Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Belial rose and came down the steps of his throne. It seemed he could not tell James was watching—he winced as he walked, his hand pressed over his left side, where the wounds Cortana had dealt him still bled. Raising a hand stained with his own blackish blood, Belial sketched an archway on the air.

It was as if he had sliced a piece out of the night. Dim light shone through the arch, and the Chimera demons leaped and frolicked excitedly. James could hear no sound, only a sort of roaring in his ears like the crash of waves, but he saw Belial’s lips move, saw Belial ordering the demons through the open arch, and then Belial turned, a frowning sneer on his face, and looked toward James—

Darkness swallowed him. He was falling, though he could still feel Matthew’s grip. He was caught in a whirlwind of unfamiliar stars, the air ripped from his throat, tearing away his voice. He was no longer in silence. He could hear screaming—the terrible screaming of someone, something, that was being invaded, taken over—

James gasped for breath. He would lose his mind soon, he knew, if he did not break free of the shadows: he forced himself to concentrate, to think of Jem’s lessons, Jem’s voice, calm and steady, training him to regain control of himself. You must find the place within that nothing outside can reach. The place beyond senses, beyond even thought. You don’t need to learn how to get there; you are already there, always. You only need to learn to remember you are there. You are within yourself. You are James Herondale, fully and only.

And with a wrench that seemed to tear at every muscle in his body, James hit the ground. The floor, in fact, of the Devil Tavern. He gasped, taking gulps of familiar, musty air as though he’d been rescued from drowning. He tried to move, to sit up, but he was wrung out: his shirt was plastered to him with sweat, and his hands—

“Are you bleeding?” Christopher demanded. They were all around him, he realized: Thomas and Jesse, Christopher and Matthew, surrounding him, their faces stunned and disbelieving.

“The mirror,” Jesse said. James glanced down to see that the glass had fragmented into a thousand pieces, and his hands were snowflaked with tiny cuts like spiky red lines.

“Just scratches,” he said breathlessly. Through sheer exhaustion he was aware of Matthew at his side, of Matthew taking his arm, of the touch of Matthew’s stele. “I saw…”

“It’s all right, James,” Jesse said, working to undo the cuff around James’s left wrist. “You don’t have to talk. Just breathe.”

But the pain was fading, energy surging back into James’s veins as Matthew drew rune after rune on his skin. He let his head fall back against the wall and said, “I saw Belial. He was—surrounded by demons. Chimera demons. He was giving them orders, sending them through some kind of Portal. I couldn’t tell where.”

He closed his eyes, as Christopher said, in a puzzled tone, “But Chimera demons are symbiotic. They need to possess someone in order to come into their full power.”

“They’re easy to defeat on their own,” said Thomas. “Why create an army of them?”

James thought of the screaming he had heard in the void: the agony of it, the terrible sense of invasion. “I think he is sending them to possess someone,” he said. “It felt like a great many someones.” He looked up at his friends. “But who could they be?”



* * *



It had been a whole day since the Silent Brother had arrived, and Letty Nance couldn’t sleep.

Her room was a small one, up under the eaves of the Institute, and when the wind blew, she could hear it whistle through the broken roof tiles. Her small fireplace was often choked with soot, and smoke puffed into the room like dragon’s breath.

But none of that was the reason she was awake. Every time she shut her eyes, she heard the voices she had discerned through the Sanctuary door. The soft, sibilant, pulsing words she didn’t understand. Ssha ngil ahrzat. Bhemot abliq ahlel. Belial niquaram.

She rolled over, pressing her hands over her eyes. Her head throbbed.

Belial niquaram.

The floor under her feet was cold. She found herself walking to the door, turning the handle. It creaked open, and the cold air from the corridor hit her.

She didn’t feel it. She went down the stairs, which curved in a circle. Down and down, into the dark and unlit nave of the old church. Down the steps to the crypt.

Belial niquaram. Letty niquaram. Kaal ssha ktar.

Come, Letty. I call you, Letty. The door is open.

And indeed, the door of the Sanctuary was unlocked. Letty swung it wide and stepped inside.

A strange tableau met her eyes. The Silent Brother stood below the light of a tallow lamp, his head tilted back at an unnatural angle. His mouth was as open as it could be, straining against the threads that held it sewed shut, and from it emanated more of those words, those grating, terrible words that stuck and pulled her closer, as if she were imprisoned in tar.

Ssha ngil ahrzat. Bhemot abliq ahlel. Belial niquaram. Eidolon.

At his feet lay the body of Albert Pangborn. He had died in his nightclothes, the front of his shirt torn open, showing red flesh and white bone, like a gaping mouth. Blood pooled beneath him.

And still Letty could not run.

On the metal bed sat the old woman, Tatiana Blackthorn. Her eyes, gone dark as ink, fixed on Letty, and she began to grin. Letty watched as Tatiana’s mouth opened—and opened, distending well beyond any human jaw.

From the old woman now came a low, creaking sound. It sounded like she was laughing, deep in her chest.

I must run, said some small, buried part of Letty. I must get out of this place.

But she couldn’t move. Not even when the old woman’s skin split, her body shifting and changing so rapidly it was as if she were melting and re-forming into something else. Something pale and tall, skinny-limbed, bald and hairless, with skin like a puckered burn. Something that hunched its back, and hopped and crawled. Something slimy and pale white that came at Letty so fast that she had no time even to cry out.





19 MARKS OF WOE




I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

—William Blake, “London”



Grace suspected it was evening. She had no real way of telling, save by the changing nature of the meals she was brought—oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches for luncheon, and supper, which tonight had been mutton with currant jelly. It was all rather better than her mother’s usual fare.

She had also been provided with two plain linen dresses, in a sort of bone color, not unlike the robes the Brothers wore. She supposed she could sit about the cell stark naked for all they really cared, but she dressed carefully each day and plaited her hair anyway. It seemed like giving up something not to do it, and this evening she was glad she had, as soft footsteps heralded a visitor.

She sat up on her bed, heart pounding. Jesse? Had he forgiven her? Returned? There was so much she wanted to say, to explain to him—

“Grace.” It was Christopher. Gentle Christopher. The torches burning in the corridor—Brother Zachariah had put them there for her, since the Brothers did not need light—showed her that he was alone, coatless, and carried a leather satchel over his shoulder.

“Christopher!” she whispered loudly. “Did you sneak in?”

He looked puzzled. “No, of course not. Brother Zachariah asked me if I knew the way and I said yes, so he went to attend to other business.” He held up something that glittered. A key. “He said I could come into the cell and visit with you. He says he trusts you not to try to escape, which is rather nice.”

Into the cell? Grace hadn’t been near another human being without bars between them for what felt like forever. It was kind of Zachariah to let a friend come into her cell, she thought, as Christopher unlocked the door and pushed it open, the hinges squeaking. Kindness still knocked her off guard, leaving her feeling confused and almost uncomfortable.

“I’m afraid that there’s only the one chair,” Grace said. “So I’ll remain sitting on the bed, if that’s all right. I know it isn’t proper.”

“I don’t think the usual rules of British etiquette hold here,” Christopher said, sitting down with his satchel in his lap. “The Silent City isn’t in London—it’s everywhere, isn’t it? We could walk out the doors and be in Texas or Malacca. So we can cobble together any rules of politeness we like.”