Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

James thought of the box of matches in his pocket, each one a sort of signal light that, when struck, summoned Jem to his side. He did not know how the magic of it worked, nor did he think Jem would tell him even if he asked.

It is not easy for me, Jem said. His expression had not changed, but his pale hands moved, knotting together. I know I must listen dispassionately to Grace’s testimony. Yet when she speaks of what was done to you, my silent heart cries out: this was wrong, it was always wrong. You love as your father loves: wholly, without conditions or hesitancy. To use that as a weapon is blasphemy.

James glanced back at Malcolm’s house, and then at his uncle. He had never seen him so agitated. “Do you want me to wake up my father?” James said. “Did you want to see him?”

No. Don’t wake him, Jem said, and even though his speech was silent, there was a gentleness in the way he thought about Will that was for Will alone. James thought of Matthew, no doubt asleep somewhere in Paris, and felt a terrible admixture of love and anger like a poison in his blood. Matthew had been to him what Will was to Jem; how had he lost him? How had he lost him without even knowing it?

I am sorry to have told you all that. It is not a burden you should have to shoulder.

“It is not a burden to know there is someone in the Silent City who listens to all this, and thinks of it not just as a peculiarity of magic, but as something that had a true cost,” said James softly. “Even if you pity Grace, even if you must be unsentimental as a judge, you will not forget me, my family. Cordelia. That means a great deal. That you will not forget.”

Jem brushed James’s hair from his forehead, a light benediction. Never, he said, and then, in between one crash of a wave and another, he was gone, melting into the shadows.

James returned to the house, crawling into bed with his coat still on. He felt cold down in the center of his being, and when he slept, it was restlessly: he dreamed of Cordelia, in a bloodred gown, standing upon a bridge made of lights, and though she looked directly at him, it was clear she had no idea who he was.



* * *



There was a splotch on the ceiling above Ariadne’s head that was shaped somewhat like a rabbit.

Ariadne had thought she would fall instantly into an exhausted sleep the moment she lay down. Instead here she was, still awake, her mind racing. She knew she ought to be thinking about her father’s disturbing papers. About her mother, in tears, telling her that if she would only admit it wasn’t true, if she would only take her words back, she wouldn’t have to leave. She could stay.

But her mind was on Anna. Anna, who lay sleeping a few feet away, her long, elegant body draped across the violet chaise longue. She could picture her so clearly: her arm behind her head, her dark hair curling against her cheek, her ruby necklace winking in the sculpted hollow of her throat.

Or perhaps Anna was not asleep. Perhaps she was awake, just as Ariadne was. Perhaps she was rising to her feet, tightening the belt of her dressing gown as she stepped silently across the floor, her hand on the bedroom door.…

Ariadne closed her eyes. But her whole body remained awake. Tense and waiting. She would feel Anna sit down on the bed beside her, feel it sink under her weight. She would feel Anna lean over her, the heat of her body, her hand on the strap of Ariadne’s nightgown, sliding it slowly down her shoulder. Her lips on Ariadne’s bare skin…

Ariadne rolled onto her side with a muffled gasp. Of course, nothing of the sort had happened. She had firmly told Anna to stay away from her the last time they had seen each other, and it was not like Anna to ever place herself where she was not wanted. She stared glumly around the bedroom: it was a small space, containing a wardrobe spilling clothes, and shelves and shelves of books.

Not that Ariadne could imagine reading right now, not when every cell of her body seemed to cry out Anna’s name. She had told herself she had purged her desire for Anna, that she understood that Anna could never give her what she wanted. But at the moment, all she wanted was Anna: Anna’s hands, Anna’s whispered words in her ears, Anna’s body molded against hers.

She turned on her elbow and reached for the jug of water on the nightstand. There was a shallow wooden shelf on the wall above it, and her sleeve caught against an object perched there, which tumbled to the nightstand next to the jug. Picking up the object, she saw that it was a palm-sized doll. She sat up, curious; she would not have thought of Anna, even as a child, as a one for dolls. This one was of the sort often found in dollhouses, its limbs stuffed with cotton, its face blank porcelain. It was the gentleman doll, the kind that usually came with a wife and a tiny porcelain baby in a miniature cradle.

