Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

When she finished, Lucie sighed. “Why are prophetic pronouncements always so vague? Why not a bit of information about who wakes, or why we should care?”


“Yet Belial wanted me to hear it,” said James. “He said, ‘Do you hear that, grandson? They wake.’ And I am fairly sure he was not referring to a litter of puppies somewhere in Oxfordshire.”

“It is meant to make you afraid. The fear is the point,” said Jesse. They all looked at him. “It is a method of control. My mother used it often—do this or that, or fear the consequences.”

“But there are no orders here, no demands,” James said. “Only the warning.”

“I do not think Belial feels fear,” Jesse said. “Not as we do. He wishes to grasp and to possess. He feels rage when his will is thwarted. But to him, fear is a human emotion. He knows it makes mortals behave in irrational ways. He may feel that by striking fear into us, we will run in circles, making it easier for him to do”—Jesse sighed—“whatever it is he plans to do.”

“Belial is afraid of one thing,” said James. “He is afraid of Cordelia.”

Jesse nodded. “He does not wish to die, and so if he fears anything, I suppose it is Cortana, in Cordelia’s hand.”

“Perhaps he merely means a horde of demons has awoken,” said Lucie, “as one might expect. Demons he intends to send against us.”

“He could have whipped up an army of demons at any point,” James pointed out. “Why now?”

“Maybe they needed military training,” Lucie suggested. “They’re not really disciplined, are most of them? Even with a Prince of Hell ordering them about.”

Cordelia tried to imagine Belial putting a horde of demons through basic military exercises, and failed. “Lucie,” she said, and hesitated. “With your powers, we could… well, do you think it would be wise to… try to reach my father through you? To find out if he knows more?”

Lucie looked discomfited. “I don’t think we ought. I’ve summoned an unwilling ghost before, and it is… unpleasant. Like torturing them.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to do that to your father.”

“It may not have been your father who spoke to you at all,” Jesse said. “The words ‘they wake’ certainly indicate it was a spirit who knew who you were. But that spirit could have been impersonating your father.”

“I know,” Cordelia said. But I so much want it to have been my father. I was never able to bid him goodbye, not properly.

“If you could reach out, Lucie,” she said. “Not to draw him back, but just to see if he is a spirit, hovering somewhere in the world…”

“I have, Cordelia,” Lucie said. “I did look—and no, I didn’t sense anything. Your father didn’t seem to be anywhere I could… reach him.”

Cordelia felt startled, and a little as if she’d been slapped. Lucie’s tone was so cold—though no colder, she supposed, than her own when she’d snapped at Lucie in the ballroom. The boys, too, looked startled, but before anyone could speak, there was a sudden loud knock on the door—less a knock than a sound as if someone had bashed the door with a hammer. They all jumped, save James, who rolled his eyes.

“Bridget,” he called. “I’ve told you—”

“Your parents sent me to fetch you for supper,” Bridget snapped. “I see you’ve locked your door. Lord knows what you’re up to in there. And where’s your sister?”

“Lucie’s in here as well,” James called. “We are having a private conversation.”

“Humph,” said Bridget. “Have I ever sung you the song about the young prince who wouldn’t come to dinner when his parents requested it of him?”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Lucie. “Not a song.”

A bonny young man was young Edward the prince

In his finest always dressed.

But one dark day he would not come to dinner

Even at his parents’ request.



Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Is this a real ballad?”

James waved a hand. “You’ll get used to Bridget. She is… eccentric.”

Bridget continued to sing:

His father did weep, his mother did moan

But Edward he would not hear.

That night a highwayman did waylay him

And cut off both his ears.



Cordelia couldn’t help but laugh, even amid her fretting. James looked over at her and smiled, that real smile of his that melted her insides. Bother.

“I think you would look fine without your ears, James,” said Lucie as Bridget stomped off down the hallway. “You could just grow your hair long and cover up the holes.”

“Wonderful advice from my loving sister,” said James, springing off the trunk. “Cordelia, did you want to stay for supper?”

Cordelia shook her head; it would only be painful being around Will and Tessa. And there was the tension with Lucie, which would hardly be solved when they were surrounded by others. “I had better get back to my mother.”

James only nodded. “I’ll walk you out, then.”

“Good night,” said Lucie, not quite directly to Cordelia. “Jesse and I shall hold the fort in the dining room.”

After a careful look up and down the corridor, James ushered Cordelia down the stairs. But their covert escape was not to be: Will appeared suddenly on the landing, in the midst of fixing his cuff links, and beamed with delight to see Cordelia. “My dear,” he said. “A pleasure to see you. Have you come from Cornwall Gardens? How is your mother?”

“Oh, very well, thank you,” Cordelia said, then realized that if her mother really were in peak condition, she had little excuse for staying away from James and the Institute. “Well, she has been very tired, and of course we are all concerned that she get her energy back. Risa has been trying to build her back up again with many… soups.”

Soups? Cordelia was not at all sure why she’d said that. Perhaps because her mother had always told her that ash-e jo, a sour barley soup, could cure anything.

“Soups?”

“Soups,” Cordelia said firmly. “Risa’s caretaking is very thorough, though of course, my mother wishes me by her side as much as possible. I have been reading to her—”

“Oh, anything interesting? I’m always seeking a new book,” said Will, having finished with the cuff links. They were studded with yellow topaz. The color of James’s eyes.

“Ah—no,” Cordelia said. “Only very boring things, really. Books about… ornithology.” Will’s eyebrows went up, but James had already thrown himself into the fray.

“I really must get Cordelia back home,” he said, laying a hand on her back. It was an entirely ordinary husbandly gesture, not at all remarkable. It felt to Cordelia like being struck by lightning between her shoulder blades. “I’ll see you in a moment, Father.”