Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“No, you want to know if either of them has done something awful to me, so you can chase them around, shouting,” said Cordelia darkly.

“I could want both,” Alastair pointed out. They had made it out of the traffic finally and were rattling through Knightsbridge, past Harrods, bright with Christmas decorations, and streets crowded with barrow boys selling chestnuts and hot pies.

“I really have been worried about M?m?n,” Cordelia said.

Alastair’s expression softened. “M?m?n is fine, Layla, other than weariness. She sleeps a great deal. When she is awake, she grieves for our father. It is her grief that wearies her, I think, not her condition.”

“Is she angry at me?” Cordelia hadn’t realized she was going to say such a thing until it was already out of her mouth.

“For going to Paris? No, not at all. She was quite calm when we got your note; calmer than I’d expected, I must say. She said that if your dreams had taken you to Paris, then she was happy. I don’t recall anyone ever saying that about me when I went to Paris,” he added. “It is a dreadful chore, being the eldest.”

Cordelia sighed. “I oughtn’t to have gone, Alastair—if it hadn’t been for her, for Lilith, I don’t think I would have. But I am useless. I cannot protect anyone. I cannot even pick up my sword.”

“Cortana.” He looked at her, a strange expression in his dark eyes. She knew they had the same eyes—black, only a shade lighter than the pupil—but on Alastair, she recognized that their light transformed his face, softening its severity. That they were striking. She had never thought that about her own eyes; she supposed people didn’t consider themselves that way. “Layla, I have to tell you something.”

She tensed. “What is it?”

“I couldn’t keep Cortana in the house,” he said, “or with me, due to some rather—unfortunate visitors.”

They were passing Hyde Park; it was a green blur outside Cordelia’s window. “Demons?”

Alastair nodded. “Raveners,” he said. “Spy demons. I could have managed them myself, but with M?m?n… Don’t worry,” he added hastily, seeing her expression. “Thomas helped me hide it. I won’t tell you where, but it’s safe. And I haven’t seen a Ravener since I locked it away.”

She wanted desperately to ask him where he had hidden it, but knew she couldn’t. It was silly, but she missed Cortana terribly. I’ve so changed myself, she thought, that I do not know if Cortana would choose me again, even if I were no longer Lilith’s paladin. It was a miserable thought.

“Thomas helped you?” she said instead. “Thomas Lightwood?”

“Oh, look, we’re here,” said Alastair brightly, and threw the door of the carriage open, leaping from it before it had quite stopped rolling.

“Alastair!” Cordelia hopped down after her brother, who seemed none the worse for his plunge and was already paying the driver.

She looked up at the house. She was fond of it—fond of the calm white front, the shiny black 102 painted on the rightmost pillar, fond of the quiet, leafy London street. But it was not home, she thought, as she followed Alastair up the front path to the door. This was her mother’s house—a refuge, but not home. Home was Curzon Street.

Cordelia suspected Risa had been peering out a window, as she appeared immediately to whisk the front door open and usher them inside. She pointed accusingly at Cordelia’s trunk, which sat in the middle of the entryway.

“It just appeared,” she complained, fanning herself with a dish towel. “One moment not there, then poof! It gave me quite a turn, I tell you. Tekan khordam.”

“Sorry, Risa dear,” said Cordelia. “I’m sure Magnus didn’t mean for it to startle you.”

Risa muttered as Alastair lifted the trunk and began heaving it up the stairs. “What did you buy in Paris?” he complained. “A Frenchman?”

“Be quiet, he’s asleep,” said Cordelia. “He speaks no English, but he can sing ‘Frère Jacques’ and he makes excellent crêpes suzette.”

Alastair snorted. “Risa, are you going to help me with this?”

“No,” Risa said. “I am going to take Layla to khanoom Sona. She will be much happier once she has seen her daughter.”

Cordelia slipped out of her coat and waved a guilty goodbye to Alastair before following Risa down the corridor to her mother’s bedroom. Risa put a finger to her lips before glancing in; a moment later, she was ushering Cordelia into the dimly lit space and closing the door behind her.

Cordelia blinked, her eyes adjusting to the faint light of the fire and the bedside lamp. Sona lay in bed, propped up in a sitting position against a mountain of colorful pillows, a book in her hands. Her belly looked rounder than when Cordelia had seen her only a week before, and her face was sallow and tired, although she smiled at Cordelia brightly.

Cordelia felt a terrible rush of guilt. “M?m?n,” she cried, and hurried to the bed to carefully embrace her mother.

“Welcome back,” her mother said, brushing her hand through Cordelia’s hair.

“I’m sorry, M?m?n. I oughtn’t to have gone—”

“Don’t fret.” Sona set her book down. “I told you that the most important thing was to do what would make you happy. So you went to Paris. What’s the great harm?” Her dark eyes searched Cordelia’s face. “I used to think that it was most important to endure, to stay strong. But unhappiness, over time… it poisons your life.”

Cordelia sat down in the chair by the bed and took her mother’s hand. “Was it really so terrible, with Baba?”

“I had you and Alastair,” Sona said, “and that always made me happy. As for your father… I can only mourn the life we never had, that we could have had, if he—if things had been different. But you cannot fix someone, Cordelia,” she added. “In the end, if they can be fixed at all, they must do the repairs themselves.”

She sighed and looked at the flames dancing on the hearth.

“When I brought us to London,” Sona went on, “it was to save our family. To save your father. And we did. You did. And I will always be proud of you for that.” She smiled wistfully. “But what brought us here is over. I think perhaps it’s time we consider leaving London.”

“Return to Cirenworth?” Cirenworth was their country house in Devon, now closed up and uninhabited, with sheets over the furniture and blackout curtains at the windows. It was odd to think of going back there.

“No, Layla, to Tehran,” Sona said. “I’ve been estranged from my aunts and cousins there for too long. And since your father is gone…”

Cordelia could only stare. Tehran, where her mother had been born; Tehran, whose language and history she knew as she knew her own hands, but a place she had no memory of living, whose customs she was not wholly familiar with.