Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“Ah,” Anna said softly. She ached inside. She knew how badly Ariadne had always wanted children, that that desire had been at the heart of what had ended their relationship two years ago.

“I went to my room, threw a few things into a holdall—I told her I would not live under the same roof as her and Papa if they would not accept me as I truly was. As I am. And she said—she said she would promise to forget everything I had told her. That we could pretend I had never spoken. That if I were to tell Papa what I had told her, he would throw me out onto the street.” Anna did not breathe. “And so I fled,” Ariadne finished. “Left the house and came here. Because you are the most independent person I know. I cannot go back to that house. I will not. My pride and my… my self depend on it. I need to learn how to strike out on my own. To live independently, as you do.” Her expression was determined, but her hands trembled as she spoke. “I thought… if you could show me how…”

Anna gently took the rattling teacup from her. “Of course,” she said. “You shall be as independent as you wish. But not tonight. Tonight you have had a shock, and it is very late, and you must rest. In the morning you will start a new life. And it will be wonderful.”

A slow smiled bloomed across Ariadne’s face. And for a moment, Anna was undone by her sheer beauty. The grace of her, the way her dark hair glowed, the line of her neck and the soft flutter of her lashes. An impulse to take Ariadne in her arms, to cover her eyelids and her mouth with kisses, came over Anna. She curled her hands into fists behind her back, where Ariadne would not see them.

“You take the bedroom,” she said evenly. “I will sleep here on the chaise longue; it is quite comfortable.”

“Thank you.” Ariadne rose with her holdall. “Anna—the last time I saw you—I was angry,” she said. “I should not have said you were hard. You have always had the biggest heart of anyone I have known, with room in it for all manner of waifs and strays. Like me,” she added, with a sad little smile.

Anna sighed inwardly. In the end, Ariadne had come to her for the same reason Matthew did, or Eugenia: because Anna was easy to talk to, because she could be depended on for sympathy and tea and a place to sleep. She did not blame Ariadne, or think less of her for it. It was only that she had hoped that perhaps there had been a different reason.

A little while later, after Ariadne had gone to bed, Anna went to bank up the fire for the night. As she turned back, she caught Percy’s disapproving scowl.

“I know,” she said quietly. “It is a terrible mistake, letting her stay here. I shall come to regret it. I know.”

Percy could only agree.



* * *



No one, as it turned out, wanted tea.

“Malcolm Fade,” Will said, advancing on the warlock. His anger, which had dissipated quickly enough on hearing Lucie’s story, seemed to have returned along with Malcolm. James stood up, ready to intervene if needed; he knew the tone in his father’s voice. “I should have you hauled in front of the Clave, you know. Put on trial, for breaking the Accords.”

Malcolm walked past Will and threw himself into the chair next to the fireplace. “On what charges?” he said, sounding tired. “Necromancy? I didn’t perform any necromancy.”

“Well,” said Magnus, folding his arms, “you did take a Shadowhunter child to a secret location without her parents’ knowledge. That’s frowned on. Oh, and you stole the corpse of a Shadowhunter. I’m pretty sure that’s frowned upon as well.”

“Et tu, Magnus?” Malcolm said. “Have you no solidarity with your fellow warlocks?”

“Not when they kidnap children, no,” said Magnus dryly.

“Malcolm,” Will said, and James could tell he was trying to keep his voice down, “you’re the High Warlock of London. If Lucie came to you with this forbidden business, you should have said no. You should have come to me, in fact.”

Malcolm sighed, as though the whole situation exhausted him. “A long time ago, I lost someone I loved. Her death—her death almost destroyed me.” He looked at the window, at the gray sea beyond. “When your daughter came to me for aid, I couldn’t help but sympathize. I couldn’t turn her away. If that means I must lose my position, then so be it.”

“I won’t let Malcolm lose his position because of me,” snapped Lucie, putting her hands on her hips. “I went in search of him. I demanded his help. When I restored Jesse to life, Malcolm didn’t even know I was doing it. When he arrived, I—” She broke off. “I insisted on being taken to Cornwall. I feared what the Clave would do to Jesse. I was trying to protect him, and so was Malcolm. This is all my doing. And I am happy to go before the Clave and say so.”

“Lucie,” James said. “That’s not a good idea.”

Lucie gave him a look that reminded him of certain scenes from Lucie’s first novel, Secret Princess Lucie Is Rescued from Her Terrible Family. If he recalled correctly, the brother of the main character, Cruel Prince James, had a habit of putting vampire bats in his sister’s hair, and later died a much-deserved death when he fell into a barrel of treacle.

“James is right. The Clave is brutal, ruthless,” said Malcolm in a grim tone. “I would not wish you to be questioned by them, Lucie.”

“The Mortal Sword—” Lucie began.

“The Mortal Sword will force you to reveal not just that you raised Jesse, but that you were able to do it because of Belial,” said Magnus. “Because of the power that comes from him.”

“But then James—and Mama—”

“Exactly,” said Will. “Which is why involving the Clave in any aspect of this is a poor idea.”

“Which is why I remain a problem,” said Jesse. “In terms of my returning in any way to the world of Shadowhunters.”

“No,” said Lucie. “We will think of something—”

“Jesse Blackthorn,” said Malcolm, “with his mother and his heritage and history, cannot return to Shadowhunter society, at least not in London.”

Lucie looked stricken; Jesse had the grim expression of someone already resigned.

Magnus narrowed his eyes. “Malcolm,” he said, “I feel you are trying to tell us something.”

“Jesse Blackthorn cannot join the London Enclave,” said Malcolm. “But—because of my history, my research, nobody knows more about the Blackthorn family than I do. If I can find a means by which Jesse can be returned to Shadowhunter society, without suspicion… could we then consider this whole matter put behind us?”

Will looked at Lucie for a long time. Then he said, “All right.” Lucie exhaled, her eyes closing in relief. Will pointed at Malcolm. “You have until tomorrow.”





5 REALMS ABOVE




Alas! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth;

And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny; and youth is vain;

And to be wroth with one we love

Doth work like madness in the brain.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Christabel”



James couldn’t sleep. It was the first time he’d had a bedroom to himself in five days; he no longer had to contend with his father’s snoring and Magnus smoking his terrifying pipe, and he was exhausted. But still he lay awake, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling and thinking of Cordelia.

Will had managed to turn the conversation to the question of where the three of them would sleep, in the process—rather deftly, James thought, a reminder of why his father was good at his job—getting Malcolm to think of them less as invaders and more as houseguests.

The little cottage turned out to be much larger on the inside than the outside, and the upstairs corridor was lined with simple, clean rooms on both sides. Magnus magicked their things up from the carriage, and that was that.

Now that James was alone, though, thoughts of Cordelia came crowding back into his mind. He had thought he missed her before, had thought he had been tormented with regret. He realized now that having had his father and Magnus always present, having had a mission on which to focus, had blunted his feelings; he had not even begun to imagine the pain he could feel. He understood now why poets damned their hearts, their capacity for desolation and want. Nothing in the false enchantment of love he had felt for Grace had come near this. His mind had told him that his heart was broken, but he had not felt it, not felt all the jagged pieces of shattered hope, like shards of glass inside his chest.