Page 50 of Better in Black
The face reflected back was a child’s face—chubby-cheeked, with curly dark hair. There was a rush of wind and light, and where the middle-aged man had been was Zachary again, in the same clothes he’d been wearing. The hat, now much too large for him, fell from his head, and the umbrella rolled off the side of the lion and fell.
Alastair climbed quickly down the lion, Zachary held against his shoulder. Alastair, Thomas, and Zachary hurried away from Nelson’s Column very quickly; Thomas was fairly sure several of the nannies were pointing after them and wondering where the grown-up madman with the umbrella had gone. They hadn’t noticed Zachary’s actual transformation, though, and as far as Thomas was concerned, that was good enough.
When they reached a safe distance, Thomas thought Alastair would put the little boy down, but he kept him in his arms. Zachary’s eyes were drooping, as though he’d grown very tired. Which, Thomas thought, he very well might have. Now that Zachary was back to normal, he found he’d grown quite tired himself.
—
“So, did he behave himself?” Sona asked.
Thomas and the Carstairs boys had gotten back to Cornwall Gardens with a good hour to spare. This was lucky, as Zachary had lost his suit when he transformed back, but not the sticky residue from all the candy he’d eaten and rolled in; he’d had to be cleaned with a towel, a process he did not enjoy but did at least tolerate.
“It’s good practice,” Thomas had told him as he squirmed under Alastair’s careful hand. “You’re a Shadowhunter, and we get all kinds of terrible things on us as a matter of course. Blood and ichor, mostly. The sugar comes right off.”
Then Thomas had had to run back to Charlotte’s to retrieve the pram and return Henry’s mirror. There he found Charlotte still napping and Mrs.Paisley feeding the twins an early supper, so he slipped in and out as quietly as he could, giving the three of them only a quick wave. When he returned to Cornwall Gardens Alastair and Zachary had gone back to the coffee table and seemed to be having a better time with the toy soldiers than before. Mrs.Killigrewwas busy in the kitchen, so when Sona arrived it was Thomas who opened the door for her.
“Oh, he was fine. We had a very uneventful day,” Thomas said airily. “We took him to a sweetshop and then to see the lions at Trafalgar Square.”
Sona’s brow furrowed. “I hope you didn’t let him have too many sweets. It makes him fussy.”
“Hardly any sweets at all,” Thomas said, leading her into the sitting room.
Zachary was sitting on the coffee table, holding the wooden lion and roaring. Alastair was standing on the couch, balancing one of the toy soldiers atop the lamp on the end table nearby.
“I think you’ll find,” Alastair said, “that you can’t possibly reach the great Lord Nelson up here. He has foiled your plan and taken shelter atop his magical column!”
“Lion!” cried Zachary, and demonstrated his lion leaping high into the air to reach the admiral.
“Oh no!” Alastair exclaimed. “I had not reckoned with your incredible jumping power!”
“Lion,” Zachary declared again, and bumped the lion into the toy soldier, whereupon Alastair pantomimed the soldier falling from his height back down to the table.
“Oh, who would have thought that the hero of Trafalgar would be laid so low by a beast of the jungle?” To Thomas’s great entertainment, he rolled the toy soldier around on the table in toy agony.
Thomas cleared his throat and the boys looked up. Zachary called out, “Mama! Stair!”
Sona came over and picked Zachary up. “Alastair, you shouldn’t let him on the furniture with his shoes.”
Alastair waved dismissively.
“Has it been all right?” she said, surveying the disorder of the battlefield before her. “I see he’s tangled up all your soldiers.”
“Not at all,” said Alastair. “He’s playing with them exactly as he ought to.”
Zachary was perhaps not quite done with the lion and the soldiers, but the return of his mother distracted and pleased him enough that he allowed himself to be taken away and put back in his pram. Sona thanked them, told Thomas his mother wanted to see him more often, and departed after a few grateful maternal hugs of Alastair, and Thomas, as well.
She departed after extracting a promise from Alastair that they would come down to Cirenworth to visit soon. With a great sigh Thomas flung himself down onto the couch next to the coffee table. “Well,” he said, “that turned out better than it seemed like it would.”
Alastair’s mouth quirked, but he didn’t reply immediately; he was busy gathering up the toy soldiers from where they’d fallen. Thomas watched fondly as Alastair wiped each down with a damp cloth and replaced it neatly in the wooden storage case. When Alastair noticed Thomas watching him, he raised his chin. “I may let Zachary play with these as he likes,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to maintain them in good condition.”
“It’s all right,” Thomas assured him. “You feel responsible for them, and that means taking care of them.”
Alastair put the soldier he was holding down and came to sit on the couch next to Thomas. Thomas put a hand up and wordlessly stroked the side of Alastair’s face; there was a little rough stubble that grazed his palm, and then Alastair kissed his hand, and Thomas shivered. “Thomas,” Alastair said, “I am amazed by you.”
“Oh?”
“You have saved me, again,” said Alastair. “It seems you are always saving me, even when I don’t know I need to be saved. I learned to be stubborn and difficult when I was young, because that was how my father was, and how I protected myself. I never had the enjoyment of playing or losing myself in a moment. But I have that with you.”
Thomas let his finger slide down to Alastair’s throat, and then to the collar of his shirt. He ran his finger along the seam where Alastair’s skin met fabric. “You can always be playful,” Thomas said softly, “with me.”
