Page 37 of Better in Black
I’ve had a lot of time to think lately, sitting in that hospital room, waiting for you to wake up. And one thought I can’t escape: Despite the horrors that have beset us since Valentine’s return, despite the suffering and the death and the fear of what’s to come, despite Clary’s plunge into the danger you tried so hard to keep her from, despite even you, lying there unconscious, day after day after day, despite all of it, I have not felt so whole, so wholly alive and wholly myself, in a very long time.
I did the best I could to live as a mundane for you, because that’s what you needed. And even before that, I tried to be the man you wanted me to be: the same Lucian Graymark you’d grown up with. A Shadowhunter, who just happened to have been bitten by a wolf. That’s what you told me, when you found me alive in the woods—it didn’t matter if I was a Shadowhunter or a werewolf. I was the same man I’d always been. I used to love hearing you say it—that the bite didn’t have to change anything.
But it changed everything. I understand that now. Maybe it’s watching Clary come into her own. Maybe it’s watching Simon come to terms with his new life after death. Clary doesn’t want to see it, thatwhathe is has reshapedwhohe is. That it’s not a question of whether this is good or bad. It simplyis.He’s a Downworlder. That’s a part of him, now, as much as Shadowhunter is a part of you. None of us can leave our selves behind.
I’m out of excuses now, Jocelyn. And so are you. The worst has happened. Valentine is alive and we’ve survived it. You don’t need to protect Clary anymore. You don’t need to hide who you are for the sake of your daughter. You get to choose now. Any life you want.
And so do I. I’ve waited so long to tell you who I really am. But after a lifetime of silence, I refuse to say it when you’re lying there so still. It would be another half measure, another way of hiding the truth in the shadows. I’m done hiding.
All the stories are true: I am Lucian Graymark. I am Luke Garroway. I am a Shadowhunter. I am a werewolf. I am the man who once loved Valentine like a brother. I am the man who has loved you since I was a boy. I am, will always be, that boy in the woods, caught between darkness and light, between the lure of the shadows and the beautiful girl calling me home.
Come back to me, Jocelyn, and I promise, this time I’ll tell you the truth.
I’ll tell you anything you want to know.
Just…
Come back.
Zachary’s Day Out
It was a fine summermorning, and Thomas Lightwood was enjoying the serenity of his domestic surroundings. The dining room of the Carstairs house in Cornwall Gardens, London, was one of its nicest rooms when the sun was shining, perfectly placed as it was for light to beam down upon breakfast and its breakfasters. Said breakfast had just been cleaned up, Alastair Carstairs had unfolded one of his gigantic mundane broadsheet newspapers, and Thomas was ready for more tea. He squinted into the picture window, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the quiet sounds of the morning as he poured: the merry stream of water from pot to cup, the rustle of paper.
And, of course, the gentlehmphs andwell-wells coming from Alastair as he read the paper. It was all part of their morning routine,and even after a year of living together, Thomas was thrilled that he and Alastair had a morning routine. When he’d first moved himself in (“You can always leave if Alastair becomes frightful again,” his sister Eugenia had said, unhelpfully), Thomas had been amused to discover that Alastair, despite his collections of spears and daggers, not to mention his sharp and cranky wit, was as domestic as a house cat. When not actively hunting demons, Alastair wanted his newspaper, his slippers, and a crackling fire in front of which he could fall asleep.
At which point Thomas would tuck a blanket around Alastair’s shoulders. He loved watching Alastair sleep, his long dark lashes lying against the soft brown of his skin. And when Alastair woke up, either on the sofa or in their bed in the morning, he always looked first for Thomas, sometimes reaching out for him before his eyes were even open. He would pull him close, and Thomas would revel in the fact that Alastair Carstairs liked to cuddle. With him. In fact, he wouldn’t have minded if their plans for the day had included nothing but cuddling, but, in fact, they had a task to complete—one that had nothing to do with chasing down supernatural evils.
“The calm before the storm, eh?” he commented in Alastair’s direction, dropping another sugar cube into his tea.
“Eh?” said Alastair, from somewhere behind his newspaper.
If Thomas didn’t know better, he might have thought Alastair wasn’t paying attention and become annoyed. But he did know better. “Just enjoying the quiet this morning,” he said, “B.Z.”
“Before Zachary?” Alastair lowered his newspaper with a grin. “I’m sure he’ll be perfectly well-behaved. My mother raises only well-behaved children.”
“I don’t know if that’s the first term I’d think of in relation to you or Cordelia,” said Thomas.
“Well, you only knew us as surly adolescents, and then as respectable adults. When I was Zachary’s age I was the picture of perfect comportment. My father insisted, for one thing.”
His tone was light, but Thomas felt a small sharp shard poke his insides at the mention of Alastair’s father. This, after all, was why Thomas hadn’t been surprised by how domestic and settled Alastair acted at home. Alastair had spent years and years trying to be his father; when Thomas first met him, Alastair’s desperate desire to seem older than his age had made him seem instead younger to Thomas, and vulnerable in a way Alastair would probably have hated. Even as he’d grown into himself more, and come to understand his father’s weaknesses, there was still a part of Alastair that would always see himself as the head of his family, stepping in to be the father that the alcoholic and angry Elias Carstairs could never be.
Alastair had always protected his younger sister, Cordelia, and he was protective in the same way of his even younger brother, baby Zachary, though Zachary lived a much more peaceful life than Cordelia and Alastair had as children. Not that that prevented Alastair from hovering.
“What’s that look?” said Alastair, interrupting Thomas’s reverie.
“What look?” Thomas had been sure Alastair was back behind his paper, but apparently not.
“You’re smirking,” Alastair said.
“I am not.”
“You are,” Alastair said severely. “I would go so far as to say you are smirking impishly.” He paused to consider this. “That’s a strange mundane word, isn’t it, ‘impish.’ I’ve killed many an Imp. Never seen one crack a smile.”
“I expect they have more fun with mundanes,” said Thomas. “Fewer blades coming fast at their heads.”
“So why the smirk?”
“The impish one?”
