Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Alastair did, in fact, get in touch with Cordelia, even sooner than she had imagined, through the straightforward mechanism of showing up at the Institute.

Will and Tessa had departed through the Portal in the crypt, and the general mood was downcast when the downstairs bell rang. Lucie had been the one to open the front door; she immediately went and got Cordelia, who found her brother in the entryway, stamping snow off his boots. He was carrying a small traveling trunk and wearing a long-suffering expression. “There’s a storm brewing,” he said, and indeed, Cordelia could see through the open front door that the sky had darkened, thunderclouds like great colliding blocks of smoke roiling across its surface. “This situation,” he said, “is utterly ridiculous.”

“I don’t disagree,” Cordelia said, closing the front door and turning to eye Alastair’s trunk, “but—have you come to stay?”

He stopped in the act of removing his coat. “M?m?n told me to stop pacing and join you here. Do you think—they won’t let me?” he said, with a sudden hesitation. “I suppose I should have asked—”

“Alastair, joon,” Cordelia said. “If you want to stay, you will stay. This is the Institute; they cannot turn you away, and I would not let them. It is only that…”

“That they’ve made Charles temporary Institute head?” Alastair said. “I know.” He glanced around, as if to make sure no one else was nearby to overhear him. “It’s why I came. I can’t leave Thomas alone in close quarters with Charles. There’s no telling how unpleasant Charles will decide to be to him, and Thomas is too good-natured to—” He stopped and glared. “Cease looking at me like that.”

“You should talk to Thomas—”

“Mikoshamet,” Alastair said, making a fearsome face that would have terrified Cordelia if she were still seven. “Where is everyone, then?”

“Gathering in the library,” Cordelia said. “James has something to tell everyone. Come—I’ll show you where the rooms are, and you can join me and the others once you’re settled in.”



* * *



“You don’t mind, do you?” Cordelia said, her hand on James’s shoulder. “If Alastair’s there?”

James was sitting in a chair at the head of one of the long library tables. They were alone for now; everyone else was on their way. Everyone but Charles, of course. Charles had arrived just after Will and Tessa had gone, greeted no one, stalked up to Will’s office, and shut himself in there. At some point Cordelia had caught sight of Bridget bringing him some tea; even she had a puckered expression, as if she didn’t relish the task.

James laid his hand over hers. “He’s your brother. Family. I can’t imagine how he thinks I’ve treated you, at that. He should know.”

Matthew came in first. And if Cordelia had wondered whether the others would be able to tell something had changed in her relationship with James, she knew immediately that Matthew could and did. She doubted he knew exactly what, of course, but he sat down with a wary look, his shoulders curled in slightly, as if he were awaiting bad news.

We must find a chance to speak with him alone, she thought. We must. But it would not be before James told his story; it was too late for that. Everyone was arriving—Anna and Ari, Jesse and Lucie (who looked at James with immense worry, before sitting down at his right hand), Thomas and Christopher, and finally, Alastair, who Thomas clearly had not been expecting. Thomas sat down with a rather sudden thump (he was a bit too big for the library chairs, and his long legs stuck out at all angles) but otherwise restrained himself. Alastair sat beside him with studied nonchalance.

Cordelia tried to catch Christopher’s eye across the table. She was not entirely sure why he’d convinced Grace to confess to her, but she was endlessly grateful that he had. He smiled at her, but only in his ordinary, affable, lemon-tarts Christopher way, not in a manner that indicated he knew he’d done something special. She resolved to thank him as soon as she could.

“Well, do tell us what this is about, James,” said Matthew, once everyone was seated. “This feels like one of those scenes in a Wilkie Collins novel where the will gets read out, and then the lights go out and someone turns up dead.”

“Oh, I love those,” said Lucie. “Not,” she added hastily, “that I want anyone to turn up dead. James, what’s going on? Has something happened?”

James was very pale. He folded his hands together, intertwining his fingers tightly. “Something did happen,” he said, “though—not today. This is something that happened a long time ago. Something I only became aware of recently myself.”

And he told them. Speaking in a monotone, he told it all: from his first meeting with Grace at Blackthorn Manor in Idris, to her arrival in London, to the shattering of the bracelet, to the realization that his mind was being altered against his will. His voice was calm and steady, but Cordelia could hear the anger beneath it, like a river running beneath city streets.

Those present who already knew the story—Cordelia herself, Christopher, Jesse—remained expressionless, watching the reactions of the others. Cordelia, in particular, watched Matthew. This would change so much for him, she thought. Perhaps it would help. Raziel knew, she hoped it would help.

He grew more and more still as the story progressed, and more white around the mouth. Lucie looked sick. Thomas began to rock his chair back and forth violently until Alastair laid a hand over his. Anna’s eyes snapped like blue fire.

When James was done with the story, there was a long silence. Cordelia yearned to say something, to break the silence, but she knew she could not. James had feared the response of his friends, his family. It had to be one of them who spoke first.

It was Lucie. She had trembled as James spoke, and she burst out now, “Oh—Jamie—I am so sorry I ever worked with her, was kind to her—”

“It’s all right, Luce,” James said gently. “You didn’t know. Nobody knew, not even Jesse.”

Lucie looked shocked, as if the idea of Jesse having known had never occurred to her. She turned to him. “The last time you went to the Silent City,” she said, “you came back upset. Had she told you then?”

Jesse nodded. “It was the first I ever knew of any of it.” He looked as ashen as he had when Belial possessed him, Cordelia thought. The usual calm light had gone out of his eyes. “I have always loved Grace. Always taken care of her. She is my little sister. But when she told me—I walked out of the cell. I have not spoken to her since.”

Christopher cleared his throat. “What Grace did was unforgivable. But we must remember she was a child when she was given this task. And she was terrified of what her mother would do if she refused.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. His hazel eyes blazed with a rare fury. “If I murdered someone, and then said it was because I was afraid, would that make me not a murderer?”