Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Her dazed state continued even as the Shadowhunters reached them, which was probably how, while Ari walked alongside her mother, Anna had allowed herself to be seized by Eugenia. Dressed in gear and looking thrilled by all the excitement, she chattered continuously for the entire trip back through the Silent City. Anna liked Eugenia and normally enjoyed her gossiping, but she was trying to concentrate on navigating them all back to London successfully. Anna suspected she was only hearing every other sentence, which was giving her a rather patchwork sense of Eugenia’s report on the situation in Idris.

There was a great deal about how angry the Council had been when they’d realized Anna and the others had remained behind in London, which did not bother Anna, and that both Aunt Tessa and Uncle Will had cried when they realized that James and Lucie were trapped in London, which did. Apparently Sona had comforted them, and told them her children were also still in London, but it was because only they could defeat Belial; it was their hour to be warriors, and the hour for their parents to be strong for them. Oh, and Sona had had her baby, it seemed—“Right during the speech about warriors?” Anna was puzzled, but Eugenia, exasperated, said no, it had been the next day, and unrelated to the speech.

Anna missed a great deal of detail after that, because they were emerging from the Path of the Dead, along the narrow corridor between CROSSKILL and RAVENSCROFT. As they passed the Pavilion of Truth, Eugenia was telling her about how Uncle Will and Aunt Tessa had been tested by the Mortal Sword and found innocent of complicity with Belial, but that Jesse’s true identity had been revealed, which had added intensity to the Inquisitor’s insistence that the Herondales believed they were a law unto themselves and must be punished. Anna gathered that there had been a great deal of shouting after that among the Council in Idris, but she’d returned to focusing on finding the way out.

They were almost to the Wood Street exit when Eugenia said, “… and you wouldn’t believe what Charles did! Right in the middle of the Council meeting! Poor Mrs. Bridgestock,” Eugenia added, shaking her head. “Everyone is certain the Inquisitor won’t keep his job, not after Charles’s confession.”

“Confession?” Anna said sharply, startling Eugenia. “What did he say?”

“It was so terribly awkward,” said Eugenia. “No one wanted to look at the Inquisitor—”

“Eugenia. Please attempt to locate the point. What did Charles say?”

“He stood up at the council meeting,” Eugenia said. “I think someone else was still talking but he just spoke over them. He said very loudly that the Inquisitor had engaged in blackmail. Of him! Of Charles! It was part of an attempt to take control of the London Institute.”

Anna gave Eugenia a sidelong glance. “Did it happen to be revealed… what it was Charles was being blackmailed about?”

“Oh, yes,” Eugenia said. “He fancies men. As if that ought to matter, but I suppose it does to some people.” She sighed. “Poor Charles. Matthew always was the braver of the two of them, though no one could see it.”

Anna was stunned. She glanced back over her shoulder at Ari, who had clearly overheard; she looked just as surprised as Anna felt. She supposed they had both given up on the idea that Charles might at some point do the right thing. And yet—didn’t Anna believe that she herself had become a better person in the last months? Wasn’t it possible to change?

Up ahead of them Anna saw a flagstone floor, a familiar set of stone stairs leading up. She began to quicken her steps, hurrying toward the exit—somehow they’d all have to crawl out of the narrow hole in the tree trunk—when a soft plouf sound startled her. A sheet of parchment paper had appeared in the air; it drifted down into her hands.

A fire-message.

The paper felt warm to the touch as she unfolded it with a sense of amazement—it was one thing to hear that the fire-messages had worked, and another to see it happen for herself. She didn’t recognize the spiky handwriting but suspected it was Grace’s. She had written only a few lines:

Anna. The moment you return to London, come immediately to Westminster Abbey. Belial is here, and the Watchers have gathered. The battle has begun.



* * *



Cordelia had braced herself for a terrible trip through the Portal between worlds: a whirlwind of darkness stealing her breath, as it had been when Lilith had sent her through to Edom.

