Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“There is someone here,” Madame Dorothea said. “Someone who has lost a brother. A beloved sibling who cries out now to be heard… by his brother, Jean-Pierre.” She raised her voice. “Jean-Pierre, are you here?”


There was an anticipatory silence, and slowly a middle-aged werewolf rose to his feet at one of the back tables. “Yes? I am Jean-Pierre Arland.” His voice was quiet in the emptiness.

“And you have lost a brother?” Madame Dorothea cried.

“He died two years ago.”

“I bring you a message from him,” Madame Dorothea said. “From Claude. That was his name, correct?”

The whole room was silent. Cordelia found that her own palms were damp with tension. Was Dorothea really communing with the dead? Lucie did it—it was possible—Cordelia had seen her do it, so she didn’t know why she felt so anxious.

“Yes,” said Arland warily. He wanted to believe, Cordelia thought, but he was not sure. “What—what does he say?”

Madame Dorothea closed her hands. When she opened them again, the green eyes were blinking rapidly. She spoke, her voice low and gruff: “Jean-Pierre. You must give them back.”

The werewolf looked baffled. “What?”

“The chickens!” Madame Dorothea said. “You must give them back!”

“I… I will,” Jean-Pierre said, sounding stunned. “I will, Claude—”

“You must give them all back!” Madame Dorothea cried. Jean-Pierre looked around him in a panic, and then bolted for the door.

“Maybe he ate them,” Matthew whispered. Cordelia wanted to smile, but the odd feeling of anxiety was still there. She watched as Dorothea gathered herself, glaring at the audience through her open palms.

“I thought we would get to ask questions!” someone cried from a corner of the room.

“The messages come first!” Madame Dorothea barked in her original voice. “The dead sense a doorway. They rush to deliver their words. They must be allowed to speak.” The eyes in her palms closed, then opened again. “There is someone here,” she said. “Someone who has lost her father.” The green eyes swiveled and came to rest on Cordelia. “Une chasseuse des ombres.”

A Shadowhunter.

Cordelia went cold as whispers flew through the room: most had not known Shadowhunters were in their midst. She looked quickly at Matthew—had he known about this?—but he seemed just as surprised as Cordelia was. He slid a hand toward hers on the table, their fingertips brushing. “We can leave—”

“No,” Cordelia whispered. “No—I want to stay.”

She looked up to find Madame Dorothea gazing fixedly at her. The lights at the edge of the stage cast her shadow back against the wall, massive and black. As she raised her arms, the sleeves of her robe appeared as dark wings.

“Cordelia. Your father is here,” Madame Dorothea said simply, and her voice was oddly quiet now, as though she were speaking so only Cordelia could hear. “Will you listen?”

Cordelia gripped the edge of the table. She nodded, aware of the gaze of the whole cabaret. Aware that she was exposing herself, her grief. Unable to stop, regardless.

When Madame Dorothea spoke again, her voice was deeper. Not gruff, but modulated, and in English, without the trace of a French accent. “Layla,” he said, and Cordelia tensed all over. It was him. It could be no one else; who else would be aware of the family nickname? “I am so sorry, Layla.”

“Father,” she whispered. She glanced quickly at Matthew; he looked stricken.

“There is much I would tell you,” said Elias. “But I must warn you first. They will not wait. And the sharpest weapon lies close at hand.”

There was a murmur in the club, those who could speak English translating for those who could not.

“I don’t understand,” Cordelia said, with some difficulty. “Who will not wait?”

“In time there will be sorrow,” Elias went on. “But not regret. There will be quiet. But not peace.”

“Father—”

“They wake,” Elias said. “If I can tell you nothing else, let me tell you this. They are waking. It cannot be stopped.”

“But I don’t understand,” Cordelia protested again. The green eyes in Dorothea’s palms stared at her, blank as paper, without compassion or sympathy. “Who is waking?”

“Not we,” Elias said. “We who are already dead. We are the lucky ones.”

And Madame Dorothea collapsed to the ground.





4 BLESSED GHOST




I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so light—almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”



Malcolm could barely remain at the table for the few minutes it took to eat dinner. In fact, he had seemed impatient when, hours after the sun had set, Lucie had pointed out that they needed to eat. She suspected it had been a long time since Malcolm had had a houseguest. And probably, he rarely bothered to sit and eat a full meal at his dining table. Probably he just magicked himself up some food whenever he got hungry, wherever he was.

Though he had grumped about it, he eventually produced plates for them of what he explained was simple but traditional Cornish fishing village fare: pilchards—a sort of tiny fish—grilled over a wood fire; great hunks of bread with a crust you could break teeth on; a creamy round cheese; and a jug of cider. Lucie had torn into the food, feeling as though she hadn’t eaten in days—which, she realized, she hadn’t.

Jesse had eyed the pilchards warily, and the pilchards had glassily eyed him back, but eventually he had made his peace with the situation and eaten a few. Lucie was so caught up in watching Jesse eat that she nearly forgot how hungry she was. Though he must have eaten during the time she’d been sleeping, it was clearly still a revelation to him. With each bite he closed his eyes; he even licked spilled cider from his finger with a look that made Lucie’s insides feel muddled.

Halfway through the meal, it occurred to Lucie to ask Malcolm where exactly he had gotten the food, and she and Jesse exchanged looks of dismay when he admitted he had nicked it from a local family who had been about to sit down to dinner. “They’ll blame the piskies,” he said, which were apparently a type of mischievous local faerie.

After a moment of guilt, Lucie had considered that it wasn’t feasible at this point to return the table scraps, and tried to put it out of her mind.

The moment their plates were empty, Malcolm leaped up and departed again, leaning back into the dining room only to tell them that they should feel free to put the kettle on, if they wished, and then leaving so quickly that the front door rattled on its hinges as he slammed it closed behind him.

“Where does he go, I wonder?” Jesse said. He delicately bit the edge of a treacle tart. “He’s off most of the time, you know. Even while you were unconscious.”