Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Cordelia smiled. Matthew’s jokes, the views of Paris, her own good sense—she wished any of it could lighten the weight on her heart. She could not stop imagining what it would be like when her mother found out the truth about her compact with Lilith. When the Enclave found out. When Will and Tessa found out. She knew they were not destined to be her in-laws for much longer, but she found that she cared terribly what they thought of her.

And Lucie. Lucie would be the most affected. They had always planned to be parabatai; she was abandoning Lucie now, without a warrior partner, a sister in battle. She could not help but feel it would be better if Lucie had never known her—what a different life she might have had, a different parabatai, different chances.

“Daisy.” Matthew spoke in a low voice, his hand tightening on hers. “I know you are lost in thought. But—listen.”

There was urgency in his voice. Cordelia closed off thoughts of Lilith, of the Herondales, of the Enclave. She turned to look behind them, down the long tunnel of the quai—the river on one side, the stone retaining wall rising on the other, the city above them as if they had retreated underground.

Shhhh. Not the wind in the bare boughs, but a hiss and a slither. A bitter smell, carried on the wind.

Demons.

Matthew stepped back, placing himself in front of her. There was the sound of a weapon being drawn, the spark of moonlight on metal. It seemed Matthew’s walking stick had a blade cleverly hidden within the hollowed-out wood. He kicked the empty stick aside just as the creatures emerged from the shadows, sliding and slithering over the pavement.

“Naga demons,” Cordelia whispered. They were long and low, bodies whiplike, covered in black, oily scales, like giant water snakes. But when they opened their mouths to hiss, she could see that their heads were more like a crocodile’s, mouths long and triangular and lined with jagged teeth that glowed yellow in the streetlight.

A gray tide surged past her, a skitter of tiny, racing feet. The mice she had seen earlier, fleeing as the Naga demons advanced on the Shadowhunters.

Matthew shrugged off his overcoat, let it drop to the pavement, and lunged. Cordelia stood frozen, watching, as he sliced the head off one demon, then another—her hands curled into fists. She hated this. It ran counter to everything in her nature to hang back while a fight was going on. But if she were to pick up a weapon, she would be vulnerable to Lilith—to Lilith working her will through Cordelia.

Matthew plunged his blade down—and missed. A Naga demon lunged, closing its sharp-toothed jaw around his ankle. Matthew yelled, “My spats!” and stabbed downward. Ichor splashed up and over him; he spun, his blade whirling. A demon hit the pavement with a wet smack, bleeding, its tail lashing. With a yell of pain, Matthew staggered back; his cheek was bleeding from a long cut.

Everything about this was wrong. Cordelia should be there, at Matthew’s side, Cortana in her hand, scrawling its blood-and-gold signature across the sky. Without being able to stop herself, she tore off her cloak, seized up the walking stick Matthew had dropped, and leaped into the fray.

She heard Matthew call out to her, even as he backed up—there must have been ten Naga demons left. He couldn’t possibly kill them all, she thought, even as he shouted at her to get back, to protect herself. From Lilith, she thought, but what use would protecting herself be if she let something happen to Matthew?

She slammed the runed cane hard into a Naga demon’s head, heard its skull shatter, the crumpling as its body vanished, sucked back to its home dimension. Matthew, giving up on stopping Cordelia, cut a wide arc with his blade, slicing a Naga demon neatly in two. Cordelia stabbed down with the cane, punching a hole through another demon’s body. It, too, vanished, a tide of ichor spilling across the ground. Cordelia struck out again—and hesitated. The Naga demons had begun skittering backward, away from the two Shadowhunters.

“We did it,” Matthew panted, touching a hand to his bloody cheek. “Got rid of those bastards—”

He froze. Not because of surprise, or even watchfulness. He simply froze, blade in hand, as if he had been turned to stone. Cordelia looked up, her heart beating wildly, as at her feet the Naga demons bent their heads, their chins scraping the ground.

