mirror shards // matthew fairchild {1}

twenty-six // riot

Sydney shifts in her chair and adjusts her skirts for the second or third time. It's not the chair or the dress that's uncomfortable. It's the scene as a whole. The last time Sydney was at an Enclave meeting, it had been in Romania. She'd spent most of it defending Adriana from a town that wanted to try her for attempted murder.

Adriana had hated her for it. "I nearly killed you," she'd said. "Let them take my runes. Anything else would be obstruction of justice."

Sydney hadn't cared. She wasn't letting her friend take the fall for her own stupid mistake.

Up front, wood clatters, someone coughs. Sydney's father clears his throat and starts into his speech. "Welcome, everyone. I've just received word that the Consul has been delayed but is on her way. It would be ideal if everyone could be patient a bit longer and refrain from breaking any of the valuable objects in the Sanctuary. In the meantime –"

He breaks off as Charles joins him at the lectern. Sydney grinds her teeth. She's heard enough about Charles in the past few years.

"I'd just like to thank everyone for placing their trust in me as acting Consul," Charles says. "As you all know, the antidote to this awful disease was developed in my father's laboratory at Grosvenor Square."

"As you know," Sydney mutters, "it's not your laboratory."

The sentiment seems to be shared, Sydney catches more than a few noises and gestures of exasperation from across the room.

"But of course," says Charles, sounding faintly embarrassed, "there are many brave Shadowhunters who should be acknowledged, in addition to myself. Christopher Lightwood, of course, as well as Cordelia Carstairs, James Herondale –"

"James Herondale is a fraud!"

Sydney whirls in her seat and finds herself staring up at Tatiana Blackthorn. She towers over all of them, her face twisted with mad fury. Her green eyes are bloodshot and narrowed so far they glint.

"He has ties to demons!" Tatiana shrieks. "No doubt he worked in concert with them to orchestrate these attacks."

The world goes deathly silent. A wave of whispers passes across and quells again. Sydney's regretting the choice she made not to sit with her brother and his friends, she can see them falling apart in their section of the front seats.

"Deny it, boy!" Tatiana shouts at James. "Your grandfather was a demon."

James kicked his chair out of the way and gets to his feet. "I will not deny it," he says. "Everyone knows it. It is true, it has always been true, and no one here has tried to hide it."

"Don't you see?" Tatiana points at him with one long, shaking finger. "He conspired with the enemy! I have been collecting evidence of his plots –"

"Then where is that evidence?" Will yells. "Damn it, Tatiana –"

"It was in my house,{ Tatiana seethes. "In my house in Idris, I gathered it all, but then this boy, this demon's spawn, burned my house to the ground! Why else would he do that, save to protect his secret?"

Sydney blinks. What? She's heard nothing of this. How could she? She herself was out wandering like a madwoman last night on Tower Bridge, she's –

"Tatiana." Uncle Gabriel gets up, too. "Tatiana, this makes no sense. Why have we heard nothing about this fire if it transpired? In fact, how do you know about it?"

Tatiana's face twists. "You've never believed in me, Gabriel. Even when we were children, you didn't believe anything I said. You know as well as I do that there is a Portal between Blackthorn Manor and Chiswick House. I went through this morning to get some papers and found the manor a smoldering heap of ash!"

Gideon launches out of his seat so fast he nearly trips his son's shoe. "That bloody house was a firetrap because you refused to look after it. It was going to burn down eventually. It is very ill done for you to try to drag James into this, very ill done!"

"Enough! All of you!" The Inquisitor slams his hand into the lectern, silencing the chaos. "James Herondale, is there any truth to what Mrs. Blackthorn says?"

"Of course there isn't –" Will starts.

"He told Grace he did it!" Tatiana screams, shrill enough Sydney covers her ears. "Ask her what James said!"

"The fact is," Grace starts, in a voice barely above a whisper, "the – the truth is that James –"

Cordelia bolts to her feet. "The truth is that James Herondale did not burn down Blackthorn Manor last night," she says. "James cannot have been in Idris. He was with me. In my bedroom. All night."

The world spins and tips. Sydney feels it slide away as if she's on a boat about to sink, and she grips her chair for balance even though she knows she's not going anywhere at all. He did what?!

The Inquisitor's jaw seems to be stuck open, it takes a few tries for him to speak. "Are you quite sure about this, Miss Carstairs?"

Cordelia lifts her chin. "Obviously, I am sure. Which aspect do you think I am confused about?"

Tatiana sputters like an improperly wound automobile. "Grace, tell them –"

In a clear voice, Grace says, "I'm sure Cordelia is correct. James must be innocent."

Tatiana screams. "No! No! NO! If it wasn't James, it was one of you!" She stabs her finger at the crowd, pointing out the Thieves. "Matthew Fairchild, Thomas Lightwood, Christopher Lightwood! One of them, one of them is responsible, I know it! What about her?" Tatiana's pointing finger swung in Sydney's direction. "If any of them Sydney's second most likely, in fact, she might be behind all of this! We know she was in Romania for months, she was at the Library of Bats of all places, consorting with vampires, what was she doing there? For that matter, where was she last night?"

Sydney glances around the room, sees Matthew looking at her. She nods at him. She leans back in her seat. Then she kicks her feet up onto the chair in front of her and yawns. Melodramatically.

"You know," says Sydney, "I could come up with about six dozen alibis for what I was doing during the Blackthorn Hall fire, depending on the time frame we're looking at here. I could cause a whole other scandal. I could cause three. I can go on about the outrageous price of chocolate and sheaths in SoHo for days on end. But actually, I'd like to have you explain this." 

Sydney produces the bone comb from her handbag and tosses it onto the floor at Tatiana's feet. "Bone magic, that's obvious. Pretty nasty bone magic, too. I had that in my hair for ten months. It was given to me by a friend who, surprise of all surprises, used to work for you, and she didn't know about the bone magic either. Another comb she had was switched out and replaced with this one. And quite frankly, I would really like to know just who the hell did this and why they felt it needed to happen. As for where I was last night..." 

Sydney shrugs. "Would you rather hear about the price of chocolate and cheap poetry or how I almost fell off Tower Bridge looking for this thing?"

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Author's Notes:
I got so stuck with this one, because I dislike having to use and reuse C.C.'s dialogue too much, but I had to get us through because it's kind of a pivotal moment in the original. But I kind of start straying from the stations of the canon here.