Matthew liked to take care of people, and he was good at it. When they were eight, Christopher Lightwood had been discovered in Papa’s laboratory performing what Papa described as a very intriguing experiment. Matthew had noticed that there was now a wall missing in the laboratory, and he took Christopher under his wing.

Christopher and Thomas were real cousins, their fathers brothers. Matthew was not a real cousin: he only called Christopher’s and Thomas’s parents Aunt Cecily and Uncle Gabriel, and Aunt Sophie and Uncle Gideon, respectively, out of courtesy. Their parents were only friends. Mama had no close family and Papa’s family did not approve of Mama being Consul.

James was Christopher’s blood cousin. Aunt Cecily was Mr. Herondale’s sister. Mr. Herondale ran the London Institute, and the Herondales tended to keep to themselves. Unkind people said it was because they were snobbish or thought themselves superior, but Charlotte said those people were ignorant. She told Matthew the Herondales tended to keep to themselves as they had experienced unkindness due to Mrs. Herondale being a warlock.

Still, when you ran an Institute, you couldn’t be completely invisible. Matthew had seen James at various parties before and tried to acquire him as a friend, only Matthew was impeded because he felt he should contribute to parties being a success and James tended to be in a corner, reading.

It was usually a simple matter for Matthew to make friends, but he did not see the point unless it was a challenge. Friends who were easy to get might be easy to lose, and Matthew wanted to keep people.

It had been rather shattering when James seemed to actively dislike Matthew, but Matthew had won him over. He still was not entirely sure how, which made him uneasy, but James had recently referred to himself, Matthew, Christopher, and Thomas as the three Musketeers and D’Artagnan, from a book he liked. Everything had been going splendidly aside from missing Papa, but now James was expelled and everything was ruined. Still, Matthew could not forget his responsibilities.

Christopher had a tempestuous relationship with science, and Professor Fell had commanded Matthew not to let Christopher come into contact with any flammable materials after the last time. Thomas was so quiet and small they were always losing him, rather like a human marble, and if left to his own devices he would inevitably roll toward Alastair Carstairs.

This was a hideous situation with only one bright side. It was a simple matter to locate Thomas when he was lost. Matthew only had to follow the sound of Alastair’s irritating voice.

Unfortunately, this meant being forced to behold Alastair’s irritating face.

He found Alastair soon enough, gazing out a window, with Thomas shyly standing at his elbow.

Thomas’s hero worship was inexplicable. The only things Matthew could find to like about Alastair were his extraordinarily expressive eyebrows, and eyebrows did not make the man.