Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“I let myself be fooled,” she said. The inside of Matthew’s forearm was pale, blue-veined, marked with white, lacelike patterns where old runes had faded. “I wanted to believe that Wayland the Smith had chosen me. I was a fool—”

“Cordelia.” He caught hold of her with such force that her stele clattered to the ground. The cut along his cheek was already healing, his bruises fading. “I am the one who believed a faerie who told me that what I was purchasing was a harmless truth potion. I am the one who nearly murdered my own—” He inhaled, as if the words hurt to speak. “Do you think I don’t understand what it is to have made a wrong decision, believing you were making the right one? Do you think anyone could imagine what that is like better than I could?”

“I should cut my own hands off so that I can never pick up a weapon again,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

“Don’t.” The agony in his voice made her look up. “Don’t talk about hurting yourself. What wounds you wounds me. I love you, Daisy, I—”

He cut himself off abruptly. Cordelia felt as if she were floating in a dream. She knew she had dropped her cloak, that cold air was cutting through the fabric of her dress. She knew she was in a sort of shock, that despite all she knew, she had not truly expected Lilith to appear. She knew despair was there, reaching out long, dark fingers for her like a siren, desperate to draw her under, to drown her in misery, in the whisper of voices that said, You have lost James. Your family. Your name. Your parabatai. The world will turn its back on you, Cordelia.

“Cordelia,” Matthew said. “I’m sorry.”

She put her hands flat against his chest. Took a deep breath, air stuttering in her chest. She said, “Matthew. Hold me.”

Without a word, he pulled her close. The future was cold and dark, but Matthew was warm against her, a shield against shadow. He smelled of night air, of sweat and cologne and blood. You are all I have. Hold the darkness back. Hold the memories back. Hold me.

“Matthew,” she said. “Why have you not tried to kiss me, since we came to Paris?”

His hands, which had been stroking her back, stilled. He said, “You told me you considered me only a friend. You remain a married woman, at that. I may be a drunk and a wastrel, but I do have my limits.”

“Surely we are already a deplorable scandal in London.”

“I don’t care about scandal,” Matthew said, “as should be obvious from every single thing I do. But I have my limits for… myself.” His voice shook. “Do you think I have not wanted to kiss you? I have wanted to kiss you every moment of every day. I have held myself back. I always will, unless…” There was a hunger in his voice. A desperation. “Unless you tell me I need no longer do so.”

She let her fingers fold themselves into the fabric of his shirt. Pulled him closer. Said, “I would like you to kiss me.”

“Daisy, don’t joke—”

She raised herself up on her toes. Brushed her lips across his. For a moment, memory flashed against the darkness in her mind: the Whispering Room, the fire, James kissing her, the first kiss of her life, kindling an unimaginable blaze. No, she told herself. Forget. Forget.

“Please,” she said.

“Daisy,” Matthew whispered, in a strangled voice, before control seemed to desert him. With a groan, he gathered her up against him, ducking his head to cover her mouth with his own.



* * *



When Brother Zachariah came to tell her that she had a visitor, Grace felt her heart begin to race. She could not think of anyone who might visit her who would bring good news. It could not be Jesse; if it were public knowledge that Lucie had brought him back, if he were in London, surely Zachariah would have told her so? And if it were Lucie… Well, James would have told Lucie the truth of the bracelet by now. Lucie would have no reason to see her save to berate and blame her. No one would.

Then again… she had lost track of how many days she had been in the City of Bones. She thought it had been about a week, but the lack of sunlight, and the irregularity of the Brothers’ demands on her time, made it hard to know. She slept when she grew tired, and when she was hungry, someone would bring her something to eat. It was a comfortable prison, but a prison nonetheless. A prison where no human voice broke the silence; sometimes Grace wanted to scream, just to hear someone.

By the time she saw the shadow coming down the corridor toward her cell, she was resigned: it would likely be an unpleasant encounter, but it would be a break in the numbing tedium. She sat up on her narrow bed, patting down her hair. Steeling herself for…

“Christopher?”

“Hullo, Grace,” Christopher Lightwood said. He wore his habitual ink-and acid-stained clothes, and his light brown hair was windblown. “I heard you were here. I thought I ought to see how you’ve been.”

Grace swallowed. Didn’t he know? Hadn’t James told him what she’d done? But he was looking at her with his customary mild curiosity. There was no anger on his face.

“How long,” Grace said, in almost a whisper, “have I been here?”

Christopher, to her surprise, flushed. “A week, or thereabouts,” he said. “I would have come earlier, only Jem said I ought to give you some time to adjust.”

He was standing just in front of the barred door. Grace realized with a shock that he thought she was accusing him of some sort of neglect, for not having come earlier. “Oh,” she said, “no, I didn’t mean—I’m glad you’re here, Christopher.”

He smiled, that kind smile that lit up his unusually colored eyes. Christopher was not handsome in an ordinary way, and Grace knew perfectly well that there were plenty of people, her mother included, who would have thought him not attractive at all. But Grace had known handsome men in abundance, and she knew outward beauty did not ensure kindness, or cleverness, or any kind of a good heart.

“I am too,” he said. “I’d been wanting to see how you were. I thought it was awfully brave of you to give yourself up to the Silent Brothers and let them study you. To see if your mother—had done anything awful to you.”

He really doesn’t know. And Grace knew, in that moment, that she was not going to tell him. Not now. She knew it was dishonesty, that it ran counter to her promise to herself to be more truthful. But hadn’t Zachariah said they were planning to keep the information about her power a secret? Wasn’t she doing what the Silent Brothers would have wanted?

Christopher shifted his feet. “All right,” he said. “I did come because I wanted to see if you were well. But not only because of that.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” said Christopher. Abruptly he dug his hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a sheaf of pages, carefully folded into quarters. “You see, I’ve been working on this new project—a kind of amalgam of science and Shadowhunter magic. It’s meant for sending messages at a distance, you see, and I’ve made progress, but now there have been some snags, and I’m rather at an impasse, and—oh dear, my metaphors are getting all muddled now.”

Grace’s anxiety had quickly faded as soon as she saw the pages, covered in Christopher’s unreadable scrawl. Now she found she was smiling a bit, even.

“And you’ve got a scientific mind,” Christopher went on, “and so few Shadowhunters do, you know, and Henry’s been too busy to help, and I think my other friends are weary of their things catching on fire. So I was wondering if you would read these over? And give me the honor of your opinion on where I might be going wrong?”

Grace felt a smile spread over her face. Probably the first time she’d really smiled since—well, since the last time she’d seen Christopher. “Christopher Lightwood,” she said, “there is absolutely nothing I would like to do more.”



* * *



As they touched, everything fell away for Cordelia—worries, fears, frustrations, despair. Matthew’s mouth was hot against hers; he staggered back against a lamppost. He kissed her feverishly, over and over, lacing his fingers into her hair. Each kiss hotter, harder than the last. He tasted sugar-sweet, like candy.

She let her hands run over him, over his lean body, the arms she had admired before, the planes of his chest through his shirt, his skin burning feverishly at her touch. She sank her fingers into his thick hair, rougher than James’s, cupped his face in her palms.

He had discarded his gloves and was touching her, too, hands against the thick velvet of her dress, a finger tracing her collarbone, the neckline of her dress. She moaned softly and felt his whole body shudder. He buried his face in the side of her neck. His pulse was racing like wildfire.

“We have to get back to the hotel, Daisy,” he whispering, kissing her throat. “We have to get back, my God, before I disgrace myself and you in front of all Paris.”