Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“What would he have done if we didn’t?” Cordelia wondered.

“The Angel only knows,” James said. “He certainly won’t be happy about all these ducks.” He grinned at Matthew, who looked back at him in that way he had that seemed to convey everything about how he loved James: that their friendship was both very silly and terribly serious all at once. One joked during the day and risked one’s life at night; that was the way of being a Shadowhunter, Cordelia thought.

James squinted into the distance. “Math, I think your family’s here.”

And indeed, it seemed, the others were beginning to arrive at long last. Charlotte was coming toward them along a park path, pushing Henry’s Bath chair.

“Duty calls,” Matthew said, and started off toward his parents. Oscar left Thomas and Alastair to join him, running along at his heels and barking a welcome.

James smiled at Cordelia—that lovely, lazy smile that always made her feel as if delightful sparks were running along her spine. She moved closer to him, dropping the stone Matthew had given her into her pocket. For a moment they stood looking at the park together in companionable silence.

“I see the croquet game is going well,” Cordelia noted. In fact, Anna, Ari, and Grace seemed to have created a bizarre tower of hoops and mallets that did not resemble any croquet court she had ever seen. They were all standing back and looking at it: Anna seemed delighted, Ari and Grace puzzled. “I didn’t know Grace was going to bury the bracelet,” she said. “At the manor. Did she speak to you about it?”

James nodded, gold eyes thoughtful. “She asked if it was all right if she buried it, and I said yes. It is, after all, her own regret she is burying.”

“And your sorrow,” said Cordelia softly.

He looked down at her. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheekbone, and a grass stain on his collar. And yet when she looked at him, he seemed more beautiful to her than he ever had when she had thought of him as distant and untouchably perfect. “I have no sorrow,” he said. He took her hand, locking his fingers with hers. “Life is a long chain of events, of decisions and choices,” he said. “When I fell in love with you, I was changed. Belial could not alter that. Nothing could alter that. And everything that happened after, everything he tried to do through the bracelet, only strengthened what I felt for you and brought us closer to one another. It was because of him and his meddling that we married in the first place. I loved you already, but being married to you only made me fall more inescapably in love; I had never been so happy as I was every moment we were together, and it was that love that led me to shatter the bracelet, and realize that indeed I had a will that could contest Belial’s.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his touch gentle, his eyes locked on hers. “So no, I do not feel sorrow, for all I went through brought me to where we are now. To you. We have been in the crucible, and come out as gold.”

Cordelia went up on her toes and kissed him quickly on the lips. He raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?” he said. “I thought that was a very romantic speech. I expected a more passionate response, or perhaps for you to start spelling out my name in daisy chains on the riverbank—”

“It was a romantic speech,” Cordelia said, “and believe me, I will have much to say about it later.” She smiled at him in the particular way that always made his eyes blaze up like fire. “But our families have just arrived, so unless you wish to passionately embrace in front of your parents, we will have to save that for later, when we are home.”

James turned and saw that she was indeed telling the truth: everyone had arrived at once, and were coming toward the picnic spot, waving—Will and Tessa, laughing alongside Magnus Bane, Sona pushing Zachary Arash in a pram and chatting to Flora Bridgestock, Gabriel and Cecily holding Alexander by the hand, Gideon and Sophie pausing to chat with Charlotte, Henry, and Matthew. Thomas, Lucie, and Alastair had already started across the green lawn toward their families. Jesse hung back to assist Grace with the pile of croquet implements, which had toppled over; Anna and Ari were laughing too hard to move, leaning against each other as croquet balls rolled everywhere.

“When we are home?” said James softly. “Here we are, with all those we love, and those who love us. We are home.”

Alastair had plucked his little brother from the pram; with Zachary seated in the crook of one arm, he waved at Cordelia. Matthew, in conversation with Eugenia, smiled, and Lucie made a beckoning gesture in James and Cordelia’s direction, as if to say: What are you waiting for? Come here.

Cordelia’s heart was too full for speech. Without a word, she caught hold of her husband’s hand.

Side by side with James, Cordelia ran.





NOTES ON THE TEXT


As always, Shadowhunter London is a mixture of the real and the unreal. Most of the locations used in the book are real and can still be visited today. The York Watergate dates from the early seventeenth century and used to be a fancy boat dock for the house of the Duke of Buckingham; it can be reached easily by going to Charing Cross Station and walking toward the Thames. St. Peter Westcheap stood at the corner of Cheapside and Wood Street from medieval times until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The tiny churchyard is still there, as is the huge old mulberry tree that Anna and Ari use to enter the Silent City.

Sir John Malcolm’s statue in the north transept of Westminster Abbey is real, as is the bas-relief of Britannia nearby. Simon de Langham was archbishop of Canterbury from 1366 to 1368; he left most of his enormous estate to the abbey, which is why he is the only archbishop of Canterbury interred there. His is the oldest ecclesiastical tomb in the place.

Polperro is a real, extremely charming fishing village in south Cornwall, and the stone cottage that inspired Malcolm’s house can be easily spotted on the spit of land that forms a natural barrier for the village’s harbor.

The love poem quoted by Alastair to Thomas is from thirteenth-century Persian poet ?ams-e Qays, who cites it as written by another poet, Natáanzi.