Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“I know you miss them as much as I do,” she said.

Cordelia put her head on Lucie’s shoulder. Jesse looked at them both, then quietly slipped from the room, closing the door behind him.

“Do you think we can do it?” Cordelia whispered, into the shadowy dark.

“I have to believe we can,” Lucie said. “I have to.”



* * *



Morning was as dark as night. Sona took Cordelia’s hand. “You are grieving,” she said, “but you are a warrior. You have always been a warrior.” She looked over at Alastair, who stood by the window, gazing out at the blackened sky. “You will help her to do what is necessary.”

“Yes,” Alastair said. “I will.”





27 CLOUDS OF DARKNESS




Horror covers all the sky,

Clouds of darkness blot the moon,

Prepare! for mortal thou must die,

Prepare to yield thy soul up soon.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ghasta or, the Avenging Demon!!!”



Belial had given them thirty-six hours; that was thirty-four hours ago. And now Cordelia walked through the cold, dark morning, part of a somber procession of Shadowhunters marching toward the gate that would take them away from London, perhaps forever.

Lucie was nearby, with Jesse, and Alastair accompanied Sona, who was resting in a Bath chair pushed by Risa. Cordelia could see others she knew in the crowd: Anna, her back arrow-straight; Ari, carrying Winston in a cage. Eugenia. Grace, alone and silent, limping slightly—she had refused healing runes for her injured feet. Thomas, who had Oscar on a leash. They were all together, yet Cordelia felt as though each of them made this walk alone, isolated from one another by their sorrow and their worry.

As they neared their destination, more Shadowhunters joined the procession. Mostly families, sticking close together. Cordelia felt a dull horror in her stomach. These were the Angel’s chosen warriors, the ones who stood against the dark. She had never imagined that they could be driven from their own city with only the belongings they could carry.

The procession moved in silence, and part of that silence, Cordelia knew, was shame. Once it had been confirmed that Belial was telling the truth—that a wall of magic encircled the borders of the city and could not be crossed, and London was under his complete control—the Enclave had folded like a pack of cards. London was only one city, the older Shadowhunters argued. To stay and fight without the hope of reinforcements, against an enemy whose powers were unknown, was foolish: better to go to Idris, to rally the Clave and try to find a solution.

No solution, Cordelia was sure, began with doing exactly what a Prince of Hell told you to.

Which was what she and her friends had said. Every one of them had protested, and been ignored. They were too young—they had romantic dreams of glory—they did not understand the danger, they were told. Even Charles had spoken up but was outnumbered. Every adult they would have had on their side—the Herondales, the Lightwoods, the Consul—was in Idris now, Cordelia thought bitterly. Belial had planned well.

As though knowing her thoughts, Lucie murmured, “I can’t believe they wouldn’t stay.”

“They wouldn’t even consider it.” Cordelia still felt a bite of anger within her. “But,” she added, “at least we have a plan.”

They were passing St. Clement’s church, then turning en masse down Arundel Street toward the Thames. After only a day and a half, Cordelia was still shocked by London’s transformation. It was morning, and yet the sky was black with roiling clouds, as it always was now. The only real illumination came from the horizon, where (as a few who had ridden to the outskirts of the city had reported) a dull white glow emanated from the wall of demonic wards that encircled the city.

All around them were the city’s mundanes, as always, but they too had been transformed. Mundanes in London always moved urgently when they were out on the street, like they all had important appointments to keep; now there was something eerie and manic about their hurrying. They performed their usual actions without thought, without change. By Temple Station there was a newspaper stand, stacked with papers already beginning to yellow at the edges. The headlines blared the news from two days past. As Cordelia watched, a man in a bowler hat picked one up and held out an empty hand to the vendor, who pretended to count out change. On the other side of the station entrance, a woman stood in front of the darkened, empty windows of a shuttered boutique. As Cordelia passed, she could hear the woman repeating over and over, “Oh my! How delightful! How delightful! Oh, my, my!”

A little way behind that woman, the white-robed figure of a Chimera-possessed Silent Brother glided through the shadows. Cordelia looked away quickly. How strange to feel terror at the sight of a Silent Brother, those who were meant to protect her, to heal her.

Oscar strained against his leash, growling softly.

Cordelia was glad when they reached the Embankment, the fog and the darkness blotting out everything beyond the river wall so that only the lap of water gave any indication that the Thames was there at all. Waterloo Bridge loomed faintly above them, and then they were passing through the entrance to the Embankment Gardens and along a path bordered by bare, wintry trees to an open area of neat lawn, where most of the Enclave had already gathered.

In the center of the lawn, looking bizarrely out of place, was a peculiar structure: an arched gate surrounded by Italianate pillars. Alastair had looked it up; it had been the water entrance to a grand mansion before London built out the Embankment, stranding the gate 150 yards from the river itself, in the middle of the park. There seemed no connection between the York Gate and Belial or anything demonic; Cordelia thought it was just Belial’s sense of humor, sending them through a set of doors that led from nowhere to nowhere.

Cordelia could see nothing through the archway, only shadow. A crowd surrounded the water gate: there was Rosamund, with a tremendous trunk of clothes that had been set on a wheeled stand by which she dragged it. Behind her was Thoby, who somehow was pulling an even larger trunk. Martin Wentworth, stone-faced, held a tortoise in a glass cage with surprising gentleness, and Esme Hardcastle was juggling a half-dozen folders stuffed with papers. As Cordelia watched, a gust of wind blew some of the papers out of place, and Esme danced around in a panic, retrieving them. Augustus Pounceby watched her silently—for his part, he had decided to bring armfuls of weapons, though Cordelia could not imagine why. He was going to Idris, where they had plenty of weapons already.

Then Cordelia caught sight of Piers Wentworth and Catherine Townsend. Someone else was carrying their belongings; they instead accompanied a rolling bier on which lay the body of Christopher, sewn into his shroud. Only his head was visible, his eyes bound in white silk.

If any of the Enclave found it odd that Thomas, Anna, and their friends had declined to act as pallbearers, they did not say so. If they noticed at all, they would likely think it to be a silent declaration of protest against abandoning London.

In a way, it was.

Oscar barked. Thomas knelt to hush him, but he barked again, his body rigid, eyes fixed on the gate. The shadow beneath the archway had begun to move—it seemed to shimmer, the darkness streaked with lines of color. There were murmurs all around Cordelia as slowly a view took shape through the arch: a wintry meadow, mountains rising in the distance.

Any Shadowhunter would recognize those mountains. They were looking at the border of Idris.

This was their way out, their escape from Belial. Yet nobody moved. It was as if they had all just realized who they were trusting to bring them safely through this Portal to the other side. Even Martin Wentworth, the strongest proponent of leaving London, was hesitating.

“I’ll go,” Charles said, into the silence. “And I’ll signal from the other side if—if everything’s all right.”

“Charles,” Grace protested, but it was half-hearted; wasn’t passing through the gate what they were all here for? And Charles was already striding forward, his back straight. Cordelia realized Charles was carrying nothing—he had brought no belongings with him from London, as if there was nothing he cared about enough to mind its loss—as he approached the York Gate and ducked through the Portal.

He vanished for a moment, before reappearing on the other side, in the middle of the frosted landscape. He turned around, staring back where he’d come from. Though it was clear he could no longer see the Portal, or the Shadowhunters waiting on the other side, he raised one hand solemnly, as if to say, It’s safe. Come through.