Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“And he has been kind to you about it?” Matthew’s eyes opened. “Is he—are you two—?”


“He won’t agree to be with me,” said Thomas quietly. “But not out of unkindness. He thinks he would be bad for me. I think… in some way… he believes he does not deserve to be happy. Or perhaps it is that he is unhappy, and he believes it is a sort of contagion that might spread.”

“I understand that,” Matthew said, a little wonderingly. “How much love people have denied themselves through the ages because they believed they did not deserve it. As if the waste of love is not the greater tragedy.” His eyes were a very dark green as he looked at Thomas. “You love him?”

“More than anything,” Thomas said. “It’s just—all very complicated.”

Matthew gave a little laugh. Thomas edged closer and pulled Matthew’s head down onto his shoulder.

“We’ll work it out,” he said. “All our troubles. We’re still the Merry Thieves.”

“That’s true,” Matthew said. After a long silence, he said, “I probably need to stop drinking so much.”

Thomas nodded, staring into the blazing fire. “That, also, is true.”





11 DEVIL’S PALADIN




Au gibet noir, manchot aimable,

Dansent, dansent les paladins,

Les maigres paladins du diable,

Les squelettes de Saladins.

—Arthur Rimbaud, “Bal des Pendus”



“Alastair,” Cordelia said. She had her hands flat on her brother’s back and was pushing him, or at least trying to, toward the carriage. Unfortunately, it was like trying to dislodge a boulder. He didn’t budge from the doorway. “Alastair, get in the carriage.”

Her brother’s arms were folded, his look stormy. In a world of chaos, thought Cordelia, exasperated, at least some things remain consistent. “I don’t want to,” he said. “Nobody wants me at this harebrained confabulation anyway.”

“I do,” Cordelia said patiently, “and also, they do, and the proof is here in writing.” She brandished a folded page at him. It had been delivered that morning after breakfast by a messenger boy named Neddy, the Merry Thieves’ most regular Irregular.

It requested both Cordelia’s and Alastair’s presence at the Devil Tavern that afternoon, on behalf of the Merry Thieves, “to discuss the developing situation.” Cordelia had to admit she’d been relieved to receive it—she hadn’t realized until that moment how worried she’d been that she’d be cut out of her friends’ activities. For the crime of mistreating James, or mistreating Matthew, or snapping at Lucie. But no—she had been invited, and quite cheerfully, with Alastair also requested by name.

“I can’t imagine why any of them would want me there,” Alastair grumbled.

“Maybe Thomas convinced them,” Cordelia said, which caused Alastair to forget that he was supposed to be resisting her attempts to drag him outside. He let go of the doorframe, and they both nearly toppled down the stairs. Cordelia heard Risa, wrapped up in fur blankets and perched on the driver’s seat of the carriage, chuckle to herself.

They clambered into the carriage and started off, Alastair looking a little stunned, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was going. He had his spears with him, and his favorite dagger—as Cordelia remained unarmed, lest she forget herself and accidentally summon Lilith. She hated it. She was a Shadowhunter, and going out weaponless felt like going out naked, only more dangerous.

“Why do you keep mentioning Thomas to me?” Alastair said. They were passing row upon row of white houses, many with holly wreaths pinned to their front doors. Risa had clearly decided to take smaller roads to reach the Devil Tavern, avoiding the traffic of Knightsbridge at peak Christmas shopping time.

Cordelia raised an eyebrow at him.

“Thomas Lightwood,” he clarified, tugging on his scarf.

“I didn’t think you meant Thomas Aquinas,” said Cordelia. “And I keep mentioning him because I am not a complete idiot, Alastair. You did turn up rather suddenly at the Institute the moment he was arrested to tell everyone you knew he was innocent because you’d been following him about for days.”

“I didn’t realize you knew all that,” Alastair grumbled.

“Matthew told me.” She reached out to pat her brother on the cheek with a gloved hand. “There is no shame in caring about someone, Alastair. Even if it hurts.”

