona. “Young girls adore dances and dresses. I certainly did when I was their age, and I imagine you did as well.”

Cordelia knew this was entirely not true about her mother but kept her mouth shut. Tessa arched her eyebrows. “I do recall attending a vampire frolic once. And some sort of party at Benedict Lightwood’s house, before he got demon pox and turned into a worm, of course—”

“Mother!” Lucie said, scandalized.

“Well, he did turn into a worm,” said James. “Really more of a vicious, giant serpent. It was entirely one of the most interesting parts of history class.”

Tessa was saved further comment by the arrival of the removers’ vans carrying the Carstairs’ belongings. Several large men leaped down from one of the vans and went to pull back the canvas covering the various furniture pieces, which had been fastidiously roped down.

One of the men assisted Risa, Sona’s lady’s maid and cook, down from the first of the vans. Risa had worked for the Jahanshah family when Sona was in her teens and had been with her ever since. She was a mundane who had the Sight, and thus a valuable companion for a Shadowhunter. Risa spoke only Persian; Cordelia wondered whether the men in the van had tried to make conversation with her. Risa understood English perfectly, but she liked her silence.

“Please thank Cecily Lightwood for me, for the loan of her domestic help,” Cordelia’s mother was saying to Tessa.

“Oh, indeed! They will come on Tuesdays and Thursdays to do the rough, until you can find suitable servants of your own,” Tessa replied.