Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

And then Thomas could not say anything but yes; it was one thing to disappoint Christopher, another to make it seem as if he had changed his mind about assisting Christopher in the library simply because Alastair was going to be there.

Thomas was not someone who normally paid that much attention to his clothes. If they were not bizarre, and did not have holes or burns in them, he was happy. Yet he changed his jacket at least six times that morning before finding a dark olive one that brought out the green in his eyes. He brushed his sandy hair four or five different ways before coming downstairs to find Eugenia, alone in the breakfast room, buttering toast.

She eyed him. “You’re going out wearing that?” she said.

Thomas stared at her in horror. “What?”

She chuckled. “Nothing. You look fine, Tom. Go have fun with Alastair and Christopher.”

“You are a fiend,” he said to her. “A fiend from the deep.”

Thomas was running through various cutting remarks he could have made to Eugenia, had he thought of them at the time, when he arrived at the Institute and took the stairs two at a time to reach the library. It was immediately evident that he was the last to arrive; as he was making his way down the library’s central aisle of heavy oak study tables, he caught sight of Christopher down the stacks, where he had carefully arranged a pile of books as a stepstool so he could reach something else on a top shelf. He turned when he heard Thomas’s footsteps, nearly toppled off the stack, rescued himself with a heroic waving of arms, and jumped down to greet Thomas.

Alastair was somewhat farther into the room, sitting at one of the study tables, green lamp burning and a fearsome stack of leatherbound volumes next to him. Christopher led Thomas over to him.

“Lightwood,” Alastair said, nodding to Christopher, and then to Thomas, “Other Lightwood.”

“Well, that is going to be very confusing,” Christopher said, while Thomas fumed silently at being referred to as Other Lightwood. “But no matter. We are here to find out about paladins.”

“And more specifically,” Alastair said, “to help my sister stop being one.” He sighed. “I’ve been going through these,” he said, patting the stack of books on the table, a patchwork of volumes in languages familiar to Thomas—Greek, Latin, Spanish, Old English—and many that were not.

“You’re a braver man than I,” Christopher said. To Thomas’s quizzical expression he added, “Books of Deeds. The Shadowhunters used to record notable demon fights for their records. Extensively.”

“Or, more often,” Alastair said, “highly boring, completely ordinary demon fights engaged in by notable persons. Heads of Institutes, that sort of thing. And, long ago, paladins.”

“What have you found?” Christopher said.

“A fat lot of nothing,” Alastair said briskly. “All the paladins I’ve found stay paladins until they die in their beds.”

Thomas said, “I wouldn’t think Shadowhunter paladins would want to stop being paladins.”

Alastair grimaced. “It’s not only that. Do you think if a Shadowhunter stopped being the paladin of an angel—and the angel didn’t smite them dead—they’d stay a Shadowhunter? The Clave would surely strip their Marks and cast them out.”

“Because a Shadowhunter paladin is bound to an angel,” Thomas said. “So those vows are holy. To leave the angel’s service would be unholy.” Alastair nodded. “What if they violate their vows? Do something that makes the angel break the connection with them?”

“What are you getting at?” Alastair looked at him, dark eyes curious. They were a velvet-dark, a softer sort of shade than black. For a moment Thomas forgot what he was supposed to be saying, until Christopher poked him in the ribs.

“I mean,” said Thomas, “that if you’re the paladin of an angel, but you do terrible things—commit terrible sins—the angel might reject you. But what if Cordelia does lots of good deeds? Very good deeds, I mean. Feeds the sick, clothes the needy… washes the feet of beggars? I can tell from your faces that you don’t see much merit in the idea, but I think we should consider it.”

“Cordelia already only does good and kind things,” Alastair said testily. “Well,” he added, “the last week excluded, I suppose.”

Christopher looked alarmed, an expression Thomas strongly suspected was mirrored on his own face.

