It takes Sydney Herondale about six minutes to change out of her ruined dress into a fresh skirt and blouse. That's record time, but her underthings are clean. She returns to Headquarters still twisting her hair up into its usual French roll.
"Aha! It's Sydney," says Matthew. He shoves Christopher. "Your turn. Unless she used up all the water."
"I did not," Sydney answers, "use up all the water." She sinks into her usual armchair, pulls her feet up onto the seat, and removes a pile of blue velvet from the basket on the floor.
"What's that?" asks Thomas, as Sydney threads a needle.
"It's a new ball gown," says Sydney. "The Carstairs are moving to London semi-permanently, and Mama and Da are throwing a ball to welcome them. Matthew insists that I can't wear an old outfit to such a momentous occasion, so I'm sewing a new one. I think Matthew just wants to see me in a new outfit, but hey, you know." Sydney shrugs. "Any excuse to sew is a good excuse."
Matthew almost chokes on his flask, but manages to swallow without starting a coughing fit.
Thomas and Sydney are both recently back from tour: Thomas from nine months in Spain, Sydney from nearly a year in Romania. During that time, Thomas grew a whole foot and picked up a new weapon. Sydney, meanwhile, went through an existential crisis of unexplained nature, started a relationship with a vampire, broke his heart, and lapsed into research, melancholy, and paganism. She came back from tour probably compromised and bearing a thick file of papers she won't show to anyone.
They talk about Thomas being unrecognizable after six months in Spain, but really it's Sydney who's changed the most. The Sydney who had stayed behind at the Academy when the Thieves left, who Matthew watched slowly grow and change over summers and holidays, was a lot like her brother James: bookishly beautiful and beautifully intelligent, if much more energetic. The Sydney who returned from Romania is a lot more like the teenage Will that Tessa sometimes talks about: brutally honest, hyperactive insanity with an abrasive, cutting edge.
The door creaks open and James walks in, carrying a bottle of something cheap that probably tastes horrid, likely worse than the brandy they're already passing around.
"James!" Matthew cries. "Is that a bottle of cheap spirits I see before me?"
James sets the bottle down just as Christopher emerges from the bedroom in the back. "James," he says. "I thought you'd gone home."
"No idea," says Christopher. "But you might have. People do odd things all the time. We had a cook who went to do the shopping and was found two weeks later in Regent's Park. She'd become a zookeeper."
"Actually, she'd already given notice two weeks ago," Sydney tells him, "after one of your projects exploded and set her hair on fire."
"Oh," says Christopher. "Ah…my apologies, then." He scratches behind his ear, his cheeks pinking.
Absentmindedly, Matthew passes Sydney the bottle of wine. She passes it along. She's already had her three swigs, which is all she allows herself, or so she's told him.
"Your hand," says Matthew, looking at James. His parabatai it folded gently against the tabletop, as if it's injured. "What happened to it?"
"Just a cut," James says. He opens his hand to show them the wound.
Sydney hisses through her teeth. "Ouch. You're okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You should have told me," says Matthew. "I would have fixed you up in the alley."
"I forgot," says James.
"How could you have forgotten a cut on your hand?" Sydney asks. "It would hurt, and that would keep reminding you that it's there. That doesn't make any sense."
"Thank you, mother," James mumbles in answer.
"Did something happen?" Thomas asks.
"It was very quick," James answers, still in that mumbling tone.
"Many things that are 'very quick' are also very bad," says Matthew, setting the point of his stele to James's skin. "Guillotines come down very quickly, for instance. When Christopher's experiments explode, they often explode very quickly."
"Clearly, I have neither exploded nor been guillotined," says James. "I – went into the shadow realm."
Matthew looks up in shock.
"You did what?" Sydney asks, sitting up.
"I thought all that business had stopped," says Matthew. "I thought Jem had helped you."
"He did help me. It's been a year since the last time." James shakes his head. "I suppose it was too much to hope it was gone forever."
"Doesn't it usually happen when you're upset?" asks Thomas. "Was it the demon attacking?"
"No," James says. "No, I can't imagine – no."
"So then what?" asks Sydney.
"I don't know! Stop bothering me, will you?"
