Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“But you said we would always be friends!” protested Secret Princess Lucie. “That we would be princesses together!”


“I have decided that rather than being princesses together, it is preferable that I be a queen and you be a prisoner in my deepest dungeon, below the castle moat. You, Sir Jethro, take her away!”

“You will pay for this!” cried Secret Princess Lucie, but she knew in her heart that the wicked Queen Cordelia had won.



Cordelia made a muffled noise. Lucie, her eyes huge, clasped her hands together. “I am so dreadfully sorry,” she said. “It was utterly wrong of me to think any of those things, much less write them down—”

Cordelia clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. A giggle burst from her, and then another. Her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, she hiccuped, “Oh, Lucie—I have never—read anything so funny—”

“Really?” Lucie looked amazed.

“I do have to ask something,” Cordelia said, tapping the page with her finger. “Why are my, er, the Wicked Queen’s bosoms so enormous?”

“Well they are,” Lucie explained. “Not like me. I look like a little boy. I always wanted to have a figure like yours, Daisy.”

“And I,” said Cordelia, “always wanted to be dainty and delicate like you, Luce.” She started to giggle again. “The International Council of Sword Experts?”

“I’m sure they exist,” Lucie said, starting to smile. “And if they don’t, they ought to.” She held her hand out. “I suppose you might as well give it back now.”

Cordelia whipped the notebook away. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “I am simply dying to find out what happens to Princess Lucie in the dungeon. Should I read aloud? Will there be another mention of my bosoms?”

“Several,” Lucie admitted, and for the first time in many long centuries, under the harsh glow of three moons, the sound of simple human laughter drifted across the plains of Edom.



* * *



Thomas came back to himself slowly. He was lying on a crisp, white-sheeted bed, and the familiar scent of herbs and carbolic hung in the air. The infirmary of the Institute—he knew it well, and for a disconnected, dreamlike moment, he wondered: Is my leg broken?

But that had been years ago. He’d been a child, still small and even a bit sickly, and had fallen out of an apple tree. He and James had played cards every night in the Institute infirmary while he’d healed. It seemed like a distant dream now, of a more innocent time, when the horrors of the present would have been unimaginable, and the loss of James and Matthew more unimaginable still.

They’re not dead, he reminded himself, starting to turn over, the blankets rustling around his feet. Then he heard it. A deep, steady voice, rising and falling—Alastair Carstairs, reading aloud. He was sitting beside Thomas’s bed, his eyes fixed on a leather-bound volume in his hands. Thomas closed his eyes, the better to savor the sound of Alastair reading.

“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.

“Have you?”

“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But, since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”

“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered.



The book snapped shut. “This is dull,” Alastair said, sounding weary. “And I doubt you are appreciating it, Thomas, since you are asleep. But my sister has always insisted that there is nothing better for the ill than being read to.”

I’m not ill, Thomas thought, but he kept his eyes closed.

“Perhaps I ought to tell you what’s happened today since you’ve been laid up here,” Alastair continued. “Anna and Ari found the entrance to the Silent City. I know because they sent Matthew’s blasted hound back with a note to let us know. And speaking of notes, Grace and Jesse managed to get Christopher’s project to work. They’re in the library now, sending dozens of the things to Alicante. We can only hope they arrive—it’s one thing sending them within London, and another trying to break through the barriers around the city.” He sighed. “Remember the one you sent me? The one that was mostly nonsense? I spent hours trying to piece it together, you know. I was desperate to know what you wanted to say to me.”

Thomas stayed as motionless as he could, keeping his breathing steady and regular. He knew he ought to open his eyes, tell Alastair he was awake, but he couldn’t make himself do it. The raw honesty in Alastair’s voice was something he had never heard before.

“You scared me today,” Alastair said. “At the train station. The first iratze I put on you—it faded.” His voice shook. “And I thought—what if I lost you? Really lost you? And I realized all the things I’ve been afraid of all this time—what your friends would think, what it would mean for me to stay in London—mean nothing next to what I feel for you.” Thomas felt something brush his forehead gently. Alastair, pushing back a lock of his hair. “I heard what my mother said to you,” Alastair added. “Before the Christmas party. And I heard what you said back—that you wish I would treat myself as I deserve to be treated. The thing is, that’s exactly what I was doing. I was denying myself the thing I wanted more than anything else in the world because I didn’t believe I deserved it.”

Thomas could stand it no longer. He opened his eyes and saw Alastair—tired, rumple-haired, shadow-eyed—staring down at him. “Deserved what?” Thomas whispered.

“Deserved you,” Alastair said, and shook his head. “Of course—of course you were pretending to be asleep—”

“Would you have said all those things if I was awake?” Thomas said roughly, and Alastair set down the book he’d been holding and said, “You don’t have to say anything back, Thomas. I know what I hope for. I hope against hope that you could possibly feel anything like what I feel for you. It is almost impossible to imagine anyone feeling that way about me, given who I am. But I hope. Not only because I wish to have what I desire. Although I do desire you,” he added in a quieter voice. “I desire you with an ardor that frightens me.”

Thomas said, “Come lie down next to me.”

Alastair hesitated. Then he bent down to unlace his boots. A moment later Thomas felt the bed sink, and the warm weight of Alastair’s body settle next to him. “Are you all right?” Alastair said quietly, looking into his face. “Does anything hurt?”

“Only that I’m not kissing you right now,” Thomas said. “Alastair, I love you—but you know that—”

Alastair kissed him. It was awkward to maneuver on the small bed, and their knees and elbows knocked together, but Thomas didn’t mind. He only wanted Alastair close to him, Alastair’s mouth hot and soft against his, lips parting so he could whisper, “I didn’t know it—I hoped, but I wasn’t sure—”

“Kheli asheghetam,” Thomas whispered, and heard Alastair suck in his breath. “I love you. Let me love you,” he said, and when Alastair kissed him again, a hard, hot, openmouthed kiss, Thomas lost himself in it, in the way Alastair touched him. In the way Alastair moved with careful surety, unbuttoning Thomas’s shirt with deft fingers. In the way, once Thomas’s shirt had been gotten rid of, Alastair stroked him with gentle fingers, his gaze sleepy and desiring and slow. He brushed touches along Thomas’s wrists, up his arms, across his shoulders, opening his palms against Thomas’s chest. Sliding his open palms down, until Thomas was going out of his mind, wanting more than gentle brushes of lips and fingers.

He buried his hands in Alastair’s hair. “Oh, please,” he said, incoherently, “now, now.”

Alastair laughed softly. He drew off his own shirt, and then he was lowering himself over Thomas, bare skin against bare skin, and Thomas’s whole being seemed to rise up in a tightening spiral, and Alastair was shaking as Thomas touched him back, shaking because it was now, just as Thomas had asked for, and now was a moment so immense, so profound in its pleasure and joy, that both of them forgot the shadows and peril, the grief and darkness that surrounded them. They would remember in time, and soon enough, but for the moment of now, there was only each other, and the brightness they wove between them on the narrow infirmary bed.



* * *



When Cordelia awoke the next morning, the dim sun of Edom was filtering into their hiding spot. She had fallen asleep with one hand on Cortana; she sat up slowly now, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and looked at Lucie.

Lucie was curled up in her blanket, her eyes closed, her face pale. Cordelia had woken several times in the night to find Lucie tossing and turning restlessly, sometimes crying out in distress. Even in sleep, the weight of Edom bore down on her.