Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“Thank you,” Lucie whispered, her face buried in Cordelia’s shoulder. “For what you said.”


“It was nothing,” Cordelia said. “I mean, it was true. It was a true nothing.”

Lucie sniffled an almost-laugh. “Daisy,” she said. “I’m so sorry. And I’m so awfully scared.” Her breath hitched. “Not for me. For my family. For Jesse.”

Cordelia kissed the top of Lucie’s head. “I won’t ever leave you,” she said. “I will always be right beside you.”

“But you said—”

“It doesn’t matter what I said,” Cordelia said firmly. “I will be there.”

The door of the carriage cracked open, and Alastair glared out peevishly. “Really,” he said. “How many meetings are you planning to have on these steps, Layla? Should I be preparing to spend the night in this carriage?”

“I think that would be very gracious of you,” said Cordelia, and though it wasn’t terribly funny, she and Lucie both laughed, and Alastair grumbled, and for just those few moments, everything felt as if it were going to be all right.





22 DEEP MALICE




Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practiced falsehood under saintly show,

Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.

—John Milton, Paradise Lost



The last thing in the world Cordelia wanted to do the next morning was attend a meeting at the Institute in which awful accusations were launched at the Herondales.

Despite her more friendly parting with Lucie, she had barely slept through the night, awakened often by terrible dreams in which people she loved were threatened by demons, but she was unable to lift a blade to help them. Either the weapon would skitter away from her grasp, leaving her crawling after it on her hands and knees, or it would crumble to dust in her hand.

And each dream ended the same way—with Lucie, or James, or Matthew, or Alastair, or Sona, choking in their own blood on the ground, their eyes fixed on her, wide and accusing. She woke with the words of Filomena di Angelo ringing in her ears, each syllable a stab of pain in her heart.

You are the bearer of the blade Cortana, which can slay anything. You have spilled the blood of a Prince of Hell. You could have saved me.

“I can’t go,” she said to Alastair, when he came to her room to see why she had not yet come down to breakfast. Their mother, it seemed, had joined them—a rare occurrence these days—and, though she was not herself attending the meeting, was anxious that her children go—Cordelia to support her husband, of course, and both of them to repay all the kindness shown to them by the Herondales since they had arrived in London. “I can’t bear it.”

“Layla.” He leaned against her doorway. “I agree it will be miserable. But you are not going for yourself; you are going for James and Lucie. They will bear it better if you are there.” He flicked his eyes over her; she was wearing an old dressing gown that Risa had patched several times. “Put on one of the dresses you bought in Paris. Look magnificent and unassailable. Stare down your nose at anyone who insults the Herondales or offers support to the Inquisitor. You are James’s wife—if you do not go, people will whisper that you doubt him and his family.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Cordelia gasped in fury.

Alastair grinned. “There you go. There is the blood of Rostam in your veins.” He glanced over at her wardrobe, which was standing open. “Wear the brown silk,” he said, and with that, brushed dust from his cuffs and headed downstairs.

The thought that her absence might be used as ammunition against the Herondales sent Cordelia shooting out of bed. She put on her coffee silk dress, with its gold embroidery, and wheedled Risa into putting up her hair with topaz pins. She dabbed a bit of rouge on her cheeks and lips, seized up the gloves James had returned to her, and walked downstairs with her head held high. If she could not bear a weapon, then this, at least, would do for armor.

Her despair was already beginning to turn into a far more bracing emotion—anger. In the carriage, on the way to the Institute, she fumed aloud (in between bites of an Eccles cake Alastair had thoughtfully smuggled from the breakfast table) that she could not believe anyone would truly credit the idea that the Herondales were in league with a Prince of Hell. It was an accusation wielded by Tatiana Blackthorn, of all people, and most of the Enclave had known Will and Tessa for decades.

Alastair was not impressed by this reasoning. “Your faith in the goodness of humanity is very admirable. But misplaced. Plenty of people resent the Herondales for their position. Charlotte was a controversial choice for Consul, and there’s a widespread belief, even among those who like them, that the Herondales got the London Institute position because of her.”

“You only know this because you have associated with low and resentful sorts of people like Augustus Pounceby,” Cordelia pointed out.

“True,” Alastair said, “but if not for my vile friends of yesteryear, I would not have the keen and penetrating insights into their thoughts that I do now. The point is, never underestimate people’s desire to make trouble if they think they might get something out of it.”

Cordelia sighed, brushing crumbs from her lap. “Well, I do hope you’re wrong.”

Alastair was not wrong. By twenty minutes into the meeting, with Bridgestock and Charlotte glaring at one another and the whole Enclave in an uproar, Cordelia had to admit that he might have downplayed things.

The meeting was held in the chapel, which already made Cordelia feel grim. Up on the altar stood Bridgestock, Charlotte, and Will. The Enclave filled the pews: Cordelia had scanned the room for her friends the moment they arrived, and cast as reassuring a glance as she could at Lucie and James, who sat in the front pew with Tessa and Jesse. Everyone else was there was well, even Anna, looking stern and furious between her father and Ari. (Cecily, it was to be presumed, was in the infirmary with Alexander.)

“The events in Cornwall have obviously disturbed me greatly,” Bridgestock declaimed, “and in combination with the claims of Tatiana Blackthorn, I must say that the failure to protect us from Belial has greatly shaken my trust in the Herondales’ leadership.” He cast a dark glance at Will. “Now, I am not necessarily saying that you are in league with demons,” said Bridgestock.

“What a compliment,” said Will coldly.

“But,” the Inquisitor went on smoothly, “Tatiana Blackthorn certainly told one truth—that Belial is Tessa’s father. A truth that has been concealed from all of us, all these years. Well,” he added with a sarcastic nod at Charlotte, “from most of us.”

“This was all settled years ago,” Charlotte said. “Tessa is a Shadowhunter in good standing, in addition to being a warlock. It is a situation unique to her, caused by a mundane with a specific ill intent, unlikely to ever be repeated. The identity of the demon who fathered her was not known to anyone, even to Tessa, until recently. And regardless, we do not believe warlocks to be in league with their demon parents.”

“With all due respect,” said Bridgestock, “most warlocks’ demon parent is an anonymous, minor demon, not one of the Nine Princes. Most Shadowhunters have never faced a Prince of Hell. But I have,” he thundered, which made Cordelia feel cross. He hadn’t so much faced Belial, had he, as passed out in his presence. “I cannot tell you of the depth of his vile evil. To think he is the parent of Tessa Herondale makes me shudder.”

“I remember these discussions,” said Charlotte. “Twenty-five years ago. I was there. So were you, Maurice. The ravings of Tatiana Blackthorn, who is by her own admission an ally of Belial, should not disinter this debate from its long-ago burial.”

After a moment of silence, Eunice Pounceby piped up, the flowers on her hat trembling with her agitation. “Perhaps they shouldn’t, Charlotte. But… they do.”

“What are you saying, Eunice?” Tessa asked. Though Cordelia knew her real age, Tessa still looked only about twenty. She was dressed plainly, her hands folded in front of her. Cordelia felt the sort of desperate pity for her she would have felt for a girl her own age, staring down the barrel of the Enclave’s anger.

“What Eunice is saying,” said Martin Wentworth, “is that while it may be true that we have all known Mrs. Herondale to be a warlock, for many years now, the fact that her demon parent is a Prince of Hell, and that you have all known and concealed it—well, it might be within the letter of the Law, but it does not inspire trust.”