Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Alastair had indeed come to dinner and charmed them all, and it had led to many other dinners—delicious Persian dinners at the Carstairs’, and even dinner at the Bridgestocks’, with all the families gathered. Now that Maurice was gone, Flora had found a new delight in entertaining, and Thomas was pleased to see Anna so happy—so loving with Ari, and so free with her laughter and smiles, as she had not been since she was a child. In fact, he and Alastair would be looking after Winston the parrot while Ari, Flora, and Anna went to India to visit the places Ari had lived as a child and seek out her grandmother’s relatives, her aunts and uncles.

Alastair had already taught Winston some rude words in Persian and planned to continue his education in the same vein. Thomas had not bothered to try to stop him; he liked to think at this point he knew which battles were worth the trouble.

Oscar had rolled onto his back and was panting, his pink tongue lolling. Alastair scratched his stomach thoughtfully. “Do you think we should get Zachary a dog? He might like a dog.”

“I think we should get him a dog in six years,” said Thomas, “when he is at least able to say the word ‘dog,’ and perhaps feed and pet the creature. Otherwise it will not be his dog so much as your mother’s, and she already has a baby to look after.”

Alastair looked thoughtfully at Thomas. Thomas’s heart skipped, as it always did when he felt himself the sole object of Alastair’s attention. “I suppose it will fall to Zachary to carry on the family name,” he said. “Most likely, anyway.”

Thomas knew Anna and Ari were planning to adopt a child—there were always children needing adoption among Nephilim—but he had not thought about children for himself and Alastair, save as a hazy future question. For the moment, Zachary was enough. “Do you mind?” he asked.

“Mind?” Alastair smiled, his teeth flashing white against his summer-darkened skin. “My Thomas,” he said, taking Thomas’s face between his long, delicate, beautiful hands, “I am perfectly happy with everything—exactly the way that it is.”



* * *



“James,” Anna said imperiously, “it is beyond the bounds of ungentlemanly behavior to passionately kiss your wife in public. Do stop, and come help me set up the croquet.”

James glanced up lazily. Cordelia’s hair had come down as predicted, and he still had his fingers looped in the long crimson strands of it. “I haven’t the faintest idea how to play croquet,” he said.

“I only know what I’ve read in Alice in Wonderland,” said Cordelia.

“Ah,” said James. “Flamingos, then, and—hedgehogs?”

Anna put her hands on her hips. “We have croquet balls, mallets, and hoops. We will have to improvise from there. My apologies, Cordelia, but…”

Cordelia knew better than to try to dissuade Anna when she was set on something. She waved as James was dragged away to where Ari was trying to catch a runaway painted ball, and Grace was holding a croquet hoop with a puzzled expression.

A gleam of gold down by the river’s edge caught her eye. Matthew had gone to the bank of the Serpentine and was watching the slow run of the water under the pale June sunlight. He had his hands behind his back; Cordelia could not see his expression, but she knew Matthew well enough to read his body language. She knew he was thinking of Christopher.

The thought was a pang; she rose to her feet and made her way across the cropped grass to where Matthew stood at the riverside. Ducks pecked impatiently among the rushes, and children’s toy boats bobbed brightly on the water. She could sense that Matthew knew she was there, beside him, though he did not speak. She wondered if looking at the river reminded him of Christopher, as it did James; James often spoke of dreams in which he saw Christopher standing on the other side of a wide riverbank, a great band of silver water before him, waiting patiently for his friends to join him one day.

“We will miss you, you know,” Cordelia said. “All of us will miss you very much.”

He bent down to pick up a smooth stone and eyed it, clearly considering skipping it across the water. “Even Alastair?”

“Even Alastair. Not that he will admit it.” She paused a moment, wanting very much to say something, not sure if she should. “It seems strange, for you to be leaving now, when it seems as if you have just found yourself. Please tell me that… your going away has nothing to do with me.”