Ariadne had owned similar dollhouse inhabitants when she was a child: nothing really differentiated the male dolls and the female dolls save the carefully sewn tiny clothes they wore. Ariadne imagined Anna playing with this little toy, in its natty striped suit and top hat. Perhaps, in Anna’s mind, the doll had been the lady of the house, only in the sort of outfit Anna felt the lady would prefer; perhaps the doll had been a rakish bohemian, composing infinitesimal poems with a miniature pen.

With a smile, Ariadne set the doll carefully back on its shelf. Such a tiny thing, yet a reminder that here she was, for the first time in Anna’s house, among Anna’s things. That even if she did not have Anna, her feet were set now on the same path of independence that Anna had chosen for herself years ago. It was Ariadne’s turn to seize that freedom and choose what to do with it. She curled up on the bed and closed her eyes.



* * *



Cornwall Gardens was not a short walk from Thomas’s house—easily forty-five minutes, an hour if one stopped to enjoy the park along the way—but Thomas didn’t mind. It was a rare sunny winter’s day in London, and even though it was still cold, the air was clear and bright, seeming to throw every tiny detail of the city into relief, from the colorful advertisements on the sides of omnibuses to the darting shadows of tiny sparrows.

The darting shadows of tiny sparrows, he thought. Thomas, you sound like an idiot. Blast. What would Alastair think if he turned up at Cornwall Gardens with a ridiculous smile on his face, twittering about birds? He would send Thomas away, sharpish. Sadly, even that thought did not break Thomas’s good mood. His thoughts seemed all awhirl; it was necessary to go back to the beginning to sort them out.

At breakfast—where he had been calmly, innocently eating toast—a runner had come for him with a message; his parents had been surprised, but not nearly as surprised as Thomas.

The message was from Alastair.

It took a full five minutes for Thomas to digest the fact—the message was from Alastair, Alastair Carstairs, not some other Alastair—and it contained the following information: Alastair wanted to meet with Thomas at Cornwall Gardens, as soon as possible.

Message digested, Thomas bolted upstairs so quickly he knocked over a teapot and left his confused parents staring at Eugenia, who merely shrugged as if to say one could never truly hope to unravel the beautiful mystery that was Thomas. “More eggs?” she suggested, holding out a plate to her father.

Thomas, meanwhile, had worked himself into a panic over what to wear, despite the fact that it was difficult finding clothes that fit someone of his height and breadth, and that as a result, he possessed a fairly dull wardrobe of browns and blacks and grays. Remembering that Matthew had said that a particular green shirt brought out the color in Thomas’s hazel eyes, Thomas put it on, brushed his hair, and left the house—only to return a moment later, due to having forgotten his scarf, his shoes, and his stele.

Now, as the clay-red brick of Knightsbridge, crowded with shoppers, slowly melted into the quiet streets and dignified white edifices of South Kensington, Thomas reminded himself that just because Alastair had sent him a message did not necessarily mean anything. It was possible that Alastair wanted something translated into Spanish, or needed a very tall person’s opinion on a matter. (Though Thomas could not imagine why this would be the case.) It was even possible he wanted, for some reason, to talk about Charles. The thought made Thomas’s skin feel as if it were tying itself into knots. By the time he arrived at the Carstairs’ house, he was subdued—or he was, at least, until he turned onto the walk and caught sight of Alastair, messy-haired and in shirtsleeves, standing outside his front door and holding a very recognizable sword.

Alastair’s expression was a grim one. He looked up as Thomas approached. Thomas noticed two things immediately: firstly, that Alastair, with his smooth, light brown skin and graceful build, was still vexingly beautiful. And secondly, that Alastair’s arms were covered in vicious-looking scratches, his shirt stained with black, acidic-looking patches.