♕

Dahlia rose early the next day to find that it had snowed during the night, wiping the world clean. The streets of London sparkled, not yet turned to churning mud by carriage wheels. Roofs and chimneys were wreathed in white, and snow sifted gently down from the boughs of the bare trees along Curzon Street. 

She shivered through the thin material of her nightgown. Matthew was fast asleep on the bed near hers, he looked peaceful. Childish innocence shone through him, it made her want to stroke his hair and kiss him softly telling his everything would be okay.

But she had to do something first. She reached under her bed for the chest Ariadne had presented her. She pulled it out and hauled it onto the bed, and sat criss cross in front of it, there was a bronze lock on it with the initials 'K.J ' imprinted on the top. She smiled softly, opening a drawer on the nightstand next to her and searching for the necklace Ariadne had also given her. 

It was a beautiful necklace, with a golden chain and a beautiful circular pendant with diamond engraved into it.

There was a small, almost invisible, latch on the side of the pendant. Dahlia flicked it open to reveal a key, she smiled lightly. Of course Ariadne did that. This chest wasn't meant to be opened by anyone but the two of them.

She opened the chest.

Inside there was an assortment of things, Indian jewelry was one, sarees, lehenga's, lots and lots of mehendi, family heirlooms and a sword. It was a silver and gold sword, one side silver the other side gold. There was a peacock engraved on it in quick, graceful strokes. It also had words on it.

I am Caliburn tempered of the same steel as Excalibur.

Dahlia stared at it. Caliburn.

Hadn't that been what Filomena had told her? Wielder of Caliburn.

Matthew had begun to stir, Dahlia set the sword on the bed and closed the chest, save a tube of mehendi, and locked it.

She put the key back in the pendant and put it on her neck, under the star pendant Matthew had given her.

After they'd left the sailcloth factory the previous day, it had been decided that there was no way around it: the adults would need to be told about the factory, the bloody cloak. Concealing the information would only interfere with the investigation into the murders. Dahlia had pled a headache, hoping to simply return home and not bother the others, but desperate for some time alone to think about Filomena. It had worked only somewhat. Matthew had insisted on returning with her to Curzon Street, where he had gone straight to Arya for headache remedies. Arya had fussed over Dahlia half the evening until she hid under the covers of her bed and pretended to be asleep. 

Dahlia stumbled to the bathroom, showering quickly and putting her damp hair in a twist. She put on a dark red dress, usually dark colors didn't suit her. She didn't care at the moment, she had decided today she would put on mehendi, seeing it had started to fade.

She spread a white sheet on her bed and settled on it, with the tube next to her.

Matthew had woken up and was sitting on the right side of his bed, the side that faced her bed. His head was in his hands.

She smiled at him, opening the tube. "Good morning, Matthew." 

He gave her a sleepy, adorable smile. "Good morning, Dahlia."

Oscar gave a bark from near Matthew's bed at the sound of Matthew's voice.

"You too Oscar." he called. 

Dahlia rubbed her hands and dipped two fingers into the paste, and made a circle on the center of her foot. "How did you sleep, darling?" Matthew asked, watching her slow movements.

She applied some of the paste to around her toes, and did the same on her other foot, starting with the circle.

"Well enough, what about you?"

"About as well as you," he furrowed his brows. "Which wasn't well at all. Dahlia, you were screaming in your sleep."

Dahlia froze. 

"And then you started crying, repeating over and over again; Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

My fault, my fault, my own most grievous fault.

Dahlia looked away, unable to meet his eyes. "What happened, Dahlia?" he whispered through the silence.

She shook her head, "Nothing for you worry about, jannu." she muttered.

He raised an eyebrow. "My wife was screaming in her sleep. I think I ought to know."

Something bloomed in Dahlia's chest despite the current situation.

"Will you tell me your secrets?" she questioned, forcing herself to seem untroubled by applying mehendi on her hands too. She started with her left hand, putting a circle at the center of her palm and putting the paste at the tops of her finger.

If Ariadne had been there, she would have put complicated patterns on her hands. They usually looked gorgeous.

