She only shrugged. She didn’t know what had gotten into James either. Since it was just family at home, he had dressed casually—she had even teased him that his midnight-colored velvet jacket was something Matthew might wear—but the moment that they had crossed the threshold, his manners had been nothing short of exquisitely formal. He had complimented Sona on the beautiful flower arrangements and the deliciousness of the food, and even told Alastair that his hair looked nice. Now he had drawn out Elias by insisting on hearing his stories of past heroism.

“When I found out that Jem had been orphaned, I came to Shanghai straightaway, of course,” Elias said. “The Shanghai Institute wanted revenge just as badly as I did, and they partnered me with the fiercest warrior they had: the legendary Ke Yiwen.”

James murmured some sort of acknowledgment or agreement, but Elias didn’t seem to need his input; by now he was off and running. “For two years Yiwen and I tracked the demon across the world. The passage to Yanluo’s own realm was in Shanghai, so he never strayed too far for too long, but he eluded our grasp. Until one day…”

The story went on. Cordelia had heard it so many times she had ceased to really hear the words, but she grasped that her father was going over his most impressive feats of tracking, the terrible conditions he’d endured, and several dramatic hairbreadth near misses with lesser demons. The story grew a little more embellished each time it was told. Cordelia looked to Alastair, hoping to share a long-suffering look.

But Alastair looked more than long-suffering. His gaze was focused on their father with a barely contained loathing. Finally he gulped down his wine in a single swallow and interrupted Elias midsentence:

“Father, I’ve wondered: Are you still in touch with Ke Yiwen? Or is she too busy to write letters these days, given that she’s the head of the Shanghai Institute?”

There was a moment of awful silence. Nothing Alastair had said was truly that bad, but it was impossible to miss the implication. Everyone at the table was now thinking about the difference in the current status of Yanluo’s killers: one an Institute head and celebrated hero, one who had been imprisoned by the Clave for drunken incompetence and now hoped only to return to being a Shadowhunter in good standing at all.

James looked from Alastair to Elias. Not much showed on his face; in that moment, Cordelia was grateful for the Mask. Then he smiled, that smile that lit his face up, transformed it into something luminous. He inclined his head to Sona. “Truly,” he said, “to bayad kheili khoshhal bashi ke do ta ghahraman tooye khanevadat dari.”

Truly, you must be proud to have two such heroes in your family.