“I won’t,” Cordelia said. “You think Father did something wrong. Don’t you?”

The gloves Alastair had been holding fell to the floor. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Cordelia—”

“It does matter!” Cordelia said. “It matters when you hide things from me, you and Mâmân. I got a letter from the Consul. It said that they couldn’t try Father with the Mortal Sword because he didn’t remember a thing about the expedition. How could that be? What did he do—”

“He was drunk,” Alastair said. “The night of the expedition, he was drunk, so drunk he probably sent those poor bastards into a nest of vampires because he didn’t know enough not to. So drunk he doesn’t remember a thing. Because he’s always bloody drunk, Cordelia. The only one of us who didn’t know that is you.”

Cordelia sank down on the couch. She no longer felt her legs could hold her up. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

“Because I never wanted you to know!” Alastair burst out. “Because I wanted you to have a childhood, a thing I never had. I wanted you to be able to love and respect your father as I never could. Every time he made a mess, who do you think had to clean it up? Who told you Father was ill or sleeping when he was drunk? Who went out and fetched him when he passed out in a gin palace and smuggled him in through the back door? Who learned at ten years old to refill the brandy bottles with water each morning so no one would notice the levels had sunk—?”

He broke off, breathing hard.

“Alastair,” Cordelia whispered. It was all true, she knew. She could not help but recall Father lying day after day in a darkened room, her mother saying he was “sick.” Elias’s hands shaking. Wine ceasing to appear at the dinner table. Elias never eating. Cordelia coming across bottles of brandy in odd places: a hall closet, a trunk of linens. Alastair never acknowledging any of it, laughing it off, turning her attention in some other direction, always, so she did not dwell. So she would not have to.

“He will never win this trial,” said Alastair. He was trembling. “Even though the Mortal Sword is useless, he will indict himself with the way he looks, the way he speaks. The Clave knows a drunk when they see one. That is why Mother wants you married quickly. So you will be safe when the shame of it comes down.”

“But what of you?” said Cordelia. “No shame should accrue to you, either—Father’s weakness is not your weakness.”

The fire in the grate had nearly burned down. Alastair’s eyes were luminous in the dark. “I have my own weaknesses, as you well know.”