"No..." Matthew trailed. Dahlia fanned out her dress so it wouldn't get ruined by the paste.

"I shan't tell you mine either." she said.

"Dahlia, you were screaming." Matthew hissed. "And? Everyone screams." Dahlia said, sill not looking at him.

"Please, I-I was terrified, Dahlia."

Dahlia stared at him with a swirl of emotions she couldn't comprehend herself. "I don't know Matthew. I had a nightmare, I'm sorry for worrying you." she muttered.

"You're apologizing, to me?" Matthew asked, obviously bewildered.

"Well, I scared you. The least-"

"I was scared," Matthew started lowly. "Because I couldn't help you. I couldn't wake you, I couldn't do anything. I had to watch you scream and cry, unable to do absolutely anything. That is agony."

Dahlia bit her lip. She hated being a burden to anyone. She had burdened Matthew.

"I'm sorry Math." she whispered.

"Don't be sorry! Are you okay?" Matthew exclaimed.

"Absolutely fine." Dahlia chirped. Matthew looked at her suspiciously.

He got up and went to go get ready, leaving behind the smell of cloves and brandy.

Dahlia sighed and went back to drying her legs using her right hand.

After a few minutes, Matthew came back out in a green waistcoat and trousers, his blond hair a damp mess.

Dahlia had managed to start on her right hand as Matthew looked at her, drying his hair.

"Did you acquire a sword in the past few minutes I've been gone?" Matthew inquired.

Dahlia giggled. "Actually, Ariadne had sent over a chest full of......items, and inside it there was this sword. Apparently it's name is Caliburn."

Matthew stared at her with wide green eyes.

"As in Excalibur's sister, Caliburn?"

Dahlia nodded absently. 

"By the Angel Dahlia, how did your sister acquire such an important sword?"

Dahlia blinked, "I do not think it is too important. It was my father's sword. Not the Inquisitor, my biological one."

Matthew stared harder. "Who was that again?"

Dahlia laughed quietly. "Aarush Joshi." she said, wiping he dried paste off her legs with a cloth.

It left behind vibrant red designs.

"The Joshi's ran the Bombay institute, wait..." Matthew muttered.

Dahlia rolled her eyes at his slowness. "Yes, I'm a Joshi, daughter of Aarush and Aadhya Joshi." she grumbled, wiping of the mehendi from her hands.

"I see, what was your actual name Dahlia? It can't possibly be Dahlia."

"Kaashvi, Kaashvi Joshi." Dahlia said after a moment's hesitation.

"Kaashvi. It's a beautiful name, why did you change it?" Matthew asked, moving his hair to one side.

"Maurice changed it." she shrugged, tossing the towel aside. 

"Why?"

"I don't know, Fairchild. Now let me be I have a headache." Dahlia muttered.

Matthew looked amused, but shut up.

♕

"So your plan was to invade James and Cordelia's house at an ungodly hour?" Dahlia demanded, glaring at the boys in front of her. Lucie had quietly stepped aside with a book, smiling to herself.

"You lot have lost your wits!" she declared, settling in between Matthew and Christopher.

"I ought to send you to a mental asylum." she continued.

Thomas looked sheepish. "It was Matthew's plan."

She raised an eyebrow at Matthew who smiled angelically at her. "Do I look like I would do such a thing?"

"Yes you do. In fact you seem capable of burning down Hell and blaming it on Raziel." she said shaking her head. Matthew pretended as though she had pierced him with an arrow.

"The fact that you think so low of me, wounds me." he dramatzized, just as Cordelia walked in.

James smiled sleepily at Cordelia, "Daisy," he said, waving an empty coffee cup in her direction. "Please don't blame me—these young roustabouts appeared at an unseemly hour and refused to leavewithout infesting our house."

"Dahlia was just scolding the 'young roustabouts'." Lucie said cheerfully.

Risa had come in after Cordelia, and the boys—overjoyed to see coffee—burst into a rousing rendition of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow." Matthew leaped up from the cushions to cajole Risa to dance, but she simply smacked him smartly on the wrist with a spoon and withdrew from the room, dignity intact. 

