Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

It was Matthew who said, “What is this Jeremy business, then?”


“Oh, right,” Lucie said. “After we got back from Cornwall, we had a meeting with Charlotte and all the aunts and uncles, and decided—we will introduce Jesse as Jeremy Blackthorn, distant cousin of the Blackthorns, part of the branch that broke off and went to America a hundred years ago.”

Cordelia frowned. “Don’t the Silent Brothers have records of who belongs to what family?”

“They tend not to keep particularly accurate ones for those who have left the Clave,” said Jesse. “As my grandfather Ezekiel did. And besides, a very helpful fellow called Brother Zachariah was also at the meeting.”

“I ought to have seen his hand in all this,” said Matthew. “Well, never let it be said we are not, as a group, up for a deception. Does the Inquisitor know?”

Lucie shuddered. “Gracious, no. Can you imagine? Especially after he apparently just encountered Belial out in the wilds near the Adamant Citadel. He can’t be feeling kindly toward Blackthorns, or, well, Shadowhunters doing magic of any sort.”

They had all refrained from asking Lucie exactly how she had raised Jesse from the dead; James seemed to know it, but Cordelia realized it was simply another thing about Lucie she’d been ignorant of. She felt a hollow sadness at her center. It was not distant from the sadness she felt over James—here she was, so close to someone she loved, and yet she felt a million miles away.

“It’s rather too bad we can’t tell the truth,” said Matthew, “as it’s quite an exciting tale. Having someone who returned from the dead among our number seems a feather in the cap for the Enclave, if you ask me.”

“I wouldn’t mind for me,” said Jesse. He had altogether a calm, mild manner, though Cordelia guessed there were deeper currents running beneath it. “But I would hate for Lucie to be punished for all that she did for me, or Grace, either. Without the two of them, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Grace?” said Cordelia, in confusion.

Lucie flushed and held her hands out to Cordelia. “I ought to have told you. I was afraid you’d be upset with me—”

“You worked with Grace?” James said sharply. “And didn’t tell any of us?”

Jesse looked back and forth between them—at James’s ashen face, and Cordelia, who had still not taken Lucie’s hands. At Matthew, whose smile had vanished. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Something about my sister—?”

“She did not entirely endear herself to the Enclave when she was among us. For example, she broke up my brother Charles’s engagement to Ariadne, seemed to wish to marry him, then dropped Charles in a letter from the Silent City with no explanation,” said Matthew.

It was a small part of the story. But Jesse’s eyes darkened with worry. “I cannot apologize for what my sister has done,” he said. “She will have to do that herself. I do know that it was at my mother’s insistence that she pursued Charles. My mother has always seen Grace as a path to power. And I believe that in turning herself over to the Silent Brothers, my sister has shown that she no longer wishes to be my mother’s tool. I hope that will count for something when she returns to the Enclave.”

For a moment there was quiet. Cordelia glanced at James; she saw with despair that he had retreated behind the Mask. It was his armor, his protection.

Lucie has been in love with Jesse all this time, and I never knew, Cordelia thought. Now they are more firmly together, and that will only bring her closer to Grace. Perhaps Grace will be her sister-in-law someday, and meanwhile I cannot even be her parabatai. I will lose Lucie to Grace, just as I lost James to her.

“I am happy for you, Lucie,” she said. “And for you, Jesse. But I find I am very tired and must return home to see my mother. She is not entirely well, and I have left her for too long.”

She turned to leave.

“Cordelia,” Lucie said. “Surely we could at least have time for a moment alone together—just to talk—”

“Not now,” Cordelia said as she walked away from the group of them. “It seems there is much I did not know. Forgive me, if I require some time to consider the nature of my own ignorance.”



* * *



James caught up with Cordelia on the front steps of the Institute.

He’d hurried after her without a moment’s thought—rude, he knew, but all he’d seen was that Cordelia was unhappy, and leaving, and he had to do something about it, immediately.

The snow outside had stopped, though it had left a thin icing-sugar scrim of white on the front steps and the flagstones of the courtyard. Cordelia stood on the top step, her breath puffing around her in white clouds, her hands—gloveless—folded together. Her hair was a bright flame against the whiteness of winter, like a poppy among a field of lilies.

“Daisy—” he started.

“Don’t,” she said, softly, looking at the Institute gates with their Latin script, PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS. “Don’t call me that.”

He could see where her fingertips were reddened with cold. He wanted to wrap her hands in his, fold them inside his coat the way he had seen his father do with his mother’s hands. With the self-control that years of Jem’s training had instilled in him, he held himself back.

“Cordelia,” he said. “Would you have told Lucie? I know you couldn’t have, you didn’t have a chance, but—would you have? That you saw me… with Grace, before you left for Paris?”

Cordelia shook her head. “I wouldn’t have, no. I never told her anything about our discussions of Grace or about our… arrangements regarding her.” She lifted her chin and looked at him, her dark eyes shining like shields. “I would not be pitied. Not by anyone.”

In that, we are alike, James wanted to say; he couldn’t bear to tell anyone about the bracelet, the spell. Couldn’t bear to be pitied over what Grace had done to him. He had intended to tell Cordelia, but he had imagined a very different sort of reunion for them.

He pushed thoughts of her in Matthew’s arms away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never thought about putting you in a position where you had to lie to Lucie. I see now it’s put distance between you two. I never wanted that. My pride was never worth that.” He allowed himself to look at Cordelia. Her expression had softened slightly. “Let’s just go home.”

Unable to hold back, he reached out to move a wayward lock of scarlet hair away from her face. His fingertips grazed the soft skin of her cheek. To his surprise, she did not reach up to stop him. But neither did she say, Yes, let’s go home to Curzon Street. She said nothing at all.

“That house is our home,” he said in the same quiet tone. “Our home. It isn’t anything to me without you in it.”