“Depends if you do it properly,” said Matthew, with a little of his old grin.

“Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake that Anna does it properly, yet for our sake I hope she hurries it up,” said James.

Matthew had gone still. “Both of you,” he said. “Listen.”

Cordelia listened, and heard at first only the buzz and murmur of the crowd. Then, beneath it, the whisper of a familiar word, spoken low and urgently.

A Shadowhunter. A Shadowhunter is here.

“Do they mean us?” She looked around in puzzlement and saw Kellington gazing toward the door, his mouth flat with irritation. Someone had just come into the chamber—someone with bright red hair, wearing a heavy tweed coat.

“Charles.” Matthew’s eyes were green slits. “By the Angel. What is he doing here?”

James swore softly. Charles was moving through the crowd, his coat buttoned to the throat, looking around uncomfortably. He looked desperately out of place.

“We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

“You two run and hide yourselves,” said Matthew. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

“But what about you?” said Cordelia.

“He’s used to this kind of thing from me,” Matthew said, and his whole face seemed to have tightened. His eyes were glittering like chips of glass. “I’ll deal with Charles.”

James looked at Matthew for a long moment. Cordelia sensed the whisper of unspoken words passing between them, the silent communication of parabatai. Perhaps one day she would have that with Lucie; at the moment, it seemed almost like magic.

James nodded at Matthew, turned, and caught hold of Cordelia’s hand. “This way,” he said, and they plunged into the crowd. Behind her, Cordelia heard Matthew say Charles’s name with exaggerated loud surprise. The crowd was shifting and moving as Downworlders flinched away from Charles; James and Cordelia edged around Kellington and into a red-paneled corridor leading away from the main chamber.

There was an open door about halfway down the corridor; a plaque on the door proclaimed it to be THE WHISPERING ROOM. James ducked into it, drawing Cordelia after him. She had time only to see that they were in a dimly lit, deserted room when he slammed the door behind them. She leaned against the wall, catching her breath, as they both looked around.

They were in a sort of parlor, or perhaps an office. The walls were hung with silver paper, decorated with images of golden scales and feathers. There was a tall walnut desk large as a table, with a raised surface piled with neat stacks of writing paper weighted down by a copper bowl of peaches. Hypatia’s writing desk, perhaps? A clearly enchanted fire burned in the grate, the flames silver and blue. The smoke that rose from the fire traced delicate patterns on the air in the shape of acanthus leaves. Its smoke smelled sweet, like attar of roses.