“Daisy.” He turned to her in surprise. “I care about you still. I always will, in some part of my heart, and James knows that; but I am happy you are together. The last months have made me realize how very unhappy James has been, for so long, and his happiness is mine, too. You understand—you, too, have a parabatai.”

“I think it is how James bears that you are going away,” said Cordelia. “He knows you are not running away from something, but running toward some grand idea.” She smiled.

“Many grand ideas,” said Matthew, flipping the small rock between his fingers. It was an ordinary river stone, but bits of mica glittered inside it, like crystal. “When I was drinking, my world was so small. I could never go that far from another drink. Now my world is expansive again. I want to have adventures, to do mad, wonderful, colorful things. And now that I am free…”

Cordelia did not ask him what he was free of; she knew. Matthew had told his parents all the truth of what he had done years ago, and how his mother had suffered because of it—how they all had. He had brought James with him, and James had sat beside him as Matthew explained, leaving no detail spared. When he was done, he had been shaking with fear. Charlotte and Henry had looked stricken, and for a moment James had been terrified that he was going to be witness to the dissolution of their family.

Then Charlotte had taken Matthew by the hand.

“Thank the Angel you told us,” she said. “We always knew something had happened, but we did not know what. Not only did we lose that child, but we lost another child—you. You grew further and further away from us, and we could not get you back.”

“You forgive me, then?” Matthew had whispered.

“We know you meant no harm,” Henry had said. “You did not mean to hurt your mother—you believed a terrible story, and made a terrible mistake.”

“But it was a mistake,” Charlotte had said firmly. “It does not change our love for you one iota. And it is truly a gift that you are telling us now”—she had exchanged a look with Henry that James had described as “treacly”—“because we have something to share with you, as well. Matthew, I am going to have another baby.”

Matthew had goggled. It had, James had said at the time, been a day of many revelations.

“You’re not leaving because of the baby, are you?” Cordelia said now, mischievously.

“Babies,” Matthew reminded her darkly. “According to the Silent Brothers, it will be twins.” He grinned. “And no, I rather fancy the idea of little sisters or brothers. By the time I return from my voyage, they will be nearly a year old and have begun to have some personality. An excellent time to teach them that their big brother Matthew is the finest and most upstanding person they will ever know.”

“Ah,” said Cordelia. “You intend to suborn them.”

“Entirely.” Matthew looked down at her; the wind off the river blew his fair hair across his eyes. “When you first came to London,” he said, “all I could think was that I disliked your brother, and I expected you would be like him. But you won me over quite quickly—you were kind and brave, and so many other things I aspired to be.” He took her hand, though there was nothing romantic about the gesture; he pressed the smooth river stone into her palm and closed her fingers over it. “I don’t think I realized—until you sent the Merry Thieves to me at my lowest point—how much I would need someone in my life who would see the truth of me and offer me kindness, even though I had not asked for it. Even when I felt I did not deserve it. And when I travel the seas with Oscar, every time I set eyes upon a new land, I will think of you and of that kindness. I will always carry it with me, and the knowledge that it is the gifts we did not have the strength to ask for that matter the most.”

Cordelia sighed. “There is a terrible selfish part of me that wants you to stay here in London, but I suppose we cannot keep you to ourselves when the rest of the world is pining away for you to brighten it up.”

Matthew grinned. “Flattery. As you know, it always works on me.”

And as Cordelia held the smooth little stone tightly in her hand, she realized that the distance she had felt between them seemed to have fallen away. Though he might be on the other side of the world for a year, they would not be far apart in spirit.

There was a rustle; it was James, his dark hair wildly untidy, coming toward them across the grass. He held a stack of charred paper in his hand. “I have just,” he said, by way of greeting, “received a seventh fire-message from my father.” He shuffled through the pages. “In this one, he says they are running late and they are ten minutes away. In this one, they are nine minutes away. In this one, they are eight minutes away. In this one…”

“They are seven minutes away?” Matthew guessed.

James shook his head. “No, in this one he wants to know if we have enough mustard.”