“Oh, what?” snapped Alastair. “Are we all supposed to pretend that Cordelia didn’t run off to Paris with Matthew because James made her miserable, always gazing after that vacuous Grace Blackthorn? And now they’re all back, and they all look miserable. What an appalling mess.”

“It’s not James’s fault,” Thomas said hotly. “He and Cordelia had an agreement—she knew—”

“I don’t need to listen to this,” said Alastair ferociously. Thomas had always secretly loved Alastair’s god-damn-you expression, with his dark eyes snapping and that hard twist to his soft mouth. At the moment, though, he wanted to snap back—wanted to defend James—and at the same time, he couldn’t help but understand what Alastair felt. Eugenia might be a toast-eating fiend, but Thomas had to admit he would not think much of any man marrying her and then mooning about over someone else.

But Thomas never got to say any of this, of course, because Alastair had already snatched up a volume from his table and was striding away toward the privacy of the stacks.

Thomas and Christopher looked at each other gloomily. “I suppose he has a point,” Christopher said. “It is a mess.”

“Did you learn anything from talking to James the other night?” Thomas said. “About Grace, or…”

Christopher sat down on the table Alastair had abandoned. “Grace,” he said, in an odd sort of voice. “If James loved her once, he doesn’t now. He loves Cordelia, and I think for him, not being with her is like it would be for me if I had to give up science and learning things.” He looked at Thomas. “What did you find out from Matthew?”

“He also loves Cordelia, unfortunately,” said Thomas. “And he is also miserable, just like James; in part he is miserable because of James. He misses him, and he feels like he has wronged him, and at the same time he feels wronged—he feels like if James had ever told him that he loved Cordelia, he would never have let himself fall in love with her. And now it’s too late.”

“I wonder,” said Christopher. “Do you think Matthew really loves Cordelia?”

“I think for him Cordelia is a sort of absolution,” said Thomas. “If she loved him, he imagines it would fix everything broken in his life.”

“I don’t think love works that way,” said Christopher, with a frown. “I think some people are suited for each other, and others aren’t. Like Grace and James weren’t suited. James and Cordelia are a much better match.” He lifted a heavy Book of Deeds, holding it up so he could examine the faded gilt spine.

Thomas said, “I suppose I never gave much thought to whether James and Grace were well suited. I barely know her at all, to be honest.”

“Well, she was shut up like Rapunzel in a tower by her mother for all those years,” said Christopher. “Yet despite all that, she is possessed of a fine scientific mind.”

“Is she,” Thomas said, arching an eyebrow.

“Oh, yes. We have had some excellent conversations about my work on the fire-messages. And she shares my views on activated moth powder.”

“Christopher,” said Thomas. “How do you know so much about Grace?”

Christopher’s eyes widened. “I am observant,” he said. “I am a scientist. We observe.” He squinted again at the book in his hand. “This will not be useful. I must return it to the shelf from which it was taken.”

With which unusually formal pronouncement, he sprang off the table and disappeared into the shadows at the east end of the library.

Thomas struck off toward the other end of the library, where Alastair had vanished among the shadows between the white-flickering lamps placed at intervals on the tables. The curving stained-glass windows threw diamonds of scarlet and gold at Thomas’s feet as he turned a corner and found Alastair sitting on the floor, his head thrown back against the wall, a book dangling from his hand.

He started when he saw Thomas but made no move to relocate as Thomas sat down beside him. For a long moment they simply sat together, side by side, looking out at the painted angel on the library wall.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, after some time had passed. “The business between James and Cordelia—I oughtn’t to have inserted my opinion into it. James has been my friend for a long time, but I’ve never fathomed his interest in Grace. None of us have.”

Alastair turned to look at Thomas. His hair had grown long since he had come to London; it fell over his eyes, soft and dark as a cloud of smoke. The desire to touch Alastair’s hair, to rub the strands between his fingers, was so strong that Thomas clenched his hands into fists. “I’m sure they would say the same about you and me,” Alastair said, “if they knew.”