Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“I ought to stop you, you know,” Jessamine said. “I’m supposed to protect the Institute. It’s my job.” Her eyes were wide and fearful. “But it’s so dark in here now, and I know it’s the same outside. There are things walking in London that make even the dead afraid.”


“I know,” Lucie said. Jessamine was the same age as her parents, and yet death had trapped her in a sort of permanent youth; for the first time, Lucie felt almost older—protective, even—of the first ghost she’d ever known. “I’m going to do what I can to help. To help London.”

Jessamine’s pale hair drifted around her as she inclined her head. “If you must command the dead, I give you my permission.”

Lucie blinked in surprise, but Jessamine had already disappeared. Still, Lucie thought. A good sign, considering her plans for the evening.

Shouldering her rucksack, Lucie checked over her gear—gloves, boots, weapons belt—and headed down the hall. It was eerily dark, the only light coming from the dim tapers placed at intervals along the corridor.

She had meant to slip the note under Jesse’s door and leave, but in her imagination, the door had been closed. Instead it was propped slightly open. What if Jesse was awake? she thought. Could she justify simply leaving without a word?

She pushed the door open; his room was even darker than the corridor, lit only by a single candle. He was asleep on his narrow bed, the same bed where they’d kissed, what felt like decades ago.

Even now, he slept entirely without moving, turned slightly on his side, his dark hair surrounding his pale face like a reverse halo. In the past, she had watched him as he lay in his coffin and thought he looked as if he was asleep. She wondered now, as she drifted closer to the bed, how she could have been so mistaken: his body had been there, but his soul had not. Now it was, and even asleep he seemed both terribly alive and terribly fragile, the way all mortal creatures were fragile.

She felt a fierce protectiveness flood through her. I’m not just doing this for James, or Matthew, she thought, much as I love them. I’m doing this for you, too.

She slipped the note under his pillow, then bent to kiss his forehead lightly. He stirred but didn’t wake, even when she left the room.



* * *



Ari turned over restlessly in bed. She had not been able to sleep well since the night Belial had taken London. Perhaps it was ridiculous to even consider that, as if it were unusual, she thought, flipping over her pillow, which had grown unbearably hot. She doubted any of them had slept well since. How could they? They were reminded at every turn of the dire situation they were in: by the blackened sky, the abandoned carriages and motorcars in the middle of empty streets, the blank-faced, wandering mundanes.

She might normally have thrown open a window, despite the cold, just to get fresh air, but there was nothing fresh about the air outside. It was heavy and oppressive and tasted bitter as soot.

When they had first arrived at the Institute, she had felt lost. Surely it would be presumptuous to assume she and Anna would stay in the same room, and yet at the same time, it felt strange to imagine sleeping so apart from Anna. She was used to waking up in the morning to the sounds of Anna making tea or teaching Winston rude words. Used to finding embroidered waistcoats, frock coats, and velvet trousers thrown over every piece of furniture. Used to the faint perfumy fragrance of burning cheroots. A place without those things would not feel like home.

They had ended up, by accident or design, in rooms connected by an adjoining door. Ari had wondered in these last few dark days if Anna would make use of the door to come to her for comfort after Christopher’s death, but the door had remained firmly locked, and Ari lacked the nerve to break in on Anna’s grief.

Ari had not known Christopher well, but she mourned, of course, not just for him but for Anna. In her darkest moments she worried that even if they made it through their current situation, Anna would still never be the same again. Could she recover her laughter, her mischief, her rebellious joy, after her brother had died while she held him?

Ari had never known anyone to grieve so silently. She had not seen Anna shed a tear. She’d always thought Anna resembled a beautiful statue, with her fine features and balanced grace, but now it was as if Anna had truly turned to stone. She wasn’t completely immobilized—she had thrown herself into the plan to stay in London and defeat Belial as much as anyone. She and Ari had spent long hours together, not just boarding up the Institute but looking through old books in the library, too, searching for ways out of London that Belial might have overlooked. But any attempts Ari had made to deepen the conversation, or bring up Christopher or even family, were gently but firmly rebuffed.

Ari closed her eyes and tried counting. She got nearly to forty before she heard an odd, unfamiliar creaking noise. The door between her room and Anna’s was slowly cracking open.

The room was dark. A little light came through from Anna’s side of the door, where a candle was burning; still, Ari could see Anna mostly as a silhouette, but it hardly mattered. She would recognize her anywhere, in any light.

“Anna,” she whispered, sitting up, but Anna only put a finger to her lips and climbed onto the bed. She wore a silk dressing gown; it was too big for her and slid down her slender shoulders. On her knees, she reached for Ari, her lean fingers cupping Ari’s face in her hands, then ducked her head to meet Ari’s lips with her own.

Ari had not realized how starved for Anna’s touch she had been. She gathered fistfuls of the silk dressing gown in her hands, pulling Anna closer, realizing she wore nothing under it. Her hands found the hard silk of Anna’s skin, stroking her back as they kissed harder.

Ari reached for the lamp on her nightstand, but Anna caught her wrist. “No,” she whispered. “No lights.”

Surprised, Ari drew her hand back. She stroked Anna’s short curls as Anna kissed her throat, but a sense of unease had begun to creep in, threading through the haze of her desire. There was something harsh about the way Anna was kissing her, something desperate. “Darling,” she murmured, reaching to stroke Anna’s cheek.

It was damp. Anna was crying.

Ari bolted upright. She scrabbled for the witchlight under her pillow and lit it, casting them both into a whitish glow; Anna, one hand holding her dressing gown closed, was sitting back on her heels. She looked at Ari defiantly, with red-rimmed eyes.

“Anna,” Ari breathed. “Oh, my poor darling…”

Anna’s eyes darkened. “I suppose you think I am weak.”

“No,” Ari said vehemently. “Anna, you are the strongest person I know.”

“I told myself not to come to you,” Anna said bitterly. “You should not have to share the burden of my grief. It is mine to carry.”