Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“These are not mine,” he said, looking at the Voyance and enkeli runes. “They belong to dead people—people Belial murdered, using my hands to do it. I always wanted runes, since I was a child, but now I feel as if I am wearing the marks of their death on my body.”


“Jesse. It’s not your fault. None of it was your fault.” She took his face between her hands, forced him to look directly at her. “Listen to me. I can only imagine how awful it must feel. But you had no control over any of it. And—and when we get back to London, I’m sure the runes can be removed, and you could have new runes put on, ones that would be yours, that you chose.” She tilted her head back. Their faces were inches apart. “I know what it is like, to be gifted by Belial with something you did not ask for, did not want.”

“Lucie—that’s different—”

“It’s not,” she whispered. “You and I, we are alike in that way. And I only hope—that I can always be as brave as you have been, bear up as well as you have—”

He kissed her. She gave a little gasp against his mouth, and her hands slipped down to his shoulders, clutching at him. They had kissed before, at the Shadow Market. But this was something else entirely. It was like the difference between having someone describe a color to you and finally seeing it yourself.

His hands slid into her hair, tangling in the thick strands; she could feel his body change as he held her, feel the tightening in his muscles, the heat blooming between them. She opened her mouth to him, feeling wild, almost shocked at her own lack of restraint. He tasted of cider and honey—his hands moved downward, cupping the wings of her shoulder blades, following the arch of her back. She could feel the racing beat of his heart as he rocked her against him, hear the deep groan low in his throat. He was shaking, whispering against her mouth that she felt perfectly perfect, perfectly alive, saying her name: “Lucie, Lucie.”

She felt dizzy, as though she were falling. Falling through darkness. Like the visions, or dreams, she’d had in her half-consciousness in bed. It felt like it did when she had raised him, like she was losing herself, like she was losing anything that connected her to the real world at all.

“Oh—” She drew away, disoriented and blinking. She met his blazing green eyes, saw the desire darkening his gaze. “Bother,” she said.

Flushed, and very disheveled, he said, “Are you all right?”

“I was just dizzy for a moment—probably still a bit wobbly and tired,” she said disconsolately. “Which is dreadful, because I was enjoying the kissing a great deal.”

Jesse inhaled sharply. He looked dazed, as if he’d just been shaken awake. “Don’t say things like that. It makes me want to kiss you again. And I probably shouldn’t, if you’re—wobbly.”

“Maybe if you just kissed my neck,” she suggested, looking up at him through her lashes.

“Lucie.” He took a shuddering breath, kissed her cheek, and stepped back. “I promise you,” he said, “I would have a difficult time stopping there. Which means I am going to now pick up a poker and respectably tend to the fire.”

“And if I try to kiss you again, you’ll hit me with the poker?” She smiled.

“Not at all. I will do the gentlemanly thing, and hit myself with the poker, and you can explain the resultant carnage to Malcolm when he returns.”

“I don’t think Malcolm is going to want to stay here that much longer.” Lucie sighed, watching the sparks leap up in the grate, dancing motes of gold and red. “He will have to return to London at some point. He is the High Warlock.”

“Lucie,” Jesse said softly. He turned to watch the fire for a moment. Its light danced in his eyes. “What is our plan for the future? We will have to go back to the world.”

Lucie thought about it. “I suppose if Malcolm throws us out, we can go on the road and be highwaymen. We will only rob the cruel and unjust, of course.”

Jesse smiled reluctantly. “Unfortunately, I hear there has been a tragic reduction in the ability of highwaymen to ply their trade due to the increasing popularity of the automobile.”

“Then we shall join the circus,” Lucie suggested.

“Regrettably, I have a terror of clowns and broad stripes.”

“Then we shall hop aboard a steamer bound for Europe,” Lucie said, suddenly quite enthusiastic about the idea, “and become itinerant musicians on the Continent.”

“I cannot carry a tune,” Jesse said. “Lucie—”

“What is it you think we ought to do?”

He took a deep breath. “I think you should return to London without me.”

Lucie took a step back. “No. I won’t do that. I—”

“You have a family, Lucie. One that loves you. They will never accept me—it would be madness to imagine it, and even if they did—” He shook his head in frustration. “Even if they did, how would they explain me to the Enclave without bringing trouble down on themselves? I don’t want to take them away from you. You must return to them. Tell them whatever you need to, make up a story, anything. I will stay away from you so that no blame accrues to you for what you have done.”

“What I have done?” she echoed, in a near whisper. She had thought, of course, so terribly often of the horror her friends and family would feel if they knew the extent of her power. Knew that she could not just see ghosts, but control them. That she had commanded Jesse to come back, back from the shadowy in-between place where Tatiana had trapped him. That she had dragged him back, over the threshold between life and death, thrust him back into the bright world of the living. Because she had willed it.

She had feared what they would think; she had not thought Jesse would fear it too.

She spoke stiffly. “I am the one who brought you back. I have a responsibility to you. You can’t just stay here and—and be a fisherman in Cornwall—and never see Grace again! I am not the only one with family.”

“I have thought of that, and of course I will see Grace. I will write to her, first, as soon as it is safe. I spoke to Malcolm. He thinks my best course of action would be to Portal to a faraway Institute and present myself as a Shadowhunter there, where no one knows my face or my family.”

Lucie stopped short. She had not realized Malcolm and Jesse had been talking about plans, about her, while she was not there. She did not much like the idea. “Jesse, that’s ridiculous. I do not want you to live a life of such—such exile.”

“But it is a life,” he said. “Thanks to you.”

She shook her head. “I did not bring you back from the dead so that—” So that you could go away from me, she almost said, but cut herself off. She had heard a noise—something at the front door. She and Jesse looked at each other in consternation. “Who could it be?” she whispered.

“Probably nothing. A villager, perhaps, looking for Malcolm. I’ll answer it.”

But he seized up the poker from where he’d left it and stalked out of the room. Lucie hurried after him, wondering what it was that made the Blackthorns so fond of using fireplace tools as weapons.

Before he could reach the door, she stepped in front of him, her instinct always to protect Jesse even if he didn’t need protection. She jostled him out of the way and threw the front door open. She stared, halfway between horror and relief, at the three figures on the doorstep, wrapped in winter coats, flushed from the cold and the long walk up the hill.

Her brother. Her father. And Magnus Bane.



* * *



Cordelia dreamed that she stood upon a great chessboard that stretched out infinitely beneath an equally infinite night sky. Stars spangled the blackness like a scatter of diamonds. As she watched, her father staggered out upon the board, his coat torn and bloody. As he fell to his knees, she raced toward him, but as fast as she might run, she seemed to conquer no distance. The board still stretched between them, even as he sank to his knees, blood pooling around him on the black-and-white board.

“Baba! Baba!” she cried. “Daddy, please!”

But the board spun away from her. Suddenly she stood in the drawing room at Curzon Street, light from the fire spilling over the chess set she and James had played upon so often. James himself stood by the fire, his hand upon the mantel. He turned to look at her, achingly beautiful in the firelight, his eyes the color of molten gold.

In those eyes was no recognition at all. “Who are you?” he said. “Where is Grace?”

Cordelia woke gasping, her covers tangled tightly around her. She fought her way free, almost retching, her fingers digging into her pillow. She longed for her mother, for Alastair. For Lucie. She buried her face in her arms, her body shaking.

The door to her bedroom swung open, and bright light spilled into the room. Framed in the light was Matthew, wearing a dressing gown, his hair a wild tangle. “I heard screaming,” he said urgently. “What happened?”