mirror shards // matthew fairchild {1}

one // zmeievna

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 pinning her hair up into its usual French twist.

"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 dress 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 has 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."