But it was far more ordinary; she was caught and carried through a brief darkness, as if on a current of air, before being deposited onto the familiar pavement of her beloved London. Of course, she thought, straightening up and looking around for Lucie and Matthew. This was how Belial himself traveled. It was a reminder how much more power he had in Edom than Lilith, now.

She saw Lucie first, gazing around at their surroundings. They had arrived in the deserted street, looking across at St. James’s Park. Shadows clustered thick under the trees, and the frozen hedgerows moved with something that was not wind. Cordelia shuddered and turned to look for Matthew: he was staring at his surroundings in horror.

“This,” he said in a strangled voice, “is what Belial’s done to London?”

Cordelia had nearly forgotten. Neither James nor Matthew had seen this dark version of London before. Neither had seen the abandoned carriages in the street, the dense, murky clouds that churned the air like foul water, the dead-looking sky ripped through with scarlet wounds of lightning.

“It’s been like this since you left,” said Cordelia. “The mundanes and Downworlders are all under some kind of enchantment. The streets have been mostly empty—except for the Watchers.”

Lucie was frowning. “Listen—do you hear that?”

Cordelia listened. Her hearing felt sharper, better than it had, and she realized with relief: her runes were working again. She could hear the surge of incipient thunder overhead, the sough of the wind, and over them, the unmistakable sound of battle—of human cries and the crash of metal striking metal.

She ran toward the noise, Matthew and Lucie beside her. They raced down Great George Street and turned onto Parliament Square. Before them rose the great cathedral of Westminster. Though Cordelia had never been inside, she knew its outlines from a thousand history books, photographs, and drawings: there was no mistaking the honeycombed front window, framed by thin Gothic towers and spires connected by soaring stone arches.

In front of the cathedral’s Great West Door, sprawling across the empty courtyard north of the Dean’s Yard Gatehouse, a battle was taking place. White-robed Watchers with their vicious black staffs battled back and forth with at least three dozen Shadowhunters. As they raced across the empty street, Cordelia searched the roiling crowd, her heart leaping as she saw the friends she and Lucie had left behind—Anna and Ari cutting through a knot of Watchers near the abbey entrance, Thomas and Alastair flanking a single Watcher by the fence—and there were Grace and Jesse near the gatehouse. Jesse was holding off a Watcher with the Blackthorn sword; as Cordelia watched, Grace reached into a large bag and threw something that exploded at the Watcher’s feet. Smoke and sparks occluded her view after that, but she heard Lucie mutter, “Oh, good work,” and thought, with some amazement—

They were all still alive. They were all still fighting. And not just them, but others—Eugenia, Piers, Rosamund, even Flora Bridgestock and Martin Wentworth. Whatever else had happened, their friends had made contact with the Clave. They had successfully led Shadowhunters to London to fight. It was nothing short of a miracle.

It would all be for nothing, of course, if Belial could wield the power he had claimed he would have in James’s body. If James could not be saved.

“But what are they doing?” Lucie wondered aloud as they drew closer to the battle. Cordelia understood her confusion. The Shadowhunters were clearly more precise fighters than the Watchers, but they were moving oddly, dancing around the Watchers rather than attacking head-on. Thomas swung a broadsword—not the blade edge, but the flat of it, knocking a Watcher to the ground. She craned her head to see what happened next, but the battle surged like a wave, blocking off her view.

“Let me see,” Matthew said, and began to clamber up the side of a tall granite pillar in the courtyard’s center—a war memorial. He peered out, shading his eyes with one hand, and shouted down to Lucie and Cordelia, but the wind had come up again and all Cordelia heard was the word “Chimeras.”

“Cordelia!” It was Alastair, who turned to start toward them then swung around as a Watcher made a beeline for Rosamund. She plunged a seraph blade into its chest, sending it staggering back; Alastair, behind it, whipped his shamshir in a cutting blow across the back of its neck, slicing away its hood.

The Watcher fell to its knees. Cordelia reached for Cortana, then stopped herself; it would do no good to summon Lilith now. She had to find Belial first. She was forced to do no more than stare as the Watcher shuddered, its body twisting as something with long, arachnoid legs began to emerge from the back of its neck.