Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale (The Bane Chronicles 3)

"If I might ask why?" said Camille, her lovely face upturned, her green eyes glittering. "I had rather thought that London had caught your fancy, and that you might stay. "

Her invitation was almost irresistible. But Magnus was no Shadowhunter. He could have pity on someone who was suffering, and young.

"That young werewolf, Ralf Scott," Magnus said, abandoning pretense. "He is in love with you. And it seemed to me you looked at him with some interest as well. "

"And if that is true?" Camille asked, laughing. "You do not strike me as the sort of man to step aside and renounce a claim for the benefit of another!"

"Ah, but I am not a man. Am I? I have years, and so do you," he added, and that was glo

rious too, the idea of loving someone and not fearing they would soon be lost. "But werewolves are not immortals. They age and die. The Scott boy has but one chance for your love, where I-I might go and return, and find you here again. "

She pouted prettily. "I might forget you. "

He bent to her ear. "If you do, I shall have to recall myself forcibly to your attention. " His hands spanned her waist, the silk of her dress smooth under the pads of his fingertips. He could feel the swell and rise of her under his touch. His lips brushed her skin, and he felt her jump and shudder. He whispered, "Love the boy. Give him his happiness. And when I return, I shall devote an age to admiring you. "

"An entire age?"

"Perhaps," said Magnus, teasing. "How does Marvells poem go?

"An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart. . . . "

Camilles eyebrows had lifted at the reference to her bosom, but her eyes were sparkling. "And how do you know that I have a heart?"

Magnus raised his own eyebrows, conceding the point. "I have heard it said that love is faith. "

"Whether your faith is justified," Camille said, "time will tell. "

"Before time tells us anything more," Magnus said, "I humbly beg of you to accept a small token of my regard. "

He reached inside his coat, which was made of blue superfine fabric and which he hoped Camille found dashing, and produced the necklace. The ruby glinted in the light of a nearby streetlamp, its heart the rich color of blood.

"It is a pretty thing," said Magnus.

"Very pretty. " She sounded amused at the understatement.

"Not worthy of your beauty, of course, but what could be? There is one small thing besides prettiness to recommend it. There is a spell on the jewel, to warn you when demons are near. "

Camilles eyes went very wide. She was an intelligent woman, and Magnus saw she knew the full value of the jewel and of the spell.

Magnus had sold the house in Grosvenor Square, and what else had he to do with the proceeds? He could think of nothing more valuable than purchasing a guarantee that would keep Camille safe, and cause her to remember him kindly.

"I will think of you when I am far away," Magnus promised, fastening the pendant about her white throat. "I would like to think of you fearless. "

Camilles hand noindentuttered, a white dove, to the sparkling heart of the necklace and away again. She looked up into Magnuss eyes.

"In all justice, I must give you a token to remember me by," she said, smiling.

"Oh, well," said Magnus as she drew close. His hand settled on the small silk circle of her waist. Before his lips met hers, he murmured, "If it is in the cause of justice. "

Camille kissed him. Magnus spared a thought to making the streetlamp burn more brightly, and the noindentame within the iron and glass case filled the whole street with soft blue light. He held her and the promise of possible love, and in that warm instant all the narrow streets of London seemed to expand, and he could even think kindly of Shadowhunters, and one more than the rest.

He spared a moment to hope that Edmund Herondale would find comfort in the arms of his beautiful mundane love, that he would live a life that made all he had lost and all he had suffered seem worthwhile.

Magnuss ship would sail that night. He left Camille so that she might search out Ralf Scott, and he boarded his steamship, a glorious iron-hulled thing called the Persia that had been made with the latest of mundane inventiveness. His interest in the ship and his thoughts of an adventure to come made him regret his departure less, but even so, he stood at the rail as the ship departed into night waters. He looked his last on the city he was leaving behind.

Years later Magnus would return to London and Camille Belcourts side, and find it not all that he had dreamed. Years later another desperate Herondale boy with blue, blue eyes would come to his door, shaking with the cold of the rain and his own wretchedness, and this one Magnus would be able to help.

Magnus knew none of that then. He only stood on the deck of the ship and watched London and all its light and shadows slide away out of sight.