Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

She did not speak as she let the paper fall: Lucie, usually so full of words, seemed to have none to speak now. She watched it flutter its way down, her hands at her sides, only looking up when James came to join her beside the grave—no, Cordelia reminded herself, it was not a grave: this was a farewell of sorts, but not that kind.

Standing beside Lucie, James looked at Cordelia. Here, among the shadows, his eyes were the color of sunlight. Then he gazed around at the others, as slowly he drew his battered pistol from his belt. “I almost feel I should apologize to Christopher,” he said. “He spent so much time—and destroyed so many objects—trying to get this to work.” A rueful smile flitted across his face. “And yet, I am putting it behind me. Not because it no longer fires at my command, though that is true—but because it only ever worked for me because of Belial, and Belial is gone. The powers conferred upon me and upon Lucie due to him were never gifts—they were always burdens. They were a weight, a heavy one. A weight we both set aside with relief.” He glanced sideways at Lucie, who nodded, her eyes bright. “I like to think Christopher would have understood,” James said, and knelt to lay the gun flat in the coffin.

He expelled a deep breath, as someone might when, having walked a long and dusty road, they finally found a place to rest. He took the coffin lid in his hands and shut it with an audible click. As he rose to his feet, the whole group was silent; even Anna was no longer smiling, but looked thoughtful, her blue eyes grave.

“Well,” James said, “that’s everything.”



* * *



“Constantinople,” James said to Cordelia.

They were sitting on a yellow picnic blanket, flung across the green grass of Hyde Park. The Serpentine glittered silver in the distance; all around were their friends, setting down blankets and baskets; Matthew was rolling in the grass with Oscar, who was trying desperately to lick his face. At any moment, Cordelia knew, their families would arrive, but for this moment, it was just them.

Cordelia leaned back against James. She was sitting between his legs, her back to his chest. He was playing delicately with her hair; she supposed she ought to tell him that he would soon loosen all the pins and create a coiffure disaster, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind. “What about it?”

“It’s hard to believe that we’ll be there in a fortnight.” He wrapped his arms around her. “On our honeymoon.”

“Really? It all seems quite ordinary to me. Ho-hum.” Cordelia grinned at him over her shoulder. In truth, she could hardly believe any of it. She still woke up in the morning and pinched herself when she realized she was in the same bed as James. That they were married—now with their full sets of wedding runes, though she could not think about that without blushing.

They had turned the room that had once been James’s room into a planning room, in which, James had said grandly, gesturing about with a pencil behind his ear, they would plan adventures. They had traveled to Constantinople and Shanghai and Timbuktu already in their minds and imaginations; now they would go there in reality. They would see the world, together, and to that end they had pinned up maps and train timetables and the addresses of Institutes all over the world.

“But what will happen when you have children, with all this gallivanting?” Will had grumbled in mock despair, but James had only laughed and said they would take them along wherever they went, perhaps in specially designed luggage.

“You’re a cruel mistress, Daisy,” he said now, and kissed her. Cordelia shivered all over; Rosamund had once told her kissing Thoby was boring, but Cordelia could not imagine becoming bored with kissing James. She shifted closer to him on the blanket, as he brought up one hand to gently cup her face—

“Oi!” Alastair yelled over good-naturedly. “Stop kissing my sister!”

Cordelia drew back from James and laughed. She knew Alastair didn’t actually mind—he was at home now in their group of friends, at home enough to tease. Never again would he worry whether he was welcome at a meeting in the Devil Tavern, or at a party or late-night gathering at Anna’s. Attitudes toward her brother had changed, but even more than that, he had changed. It was as if he had been locked in a room, and Thomas had opened the door: Alastair now seemed to feel free to express the love and affection for his friends and family he had always tamped down and hidden away. He had truly astonished Sona and Cordelia with the attention he paid to his new baby brother. As long as Alastair was there, Zachary Arash never needed to fear being alone for a second: Alastair was always holding him, always tossing him into the air and catching him while he squealed. He rarely came home from a day out without a rattle or a toy to keep the baby entertained.

One night after dinner at Cornwall Gardens, Cordelia had passed the drawing room in her mother’s house and seen Alastair sitting on the sofa with the baby—a swaddled mass of blankets with two pink fists visible, waving as Alastair sang, in a low voice, a Persian melody Cordelia half remembered: You are the moon in the sky, and I am the star that circles around you.

It was a song their father had sung to them when they were very small. How things came full circle, Cordelia could not help but think, in the last ways one would expect.



* * *



“Bakewell tarts,” said Jesse. “Bridget’s outdone herself.”

He and Lucie were unpacking a picnic hamper the size of Buckingham Palace onto a blue-and-white-checked blanket that Lucie had laid upon the lawn under a cluster of sweet chestnut trees.

Bridget had outdone herself—every time Lucie thought the basket must be empty, Jesse brought out another treat: ham sandwiches, cold chicken and mayonnaise, meat pies, strawberries, Bakewell tarts and Eccles cakes, cheese and grapes, lemonade and ginger beer. Ever since Bridget had recovered from her injury at Westminster, she had been wildly active in the kitchen: in fact, she’d seemed to have more energy than ever. The gray threads had disappeared from her head; Will had remarked that it was as if she were aging backward. Even her songs had become more frequent, and more gruesome.

“I’m hiding a few. Otherwise Thomas will eat them all,” Jesse said, setting aside several of the Bakewell tarts. As he moved, a thick black Mark on his right forearm flashed. Home. It was a rarely used Mark, symbolic rather than practical, like the runes for grief and happiness.