Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“A Prince of Hell cannot die,” said the demon. “Yes, the Belial you knew is dead—well, I might not use that word precisely, but certainly his spirit will trouble your realm no more. I have been assigned his place. I am Belial now, the eater of souls, the eldest of the nine Princes of Hell, the commander of countless armies of the damned.”


I see, said Jem. And yet I still wonder—why have you come here? What message do you hope to convey? There was a great murmuring in the back of his mind, but he ignored it—the more ordinary human part of him was in control now. The part that loved and felt, that wished above all things to protect his family: Will, Tessa, and their children. Your predecessor had an unhealthy obsession with a Shadowhunter family, he said. It caused much suffering and destruction and resulted eventually in his death. I hope you will not be continuing that fixation.

“I will not,” said the new Belial. “That was his bloodline, not mine. I do not care about the family you speak of; they are nothing to me. The previous Belial diminished his strength in his fascination with them. I wish only to build that strength back up again.”

And you came by, out of the goodness of your demonic heart, to tell me this? Jem mused. No. You fear Cortana. You know it killed your predecessor. You fear you will be the next target of its wielder.

“Humans have such trouble understanding the ways of Heaven and Hell,” said Belial, but there was a stiffness to his smile. “There would be little point in the Carstairs girl slaying me; I will only be replaced by another, one perhaps more determined to do away with her.”

Quite simply, said Jem, you are saying: if the Herondales leave you alone, you will leave them alone.

“Eternally,” said Belial. “As I said, I have no interest in them. They are only ordinary Nephilim now.”

Jem was not sure he agreed with that, but he let it pass. I will convey that information, he said. I am sure they will have no interest in pursuing a connection with you, either.

Belial grinned, his teeth white and sharp. “Delightful,” he said. “I will owe you a favor, then, Silent One.”

No need for that, Jem protested, but Belial was already fading from view; there was only a shimmer where he had stood, and then, not even that. The only evidence of his presence was a strange bare circle of stone in the center of the courtyard where no snow had fallen.





EPILOGUE


Summer had come late to London this year, Cordelia thought, and at Chiswick House it seemed to have come even later, as if the place possessed its own distinct climate. Despite the blue sky overhead, the gardens of the manor seemed cast into shadow; the trees were cloaked in green, but few flowers had bloomed in the overgrown gardens. Cordelia found herself reminded of the first time she’d seen the house: at night, in demon-haunted darkness, the wind itself seeming to whisper, Go, you are not wanted here.

Now, things were different. The manor itself had not changed, perhaps, but Cordelia had. She was not here only with Lucie, embarking on a clandestine mission, but rather surrounded by her friends, her family, her husband, and her parabatai. She would not have minded had it been snowing. In this group, she could not help but be content.

The ground had been hard, rocky, and difficult to dig out; it had taken them most of the morning—even trading turns with the shovels—to hollow out a rectangle in the ground that would fit Jesse’s old coffin, which was balanced precariously at the edge of the hole.

They had brought picnic baskets—though they did not intend to picnic here—and had made inroads into the ginger beer; everyone was a bit sweaty and dirty, and the boys had all stripped off their jackets and rolled up their shirtsleeves. James had done a great deal of the digging, which Cordelia had enjoyed watching. He consulted briefly with Matthew now, and, apparently having decided that the hole was big enough, he turned to the rest of the group: Lucie and Jesse, Thomas and Alastair, Anna and Ari, Matthew (and Oscar), Cordelia, and Grace.

“All right,” James said, leaning on his shovel like the gravedigger in Hamlet. “Who wants to start?”

They all looked at each other—a bit sheepishly, like children caught breaking a rule. (Well, not Anna. Anna never looked sheepish.) But it had been Matthew’s idea in the first place, so in the end all eyes fell upon Matthew, who had knelt down to ruffle Oscar’s head.

Matthew looked amused. “I see,” he said. “Very well. I shall show you how it’s done.”

Oscar barked as Matthew strode up to Jesse’s empty coffin, its lid thrown back. The trees cast the shadows of leaves across it, and across Matthew’s green waistcoat. His hair had grown long since the winter, almost touching his collar. He had been training hard and no longer looked too thin. There was a depth to his smile that had not been there when Cordelia had first come to London; it had not been there even when they had been in Paris together.

With a flourish, Matthew slid a bottle of brandy from inside his waistcoat. It was full, the dark amber liquid flashing gold in the sun. “Here,” he said, bending to lay it in the coffin. “I don’t think that anyone will be surprised by my choice.”

Cordelia doubted anyone was. When winter had turned into spring, they had all felt as if they were finally coming out of a long darkness into light. It was Anna who had first remarked that in summer, they would be scattering from London, separating each of them from the group who had been their support through the long months after January. James and Cordelia would be going on their honeymoon, Matthew on his voyage; Alastair and Thomas would be off helping Sona move back into Cirenworth (her desire to move to Tehran had rather miraculously evaporated after a months-long visit from her family following Zachary’s birth), and Anna and Ari would soon be in India. Life was resuming, however much they had all changed, and to mark the occasion Matthew had suggested this ceremony, in which each of them would bury a symbol of the past.

“It doesn’t need to be something terrible,” Matthew had said. “Just something you wish to let go of, or regard as part of your past, not your future.”

He had smiled a bit ruefully at Cordelia when he had said it. There had been a distance between them since January—not a distance of hostility or anger; but that closeness she had felt with him in Paris was gone, the sense of how well they understood one another. Paradoxically, Matthew had only grown closer to James, and to Thomas, and even Alastair. “You have to let his heart heal,” James had said. “That can only be managed with a bit of distance. It will resolve itself in time.”

A bit of distance. Only Matthew would be going a great distance, very soon, and for how long, Cordelia did not know.