Dahlia only shook her head sitting back with a copy of Alice in Wonderland, accepting the coffee Christopher gave her.

"In case you are curious," Dahlia said, as the other boys fought over the coffeepot, "Christopher is utterly furious to have been left out of the on goings yesterday and has decided to have revenge upon us with a large pile of books. I say he's picked the wrong audience." 

Cordelia, took a seat on an ottoman beside Lucie. "Where's Anna, by the by?

"On patrol," said Lucie. "We elected her to tell Aunt Charlotte exactly what happened at the factory yesterday—and Aunt and Uncle, too, since they have charge of the Institute while Mama and Papa are in Paris."

"Exactly what happened?" Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "Every bit of it?"

Lucie smiled primly. "Quite. She told them she was wandering in Limehouse yesterday, when her necklace alerted her to demons nearby. She followed its warning to the abandoned sailcloth factory. Upon entering, she was accosted by an Ourobas demon, which she destroyed. Further investigation revealed Filomena's shawl, and the bloody cloak."

"Quite a coincidence," said Cordelia, accepting a cup of coffee from James.

"Chance is a fine thing," said Dahlia, her eyes sparkling. 

"I assume she didn't say anything about the—about Filomena's ghost? Either of the ghosts, in fact?"

"It would have strained credibility, I think, to try to explain that Anna had happened on the demon, the cloak, and Filomena's ghost," said Thomas.

"What about the factory?" said Cordelia. "Has the Enclave searched it?"

"Yes—there was a meeting last night, and then a group went over to Limehouse," said Thomas.

"Father went with them," Christopher added, taking off his spectacles and cleaning them on his shirt. "They turned the place upside down, but they didn't find anything but an abandoned Ourobas nest. They'll keep an eye on it, but ..."

"No one really thinks the killer's likely to return," Dahlia said. "Why he dumped the cloak there, we don't know—presumably he didn't want to be caught wandering about London in bloody clothes." 

"They've tried Tracking the killer with the cloak, but no luck, even with the blood on it," Thomas said. "They'll probably hand it over to the Brothers for further investigation."

"I can't help wondering, ought we to tell the Enclave about the other ghost? The one who guided us to the factory?" asked Lucie. She was twisting her skirt around one hand anxiously.

"No," James said firmly. "Ghosts talk to each other, don't they? There's no reason to think that your Regency gentleman had anything to do with the murders. And if the Enclave finds out that ghosts are appealing to you, Luce..." He sighed, leaning his back against the frame of the ottoman. "I don't like the idea. They'll start poking and prodding at you, seeing if you can get other ghosts to approach you, seeing if they can use you to get clues. And not all the dead are friendly." 

Lucie looked horrified. "You think they'd do that?"

"My father would certainly do it." Dahlia muttered bitterly. "Jamie's right."

"Then let's think about something else instead," said Cordelia. "What of the killer's motive? Filomena was barely known by anyone, and why would anyone who wanted Pounceby or Gladstone dead have something against her as well?"

"Your brother, Alastair, said something last night, at the meeting," said Thomas reluctantly. "I gather he reads mundane newspapers. Among mundanes, there are mad people who kill just to kill. Perhaps there is no motive." 

"When there is no motive or personal connection, only in discriminate hate, it may be nearly impossible to find a murderer," said Matthew.

"But the killer isn't being indiscriminate," Lucie said. "He killed three Shadowhunters. We're a specific group. Mundanes don't know about us, so it can't be one of them killing randomly. Though I suppose ... I suppose it could be someone with the Sight killing within Downworld."

"If that were the case, Downworlders would turn up dead as well," said James. "As for Shadowhunters, we kill for our livelihood. They put weapons in our hands when we are children and tell us, 'Kill monsters.' Such violence might make anyone mad." 

"What about a possessed Shadowhunter?" said Lucie. "Under a warlock's control or—" 

"We cannot be possessed, Lucie," said Dahlia. "You know that. We have the protection spells we are given at birth." 

