Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

James turned and saw that she was indeed telling the truth: everyone had arrived at once, and were coming toward the picnic spot, waving—Will and Tessa, laughing alongside Magnus Bane, Sona pushing Zachary Arash in a pram and chatting to Flora Bridgestock, Gabriel and Cecily holding Alexander by the hand, Gideon and Sophie pausing to chat with Charlotte, Henry, and Matthew. Thomas, Lucie, and Alastair had already started across the green lawn toward their families. Jesse hung back to assist Grace with the pile of croquet implements, which had toppled over; Anna and Ari were laughing too hard to move, leaning against each other as croquet balls rolled everywhere.

“When we are home?” said James softly. “Here we are, with all those we love, and those who love us. We are home.”

Alastair had plucked his little brother from the pram; with Zachary seated in the crook of one arm, he waved at Cordelia. Matthew, in conversation with Eugenia, smiled, and Lucie made a beckoning gesture in James and Cordelia’s direction, as if to say: What are you waiting for? Come here.

Cordelia’s heart was too full for speech. Without a word, she caught hold of her husband’s hand.

Side by side with James, Cordelia ran.





NOTES ON THE TEXT


As always, Shadowhunter London is a mixture of the real and the unreal. Most of the locations used in the book are real and can still be visited today. The York Watergate dates from the early seventeenth century and used to be a fancy boat dock for the house of the Duke of Buckingham; it can be reached easily by going to Charing Cross Station and walking toward the Thames. St. Peter Westcheap stood at the corner of Cheapside and Wood Street from medieval times until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The tiny churchyard is still there, as is the huge old mulberry tree that Anna and Ari use to enter the Silent City.

Sir John Malcolm’s statue in the north transept of Westminster Abbey is real, as is the bas-relief of Britannia nearby. Simon de Langham was archbishop of Canterbury from 1366 to 1368; he left most of his enormous estate to the abbey, which is why he is the only archbishop of Canterbury interred there. His is the oldest ecclesiastical tomb in the place.

Polperro is a real, extremely charming fishing village in south Cornwall, and the stone cottage that inspired Malcolm’s house can be easily spotted on the spit of land that forms a natural barrier for the village’s harbor.

The love poem quoted by Alastair to Thomas is from thirteenth-century Persian poet ?ams-e Qays, who cites it as written by another poet, Natáanzi.