Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Will was looking furious. “This is why we should never have tolerated Tatiana Blackthorn’s bizarre behavior with her children. What could it harm, not to let the Silent Brothers do Jesse’s protection spells? What harm indeed. Thank the Angel that Maurice went up to retrieve her from the Adamant Citadel. The Silent Brothers are going to need to get the whole story out of her.”


“Why didn’t you tell the Enclave,” Magnus said to James, not unkindly, “if you knew Belial was responsible?”

“He didn’t tell the Enclave,” Will said, “because if the Enclave found out that Belial is his grandfather, is Tessa’s father… well, the consequences could be quite dire, for our family. For Tessa. I knew also, and I also said nothing, for the same reason. James cannot be blamed for that.”

“Does anyone else know?” said Magnus.

“Only my closest friends,” James said. “Cordelia, of course, and Matthew… and Thomas and Christopher. And Anna. They will keep the secret. I trust them with my life,” he added, perhaps a little defensively.

Will exchanged a look with Magnus that James couldn’t read. Slowly Will said, “I am glad that you at least had your friends to confide in. I wish you had told me as well, James.” He looked sad for a moment. “It breaks my heart to think of you being tormented by these dreams of Belial, and keeping them a secret besides.” He picked up his glass, as if he’d just noticed it was there, and took a sip. “I’ve seen death myself,” he said quietly. “I know how terrible it is to witness it.”

His father’s eyes flicked away from them for a moment, and James wondered what he meant—and then, with a start, remembered that long ago, Will had held Jessamine while she died in his arms. He was so used to her ghostly presence in the Institute that it was easy to forget the trauma her death must have brought to them all. His father made it easy to forget; his usual sanguine demeanor did a good job of hiding all that he had been through.

Magnus cleared his throat, and James looked over to see his luminous cat’s eyes peering at him thoughtfully. Will caught this and sat up in his chair, returning from his reverie. “What are you thinking of, Magnus?”

“Only that Belial was willing to wait a long time for his plan regarding Jesse to come to fruition,” said Magnus. “I wonder what other plans he might have made in the meantime. Plans of which we have no knowledge.” His eyes glittered at James. “I must ask. What were you dreaming of, in the carriage? When you woke up screaming?”

There was a guilty knot in James’s chest. He was still keeping a secret, after all—Cordelia’s secret. “I dreamed of a gathering of shadows,” he said. “I stood in a fire-blasted place and saw monstrous creatures rushing through the air.”

“Were they demons?” said Magnus.

“I don’t know,” said James. “Their forms were shadowy and diffuse, and the light was dark.… It was as though I could not fully focus my eyes on them. But they are part of some plan of Belial’s. He spoke to me.”

“What did he say?” said Magnus quietly.

“?‘They wake,’?” said James.

Will exhaled loudly through his nose. “Well, that isn’t very helpful of him. What wakes?”

“Something that was sleeping?” suggested Magnus. “In the past, it seemed that Belial wanted you to see his actions clearly. Now he wants you in the dark.”

“He wants me to be afraid,” James said. “That’s what he wants.”

“Well, don’t be,” said Will decidedly. “As soon as we find Lucie, we will return to London. Now that you’ve told us the situation, we can muster every resource at our command to deal with this thing.”

James tried to look as if the thought heartened him. He knew his father had faith, a kind he did not, that even the most intractable problem could be overcome; still James could not imagine a life in which he was not tied to Belial. The connection would exist as long as Belial lived, and as James had been reminded many times, a Prince of Hell could not die.

“Are you not going to drink your port?” said Magnus. “It might steady your nerves a bit, help you rest.”