"If Filomena returned as a ghost to tell us what she knew about her murder," said Thomas, "isn't it a bit odd she didn't really tell us very much?" He looked at Dahlia apologetically. "What she said in Italian—" 

She froze, her heart raced in her chest. She could hear Filomena's eerie voice in her mind. She felt like throwing up, her head was light.

She bit her lip, "She wanted to know why I didn't save her, if I wielded the sword Caliburn, if I was-" she broke off.

She did not mention that Filomena had said she had more blood on her hands, or that she was 'his' chosen one.

Dahlia looked down at her hands. "I failed her."

There was a murmur of dissenting voices; she felt a hand brush her arm. She knew it was Matthew, without having to look. "Dahlia," he said. "We are Nephilim, not angels themselves. We cannot be where we do not know we are needed. We cannot know all things." 

"I, for instance," Matthew continued, "know very little." 

"And I do not know why I am seeing these deaths in dreams." James set down his cup. "There is some reason I am connected to all this. Though I could quite understand if none of you wanted to be involved."

"I believe the spirit of our organization is that we do want to be involved," said Matthew, "when it comes to each other." 

"That is why we should be looking into oneiromancy, the study of dreams," said Christopher brightly. "I have brought quite a few books on the topic, to be distributed among us."

"Do any of them have love scenes?" inquired Lucie. "I've been working on mine."

"If they do, I am sure they are quite disturbing," said James.

"These books are very interesting," said Christopher sternly. "There are stories of necromancers who have traveled in dreams, even killed and collected death energy in dreams." 

"What exactly do you mean when you say 'death energy'?" Lucie asked. "You mean, what necromancers use to raise the dead?"

"Exactly that," said Christopher. "There are ways to raise the dead using a catalyst—an object imbued with collected power by a warlock—but most involve using the life force released when someone dies to power a corpse's rising."

"Well, if the killer were a Shadowhunter, he or she could have no use for death energy," said Matthew, nibbling the edge of a pastry. "Unless they were in cahoots with a warlock, I suppose—" 

"Oh, bother," said Thomas, rising to his feet and brushing off his waistcoat. "I promised to get home by noon. My parents are fussing, and they keep threatening to ask Charlotte to strike me off the patrol lists if I don't sign up for a partner."

"Don't be silly, Tom," said Dahlia. "Go with Anna, at least. Or I hope they do strike you off the lists." She made a face at him. 

"I hope I run into the killer," Thomas said grimly. "So far he hasn't attacked anyone who was expecting him. But I will be." 

He blushed as this announcement was greeted by a round of amiable cheers. The others were getting up too, save James and Cordelia—taking copies of the books Christopher had brought, chattering about who was going to read what, joking about the oddest dreams they'd ever had.(Matthew's involved a centaur and a bicycle.) 

A voice in the back of Dahlia's mind kept telling her that once they found out, they would no longer want her around.

All this was temporary.

♕

Dahlia spent the rest of the day reading, something, anything to ease the worry in her mind.

She had even attacked Matthew's collection of Oscar Wilde, the only words she had was that she would never near Matthew's bookshelf ever again.

As the day wore on, groups of men came down the streets with shovel sand brooms, and scraped and cleaned the night's snow from the walkways; children emerged from houses, too, wrapped up like little packages, and proceeded to pelt each other with snowballs. She remembered, long ago, doing the same with Ariadne. 

As the sun dimmed outside the window, snow began to fall again. It sifted down from the sky like flour, covering the world in a layer of powdered glass. The children were ordered inside, and the street lamps glowed through a haze of fine white crystals. Dahlia thought of trying out Caliburn.

It had been her father's sword, and his father's before. She didn't know why Ariadne gave it to her, but she decided it was worth trying out. 

The blade was comfortable in her grip, though she preferred chakaras, she would surely use this if the need be. The sword itself was light and sharp.

She trained for about an hour and bled through her gown, but that didn't matter. The sword was as easy and natural to use as Dahlia's usual chakaras.

