Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Even James paused at the door, before looking at Matthew and Cordelia with a wry twist to his mouth.

“Lucie and Jesse,” he said. “It’s—a strange situation. Very strange. But she’s happy, so…”

“Try not to look shocked?” Cordelia said.

“Exactly,” said James, and swung the door open.

The ballroom was full of light. It had been stripped bare of decorations, ready for the next event: the curtains were flung wide, and no furniture remained in the room save a large grand piano, lacquered as black and shiny as a new hansom cab.

At the piano sat Jesse Blackthorn. His fingers rested lightly on the keys: he did not touch them as someone who was an expert, but Cordelia guessed he’d had a little instruction, no doubt when he was very young.

Lucie was leaning against the piano, smiling at him. Neither of them seemed to notice that anyone had joined them in the room. Lucie seemed to be reading from a piece of paper.

“Jeremy Blackthorn,” she said. “When was it that your family returned with you to Merry England?”

“I was quite young,” Jesse said, tapping out a quick flight of high notes. “Seven, perhaps. So that would have been—1893.”

“And what happened to your parents?”

“A circus tent collapsed on them,” said Jesse immediately. “It is why I am afraid of stripes.”

Lucie smacked him lightly on the shoulder. He sounded a low note of protest on the piano. “You must take this seriously,” she said, but she was laughing. “You’ll be asked all sorts of questions, you know. A new addition to the Clave—that’s unusual.”

They sound so happy together, Cordelia thought wonderingly. As James and I used to—and yet I knew nothing of this side of Lucie. I did not know this was happening.

“Jeremy Blackthorn,” said Jesse, in a portentous tone. “Who is the prettiest girl in the Enclave? It’s a very important question.…”

At that, before the flirting could escalate, Cordelia loudly cleared her throat.

“The ballroom looks lovely!” she exclaimed. “Is it to be decorated for the Christmas party?”

“Very subtle,” said Matthew, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

Both Jesse and Lucie turned around. Lucie beamed. “James, you’re back! Cordelia and Matthew, come and meet Jesse!”

Cordelia could immediately see that this Jesse was very different from Belial-possessed Jesse. As he rose to his feet and came to greet them, Cordelia thought he seemed somehow clearer than he had when she had seen him before, like a painting that had been restored. He wore clothes that were a little short on him, his jacket clearly strained across his shoulders, his ankles visible between his shoes and the hem of his trousers. But he was undeniably handsome, with a sharp, articulate face, and long-lashed green eyes several shades lighter than Matthew’s.

As they exchanged introductions and greetings, Cordelia saw Lucie glance back and forth between Matthew and James, and frown. Of course; she knew them so well, she would be attuned to any oddness between them. Still, a little frown line appeared between her eyebrows, and stayed.

It was Matthew who said, “What is this Jeremy business, then?”

“Oh, right,” Lucie said. “After we got back from Cornwall, we had a meeting with Charlotte and all the aunts and uncles, and decided—we will introduce Jesse as Jeremy Blackthorn, distant cousin of the Blackthorns, part of the branch that broke off and went to America a hundred years ago.”

Cordelia frowned. “Don’t the Silent Brothers have records of who belongs to what family?”

“They tend not to keep particularly accurate ones for those who have left the Clave,” said Jesse. “As my grandfather Ezekiel did. And besides, a very helpful fellow called Brother Zachariah was also at the meeting.”

“I ought to have seen his hand in all this,” said Matthew. “Well, never let it be said we are not, as a group, up for a deception. Does the Inquisitor know?”

Lucie shuddered. “Gracious, no. Can you imagine? Especially after he apparently just encountered Belial out in the wilds near the Adamant Citadel. He can’t be feeling kindly toward Blackthorns, or, well, Shadowhunters doing magic of any sort.”

They had all refrained from asking Lucie exactly how she had raised Jesse from the dead; James seemed to know it, but Cordelia realized it was simply another thing about Lucie she’d been ignorant of. She felt a hollow sadness at her center. It was not distant from the sadness she felt over James—here she was, so close to someone she loved, and yet she felt a million miles away.

“It’s rather too bad we can’t tell the truth,” said Matthew, “as it’s quite an exciting tale. Having someone who returned from the dead among our number seems a feather in the cap for the Enclave, if you ask me.”

“I wouldn’t mind for me,” said Jesse. He had altogether a calm, mild manner, though Cordelia guessed there were deeper currents running beneath it. “But I would hate for Lucie to be punished for all that she did for me, or Grace, either. Without the two of them, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Grace?” said Cordelia, in confusion.

Lucie flushed and held her hands out to Cordelia. “I ought to have told you. I was afraid you’d be upset with me—”

“You worked with Grace?” James said sharply. “And didn’t tell any of us?”

Jesse looked back and forth between them—at James’s ashen face, and Cordelia, who had still not taken Lucie’s hands. At Matthew, whose smile had vanished. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Something about my sister—?”

“She did not entirely endear herself to the Enclave when she was among us. For example, she broke up my brother Charles’s engagement to Ariadne, seemed to wish to marry him, then dropped Charles in a letter from the Silent City with no explanation,” said Matthew.

It was a small part of the story. But Jesse’s eyes darkened with worry. “I cannot apologize for what my sister has done,” he said. “She will have to do that herself. I do know that it was at my mother’s insistence that she pursued Charles. My mother has always seen Grace as a path to power. And I believe that in turning herself over to the Silent Brothers, my sister has shown that she no longer wishes to be my mother’s tool. I hope that will count for something when she returns to the Enclave.”

For a moment there was quiet. Cordelia glanced at James; she saw with despair that he had retreated behind the Mask. It was his armor, his protection.

Lucie has been in love with Jesse all this time, and I never knew, Cordelia thought. Now they are more firmly together, and that will only bring her closer to Grace. Perhaps Grace will be her sister-in-law someday, and meanwhile I cannot even be her parabatai. I will lose Lucie to Grace, just as I lost James to her.

“I am happy for you, Lucie,” she said. “And for you, Jesse. But I find I am very tired and must return home to see my mother. She is not entirely well, and I have left her for too long.”

She turned to leave.

“Cordelia,” Lucie said. “Surely we could at least have time for a moment alone together—just to talk—”

“Not now,” Cordelia said as she walked away from the group of them. “It seems there is much I did not know. Forgive me, if I require some time to consider the nature of my own ignorance.”



* * *



James caught up with Cordelia on the front steps of the Institute.

He’d hurried after her without a moment’s thought—rude, he knew, but all he’d seen was that Cordelia was unhappy, and leaving, and he had to do something about it, immediately.

The snow outside had stopped, though it had left a thin icing-sugar scrim of white on the front steps and the flagstones of the courtyard. Cordelia stood on the top step, her breath puffing around her in white clouds, her hands—gloveless—folded together. Her hair was a bright flame against the whiteness of winter, like a poppy among a field of lilies.

“Daisy—” he started.

“Don’t,” she said, softly, looking at the Institute gates with their Latin script, PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS. “Don’t call me that.”

He could see where her fingertips were reddened with cold. He wanted to wrap her hands in his, fold them inside his coat the way he had seen his father do with his mother’s hands. With the self-control that years of Jem’s training had instilled in him, he held himself back.

“Cordelia,” he said. “Would you have told Lucie? I know you couldn’t have, you didn’t have a chance, but—would you have? That you saw me… with Grace, before you left for Paris?”