“Mother,” they hissed. “Mother.”

Cordelia’s heart turned over in her chest. Walking toward her along the quai, dressed in a gown of black silk, was Lilith.

Her hair was loose and unbound, the wind catching it, unfurling it like a banner. Her eyes were flat black marbles, with no white visible. She was smiling. Her skin was very white, her neck rising like an ivory column from the collar of her gown. Once she had been beautiful enough to seduce demons and angels. She looked as youthful as ever, though Cordelia could not help but wonder if she had changed through the ages, with bitterness and loss. Her mouth was hard, even as she looked at Cordelia with a deadly pleasure.

“I knew you could not stop yourself, little warrior,” she said. “It is in your blood, the need to fight.”

Cordelia flung the stick she’d been holding. It bounced across the pavement, fetching up at Lilith’s feet. The wood of it was stained with ichor. “I was protecting my friend.”

“The pretty Fairchild boy. Yes.” Lilith flicked a glance at him, then snapped her fingers; the Naga demons slithered away, back into the shadows. Cordelia wasn’t sure whether to be relieved. She was far more afraid of Lilith than of the demons in her command. “You have many friends. It makes you simple to manipulate.” She cocked her head to the side. “But to see you, my paladin, fighting with this—this bit of wood.” She kicked contemptuously at the walking stick. “Where is Cortana?”

Cordelia smiled. “I don’t know.”

She didn’t. She had given Cortana to Alastair and told him to hide it. She trusted that he had. She was glad not to know more.

“I made sure I wouldn’t know,” she added, “so that I couldn’t tell you. No matter what you do to me.”

“How brave,” Lilith said, with some amusement. “That is, after all, why I chose you. That brave little heart that beats inside your chest.” She took a step forward; Cordelia held her ground. Any fear she felt was for Matthew. Would Lilith harm him, just to show Cordelia her power?

She vowed to herself that if Lilith did, she, Cordelia, would dedicate her life to finding some way to hurt Lilith back.

Lilith looked from Matthew to Cordelia, and her smile widened. “I will not hurt him,” she said. “Not yet. He does well in that area himself, don’t you think? You are loyal, faithful to your friends; but sometimes I think you are too clever.”

“There is nothing clever,” said Cordelia, “in my doing what you want. You wish to have the sword so you can slay Belial—”

“Which you also desire,” Lilith pointed out. “You will be glad to know those two wounds you dealt him pain him still. He is in agony without respite.”

“We may desire the same thing,” Cordelia conceded. “But that does not make it clever to give you what you want—a paladin, a powerful weapon. You are not better than Belial. You simply also hate him. And if I accepted you, became your true paladin, that would be the end of me. The end of my life, or any part of it that is worth living.”

“And otherwise a long and happy life will be yours?” Lilith’s hair rustled. Perhaps the serpents she liked so much, slithering among the dark mass of her locks. “You think danger is behind you? The greatest danger lies ahead. Belial has not stopped his planning. I, too, have heard the whispers on the wind. ‘They wake.’”

Cordelia started. “What—?” she began, but Lilith only laughed, and vanished. The quai was empty again, only the stains of ichor, and her and Matthew’s fallen coats and weapons, to show anything had occurred.

Matthew. She whirled, and saw him on his knees. She darted to his side, but he was already rising, his face white, the cut on his cheek standing out stark and red. “I heard her,” he said. “I couldn’t move, but I could see—I heard all of it. ‘They wake.’” He stared down at her. “Are you all right? Cordelia—”

“I’m so sorry.” She fumbled off her gloves, reached for her stele. She was already starting to shiver, with reaction and with cold. “Let me—you need an iratze.” She pushed up the cuff of his shirt, began to scrawl the healing rune with the tip of her stele. “I’m so sorry you’re hurt. I’m so—”

“Do not say you are sorry again,” Matthew said in a low voice. “Or I will begin shouting. This is not your fault.”