Her father’s face was beet red, and he seemed to have worked himself up into something of a lather. “I tell you, I should have been my daughter’s suggenes,” Elias snapped. “To be cut out of the ceremony as if I were a shameful secret, well, I can only imagine she was persuaded, but it is an outrage—a deliberate humiliation, and you cannot convince me otherwise!”

He slammed his hand against the floor.

Cordelia’s heart sank into her brocaded boots. She glanced at Alastair, already trying to help Elias to his feet. Quickly, she moved to block the scene from the wedding guests—the ones near enough to see the messy goings-on were staring. Fury went through Cordelia like a lance. How dare her father suggest that he had not had enough of a role in her wedding—they’d had no idea he’d even be attending until his arrival this very morning.

“I’m here,” said a voice at her shoulder. It was James. He touched Cordelia’s arm lightly, then knelt down beside Alastair and seized Elias’s other arm, raising him to his feet.

Elias glared at James. “I do not require your help.”

“As you say,” said James equably. Sona had her face in her hands; Cordelia stopped to touch her mother’s shoulder lightly before glancing after James and Alastair, who were walking Elias away as fast as their feet could take them.

“Father, I think you need a bit of a rest,” Alastair was saying. He spoke evenly, his expression matter-of-fact and calm. This is how he’s managed all these years, she thought.

“Right this way, sir,” James said, and mouthed games room at Alastair, who nodded. Sona had sunk back into her chair; Cordelia hurried after the boys, who were heading for the double doors at the other end of the room. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she went—surely everyone was staring, though she could hear Will and Gabriel chatting loudly, their voices raised, doing their best to distract the guests.

James and Alastair had already disappeared with Elias. She slipped through the double doors after them and found herself in the narrow hallway outside the games room. It was a relief to be alone, if only for a moment; she leaned against the wall, saying a quiet prayer to Raziel. I know I don’t deserve it, but please give me strength.

Voices rose from behind the games room door. She paused; did James and Alastair not realize she’d followed them?

“I suppose,” said Alastair, “that you and your friends will have a great laugh about this later.” He sounded defeated, rather than angry. As bothered as Cordelia often was by Alastair’s stubbornness, the fight being drained from him was worse.

“No one blames you for your father, Alastair,” she heard James respond. “Only for what you yourself have done and said.”