She smiled; they all smiled; if anyone had anything to say about her father, they kept silent. Sona touched Cordelia’s cheek, and Cordelia went on, going from group to group of guests, thanking them for attending, for making her wedding happy. All one had to do was pretend, she realized, marveling a bit, and everyone else would fall into line pretending along with you.

As she turned away from the Wentworths, who wanted to know who had provided the champagne, a gentle hand came down on her shoulder. “My dear.” She turned; it was Tessa. “You’re doing marvelously.”

Cordelia only nodded; Tessa deserved better than a false smile. Guests were beginning to take their leave, she noticed with relief, filing out in groups of two and three.

“So much of managing in society is keeping one’s chin up,” Tessa added carefully, and Cordelia thought of what Tessa and her family had put up with through the years: mutters and whispers about Tessa’s warlock blood, her demon father. “And disregarding the ignorant things people say.”

Cordelia nodded, wordless. She knew that Will and Tessa were fully aware of Elias’s time in the Basilias, and what it had been about. But still, how humiliating, to have James’s parents see her family like this.

“I ought to start bidding the guests goodbye,” said Cordelia, “but James is in with—with my father.”

“Then I’ll accompany you,” Tessa said, and gestured for Cordelia to follow her. Together they made their way to the ballroom’s main doors, where Cordelia smiled again and again as guests departed. She thanked them for coming, and promised to invite them over the moment she and James were settled in their new house. She could see Lucie and Will out of the corner of her eye, circulating in the ballroom, handing out boxes with pieces of wedding cake in them for the guests to take home for good luck.

“Supposedly I’m meant to wait a year and then eat this,” Christopher said, waving his box of cake at Cordelia as he took his leave. His family surrounded him; Cecily and Gabriel, a sleeping Alexander, even Anna, though she was heading out with Magnus Bane—perhaps to the Ruelle, or parts unknown. “It should have grown some very interesting mold cultures by then.”

“I look forward to the results,” said Cordelia solemnly. Thomas, leaving with Eugenia, smiled. At least he wasn’t angry at her, even if he was furious at Alastair. Which, she thought, was not a situation that could be allowed to go on; she had to at least discover why the Merry Thieves were so angry at her brother.

When only a few guests remained in the ballroom, Cordelia spotted Alastair and James emerging from the games room. They headed in opposite directions—Alastair joined Sona, and James scanned the room, obviously searching for someone.