Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

The whole business made him grit his teeth. He didn’t like hiding from a fight, and they would have to learn to defeat the Watchers to have any hope of survival in the long run. Maybe if it had just been him and Jesse—but it wasn’t. And they needed Grace. She was the only one who could understand Kit’s work on the fire-messages—their only chance to reach the outside world.

He did have to admit, grudgingly, that she didn’t seem afraid. Not of the Watchers, nor of the bizarre behavior of the mundanes, eerie as it often was. The three of them passed a shop with all its front windows smashed, and mundanes—some with bleeding feet—walking through the jagged glass on the pavement without noticing. Inside the shop, a mundane had curled up on a display of coffee tins and was napping, like a cat. At another broken shopwindow a lady primped herself as though she could still see her reflection in the smashed glass. A child tugged at her skirt, over and over, with a mechanical sort of regularity, as if he expected no response.

“I hate this,” Grace said; it was the first time she’d spoken since they’d left the Institute. Thomas looked over at Jesse, whose expression was bleak. Thomas guessed what he would be thinking in Jesse’s place: Why return from the dead to a world that seems unliving?

Thankfully, they had reached Grosvenor Square and the Fairchilds’ house. It was dark and carefully shut up. It had an air of being long abandoned, though only a few days had passed since Charlotte and Henry had left for Idris, and Charles for the Institute.

Thomas let himself in with his key, and Grace and Jesse followed. Every inch of his skin crawled as they went inside. Each room called to mind the hundreds of times he’d been here, the hours spent with Matthew, with Charlotte and Henry, with Christopher in the lab, laughing and chatting. Those moments felt like ghosts now, as if the past were reaching forward to leave a mournful fingerprint on the present.

Perhaps it would be better in the lab, Thomas thought, and led them all down into the cellar. Jesse looked around in wonder while Thomas activated the large stones of witchlight that Henry had installed to illuminate the work space. “I had no idea Henry Fairchild did this kind of thing,” Jesse said, gazing at the lab equipment, the glass flasks and metal ring stands, the funnels and beakers and stacks of notes in Christopher’s cramped handwriting. “I didn’t think any Shadowhunters did this kind of thing.”

“Doing this kind of thing invented the Portal, silly,” Grace told him, and for the first time, she sounded to Thomas not like the orphaned victim of a madwoman’s deal with a Prince of Hell, but like a normal sister enjoying correcting her brother. “If the Nephilim wish to survive in the future, we must be aligned with the rest of the world. It will move forward with or without us.”

“You sound just like Christopher,” Thomas murmured, but then, why be surprised; she and Christopher had, in an odd way, been friends.

It was harder, much harder, to be in the lab than he’d expected. Of course it was Henry’s lab officially, but for Thomas it was so closely associated with Christopher that it was like seeing his body all over again. There was an empty throb in his stomach as he sat down on one of the stools along the worktable that stretched the length of the room. It was unfathomable to be here and to grasp that Christopher was not here, that he was not about to come down the stairs and demand that Thomas help him with something that would doubtless explode in their faces.

He had half expected that Grace would mope too. Instead she got to work. She took a single deep breath and busied herself, going straight to the shelves and gathering equipment, murmuring almost silently as she chose implements from here and ingredients from there.

Thomas had always thought of Grace as a frivolous sort of girl, with nothing serious on her mind. That was how she carried herself at parties and gatherings. But it was obvious now that this had always been a ruse, as Grace moved with purpose and efficiency around the lab, peering at the labels on flasks of liquid, hunting in Henry’s toolbox for a set of measuring spoons. She had the same focus Christopher had had, silent because she was thinking, planning, calculating in her head. He could see it in her eyes; he wondered at how well she’d concealed it from everyone.

“Can I help?” Jesse said eventually.

Grace nodded and began to direct Jesse—measure this, trim that, soak this paper in that liquid. Feeling guilty for just sitting there, Thomas ventured that he was also happy to assist. Without looking up from the gas flame she was lighting, Grace shook her head. “You should get back to the Institute; you’re needed there more. They’ll be wanting you to help protect the place against the Watchers.” She looked up then, her brow furrowed as though she’d had a realization. Hesitantly she added, “I could use a Fireproof rune, though, before you go.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “You don’t know how to make one.”

Grace pushed her hair behind her ears, frowning. “I only know the runes I learned before my parents—my birth parents, I mean—died. No one ever taught me beyond that.”

“Mother never did think of your education,” said Jesse, his calm tone concealing, Thomas thought, a lot of well-justified anger. “But I can do it, Grace. I studied the Gray Book often during… well, while I was a ghost.”

Grace looked almost tearfully relieved. “Thank you, Jesse.” Her brother just nodded and reached for the stele at his side.

Thomas watched as Grace held out her wrist, waiting for Jesse to Mark her. The way she was looking at him—with a hopeless sort of yearning—made it clear: she did not really ever expect to be forgiven, or for her brother to love her again.

Thomas could not blame her. Even now, he could still feel a bitterness toward her, at what she had done to James. Would he ever be able to truly forgive her that? He tried to imagine how he would react if he’d learned Eugenia had done something so terrible.

And yet, he knew the truth—that he would forgive Eugenia. She was his sister.

“I’ll be off, then,” Thomas said, as Grace, her new rune freshly applied, returned to the worktable. “Don’t leave the house. I’ll come back in a few hours to escort you back to the Institute,” he added. “All right?”

Jesse nodded. Grace seemed too deep in her work to respond; as Thomas headed up the stairs, he saw her hand Jesse a beaker of powder. At least they seemed to feel comfortable working together; perhaps that could be a path to forgiveness, in the end.

On the way out, Thomas stopped in the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of water, and went to water the potted plants in the entryway. A show of faith, he thought, that the Fairchilds would return home. That despite Belial’s power, all would be right again eventually. He had to believe that.



* * *