Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Time seemed to slow. Cordelia could hear Anna, begging Ariadne to hold still, hold still, and the demon was hurtling across the room toward her, leaving a trail of black ichor, and Cordelia knew that if she so much as lifted a broken floorboard to defend herself it would bring Lilith, but she had no choice—


The demon was on her. It lunged, and Cordelia kicked out as hard as she could, her boot colliding with its dense, springy frame. It yowled like a cat, rolling onto its back, but the yowls weren’t just noise, Cordelia realized. They were words.

“They rise,” it hissed. “Soon they will be invincible. No seraph blade will harm them.”

“What?” Throwing caution and sense to the winds, Cordelia ran toward the demon where it crouched on the floor. “Who is rising? Tell me!”

The demon looked up at her—and went limp. Its fanged mouth trembling, it cringed away from her, covering its body with some of its legs. “Paladin,” it rasped. “Oh, forgive me. Thine is the power, thine and thy Lady’s. Forgive me. I did not know—”

A sharp crack sounded. Something punched into the demon’s body—Cordelia thought she saw a hole open between its eyes, a black hole rimmed with fire. The demon spasmed, legs curling in. Then it melted away into smoke.

The stench of ichor on the air was mixed with the sharp smell of cordite. Cordelia knew what she would see even before she looked: James, white-faced, pistol in hand. It was still pointed unerringly at the spot where the demon had just been.

“Daisy.” Lowering his arm, he moved quickly to her side. His gaze raked her, searching for injuries, bruises. “Are you hurt? Did it—”

“You needn’t have shot it,” Cordelia snapped. “I was questioning it. It said, ‘They rise,’ and I—”

His hands still on her shoulders, James’s expression turned incredulous. “You can’t question a demon, Daisy. It’ll just lie.”

“I was managing.” Shock had turned to a hot fury in Cordelia’s veins, a fury that seemed to have a tight hold of her, even as a small part of her mind looked on, appalled. “I didn’t need your help—”

His golden eyes narrowed. “Really? Because you can’t wield a weapon, Cordelia, in case you’ve forgotten—”

“Stop it. Both of you.” It was Anna, speaking more sternly than Cordelia had imagined she could. She and Ariadne had crossed the room to them; Cordelia, intent on James, had not noticed. She wondered how much they had overheard. Anna held her stele in her hand; Ariadne, beside her, sported red welts on the left side of her face, where the demon’s acid saliva had touched her. There was a freshly applied healing rune on her throat. “Whatever’s happening between you may be none of my business, but I won’t have you arguing in the middle of a mission. It puts us all in danger.”

Cordelia felt wretchedly ashamed. Anna was right. “James,” she said, looking at him directly. It hurt to do that; it was like pressing a sharp pin into her hand. He was beautiful, just as he was—breathing hard, his black hair in his eyes, a sheen of sweat along his collarbones. She wished she could make herself immune to his beauty, but it seemed impossible. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t apologize.” The Mask had gone up; he was expressionless. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”

A crash came from downstairs, and a shout. Lucie, Cordelia thought, and a moment later they were all bolting down the steps toward the main floor of the house.



* * *



Cordelia, James, Anna, and Ariadne raced back downstairs, only to find Jesse and Lucie in the parlor. More specifically, Lucie was in the parlor: Jesse was halfway up the fireplace, getting covered in soot.

“What happened?” James demanded. “What was that crash?”

Lucie, also streaked with soot, said, “Something fell out of the fireplace into the grate. Jesse?” she called. “Jesse, did you get them?”

A moment later Jesse emerged, the top half of his body nearly caked with soot. He looked as if it had been raining black paint on him. In one hand he held a dirty mirror; in the other, what seemed to be a book with a leather cord wrapped around its binding, which held a number of loose papers.

