Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

He descended and turned to Lucie. He was not smiling now, though her mother had not been wrong. He did look handsome in his new, Anna-and-James-provided clothes. They actually fit him, following the lines of his slender body, the emerald velvet collar of his frock coat darkening the green of his eyes and framing the elegant shape of his face.

“Lucie,” he said, drawing her a little bit behind the weapons tree. He was looking at her in a way that made her feel hot all over, as if her whole body was blushing. A way that said he knew he shouldn’t be looking at her like that, but that he could not prevent himself. “You look…” He raised a hand as if to touch her face, then dropped it quickly, his fingers clenching in frustration. “I want to make a romantic speech—”

“Well, you should,” said Lucie. “I firmly encourage it.”

“I can’t.” He leaned in close; she could smell Christmas on him, the scent of pine and snow. “There is something I must tell you,” he said. “You reached out to Malcolm, didn’t you? About what was happening when—with us?”

She nodded, puzzled. “How did you know?”

“Because he sent me a message,” Jesse said, glancing at Will and Tessa as if—though they were a good distance away—they might overhear. “He’s in the Sanctuary, and he wants to see you.”



* * *



Going into the Sanctuary had not been part of Lucie’s plan for the evening, and she was even more unhappy to be there when she realized that it was still arranged for Jesse’s funerary rites. There was the bier his body had been laid upon, with its muslin shroud and the ring of candles. There too was the white silk blindfold that had been tied around his eyes, discarded on the floor next to the bier. She was sure nobody in the Institute, staff or resident, knew what to do with the blindfold. She had never before heard of one that had been used on a body, but not cremated along with it.

Malcolm, dressed all in white, was perched on a chair near an unlit candelabra. His suit seemed to glow in the sparse light from the high windows. “Nephilim never clean up after themselves, it seems,” he said. “Very fitting, I think.”

“I take it you got my message.” Lucie cocked her head to the side. “Though there’s no need for this kind of subterfuge. You could simply drop by. You’re the High Warlock of London.”

“But then I would have had to pay my respects, chat with your parents. Pretend I had other business that needed attending to. In this case, I only came to speak with you.” Malcolm rose to his feet and made his way over to the bier. He laid a long hand on the muslin shroud crumpled atop it. “What you did here,” he said, his voice low. “Truly marvelous. A miracle.”

And suddenly Lucie saw it as if it were happening again: Jesse sitting up, his chest hitching as he took his first breaths in seven years, his eyes rolling to look at her in shock and confusion. She could sense the gasp of his desperate, hungry breaths; she could smell the cold stone and candle flames; she could hear the clatter on the floor as—

“There’s something wrong,” she said. “When I am close to Jesse, when we kiss or touch—”

Malcolm looked alarmed. “Perhaps this would be a conversation better had with your mother,” he said. “Surely she has, ah, told you how these things work—”

“I know about kissing,” Lucie said crossly. “And this is not at all normal. Unless normal is touching your lips to someone else’s and feeling as if you are falling… faster and faster toward an endless, yawning darkness. A darkness that is full of shining outlines like foreign constellations, signs that seem familiar, but are changed in odd ways. And voices crying out…” She took a sharp breath. “It only lasts until the contact with Jesse ceases. Then I am back on solid ground again.”

Malcolm bent down to pick up the silk blindfold. He drew it through his fingers, saying nothing. He probably imagined she was being ridiculous, Lucie thought, some silly girl who got the vapors when a boy came near her.

In a low voice, he said, “I don’t like the sound of this.”

Lucie felt her stomach swoop and fall. Perhaps she had hoped Malcolm would dismiss the issue as nothing.

“I suspect,” went on Malcolm, “that in raising Jesse, you drew on your power in a way you never have before. And that power is of the shadows in origin, you know that as well as I do. It is possible that in pushing it to its limit, you may have forged a channel between yourself and your demon grandfather.”

Lucie found she was breathless. “Would my—would Belial know that?”

Malcolm was still looking down at the blindfold in his hands. “I cannot say. Does it seem to you that he is trying to communicate?”

Lucie shook her head. “No.”

“Then I think we can assume he is not yet aware of it. But you should avoid attracting his attention. There may well be a way to sever this connection. I will set myself to finding out. In the meantime, not only should you avoid kissing Jesse, you should refrain even from touching him. And you should avoid any summoning or commanding of ghosts.” He looked up, his dark purple eyes nearly black in the dimness. “At least you need not worry that I won’t be motivated to help you. Only once it is safe for you to engage with the magic of life and death again can you call Annabel forth from the shadows.”

“Yes,” Lucie said slowly. It was better for him to be personally invested, surely. And yet she did not like the look in his eyes. “I will help you say goodbye to Annabel, Malcolm. I promised, and I intend to keep that promise.”

“Say goodbye,” Malcolm echoed quietly. There was a look on his face Lucie had not seen before; it vanished quickly, though, and he said calmly, “I will consult my sources and return the moment I have any answers. In the meantime…”

Lucie sighed. “Avoid touching Jesse. I know. I ought to get back,” she added. “If you’d like to come to the party, you’d be welcome.”

Malcolm cocked his head, as if he could hear the music through the walls; perhaps he could. “The Blackthorns had a yearly Christmas party, when I was a boy,” he said. “I was never invited. Annabel would creep out during the festivities, and we would sit together, overlooking the ocean, sharing the iced cakes she’d smuggled out in her coat pockets.” He closed his eyes. “Try not to collect any painful memories, Lucie,” he said. “Do not get too attached to anything, or anyone. For if you lose them, the memory will burn in your mind like a poison for which there will never be any cure.”

There seemed nothing to say to that. Lucie watched Malcolm wend his shadowy way out of the Sanctuary, and she composed herself to go upstairs. She felt cold all over. It was bad enough just knowing that touching the boy she loved might connect her more strongly to Belial, the demon who had once tortured him; how on earth would she explain it to Jesse?



* * *



By the time James made his way to the ballroom, a good number of the guests had already arrived. There was family—his aunts and uncles, though he did not see his cousins yet, or Thomas. Eugenia was there, looking furious and wearing a yellow velvet cap over what seemed to be slightly charred hair. Esme Hardcastle was lecturing the Townsends about the difference between mundane and Shadowhunter Christmases, and the Pouncebys were admiring the weapons tree, along with Charlotte, Henry, and Charles. Thoby Baybrook and Rosamund Wentworth arrived together, wearing matching outfits in rose-colored velvet, which oddly suited Thoby better than Rosamund.

Those who were there were outnumbered by those—Cordelia, Anna, Ari, Matthew—who had not yet arrived; what was puzzling, though, was Lucie’s absence. Jesse was at the doorway with Will and Tessa, presumably being introduced to arriving partygoers as “Jeremy Blackthorn,” but Lucie was nowhere to be seen, and it was not like her to have left Jesse to face the party alone.

James wondered if he should get himself a glass of champagne. Under normal circumstances, he would have, but with everything that had happened with Matthew recently, the idea of taking the edge off his nerves with alcohol had lost its appeal. And he was nervous—each time the ballroom doors opened, he turned his head, hoping for a glimpse of scarlet hair, a flash of dark eyes. Cordelia. He had something he desperately needed to tell her, and though it was not quite the core of his secret, it was very close.