Sydney sinks back into her chair, muttering darkly in Romanian. Matthew catches a few Welsh words in there, including "Annwvyn," and a swear.
"Demons don't bother our boy," says Matthew. He finishes the healing rune and spins his stele in his fingers. "It must have been something else."
"You ought to talk to your uncle, then, Jamie," says Thomas.
James shakes his head. "It was nothing. I was surprised by the demon; I grabbed at the blade by accident. I'm sure that's what caused it."
"Did you turn into a shadow?" Matthew asks.
"Speaking of the demon," says Christopher.
"Which we weren't," says Matthew.
"Actually, we sort of were," says Sydney, "but go ahead."
"What kind of demon was it again?" Christopher bites down on the end of his pen, and Sydney resists the urge to take it away from him. That can't be good for your teeth. "The one that exploded, I mean."
"Deumas," says Sydney.
"As opposed to the one that didn't?" asks James at the same time.
"Odd it was here," says Thomas. "They're not usually found in cities."
"Yeah, I ran into a couple in Wallachia," says Sydney, "but that's, like, out in the middle of nowhere, so…"
"I saved some of its ichor," says Christopher. He produces a test tube of something goopy and yellow-green. "I caution all of you not to drink any of it."
"I can assure you we had no plans to do any such thing, you daft boot," says Thomas.
"I dunno," Sydney says with a shrug. "Matthew drinks anything, I mean, he drank cat piss once."
This time, Matthew does choke on his whiskey. "I did emwhat/em?!" he shrieks, and doubles over coughing.
"That's what was in that chipped mug you picked up at the docks," Sydney says, slapping him on the back. "I told you not to drink it, but you didn't listen to me. You're lucky it wasn't poison or something."
"Dear Lord, what have I done? Let's not even think about that." Matthew makes a face and shudders. "Let's toast to our friends being home."
Thomas protests. James clinks glasses with Matthew. Matthew hands Christopher a bottle of hock to toast with. Sydney takes Christopher's test tube and studies the green liquid inside. "How come it hasn't vanished back?" she asks.
Shrugs all around.
"When you're entirely done," says Thomas, "I do have some news." He tips his chair back. "You know that old manor in Chiswick that once belonged to my grandfather? Used to be called Lightwood House? It was given to my aunt Tatiana by the Clave some years ago, but she's never used it – preferred to stay in Idris at the manor with my cousin, er…"
"Gertrude," says Christopher, clearly not entirely sure.
"Gaveston," says Sydney, probably to be annoying
"Grace," says James. "Her name is Grace."
Sydney raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.
"Yes," says Thomas. "Grace. Aunt Tatiana's always kept them both in splendid isolation in Idris – no visitors and all that – but apparently she's decided to move back to London, so my parents are all in a dither about it."
"Grace," says James, and then, "Grace…is moving to London?"
Sydney's eyebrows get a little closer to her hairline.
"Seems Tatiana wants to bring her out in society." Thomas looks puzzled. "I suppose you've met her, in Idris? Doesn't your house there adjoin Blackthorn Manor?"
"I usually see her every summer," says James. "Not this summer, of course."
"Weird," says Sydney. "I've never actually met her. I didn't even you knew her. Which is kind of weird, now that you think about it, seeing as I know their cook."
"You do?" asks Matthew.
"Yeah. Her name's Agasha Morozhenko. She's a werewolf, but she she used to be a Shadowhunter." She's also a reformed thief, but the capital-T Thieves don't need to know that. "She's Ukrainian, but she lived in Romania for most of her life."
"London is being positively swarmed by new arrivals," Matthew says. "The Carstairs family will be with us soon, won't they?"
James nods. "Lucie is wild with excitement to see Cordelia."
Matthew pours more wine for himself. "Can't blame them for being tired of rusticating in Devon – what's that house of theirs called? Cirenworth? I gather they arrive in a day or two –"
"All of the Carstairs family are coming, did you say?" says Thomas.
"Not Elias Carstairs," says Matthew. "But Cordelia, and of course…"
Thomas upsets his drink.
"Oh, bloody hell," says Christopher. "Alastair Carstairs." He looks vaguely ill. "I'm not remembering incorrectly? He's an awful pill?"
