Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

James looked as if he very much wanted to ask something else. But then Tessa came up to them, and with her usual deftness had in moments drawn Cordelia away and was leading her, along with Alastair, downstairs.

The cold air outside was a shock after the warmth of the drawing room. The carriage was brought round quickly, and Alastair clambered in. He seemed to sense that Tessa wanted a moment to speak to his sister alone, and perhaps sensed as well that it might be awkward. He drew the curtains of the carriage closed, giving Cordelia and Tessa as much privacy as could be managed.

“Cordelia,” Tessa said gently, “there is something I had to say to you.”

Cordelia took a deep breath of icy air. She felt the loneliness she associated only with London: of being both one of millions together in the dark of the city, and of being utterly alone in that same dark.

Tessa said, “I know it is reasonable that you should be with your mother now. But I am not entirely oblivious. I know it is not only that. Things are not well between you and James. Or between you and Matthew, for that matter.”

“Or between James and Matthew,” Cordelia said. “I am so sorry. You trusted in me to make James happy, and I am doing exactly the opposite.”

After a moment Tessa said, “I know people hurt one another. I know relationships are complicated. Believe me. But it’s been my experience that—well, that when everyone loves one another enough, there will always be a way for things to come out all right in the end.”

“That’s a lovely thought,” Cordelia said. “I hope you’re right.”

Tessa smiled. “I have been so far.”

And with that, she ducked back into the Institute. Cordelia was just reaching for the handle of the carriage when she heard the sound of running feet behind her. Perhaps Tessa had forgotten to tell her something else, or Thomas—

But it was Lucie. Lucie, in her gear jacket and lavender dress, the ruffles on the hem flying around her like sea-foam. She hurtled down the steps and flung herself into Cordelia’s arms, and Cordelia could feel that she was shaking as if with a terrible chill.

Cordelia’s whole heart melted. She tightened her arms around Lucie, rocking her a little, as if she were a child.

“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.”