James shook his head. He felt sick, looking at the alcohol, and he knew it was not only his nerves. It was Matthew. Memories had been coming back to him, ever since he had rid himself of the bracelet—memories not just of events, but of his own thoughts and feelings, things he had forgotten, things pushed to the back of his mind. His feelings for Cordelia… his desire to remove the bracelet itself… but also his worries about Matthew’s drinking. It was as if the bracelet’s influence had insisted that there was nothing wrong with Matthew, that he need not concern himself with anything except that which the bracelet wanted him to concern himself. It had grown clearer and clearer to him that something was terribly wrong with Matthew, and that it was getting worse, but the bracelet had ensured that he couldn’t hold on to the thought, couldn’t focus on it. He recalled the London Shadow Market, a snowy alley, his snapping at Matthew, Tell me there is someone you love more than that bottle in your hand.

He had known, but he had done nothing. He had allowed the bracelet to guide his attention elsewhere. He had failed his best friend. He had failed his parabatai.

“Well, you need sleep,” Magnus said. “Dreamless sleep, if possible. I was hoping to use the more mundane methods of getting there, but…”

James swallowed. “I don’t think I can drink it.”

“Then I’ll give you something else,” Magnus said decisively. “Water, with something more magical than mere fortified wine. How about you, Will?”

“Certainly,” said Will, and James thought he still sounded lost in thought. “Bring on the potions.”

That night James slept like the dead, and if his father rose in the middle of the night to check on him as if he were a small boy, if Will sat beside him on his bed and sang to him in rusty Welsh, James did not remember it when he woke up.



* * *



“As you can see,” Matthew said, throwing out his arm to embrace the whole of the Boulevard de Clichy. He was wearing a fur greatcoat with multiple capes, which made the gesture all the more dramatic. “Here is Hell.”

“You,” Cordelia said, “are a very wicked person, Matthew Fairchild. Very wicked.” She couldn’t help but smile, though, half at Matthew’s expectant expression and half at what he’d brought her to Montmartre to see.

Montmartre was one of the most scandalous neighborhoods in a scandalous city. The notorious Moulin Rouge was here, with its famous red windmill and half-naked dancers. She had expected them to wind up there, but Matthew, of course, had to be different. Instead he had brought them to the Cabaret de l’Enfer—quite literally, the Cabaret of Hell—a place whose front entrance had been carved to look like a demonic face, with black bulging eyes and a row of fanged teeth at the top of its open mouth, which served as the door.

“We needn’t go in if you don’t want to,” Matthew said, more seriously than usual. He set a gloved finger under Cordelia’s chin, raising her face to meet his gaze. She looked at him in some surprise. He was bareheaded, and his eyes were a very dark green in the light spilling from L’Enfer. “I thought it might amuse you, as the Hell Ruelle did. And this place makes the Ruelle look like a child’s playroom.”

She hesitated. She was aware of the warmth of his body, close to hers, and the scent of him: wool and cologne. As she hung back, a richly dressed couple emerged from a fiacre and headed inside L’Enfer, both giggling.

Wealthy Parisians, Cordelia thought, slumming it in a neighborhood famous for its poor artists, starving in their garret flats. Light from the gas torches on either side of the doors fell upon their faces as they entered the club, and Cordelia saw that the woman was deadly pale, with dark red lips.

Vampire. Of course Downworlders would be drawn to a place with a theme like this one. Cordelia understood what Matthew was doing: trying to give her the excitement of the Hell Ruelle, in a new place, without the weight of memories. And why not? What was she afraid of, when there was nothing left for her to lose?

Cordelia squared her shoulders. “Let’s go in.”

Inside, a staircase led sharply downward into a cavernous den lit by torches behind sconces of red glass, which gave the view a tinge of scarlet. The plaster walls were carved in the shapes of screaming faces, each one different, each one a mask of dread or agony or terror. Gilt ribbons hung from the ceiling, each bearing a line from Dante’s Inferno: from MIDWAY UPON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE, I FOUND MYSELF WITHIN A FOREST DARK to THERE IS NO GREATER SORROW THAN TO RECALL IN MISERY THE TIME WHEN WE WERE HAPPY.