Cassandra Clare: Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

The moment turned. Edmund’s serious, humble honesty did what eyelashes and swagger had not, and made Linette Owens hesitate.

“You can pay a call at 26 Eaton Square, at Lady Caroline Harcourt’s,” she said. “If you still wish to in the morning.”

She drew her hand away, and after a single uncertain instant, Edmund let her.

Linette touched Magnus’s arm before she ascended into the carriage. She was just as pretty and amiable as before, but something in her manner had changed. “Please come pay a call on me as well, if you care to, Mr. Bane.”

“Sounds delightful.”

He took her hand and helped her into the carriage, giving her away in one light graceful movement.

“Oh, and Mr. Herondale,” said Miss Owens, putting her lovely laughing head through the carriage window. “Please leave your whips at home.”

Magnus made a small shooing gesture, minuscule cerulean sparks dancing between his fingers. The carriage set off driverless in the dark, down the London streets.

It was some time before Magnus attended another meeting about the proposed Accords, in the main because there had been disagreements about the choice of venue. Magnus himself had voted that they meet somewhere other than the section of the Institute that had been built off sacrosanct ground. He felt that the place had the air of the servants’ quarters. Mainly because Amalia Morgenstern had mentioned that the area used to be the Fairchilds’ servants’ quarters.

The Shadowhunters had resisted the idea of frequenting any low den of Downworlders (direct quote from Granville Fairchild), and the suggestion of staying outdoors and going to the park was vetoed because it was felt that the dignity of a conclave would be much impaired if some oblivious mundanes had a picnic in their midst.

Magnus did not believe a word of it.

After weeks of wrangling, their group finally capitulated and trailed dispiritedly back to the London Institute. The only bright spot was a literal bright spot—Camille was wearing an extremely fascinating red hat, and dainty red lace gloves.

“You look foolish and frivolous,” said de Quincey under his breath as the Shadowhunters found their places around the table in the large dim room.

“De Quincey is quite right,” said Magnus. “You look foolish, frivolous, and fabulous.”

Camille preened, and Magnus found it delightful and sympathetic, the way a small compliment could please a woman who had been beautiful for centuries.

“Exactly the effect I was attempting to produce,” said Camille. “Shall I tell you a secret?”

“Pray do.” Magnus leaned in toward her, and she inclined toward him.

“I wore it for you,” Camille whispered.

The dim, stately room, its walls cloaked in tapestries emblazoned with swords, stars, and the runes the Nephilim wore on their own skin, brightened suddenly. All of London seemed to brighten.

Magnus had been alive hundreds of years himself, and yet the simplest things could turn a day into a jewel, and a succession of days into a glittering chain that went on and on. Here was the simplest thing: a pretty girl liked him, and the day shone.

Ralf Scott’s thin pale face turned paler still, and was set in lines of pain now, but Magnus did not know the boy and was not bound to care overmuch for his broken heart. If the lady preferred Magnus, Magnus was not inclined to argue with her.

“How pleased we are to receive you all here again,” said Granville Fairchild, as stern as ever. He folded his hands before him on the table. “At long last.”

“How pleased we are that we could come to an agreement,” said Magnus. “At long last.”

“I believe Roderick Morgenstern has prepared a few words,” said Fairchild. His face was set, and his deep voice rang hollow. There was a slight suggestion of a kitten crying all alone in a large cave.

“I believe I have heard enough from Shadowhunters,” said Ralf Scott. “We have already heard the terms of the Nephilim for the preservation of peace between our kind and yours—”

“The list of our requirements was by no means complete,” interrupted a man called Silas Pangborn.

“Indeed it was not,” said the woman at his side, as stern and beautiful as one of the Nephilim’s statues. Pangborn had introduced her as “Eloisa Ravenscar, my parabatai ” with the same proprietary air as he might have said “my wife.”

Evidently, they stood united against Downworlders.

“We have terms of our own,” said Ralf Scott.

There was utter silence from the Shadowhunters. From their faces, Magnus did not think they were preparing themselves to listen attentively. Instead they seemed stunned by Downworlder impudence.

Ralf persisted, despite the utter lack of encouragement for him to do so. The boy was valiant even in a lost cause, Magnus thought, and despite himself he felt a little pang.

“We will want guarantees that no Downworlder whose hands are clean of mundane blood will be slaughtered. We want a law that states that any Shadowhunter who does strike down an innocent Downworlder will be punished.” Ralf bore the outbreak of protest, and shouted it down. “You people live by laws! They are all you understand!”

“Yes, our laws, passed down to us by the Angel!” thundered Fairchild.

“Not rules that demon scum try to impose on us,” sneered Starkweather.

“Is it too much to ask, to have laws to defend us as well as laws to defend the mundanes and the Nephilim?” Ralf demanded. “My parents were slain by Shadowhunters because of a terrible misunderstanding, because my parents were in the wrong place at the wrong time and presumed guilty because they were werewolves. I am raising my young brother alone. I want my people to be protected, to be strong, and not to be driven into corners until they either become killers or are killed!”

Magnus looked over to Camille, to share the spark of sympathy and indignation for Ralf Scott, so terribly young and terribly hurt and terribly in love with her. Camille’s face was untouched, more like a porcelain doll’s face than a person’s, her skin porcelain that could not redden or pale, her eyes cold glass.

He felt a qualm and dismissed it out of hand. It was a vampire’s face, that was all—no renoindentection of how she actually felt. There were many who could not read anything but evil in Magnus’s own eyes.

“What a terrible shame,” said Starkweather. “I would have thought you might have more siblings to share the burden. You people generally have litters, do you not?”

Ralf Scott jumped up and hit the table with an open palm. His fingers grew claws and scored the surface of the table.

“I think we need scones!” exclaimed Amalia Morgenstern.

“How dare you?” bellowed Granville Fairchild.

“That was mahogany!” cried Roderick Morgenstern, looking appalled.

“I would very much like a scone,” said Arabella the mermaid. “Also possibly some cucumber sandwiches.”

“I like egg and cress,” contributed Rachel Branwell.

“I will not stand to be so insulted!” said a Shadowhunter called Waybread, or some such thing.

“You will not be insulted, and yet you will insist on murdering us,” Camille remarked, her cool voice cutting the air. Magnus felt almost unbearably proud of her, and Ralf threw her a passionately grateful look. “It seems hardly fair.”

“Do you know that, last time, they threw away the plates that our very touch had profaned, once we were gone?” Magnus asked softly. “We can come to an agreement only if we begin at a position of some mutual respect.”

Starkweather barked a laugh. Magnus actually did not hate Starkweather; at least he was no hypocrite. No matter how foul, Magnus did appreciate honesty.