Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“It isn’t murder, Thomas—”

“It’s just as bad,” said Matthew. He held one of the flasks Christopher had given him, but he was not drinking from it. He was running his fingers over the engravings, again and again. “She took the things about James that we know so well, his loving kindness, and his trust, and his idealism, and she turned them against him like knives. Like a faerie curse.”

James tried to catch Matthew’s eye—Cordelia could see it—but however horrified Matthew seemed to be on James’s behalf, he could not meet his parabatai’s gaze. He sat with his hand wrapped around the cheap flask as if it were a talisman.

“She stole his choices,” Ari said. She, too, looked sick. “I lived with her in my house and I never guessed that she had something like that on her conscience.”

“But James is all right,” Christopher said gently. “It’s come out all right in the end. Things usually do.”

“Because he fought back,” Matthew snapped. “Because he loved Cordelia enough to crack that foul bracelet in half.” Seeming a little surprised at his own outburst, he looked, finally, at James. “You really do love her,” he said. “Like you said.”

“Matthew,” said Lucie, looking scandalized.

But James only looked back at Matthew with a steady gaze. “I do,” he said. “I always have.”

“And Grace?” Thomas said softly.

“I hate her,” James said. Christopher flinched; Jesse looked away. “At least—she came to me, at the last, when she was fleeing her mother. Tried to seduce me one last time. She didn’t realize the bracelet was broken. It was strange to see her try this game that must have worked every time she’d attempted it in the past. It was as if I were standing outside myself, realizing that every time I’d encountered her before, I had lost myself. That my whole life had been a lie, and she had made it so. I told her I despised her, that I would never forgive her, that there was nothing she could do to make up for her crimes. She is in the Silent City now because I demanded she turn herself in.” He sounded a little wondering, as if surprised at his own capacity for anger, for revenge. “I put her there.” He looked at Jesse. “You knew that.”

“Yes.” Jesse sounded wearily despairing. “She told me. I do not blame you at all.”

Christopher said, “She did plenty of harm, and she knew the harm she was doing. She hates herself for it. I think all she wants is to live somewhere far away and never bother anyone again.”

“That power of hers is too dangerous for that,” Alastair said. “It is as if she owned a feral, poisonous snake, or an untamed tiger.”

“What if the Silent Brothers take that power from her?” said Christopher. “She will be defanged then.”

“Why are you defending her, Kit?” Anna said. She did not sound angry, only curious. “Is it because she will return to the Enclave eventually, and we must learn to live with her? Or simply because she likes science?”

“I suppose,” Christopher said, “I have always thought everyone deserves a second chance. We are each given only one life. We cannot get another one. We must live with the mistakes we have made.”

“True enough,” Alastair muttered.

“Nevertheless,” Thomas said, “we cannot forgive her.” Alastair flinched and Thomas added, “What I mean is that we cannot forgive her on James’s behalf. Only James can do that.”

“I’m still angry—very angry,” James said, “but I find I don’t want to be. I want to look forward, but my anger draws me backward. And”—he took a deep breath—“I know she will return to the Enclave at some point. I do not know how I am meant to treat her then. How I will stand seeing her.”

“You won’t have to,” said Jesse roughly. “There is Blackthorn money. It will come to her, now that my mother is imprisoned. We will get a house for Grace, somewhere in the countryside. I will only ask that she never go near you or anyone close to you again.”

“Just don’t abandon her entirely,” said Christopher. “Jesse—you are the only thing she lives for. The only one who was kind to her. Do not leave her alone in the dark.”

“Kit,” Anna said, with a regretful sort of love. “Your heart is too soft.”

“I am not saying these things because I am naive or foolish,” said Christopher. “Only because I do see things that are not in beakers and test tubes, you know. I see how hatred poisons the person who hates, not the person who is hated. If we treat Grace with the mercy she did not show James, and that was never shown to her, then what she did will have no power over us.” He looked at James. “You have been terribly strong,” he said, “enduring this, all alone, for so long. Let us help you leave anger and bitterness in the past. For if we don’t do that, if we are consumed by the need to pay Grace back for what she has done, then how are we any different from Tatiana?”



* * *



“Bloody Kit,” said Matthew. “When did you get to be so insightful? I thought you were only supposed to be good at putting the contents of one test tube into another test tube and saying, ‘Eureka!’?”

“That is most of it,” Christopher agreed. They were in the drawing room, Matthew having had an inexplicable aversion to the idea of retreating to the games room after their long session in the library. In the end, nothing specific had been decided, exactly, but Thomas could tell James felt much better than he had. He had been able to smile with a lightness that Thomas had long ago thought gone with his first year at the Academy. Everyone had pledged unwavering support for anything James might choose to do, and of course undying secrecy. James would tell his family, he said, when they returned from Idris; he had not made up his mind about anything else, but he did not need to now. There was time to consider things.

“And let me say it is lovely, James,” Ari had said, as they were all standing up, “to see you so happy with Cordelia. A true case of real love winning out.”

James and Cordelia had both looked faintly embarrassed, if pleased, but Matthew had looked down at his hands on the table, and Thomas had exchanged a quick signal with Christopher. As the others in the library fell to discussing what could be done to clear the Herondales’ names, and again how Cordelia’s paladin connection could be severed, Matthew slipped from the room and Thomas and Christopher followed him. Christopher suggested whist, which Matthew agreed to, and Thomas suggested the games room, which Matthew did not.

And to Thomas’s great surprise, once they’d made themselves comfortable in the drawing room and Matthew had produced a pack of cards, Alastair had come in.