Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Lilith was looking at Lucie now, the serpents of her eyes licking the air with lazy tongues. “And I see you brought a friend. Was that wise?”


Lucie glared. “I am not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” Lilith said. She turned back to Cordelia. “And you. You have waited rather too long, paladin. Belial is close to the completion of his plan. I will have no use for you then, and I will not be pleased about it. Besides, I’m not going to send you out of London now. This is where Belial will come, when he is ready.”

“I didn’t call on you because I want to leave London,” Cordelia began. “I—”

“You called me because Belial has taken your lovers from you,” Lilith sneered.

Cordelia gritted her teeth. “James is my husband, and Matthew is my friend. I want them rescued. I am willing to be your paladin—I am willing to fight in your name, if you will bring them back from Edom.”

Lilith’s smile flickered. “I could not go to Edom even if I wanted to. They are beyond my reach. As I said, you waited too long—”

“Perhaps you cannot set foot in Edom,” said Cordelia. “But you could send me there.”

“Are you trying to negotiate?” Lilith sounded amused. “Oh, paladin. The knight does not ‘negotiate’ with her liege. The knight is the liege’s will made flesh. Nothing more or less.”

“Wrong.” Cordelia raised Cortana in her hand. It seemed to blaze, a torch against the night. “I am more. And you are not as powerful as you think. You are bound, Mother of Demons. Bound and trapped.”

Lilith laughed aloud. “Do you really think I would be so foolish as to allow myself to be bound? Look around us, child. I see no pentagram. I see no circle of salt. Only a bare ground of dirt and rock. What power would bind me?”

Cordelia looked at Lucie, who took a deep breath.

“Rise,” Lucie said. “I do not command, only ask. Rise.”

They shot upward from the ground, beams of silvery light that resolved themselves into translucent human figures. Dozens of them, until Cordelia felt as if she stood among a forest of lighted trees.

They were the ghosts of young women—young and shabbily dressed, with sad, empty eyes, though whether that was because of their lives or their deaths, Cordelia could not have said. There were a few transparent men scattered through the crowd as well, most of them also young. They stood with spectral hands linked, forming long lines that intersected and bisected each other to create the shape of a pentagram. In the center of the pentagram stood Cordelia—and Lilith.

“These ghosts are loyal to me,” said Lucie. She had positioned herself a few steps outside the pentagram. Cordelia could see the illuminated figures of the ghosts of Cross Bones, reflected in Lucie’s eyes. “They will remain in this pentagram formation as long as I ask. Even if I leave, you will be trapped here.”

With a hiss, Lilith spun and struck out at the nearest ghost—but her hand passed through the spirit with only a crackle of energy. Her face twisted as fangs snapped from her mouth, her hair turning to a sleek fall of scales. Her silver slippers had dropped away; from beneath the hem of her gown a thick coil, a serpent’s tail, protruded. “If you do not release me,” she hissed, “I will tear Cordelia Carstairs limb from limb and shatter her bones while she screams. Do not think I cannot do it.”

Lucie paled but stood her ground. Cordelia had warned her that this was what Lilith would say; she had not also said that there was every chance Lilith would do as she threatened. Lucie was safe outside the pentagram, and beyond that Cordelia did not care: this had to work. For James, for Matthew. It had to.

“I don’t think you’ll kill me,” Cordelia said calmly. “I think you’re cleverer than that. I am your paladin and the bearer of the blade Cortana. I am the only one who can give Belial his third wound and end him. I am the only one who can get your realm back for you.”

“You are still negotiating.” Lilith’s fangs sank into her own lower lip; blood dripped down her chin. “You say you want to kill Belial—”

“I want to save James and Matthew,” Cordelia said. “I am prepared to kill Belial. I have the will and the weapon. Send us to Edom. Myself and Lucie. Send us to Edom, and I will reclaim it for you by dispatching Belial. Before he takes London. Before he takes James. Before he is unstoppable.”

