“Only a fool would rob Hypatia Vex,” said Matthew. “And let it not be said that Matthew Fairchild is a fool. At least, let it not be said in my hearing. I would find it very hurtful.”

“I think Christopher is right,” said Cordelia. “We should ask Hypatia.”

Christopher looked stunned and gratified in equal measure. “We should?”

“Well, not us,” said Cordelia. “It is true she does not like most Shadowhunters. But there is certainly at least one she likes very much.”

“Daisy, darling, I’m delighted to see you,” Anna declared. “Though it is entirely bad form to appear unannounced at teatime. There simply won’t be enough cake for everybody. The girls will have cake and the boys nothing. There is no other fair way to do it.”

The flat on Percy Street remained a cheerful oasis of chaos. Perhaps it was even more chaotic than it had been on Cordelia’s last visit. A lace-edged ribbon that Cordelia suspected came from a lady’s corset adorned one of the knives stuck in Anna’s mantelpiece, swinging jauntily from a jeweled hilt. Anna’s gold-covered sofa and mismatched chairs were all filled with people. Thomas, too tall for the chairs, was stretched out on the hearth rug with his boots balanced on the coal bucket. On her small table, Anna had laid out, with the air of a magnificent hostess, a fruitcake she called barmbrack, and a Victoria sponge she’d purchased from a pastry cook’s.

“That is unjust desserts,” said James.

“The world is unjust, my love,” Anna told him. She sat upon the arm of the high wing-backed chair where Christopher was sitting, swinging one booted foot in front of her, and idly reached down to stroke Thomas’s hair. The fine strands slipped through her long, scarred fingers. “Of course I would offer you cake, dear cousin, if I thought it would ease your heart.”

Thomas gave her a fond but tired look. “I think in this case, assistance would be better than cake.”

“By all means,” said Anna. “Tell me what’s going on.”

As James explained that they required a Pyxis—though not precisely why, implying it was related to the demon attacks—Cordelia looked back and forth between the two cousins, James and Anna. In many ways, the two of them looked more like brother and sister than James and Lucie, or Anna and Christopher. They shared the same crow-black hair, like Will’s and Cecily’s, and the same chiseled, angular faces. They both wore their intelligence like armor—sharp minds and sharp retorts protecting what softness might lie beneath.

“And so,” James finished, “we thought, perhaps tonight at the Hell Ruelle—”