Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

As discreetly as she could, she slipped out of her seat to approach James. He was standing by one of the shelves of books, running a finger along the spines, clearly looking for something.

“James—I need to speak to you in private,” she said quietly.

He looked down at her. His golden eyes seemed to burn in his pale, intent face. For a moment there was no one in the room but the two of them. “Really?”

She realized, belatedly, that what she’d said must have seemed to him as if she were saying she wished to speak to him about their marriage. She could feel her cheeks turning pink. “It’s about something I heard,” she said. “In Paris. I thought we’d better talk at the Institute before alarming everyone. Lucie ought to be there too,” she added.

He remained motionless for a moment, his hand on a thick book of demonology. Then, “Of course,” he said, turning away from the shelves. “We can speak at the Institute. And if you like, you can stay for supper.”

“Thank you.” Cordelia watched as James stepped away to say something to Christopher and Matthew. She felt stiff, uncomfortable, and it was nearly unbearable feeling uncomfortable around James—James, of all people.

Her heart felt like a rag, wrung out but still saturated with stubborn, ineradicable love. She could not help wondering: If there had never been a Grace, would James have fallen in love with her? Would she and James have found happiness together, a simple, direct happiness that was now forever out of reach? Even in her wildest dreams, she found it impossible to picture what that happy ending would have been like. Perhaps she ought to have learned something from that before all this, she thought; if one could not even imagine something, surely it indicated that thing was never meant to happen?





12 THE SEEING ONES




And you have known him from his origin,

You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin

He must have been to the few seeing ones—

A trifle terrifying, I dare say,

Discovering a world with his man’s eyes,

Quite as another lad might see some finches.

—Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford”



As they walked back to Anna’s flat, their boots kicking up slushy snow, Anna kept a weather eye on Matthew.

Matthew had always been her companion in mischief. She swore she could remember the day when she was two years old, when gurgling baby Matthew had been plonked into her lap and she had decided then and there that they would be the best of friends.

There had been a time, two years ago, when a darkness had taken up residence at the backs of Matthew’s eyes. A shadow where there had always been sunshine. He had never been willing to speak of it, and after some time it had gone away, replaced by a slightly wilder and more brittle cheerfulness. She had put it down to the oddness of boys growing up—after all, had James not grown odd and distant around the same time?

Today, in the Devil Tavern, Anna had seen that the shadow was back in Matthew’s eyes. She was not so foolish as not to assume it had something to do with the awful situation regarding Cordelia and James. If Matthew was unhappy—and that was clear—he was unhappy enough to have made himself ill over it. The shadows under his eyes looked like a boxer’s fading bruises.

So she had invited him home with her for tea. He’d seemed agreeable enough, especially once it was clear that Cordelia was returning to the Institute with James and Lucie. He spoke little on the walk to Percy Street: he was hatless and gloveless, as if taking some pleasure from the bitingly cold air.

Once inside the flat, Ariadne excused herself to change her dress, a carriage on Tottenham Court Road having splashed muddy slush all over its hem. Anna offered Matthew food, which he refused, and tea, which he accepted. His hands shook as he lifted the teacup to his mouth.

Anna scolded him out of his damp coat and handed him a flannel to dry his wet hair. He’d finished his tea, so she poured him another cup and added a capful of brandy. Matthew almost looked as if he were going to protest—odd, he’d never protested against brandy in his tea before—but stopped himself. His hair sticking up in soft gold spikes, he took the cup and flicked his eyes to the door of Anna’s bedroom. “So Ariadne is living with you now?”

Trust Matthew to want to gossip regardless of the circumstances.

“Temporarily,” Anna said. “She couldn’t remain with the Bridgestocks.”

“Even as a temporary measure,” Matthew said, a swallow of the brandied tea seeming to have steadied his hands, “do you think that’s a wise idea?”

“And who are you, exactly, to have anything to say about wisdom?” Anna said. “Your most recent idea was to run away to Paris with James’s wife.”

“Ah, but I am already well known for having only terrible ideas, whereas you are regarded as possessing good judgment and common sense.”

“Well, there you go,” said Anna. “If this was not a good idea, I would not be doing it, since I have only good ideas.”

Matthew began to protest, but Anna shushed him with a warning finger; Ariadne had come bustling back into the sitting room in a peach-colored day dress. There were few people Anna knew who could have carried off that shade of coral, but it seemed to make Ariadne’s skin glow from within. Her hair was down, a mass of black silk about her shoulders.

There was worry in Ariadne’s eyes as she glanced at Matthew, but wisely she said nothing, only took a seat beside him on the purple tufted sofa.

Good, don’t show him you’re worried, Anna thought. He’ll only dig his heels in like a stubborn pony.

But Ariadne had been well trained by her mother in etiquette. She could probably carry on a conversation about the weather with someone whose head was on fire. “I understand, Matthew,” she said, accepting a cup of Earl Grey, “that you have your own flat. That you, like Anna, prefer to live on your own. Is that true?”

“I’m not sure it was down to preference, but rather necessity,” said Matthew. “But I do like where I am living,” he added, “and you might like it as well; the flats are serviced, and I am fairly sure I could battle a demon in the lobby and the porter would be too polite to have any questions.” He glanced at Anna. “Is that why you asked me here? Advice over flats?”

Anna said nothing; the thought of Ariadne leaving unsettled her in a way she could not define. Surely she wished her privacy back, she thought, the calm and comfort of her flat, the refuge it provided, uninhabited by anyone but herself.…

Ariadne set her teacup down. “Not at all. We wanted your advice on something I found.”

Matthew raised his eyebrows, clearly curious now. Ariadne fetched the letter from atop the mantelpiece and passed it over. Matthew unfolded it and read it quickly, eyes widening.

“Where did you find this?” he asked when he was done. Anna was pleased to see that he seemed sharper, more focused.

“My father’s office,” Ariadne said. “And it’s obviously his. His handwriting, his signature.”

“But he didn’t send it,” said Matthew. “So either your father is blackmailing someone, or he is planning to blackmail someone but didn’t get around to it before he left for the Adamant Citadel. Did he notice it missing?”

Ariadne bit her lip. “I—don’t know. I think he meant to burn it—I found it in the fireplace, so I wouldn’t think he’d be looking for it. But we haven’t spoken since he got back.”

“The question,” said Anna, “is who the Inquisitor would want to blackmail, and over what.”

“I can’t imagine,” said Ariadne. “He’s already in such a position of power. Why would he need to hold something over someone? If a Shadowhunter was violating the Law, he would have every authority to confront them directly.”

Matthew was silent for a moment. “Is this letter why you feel you must move away?” he asked finally. “Why it is a… necessity for you to go?”

“I’ve always been raised to be a model Shadowhunter,” Ariadne said softly. “I’m the daughter of the Inquisitor. It is my father’s job to hold all the Nephilim to the impossibly high standard of Raziel’s Law, and he holds his family to no less a standard. I was raised to be an obedient daughter, in training to become an obedient wife. I would do what they said, marry who they wanted—”

“Charles, for instance,” Matthew said.