"Seems a kind way of putting it" says James. He looks over at Thomas. "We can avoid Alastair, Tom. There's no reason for us to spend time with him, and I can't imagine he'll be yearning for our society either."
"Yeah, I'm the only one you really have to worry about," says Sydney, "but I've dealt with worse."
Sydney Herondale is known for three things: doing whatever the hell she wants, not giving a damn what other people think, and not being able to hold a grudge. Also sewing.
"By the way," says Christopher, "where's Wallachia? I thought you were touring in Romania?"
"Wallachia's in Romania," says Matthew.
"It's the homeland of Vlad Dracula," says Sydney. "The Impaler. More importantly to us, it's the site of the former Scholomance, but I wasn't anywhere near there."
"What even possessed you to go out there for tour?" Matthew asks. "Why not, I don't know, Paris?"
"Research for a project I'm working on."
"Your research took you all the way to Romania?" asks Thomas. "What type of project is this?"
"You never tell us about your project," says Matthew. "And you've been working on it since you were fourteen. You got yourself into the Academy specifically so you could use the library for your research. You had better tell us, or I'll have to assume it's necromancy."
"It's about dragons," says Sydney.
"Draconidae demons?" Thomas says. "But I thought those were nearly extinct."
"Mythological dragons," Sydney corrects. "But that's all you get." She can't tell them, especially not James, who's been searching for the identity of their demonic grandfather for nearly as long. And she will never, ever, tell anyone the name she has worn like James's bracelet ever since Agasha gave it to her all those years ago.
Zmeievna.
Days Past: Idris, 1896
Sydney has ventured down to the kitchen, looking for something with either caffeine or sugar or both, and there she finds another woman sitting in the kitchen, chatting with their cook. She's in her sixties by Sydney's guess, short and fragilely thin with greying red hair, her hazel eyes ringed around the pupil with werewolf gold.
"Hello," says Sydney, when the two women look up. "Are there brownies left over from dinner, by any chance?"
"Of course there are," says Bridget, "but you'll have to get them yourself, I'm washing dishes. Look in the pantry, I've wrapped them in paper."
"You must be Will and Tessa's daughter," the older woman says, "yes?" She speaks with a thick, rich accent.
"That's me," says Sydney. "I don't believe we've been introduced. Sydney Rhiannon Linette Herondale at your service," she says, sweeping into a low bow. She never did learn how to properly curtsy.
The woman laughs. "Oh, you don't need to bow to me, I'm just the Blackthorns' cook. Agasha Morozhenko."
Sydney smiles. "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Morozhenko."
"It's Miss, actually. I'm a very old maid, unfortunately." She gets to her feet, collecting a worn brown shawl from the back of her chair. "And while I'd love to stay and talk, this old maid needs to be going, or Tatiana will threaten to fire me again." Agasha winks. "She can threaten, but she never follows through. She can't live without me." She dips her head to Sydney. "A pleasure to meet you, zmeievna."
"Zmeievna?" Sydney frowns. "What does that mean?"
"I don't dare say it here." The woman givesSydney a searching sort of look. "Come to the Blackthorn Manor tomorrow afternoon. Ask for Agasha, the cook, and I'll tell you the story of Fat-Frumos, Tugarin, and the Zmeul Zmeilor."
Usually, in a story like this, if one had known where such a conversation would lead, they wouldn't gave followed Agasha's instructions. As it was, if Sydney had known where that talk would lead, it would have given her all the more reason to go.
author's notes:
culture corner: According to my research, Fat-Frumos, Tugarin, and the Zmeul Zmeilor are all stock characters common to Romanian folktales. But feel free to let me know if I'm wrong. Similarly, I'm told Annwvyn is the Welsh mythological underworld. I could find no information on the proper feminine form of "Zmeyevich," so, to quote Merricat Blackwood, "I have had to make do with what I had." Also: Gaveston as in Piers Gaveston - the "friend" that Edward II liked so much he lost his wife and risked a revolt from the government just to keep him around. So Sydney's not pulling that name because it starts with 'G,' she's making a deliberate comparison and if you've read "Chain of Iron," you'll know she's not wrong.
where's waldo: foreshadowing by middle names
the next chapters aren't going to have too much of Matthew in them, they're mostly character building for Sydney, but he'll be back, I promise you, circa Ch. 03