“That’s all you want? A chance to save your friends?” Lilith said, her voice thick with contempt.

“No. I want an agreement that when Belial is dead by my sword, you will release me from your service. I will no longer be your paladin. And I want your word that you will not harm me or my loved ones.”

The snakes had vanished; Lilith’s eyes were flat and black, as they had looked in the mural. “You ask a great deal.”

“You will get a great deal in return,” Cordelia said. “You will get a whole world.”

Lilith seemed to hesitate. “Your friends are still alive in Edom,” she said. “They are being held in Idumea. The great capital of Edom, where my palace stands.”

Idumea. The city that had once been Alicante, in that other world, where Shadowhunters had lost the battle against demons a thousand years ago. Where Lilith had ruled, until Belial came.

“I cannot get you all the way there,” Lilith said. “Belial has strengthened many parts of Edom against me. But I can get you close. After that…” She bared her fangs. “Once you are in Edom, you will be outside both my protection and the protection of your Angel. I cannot act there while Belial rules it. And your Nephilim Marks will fade as quickly as they are drawn. Cortana you may have, but Edom is not a welcoming place for humans. No plants grow, and any water you might find will be poisonous to you. You cannot travel at night—you will have to seek shelter once the moons rise, or die in the dark.”

“Sounds lovely,” Lucie muttered. “I can see why you’re so desperate to get back there.”

“Once we are in Edom,” said Cordelia, “once we have James and Matthew—how do we return to London?”

“There is a Gard in Idumea, a dark reflection of your Gard here. It was mine, but Belial made it his stronghold during his usurpation of my realm. Within the Gard is a Portal, a Portal I myself made. You may pass through that to this world.”

It was folly to trust Lilith, Cordelia knew. And yet Lilith would want them to succeed and to return, because Lilith wanted Belial’s death more than anything else in any world.

“Then we have an agreement,” said Cordelia. “But first you must swear to it. Swear that you will send us to Edom safely. Swear that if Belial dies by my blade, you will free me from my paladin’s oath. Swear on Lucifer’s name.”

Lilith flinched. She flinched, but she swore, on the name of Lucifer, Cordelia listening very carefully to each of her words to make sure that Lilith was swearing to exactly what she had asked for. No one cared about exactitude of language more than demons; Cordelia had learned that with her paladin’s oath, and she would not be tricked again.

When she was done, Lilith grinned, a ghastly snake’s grin. “It is done,” she said. “Remove the pentagram.”

“No,” Lucie said firmly. She turned to the ghosts. “When I have passed through the Portal, you may disperse and free the demon. But not before I am gone.”

Lilith snarled at that but raised her hands, spreading them wide, her fingers seeming to reach out to touch Lucie and Cordelia.

Darkness poured from her hands. Cordelia could not help but think of the shadows that had swallowed James and Matthew, as the blackness curled around her and Lucie, cutting off her vision and her breath. She slammed Cortana back into its scabbard as she felt herself caught and spun upward and outward, Lilith’s laughter echoing in her ears. She saw the glow of three strange moons in the sky as a searing, dry wind lifted her, twisting her body until it seemed as if her spine would snap.

She cried out for Lucie—and then she was falling, falling through a hot, choking darkness, the salt taste of blood in her mouth.



* * *



Jesse shoved his bedroom door open. He had left the candles burning; in fact, he had left the whole room a mess. And he was a mess himself, come to that: his shirt was buttoned incorrectly, and his shoes didn’t match.

He had bolted out of the room the moment he’d read Lucie’s note. He had no idea how long it had been since she’d left it, though he felt as if he’d barely slept—surely it couldn’t have been more than half an hour before he’d rolled over and the crinkle of Lucie’s note had awakened him.

He barely remembered throwing on clothes and rushing out into the street. He was halfway across the snowy courtyard when he recalled: he was a Shadowhunter. He could do better than racing into the night with no map and no plan. With Lucie’s gold comb in hand, he drew a Tracking rune on the back of his hand and waited.

And felt nothing.