“Notes,” he said, coughing. “My mother’s notes and bits of old diaries. I remembered seeing her peering up the chimney with this”—he held up the mirror, which James realized was not dirty so much as made of a shiny, reflective black material—“and I realized, she had a hiding place up there you could only see if you shone the mirror up the chimney. Some kind of magical signal beacon. That’s why the Enclave didn’t find it.”

“Does it do anything else?” Anna asked, peering at the mirror curiously. “Besides pointing the way to the chimney hiding place?”

“Might I see it?” James asked, and with a shrug, Jesse handed it over. James could hear the others discussing the demon they’d found upstairs, Jesse wondering aloud how long it had been living in the dumbwaiter, but James’s concentration was all on the mirror.

Before he even touched the mirror’s handle, he felt as though it were in his hand: smooth and cool to the touch, humming with power. It seemed made of black adamas, or something very close to it, surrounding a circle of dark glass. And around the edge of the glass were runes, obviously demonic, though not in a language James recognized.

He touched the glass. When his finger made contact, though, there was a sudden flash, like an unexpected leaping ember from a fire. He sucked in his breath.

“Belial,” he said, and everyone seemed to jump. He was conscious of Cordelia looking at him with wide eyes, darker than the mirror’s glass. He forced himself not to stare at her. “I—cannot tell you what the mirror does; I’ve no idea. But I would swear on my life that Belial gave it to Tatiana. I can feel his touch on it.”

“It looks just like the pithos,” Lucie observed. “Belial’s stele-thingy that he used to steal runes from his victims’ bodies. Maybe Belial gave Tatiana a whole vanity set?”

“Try touching it yourself, Luce,” Anna suggested, and after a moment, Lucie reached out her hand and skated it across the mirror’s surface.

This time, there was a flicker from within the mirror, like a dancing flame. It was faint, but it continued to glow as long as Lucie was touching it.

She drew her hand back, biting her lip. “Indeed,” she said, her voice subdued. “It has Belial’s aura.”

“I doubt it was just a gift,” said Cordelia. “I don’t think Belial would have given it to Tatiana unless it had some darker purpose.”

“More than just looking up chimneys,” Ariadne agreed.

“We should bring the book and the mirror back to the Institute,” Jesse said. “Have a closer look at both. And I’ll start trying to decipher my mother’s notes; they are written in a sort of code, but not a complicated one.”

James nodded. “And I agree about returning to the Institute. It’s warded, for one thing, and I would also rather we not remain at Chiswick after dark, all things considered. Who knows what else might be roaming the grounds?”





16 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT




We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

—Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2



Cordelia had been nervous about approaching the Hell Ruelle, given what had happened at the cabaret in Paris, but the doorman (a squat, broad-shouldered fellow with a square jaw and lidless toad’s eyes) gave her only a cursory glance before allowing her in. It seemed she was a known visitor, a fact that Cordelia was not sure whether she should be pleased about. She hadn’t visited the Ruelle that many times, she thought, but it appeared she’d left an impression.

This was the first time she’d ever come to the Downworlder salon alone. She had not told anyone what she was planning. She felt a little guilty about it—Anna had been so kind to her, and Alastair had spent all day with Christopher and Thomas in the Institute library, searching out ways to help her. When she had returned to the Institute from Chiswick House with the others, they had found the boys waiting for them in the chapel. Apparently Christopher had only just returned from Limehouse, where he had purchased an amulet from Hypatia Vex’s magic shop.

“It seems there are loads of these,” he’d said, passing it over to her. It was silver, round like a coin, with a pin on the back that allowed it to be worn as a brooch. “Protective amulets against Lilith specifically. Even mundanes used to wear them, and Shadowhunters did before the protection rituals were invented. It has the names of the three angels who oppose Lilith etched on it, the ones who blessed James’s gun. Sanvi, Sansanvi, Semangelaf.” He traced the Hebrew letters with his fingers before handing the amulet to Cordelia. “It won’t make you not a paladin anymore, but it may discourage Lilith from approaching you.”