“Hmph,” said Cecily. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
Gabriel felt it was about time to intervene. “How did you know we were Shadowhunters?” he snapped.
Sallows raised his eyebrows. “Your Marks, sir, are clearly visible on your hands and throat,” he said, as if talking to a child, “and as for the girl, she looks just like her brother.”
“How would you know my brother?” Cecily demanded, her voice rising.
“We don’t get many of your kind in here,” said Sallows. “It’s notable when we do. Your brother Will was in and out quite a bit about two months ago, running errands for that warlock Magnus Bane. He was down the Cross Bones too, bothering Old Mol. Will Herondale’s well-known in Downworld, though he mostly keeps himself out of trouble.”
“That is astonishing news,” said Gabriel.
Cecily gave Gabriel a dark look. “We are here on the authority of Charlotte Branwell,” she said. “Head of the London Institute.”
The satyr waved a hand. “I don’t care much for your Shadowhunter hierarchies, you know; none of the Fair Folk do. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll give you a fair price for it.”
Gabriel unrolled the paper Magnus had given him. “Thieves’ vinegar, bat’s head root, belladonna, angelica, damiana leaf, powdered mermaid scales, and six nails from a virgin’s coffin.”
“Well,” said Sallows. “We don’t get much call for that sort of thing around here. I’ll have to look in the back.”
“Well, if you don’t get much call for this sort of thing, what do you get call for?” asked Gabriel, losing his patience. “You’re hardly a florist’s shop.”
“Mr. Lightwood,” chided Cecily under her breath—but not quite enough under her breath, for Sallows heard her, and his spectacles bounced on his nose.
“Mr. Lightwood?” he said. “Benedict Lightwood’s son?”
Gabriel could feel the blood heating his cheeks. He had spoken to almost no one about his father since Benedict’s death—if one could even count the thing that had died in the Italian garden as his father. Once it had been he and his family against the world, the Lightwoods above all else, but now—now there was shame in the name of Lightwood as much as there had ever been pride, and Gabriel did not know how to speak of it.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I am Benedict Lightwood’s son.”
“Wonderful. I have some of your father’s orders here. I was beginning to wonder if he would ever come and pick them up.” The satyr bustled into the back, and Gideon busied himself studying the wall. There were landscape sketches hung on it, and maps on it, but as he looked more closely, not sketches or maps of any place he knew. There was Idris, of course, with Brocelind Forest and Alicante on its hill, but another map showed continents he had never seen before—and what was the Silver Sea? The Thorn Mountains? What sort of country had a purple sky?
“Gabriel,” said Cecily beside him, in a low voice. It was the first time she had used his Christian name in addressing him, and he began to turn toward her, just as Sallows emerged from the back of the shop. In one hand he carried a tied parcel, which he handed over to Gabriel. It was quite lumpy—clearly the bottles of Magnus’s ingredients. In the other hand Sallows clutched a stack of papers, which he set down on the counter.
“Your father’s order,” he said with a smirk.
Gabriel lowered his eyes to the papers—and his jaw dropped in horror.
“Gracious,” Cecily said. “Surely that isn’t possible?”
The satyr craned up to see what she was looking at. “Well, not with one person, but with a Vetis demon and a goat, most likely.” He turned to Gabriel. “Now, have you got the money for these or not? Your father is behind on his payments, and he can’t buy on tick forever. What’s it going to be, Lightwood?”
“Has Charlotte ever asked you if you wanted to be a Shadowhunter?” Gideon asked.
Halfway down the ladder with a book in her hand, Sophie froze. Gideon was seated at one of the long library tables, near a bay window that looked out over the courtyard. Books and papers were spread out before him, and he and Sophie had passed several pleasant hours searching through them for lists and histories of spells, details about yin fen, and specifics of herb lore. Though Gideon’s leg was rapidly healing, it was propped up on two chairs in front of him, and Sophie had cheerfully offered to do all the climbing up and down ladders to reach the highest books. She was holding one now called the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which had a rather slimy-feeling cover and which she was eager to put down, though Gideon’s question had startled her enough to arrest her mid-descent. “What do you mean?” she said, resuming her climb down the ladder. “Why would Charlotte have asked me something like that?”
Gideon looked pale, or it might simply have been the cast of the witchlight on his face. “Miss Collins,” he said. “You are one of the best fighters I have ever trained, Nephilim included. That is why I ask. It seems a shame to waste such talent. Though perhaps it is not something you would want?”
Sophie set the book down on the table, and sat down opposite Gideon. She knew she should hesitate, seem to think the question over, but the answer was on her lips before she could stop it. “To be a Shadowhunter is all I ever wanted.”
He leaned forward, and the witchlight shone up into his eyes, washing out their color. “You are not worried about the danger? The older one is when one Ascends, the riskier the process. I have heard them speak about lowering the age of agreement to Ascension to fourteen or even twelve.”
Sophie shook her head. “I have never feared the risk. I would take it gladly. It is only that I fear—I fear that if I applied for it, Mrs. Branwell would think I am ungrateful for all that she has done for me. She saved my life and raised me up. She gave me safety and a home. I would not repay her for all that by abandoning her service.”
“No.” Gideon shook his head. “Sophie—Miss Collins—you are a free servant in a Shadowhunter home. You have the Sight. You know all there is to know of Downworlders and the Nephilim already. You are the perfect candidate for Ascension.” He placed his hand atop the demonology book. “I am a voice on the Council. I could speak for you.”
“I can’t,” Sophie said in a soft thread of a voice. Didn’t he understand what he was offering her, the temptation? “And certainly not now.”
“No, not now, of course, with James so ill,” Gideon said hurriedly. “But in the future? Perhaps?” His eyes searched her face, and she felt a blush begin to creep up from her collar. The most obvious and common way for a mundane to Ascend to Shadowhunter status was through marriage to a Shadowhunter. She wondered what it meant that he seemed very determined not to mention that. “But when I asked you, you spoke so strongly. You said that being a Shadowhunter was all you ever wanted. Why is that? It can be a brutal life.”
“All life can be brutal,” said Sophie. “My life before I came to the Institute was hardly sweet. I suppose in part I wish to be a Shadowhunter so that if another man ever comes at me with a knife in his hand, as my former employer did, I can kill him where he stands.” She touched her cheek as she spoke, an unconscious gesture she could not help, feeling the ridged scar tissue under her fingertips.