Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Abruptly, a circular piece of the floor sank out of sight, forming what looked like a well. Rushing to the edge of it, Cordelia saw stairs leading down, and at the bottom of the stairs—light.

She started down the steps. The walls on either side were polished stone, engraved with more designs and words, but this time Cordelia could read them: they were not in a demonic language, but in Aramaic. And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’?”

“This must have been written here by the Shadowhunters,” said Lucie, following carefully after Cordelia. “I suppose because the stairs lead to—”

“A garden,” Cordelia said, for she had reached the foot of the steps, where a blank stone wall stood before them—but with another iron lever emerging from the wall at one side. She looked at Lucie, who shrugged. Cordelia pulled, and again the grinding of stone upon stone, and a portion of the wall rolled away, revealing a doorway. She ducked through it and found herself outside the fortress, in a walled garden—or what had once been a garden. It was withered and blackened now, studded with the stumps of dead trees, the dry, cracked ground covered in broken bits of black rock.

Standing in the middle of the ruined garden, looking filthy and half-starved but very definitely alive, was Matthew.



* * *



While Grace and Jesse remained in the library, sending fire-messages to every Institute on a very long list, Thomas had volunteered to join Alastair on the roof to keep watch. The roof gave them the best view over the widest area: they could see if Watchers were approaching or even—and Thomas knew this was a desperate hope—if the fire-messages had reached their target, and reinforcements of Shadowhunters might be arriving in London.

It was hard to have hope that anything would change. It was the earliest hours of the morning, and under normal circumstances, the sky would have started to lighten by now. But it looked exactly as it had for the past days—the sky a boiling black cauldron, the air full of the scent of ash and burning, the water of the Thames a lightless green-black. There weren’t even any Watchers to spot, for the moment.

Thomas leaned on his elbows next to Alastair, who wore an unreadable expression.

“It’s so odd to see the Thames without any boats,” Thomas said. “And no sounds of voices, no trains… it’s like the city is sleeping. Behind a hedge of thorns, like in a fairy tale.”

Alastair looked over at him. His eyes were dark and held a tenderness that was new. When Thomas thought of the night before, in the infirmary with Alastair, he blushed hard enough to feel it. He quickly went back to staring at London.

“I actually feel a bit hopeful,” said Alastair. “Is that mad?”

“Not necessarily,” said Thomas. “It could just be light-headedness, since we’re running out of food.”

Normally Alastair would have smiled at that, but his expression stayed serious, inward. “When I decided to stay in London,” he said, “it was partly because it seemed the right thing to do, not to take Belial’s offer. And partly because of Cordelia. But it was also that I didn’t want…”

“What?” said Thomas.

“To leave you,” Alastair said. Now Thomas did look at him. Alastair was leaning against the iron railing. Despite the cold, the top button of his shirt was undone. Thomas could see the wings of his collarbone, the hollow of his throat where Thomas had kissed him. Alastair’s hair, usually neat, was windblown, his cheeks flushed. Thomas wanted to touch him so badly, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“What you said to me in the library, when we were there with Christopher,” Thomas said. “It sounded a bit like poetry. What did it mean?”

Alastair’s eyes flicked toward the horizon. “‘Ey pesar, nik ze hadd mibebari kar-e jamal. Ba conin hosn ze to sabr konam?’ It is poetry. Or at least, a song. A Persian ghazal. Boy, your beauty is beyond all description. How can I wait, when you are so beautiful?” His mouth quirked up at the corner. “I always knew the words. I can’t remember when it fully struck me what they meant. It is men who sing ghazals, you know; it occurred to me only then that there were others who felt as I did. Men who wrote freely about how beautiful other men were, and that they loved them.”

Thomas tightened his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think anyone has ever thought I was beautiful, except for you.”

“That’s not true,” Alastair said decidedly. “You don’t see how people look at you. I do. It used to make me grind my teeth—I was so jealous—I thought surely you’d choose anyone in the world who wasn’t me.” He reached up, cupped a hand around the back of Thomas’s neck. He was biting at his lower lip, which made Thomas’s skin burn. He knew what it was like to kiss Alastair now. It wasn’t just a flight of imagination; it was real, and he wanted it again more than he would have thought possible. “If last night was just the once, tell me,” Alastair said in a low voice. “I’d rather know.”

Thomas yanked his hands out of his pockets. Taking hold of the lapels of Alastair’s coat, he pulled the other boy toward him. “You,” he said, brushing his lips against Alastair’s, “are so aggravating.”

“Oh?” Alastair looked up at Thomas through his lashes.

“You have to know I care about you,” Thomas said, and the movement of his lips against Alastair’s was making Alastair’s eyes darken. He felt Alastair’s hands burrowing under his coat, circling his waist. “You have to know—”

Alastair sighed. “That was the sort of thing Charles always said. ‘I care for you, I have feelings for you.’ Never just ‘I love you—’?” Alastair stiffened and jerked away, and for a moment Thomas thought it was because of him, but Alastair was staring past him, the expression on his face grim. “Look.” He moved down the roof, trying to get a better angle on whatever he’d spotted. He pointed. “There.”

Thomas looked, and his breath caught in his throat.

They were marching as an army might march, looking neither to the right nor the left, one single column of white-robed figures making its way steadily westward, toward the heart of London.

Alastair ran an agitated hand through his hair. “They’ve never done this before,” he said. “Usually they’re just aimlessly patrolling. I’ve never seen more than two or three together since—”

Thomas shivered. He had been warm, cuddled up with Alastair; now he was freezing. “Since the fight with Tatiana. I know. Where can they be going?”

“They’re under Belial’s command,” Alastair said levelly. “They can only be going where he’s commanded them to go.”

He and Thomas exchanged a look, before diving for the trapdoor that led back down into the Institute. They hurried to the library, where they found that Jesse had fallen asleep on the table, his cheek on a pile of blank papers, a modified stele in his hand. Beside him, Grace sat at the same table, scribbling fire-messages in the light from a single witchlight stone. She held her finger to her lips when she saw them approaching. “Jesse’s just taking a nap,” she said. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her pale hair hung limply. “We’ve been at this all night.”

“The Watchers are on the move,” Thomas said, keeping his voice low. “A lot of them, maybe all of them. They were making their way down the Strand, all going the same direction.”

“As if they’ve been summoned,” said Alastair, checking his weapons belt as he spoke. “Thomas and I will go see what’s going on.”

Grace set her stele down. “Is that wise? Just the two of you?”

Thomas exchanged a look with Alastair. Alastair said carefully, “We don’t have much choice—”

“Wait,” Jesse said, sitting up. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes. “I…” He yawned. “Sorry. I just thought—what if the fire-messages worked? If the Clave found the entrance to the Iron Tombs, and made it to London, the Watchers could be marching to battle with them.” He looked at Thomas’s and Alastair’s dubious expressions. “We’ve never seen them in a large group like this, and what’s changed since yesterday? Only that we’ve sent fire-messages out. What else could it be?”

“It could be the fire-messages,” said Alastair slowly. “Or it might be that Belial… has gotten what he wanted.”

James. Thomas felt the suggestion like a punch to the stomach. “I thought you were feeling optimistic.”

“It passed,” said Alastair.

“Well, whatever it is,” said Jesse, standing up, “we’re going with you to find out.”

“No,” said Alastair flatly. “You’re not trained enough.”