Cordelia was of the opinion that she looked awful. Pastels were all the rage in the fashion papers, but those papers expected girls to be blond, small-bosomed, and pale-skinned. Cordelia was decidedly none of those things. Pastels washed her out, and even the corset couldn’t flatten her chest. Nor was her dark red hair thin and fine: it was thick and long like her mother’s, reaching to her waist when brushed out. It looked ridiculous in tiny curls.

“Because I have to wear a corset, Alastair,” she snapped. “I was checking to see if I’d turned plum-colored.”

“You’d match your dress if you did,” Alastair noted. Cordelia couldn’t help but wish her father were there; he always told her she looked beautiful.

“Children,” said their mother reprovingly. Cordelia had the feeling she would address them as “children” even when they were old and gray and sniping at one another from Bath chairs. “Cordelia, corsets not only create a womanly shape, they show that a lady is finely bred and of delicate sensibilities. Alastair, leave your sister alone. This is a very important evening for all of us, and we must be mindful to make a good impression.”

Cordelia could sense her mother’s unease that she was the only woman in the room wearing a roosari over her hair, her worry that she lacked the knowledge of who the powerful people in the room were, when she would have known it immediately in the salons of the Tehran Institute.

Things would all be different after tonight, Cordelia told herself again. It didn’t matter whether her dress was hideous on her: what mattered was that she charm the influential Shadowhunters in the room who could effect an introduction to the Consul for her. She would make Charlotte understand—she would make them all understand—that her father might be a poor strategist, but it was no reason for him to be in jail. She would make them understand that the Carstairs family had nothing to hide.

She would make her mother smile.

The ballroom doors opened and there was Tessa Herondale in rose chiffon, with small roses in her hair. Cordelia doubted she needed to wear a corset. She was already quite ethereal-looking. It was hard to believe she was the woman who had taken down an army of metal monsters.

“Thank you for waiting,” she said. “I did want to bring you in all together and make the introductions. Everyone is just dying to meet you. Come, come!”

She led them into the ballroom. Cordelia had a faint memory of playing here with Lucie when it had been quite deserted. Now it was full of light and music.