“?‘The wound is the place where the light enters you,’?” Alastair said. It was her favorite Rumi quote. Cordelia looked quickly out the window.

She told herself not to be foolish, not to cry, no matter how kind Alastair was being. Out the window, she could see the crowded streets of Piccadilly, where sellers pushed barrows of holly and ivy wreaths and wooden toys. Omnibuses rolled by, their sides advertising tins of holiday biscuits and Christmas crackers.

“You’re not going to mind seeing James, will you?” Alastair said. “It won’t bother you?”

Cordelia tugged at the lace on her skirt. She was wearing a pale lavender dress that her mother had gotten her when they first arrived in London, with far too many ruffles and frills. Her only other choices had been the elegant gowns she’d gotten in Paris, but when she’d opened the trunk and touched the silk and velvet, so carefully packed with tissue paper, she’d felt only a wave of sadness. Her time in Paris now seemed tinged with shadow, like the darkening of an old photograph.

“I left him, Alastair,” she said. “Not the other way around.”

“I know,” he said, “but sometimes we leave people to protect ourselves, don’t we? Not because we don’t want to be with them. Unless, of course,” he added, “you are in love with Matthew, in which case, you had better tell me now, and not spring it on me later. I’m braced, I think I can bear up.”

Cordelia made a face. “I told you,” she said. “I just don’t know what I feel—”

The carriage came to a jouncing stop. They had made good time through the park and across Trafalgar Square; here they were at the Devil Tavern. As Cordelia and Alastair clambered out of the carriage, Risa called down that she’d be waiting for them around the corner on Chancery Lane, where the traffic was quieter.

The ground floor of the Devil was as bustling as ever. The usual assortment of regulars filled the high-ceilinged space, and a brief cry of welcome from Pickles, the drunken kelpie, came from the far corner as they closed the door behind them. Alastair looked astonished when Ernie the barkeep welcomed Cordelia by name. Cordelia felt a little surge of pride at that; it was always gratifying to surprise Alastair, no matter how old she got.

She led them through the crowd to the staircase at the back. On the way they passed by Polly, who was carrying a precariously full tray of drinks above her head. “All your Thieves are already upstairs,” she said to Cordelia with a nod, and then turned to take in Alastair with wide eyes. “Cor, who knew the Shadowhunters have been hidin’ their handsomest away until now. What’s your name, love?”

Alastair, shocked into silence for a change, let Cordelia pull him past and up the stairs. “That was—did she really—”

“Fret not,” Cordelia said with a grin. “I shall keep a weather eye out lest she assail your virtue.”

Alastair glared. They had reached the top of the staircase, and the familiar door, above which was carved, It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. S.J.

Alastair read this with some interest. Cordelia poked him in the side.

“I want you to be nice in there,” she said sternly. “I don’t want to hear any comments about how the furniture is shabby and the bust of Apollo has its nose chipped.”

Alastair arched one eyebrow. “My concern is never with the shabbiness of the furniture,” he said loftily, “but the shabbiness of the company.”

Cordelia made a frustrated noise. “You are impossible,” she said, and swung the door open.

The little room inside was crowded. It seemed everyone else had already arrived: James, Matthew, Thomas, and Christopher, of course, but also Lucie and Jesse, Anna, and even Ariadne Bridgestock. All the available furniture from the adjacent bedroom had been dragged in so that there was a seat for everyone (counting the window ledge, where Lucie had perched), but it was a tight squeeze. James and Matthew weren’t sitting next to one another, but Cordelia decided to be relieved that they had both come and didn’t seem to be exchanging glares.

A chorus of greetings rose up as Alastair and Cordelia came in. Thomas detached himself from the arm of Anna’s chair and came over to them, his hazel eyes bright. “You came,” he said to Alastair.

“Well, I was invited,” Alastair said. “Was that your doing?”