Around dusk, she changed into a nightgown, and was reading on her bed when Matthew came in. He looked beyond tired.

"I got the motorcar. You heard me speaking o it yesterday right?" he said, there was a light in his eyes as he sat on her bed facing her. Dahlia smiled, nodding and putting the book away.

"Did you drive it back home?" she asked, he curled up against her, his head on her lap. She played with his hair.

"Oh I did! Dahlia I shall take you tomorrow, it is simply spectacular." he said dreamily. Dahlia smiled.

"I'm glad you enjoyed love, now go get ready for bed. You need sleep." she said, pushing some hair out of his eyes.

He whined. She glared at him. He sighed and got up to go get changed. "I shall return, and we shall speak of my motorcar wonders." he said.

Dahlia laughed. "As you wish, Math. Now go, you idiot!"

He flashed her a boyish smile and disappeared behind the closet.

Matthew returned a few moments later and settled on his bed and began rambling about the motorcar. Dahlia listened as she did she noticed the way he spoke was so innocent and darling, high in contrast to his usual speech.

"So? I would take you with me tomorrow-" Matthew was saying. Dahlia shook her head still smiling.

"No it's fine Matthew, I promised Evan I would go sightseeing with him." she said. Matthew's eyes darkened.

"Evan Darkwood?" he asked cautiously. Dahlia nodded.

"We've been friends since we were eight, Matthew. He is staying in London for longer than that one week once a year, for six months this time actually. You can't expect me not to go with him Matthew. Honestly." Dahlia sighed.

Matthew pouted. "Then you can't come with me tomorrow? Or the day after? Will I ever see you again?" he asked, his green eyes wide.

Dahlia laughed. "Of course you will, you oaf. I'll go with you the day, day after tomorrow." 

Matthew smiled widely.

"Have fun with Evan, darling." he said smiling quietly. Dahlia grinned.

"I will. Now I can tell you are quiet sleepy. Sleep."

Matthew sighed dramatically, laying down. "Good night my dearest one, I shall see your beautiful eyes in my dreams and in the morning." 

Dahlia giggled. "Good night Matthew."

♕

It was probably three 'o' clock when Dahlia shot up in her bed, clawing at her throat, her mouth formed in a soundless scream.

Her nightmares hadn't been this bad for three whole years. Then Filomena's death triggered a whole avalanche of horrors.

She staggered out of her bed and creaked downstairs in hopes of some tea. Arya was a sleep, so she had to make it herself.

She poured water into a kettle and attempted to start a fire in the stove.

There were soft footsteps behind her, she turned around brandishing the poker like a weapon.

It was Matthew looking amused. Dahlia rolled her eyes, settling back to making tea.

"What's wrong, Dahlia?" he asked.

"Nothing, I couldn't sleep." she muttered.

Matthew helped her up, once the fire had started. It was the only thing luminating the kitchen, he smiled down a her.

"Well, you could have told me. I could have done this." he said, grinning as he dipped her to an unusually low level, and brushed his lips against her.

Dahlia giggled.

He spun them around, she nearly hit the counter, then she was spun back to Matthew into his chest. She reached up on her tallest tip toes and kissed him.

He kissed her back, both of them crashing into a wall, the moonlight and the fire were the only sources of light.

His hands were supporting her back, as she kissed him. It was a playful kiss, wanting nothing from the other only teasing.

He spun them around again, this time he scooped her up into his arms, her hand clutching the door handle, laughing and he blew into her ears and whispered jokes into the moonlight. They spent at least an hour joking and dancing.

They had given up on making tea after a few minutes, blowing out the fire and racing each other to their room.

Dahlia collapsed on her bed before Matthew, euphoria singing through her. Matthew was grinning widely as he fell onto his bed.

"Can you sleep now?" he asked, turning to his side to face her.

She turned her head, her hands clutching the sheets beneath her. "Very much so. Thank you Math."

He smiled, "It was my pleasure Dahlia. Good night."

Dahlia smiled at him through the darkness. "Matthew?" she asked.

He hummed sleepily.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

♕