course, let me show you the way. Your father entrusted me with a message for you that I can relay as we go.â
She left Ragnor Fell scowling after them. James hoped he had not made another enemy.
âYour father saidâwhat a charming language Welsh is, isnât it? So romantic!â Pob lwc, caraid . What does it mean?â
James blushed, because he was much too old for his father to be calling him by pet names. âIt just meansâit means good luck.â
He could not help smiling as he trailed the dean down the halls. He was sure nobody elseâs father had charmed the dean into giving a student a secret message. He felt warm, and watched over.
Until Dean Ashdown opened the door of his new room, bid him a cheerful good-bye, and left him to his horrible fate.
It was a very nice room, airy, with walnut bedposts and white linen canopies. There was a carved wardrobe and even a bookcase.
There was also a distressing amount of Matthew Fairchild.
He was standing in front of a table that had about fifteen hairbrushes on it, several mysterious bottles, and a strange hoard of combs.
âHullo, Jamie,â he said. âIsnât it splendid that we are sharing a room? I am certain we will get along swimmingly.â
âJames,â James said. âWhat are all those hairbrushes for?â
Matthew looked at him pityingly. âYou donât think all thisââhe indicated his head with a sweeping gestureââhappens on its own?â
â I only use one hairbrush.â
âYes,â Matthew observed. âI can tell.â
James dragged his trunk over to the foot of his bed, took out The Count of Monte Cristo , and made his way back to the door.
âJamie?â Matthew asked.
âJames!â James snapped.
Matthew laughed. âAll right, all right. James, where are you going?â
âSomewhere else,â said James, and slammed the door behind him.
He could not believe the bad luck that had randomly assigned him to share a room with Matthew. He found another staircase and read in it until he judged that it was late enough that Matthew would certainly be asleep, and he crept back, lit a candle, and resumed reading in bed.
James might have read a little too long into the night. When he woke up, Matthew was clearly long goneâon top of everything else, he was an early riserâand James was late for his first day of class.
âWhat else can you expect from Goatface Herondale,â said a boy James had never seen before in his life, and several more people sniggered. James grimly took his seat next to Mike Smith.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
The classes in which the elites were separated from the dregs were the worst. James had nobody to sit with then.
Or perhaps the first class of every day was the worst, because James always stayed up late into the night reading to forget his troubles, and was late every day. No matter what time he rose, Matthew was always gone. James assumed Matthew did this to mock him, since he could not imagine Matthew doing anything useful early in the morning.
Or perhaps the training courses were the worst, because Matthew was at his most annoying during the training courses.
âI must regretfully decline to participate,â he told their teacher once. âConsider me on strike like the coal miners. Except far more stylish.â
The next day, he said: âI abstain on the grounds that beauty is sacred, and there is nothing beautiful about these exercises.â
The day after that, he merely said: âI object on aesthetic principles.â
He kept saying ridiculous things, until a couple of weeks in, when he said: âI wonât do it, because Shadowhunters are idiots and I do not want to be at this idiot school. Why does an accident of birth mean you have to either get ripped away from your family, or you have to spend a short, horrible life brawling with demons?â
âDo you want