Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“Spent some time in London,” acknowledged the bird-demon. “Back in the day. Ate a few Romans. Delicious, they were.”


“Yes, yes,” said Belial. “Everyone loves London. Tea, crumpets, Buckingham Palace. If we may return to the matter at hand, James—agree to be possessed by me, and I will send him back to your people unharmed.” He pointed at Matthew.

“No,” Matthew said. “I didn’t come here to abandon James to his fate. I came to save him from it.”

“Good for you,” said Belial, sounding bored. “James, you must know this is the best thing for everyone. I don’t want to have to resort to violence.”

“Of course you do,” James said. “You love resorting to violence.”

“That seems true,” said Matthew.

“I only agreed to come,” put in Stymphalia, “because I thought there might be violence.”

“The birdie and the drunk are right,” Belial allowed. “But let me point out—if you refuse, I lose nothing but a bit of time. If you accept, this is all over and both of you survive and go back to your world.”

“I don’t survive,” James said. “I let you take over my body, my consciousness. In every meaningful way, I’d be dead. And while I don’t care about my life, I care very much about what you’d do if you could freely roam Earth in my body.”

“Then you must choose, I suppose,” said Belial. “Your life, your parabatai’s life—or the world.”

“The world,” said Matthew, and James nodded in agreement.

“We are Nephilim,” he said. “Something you would not understand. Every day we risk ourselves in service of the lives of others; it is our duty to choose the world.”

“Duty,” said Belial dismissively. “I think you will find little satisfaction in duty when the screams of your parabatai are echoing in your ears.” He shrugged. “I’ve much to do in London to ready it, so I will give you one more day. I imagine you’ll see sense by then. If that one”—he looked at Matthew—“even survives the night, which I doubt.” He turned, dismissing them both. “All right, you worthless bird, we’re leaving.”

“Not just a bird. I have a life of the mind too, you know,” Stymphalia grumbled as Belial climbed back into the saddle. Sand rose in a dark cloud as Stymphalia’s wings beat the air. A moment later Belial and his demon rose into the red-orange sky. Both Matthew and James watched in silence as they flew past the towers of the dark Gard, rapidly vanishing into the distance.

“If it happens,” James said. “If Belial possesses me—”

“He won’t,” Matthew interrupted. His eyes were enormous in his thin face. “Jamie, it can’t—”

“Just listen,” James whispered. “If it happens, if he possesses me, and snuffs out my will, and my ability to think or speak—then, Matthew, you must be my voice.”



* * *



“Where are you going this time of night?” said Jessamine.

Lucie, in the middle of buttoning her gear jacket, glanced up to see Jessamine perched on top of her wardrobe, looking half-transparent as usual. She also looked worried, her usual insouciant manner muted. She didn’t seem to be asking Lucie where she was going just for the sake of bothering her. There was real worry in her voice.

“Just on a short trip,” Lucie said. “I won’t be gone long.”

She looked over at the small rucksack on her bed, which she’d packed with just what she’d thought was necessary. A warm compact blanket, her stele, bandages, a few flasks of water, and a packet of ship’s biscuit. (Will Herondale was convinced that ship’s biscuit was the greatest contribution the mundanes had made to the art of survival, and he always kept plenty of it in the Institute stores; for once it seemed they might actually make use of it.)

“I ought to stop you, you know,” Jessamine said. “I’m supposed to protect the Institute. It’s my job.” Her eyes were wide and fearful. “But it’s so dark in here now, and I know it’s the same outside. There are things walking in London that make even the dead afraid.”

“I know,” Lucie said. Jessamine was the same age as her parents, and yet death had trapped her in a sort of permanent youth; for the first time, Lucie felt almost older—protective, even—of the first ghost she’d ever known. “I’m going to do what I can to help. To help London.”

Jessamine’s pale hair drifted around her as she inclined her head. “If you must command the dead, I give you my permission.”

Lucie blinked in surprise, but Jessamine had already disappeared. Still, Lucie thought. A good sign, considering her plans for the evening.

Shouldering her rucksack, Lucie checked over her gear—gloves, boots, weapons belt—and headed down the hall. It was eerily dark, the only light coming from the dim tapers placed at intervals along the corridor.

She had meant to slip the note under Jesse’s door and leave, but in her imagination, the door had been closed. Instead it was propped slightly open. What if Jesse was awake? she thought. Could she justify simply leaving without a word?

She pushed the door open; his room was even darker than the corridor, lit only by a single candle. He was asleep on his narrow bed, the same bed where they’d kissed, what felt like decades ago.

Even now, he slept entirely without moving, turned slightly on his side, his dark hair surrounding his pale face like a reverse halo. In the past, she had watched him as he lay in his coffin and thought he looked as if he was asleep. She wondered now, as she drifted closer to the bed, how she could have been so mistaken: his body had been there, but his soul had not. Now it was, and even asleep he seemed both terribly alive and terribly fragile, the way all mortal creatures were fragile.

She felt a fierce protectiveness flood through her. I’m not just doing this for James, or Matthew, she thought, much as I love them. I’m doing this for you, too.

She slipped the note under his pillow, then bent to kiss his forehead lightly. He stirred but didn’t wake, even when she left the room.



* * *



Ari turned over restlessly in bed. She had not been able to sleep well since the night Belial had taken London. Perhaps it was ridiculous to even consider that, as if it were unusual, she thought, flipping over her pillow, which had grown unbearably hot. She doubted any of them had slept well since. How could they? They were reminded at every turn of the dire situation they were in: by the blackened sky, the abandoned carriages and motorcars in the middle of empty streets, the blank-faced, wandering mundanes.

She might normally have thrown open a window, despite the cold, just to get fresh air, but there was nothing fresh about the air outside. It was heavy and oppressive and tasted bitter as soot.

When they had first arrived at the Institute, she had felt lost. Surely it would be presumptuous to assume she and Anna would stay in the same room, and yet at the same time, it felt strange to imagine sleeping so apart from Anna. She was used to waking up in the morning to the sounds of Anna making tea or teaching Winston rude words. Used to finding embroidered waistcoats, frock coats, and velvet trousers thrown over every piece of furniture. Used to the faint perfumy fragrance of burning cheroots. A place without those things would not feel like home.

They had ended up, by accident or design, in rooms connected by an adjoining door. Ari had wondered in these last few dark days if Anna would make use of the door to come to her for comfort after Christopher’s death, but the door had remained firmly locked, and Ari lacked the nerve to break in on Anna’s grief.

Ari had not known Christopher well, but she mourned, of course, not just for him but for Anna. In her darkest moments she worried that even if they made it through their current situation, Anna would still never be the same again. Could she recover her laughter, her mischief, her rebellious joy, after her brother had died while she held him?

Ari had never known anyone to grieve so silently. She had not seen Anna shed a tear. She’d always thought Anna resembled a beautiful statue, with her fine features and balanced grace, but now it was as if Anna had truly turned to stone. She wasn’t completely immobilized—she had thrown herself into the plan to stay in London and defeat Belial as much as anyone. She and Ari had spent long hours together, not just boarding up the Institute but looking through old books in the library, too, searching for ways out of London that Belial might have overlooked. But any attempts Ari had made to deepen the conversation, or bring up Christopher or even family, were gently but firmly rebuffed.

Ari closed her eyes and tried counting. She got nearly to forty before she heard an odd, unfamiliar creaking noise. The door between her room and Anna’s was slowly cracking open.