Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

But here in the white winter sun the house looked merely shabby and squalid. Nothing romantic lurked here, she thought. Only the end result of decades of domestic horror, negligence, and cruelty.

As she went to join Ariadne and Anna, the others approached—James, pale but calm, Jesse, seemingly distracted, and Lucie, brightly friendly as she greeted Ariadne and Anna, but careful not to look at Cordelia.

Cordelia had not expected anything different—it was probably why she had dawdled getting started that morning—but it still hurt to have Lucie ignore her. Not, she thought, that she didn’t deserve it.

At least all of them were wearing ordinary clothes, not gear, which was a relief to Cordelia—she had wondered about it herself and finally decided on a simple dress and sturdy boots. It was not as if she could fight anyway, she thought bitterly, if the situation arose. She would have to fling herself behind someone else for protection, like the sort of Victorian heroine she particularly disliked.

Anna glanced around with a languid blue gaze. “I believe that’s all of us,” she said. She wore a Norfolk hunting jacket over a pair of trousers tucked into boots; around her neck was a brightly patterned silk scarf, tucked into the collar of her shirt. Below it dangled the ruby necklace she always wore, which detected the presence of demons. On anyone else the combination would have been odd; on Anna it was dashing.

Cordelia said, without thinking, “What about Matthew?” and saw James glance quickly away.

“He hasn’t come,” said Ariadne. “He’s doing a favor for me today, I’m afraid.”

That was a bit surprising, but, Cordelia reminded herself, Ariadne had been engaged to Matthew’s brother. And Matthew and Anna were very close. She felt a bit left out—she had been missing Anna lately, and even more now that she and Lucie had fallen out.

“I daresay six of us should be more than enough,” James said. “I would suggest we divide into two equal groups.”

“Capital,” said Anna. “Cordelia, would you be kind enough to join Ariadne and me?”

Cordelia felt a rush of gratitude. Anna was being kind, drawing Cordelia away from any potentially awkward interaction with James.

“Of course,” Cordelia said.

“Jesse,” said Ariadne, and Jesse looked surprised. She hesitated. “I just wanted to make sure—I mean, we all know it’s for the greater good, but are you all right with us, you know… ransacking your house?”

Jesse looked at the sky. James said, in some surprise, “Do you mind?”

“It’s not that,” Jesse said. “I was only going to say—you might as well look through my house, because I’ve been in all of yours.”

“Scandalous!” Anna said, delighted. “But why?”

“Nothing indecent,” Jesse said. “I’ve never looked in on any of you in the bath, or anything like that. It’s just, ghosts, we tend to drift about. We don’t really obey property laws. I obey them now, of course,” he added, “and I am perfectly fine with you pillaging this wretched pile. I can’t imagine I’d ever want to live here, even if I do inherit it. Given that I’m Jeremy Blackthorn these days, who knows who will end up with it? I’d say it ought to go back to the Lightwoods, but I doubt you want to be cursed with the place.”

“Do you think there are likely to be any demons or such about?” Lucie said curiously.

“It seems unlikely,” said James, “given how many times the Enclave has been over this place. I suppose one can never be entirely sure.”

“Not where my mother is concerned,” said Jesse. “I can think of a few places she might have hidden things—I’d suggest Anna, Ariadne, and Cordelia search inside, and the rest of us take the gardens and greenhouse area. When we’re finished, we can meet back on these steps.”

James nodded. His dark gold eyes scanned the horizon. “Hard to imagine your mother enjoyed living here, with the place in this state,” he said.

“She liked it like this,” said Jesse. “She’s the one who smashed all the mirrors and stopped the clocks. It was a reminder to her every time she set foot here that she was a victim, and your families were to blame.”

“Some people like being miserable,” said Lucie, staring off above Cordelia’s head. “Some people won’t do things that would make them, and other people, happy, just because.”

“Lucie,” said Anna, “I have no idea what you’re on about. What are we meant to be looking for?”

“Anything that looks off—disturbed dust on the floor, pictures hanging oddly, any hint of demonic activity that might activate your necklace,” said Jesse.

Those who had watches—James, Anna—checked them to set the time, and they were off. Lucie turned away without a glance at Cordelia, following her brother and Jesse into the gardens. She put her hand on James’s elbow to steady herself as they went down a cracked flight of stone steps—a friendly, affectionate gesture—and Cordelia felt an awful jealous pang in her chest. Whether she was jealous of Lucie or of James she was not sure; somehow, that made it worse.



* * *



Even on a bright afternoon, the greenhouse at Chiswick House was still a dim, gloomy place. When last James had been here, he had passed through Belial’s realm and arrived choking on ashes in the middle of a fight between Cordelia and a Cerberus demon. Today the dust was gone, and no sign remained of any demonic activity. Whatever had been grown here had long ago been taken over by the briars and the hedges of the gardens outside, which slowly extended their branches and vines a little more every year, to eventually draw the greenhouse itself back into wildness.

James didn’t think Tatiana had hidden anything here; everything was so damp and overgrown that she would never be able to find anything a second time, if it wasn’t destroyed by the plants and the rain and the insects first. But they were gamely searching; Jesse especially thought that the gardens might hold some secrets.

At the other end of the greenhouse James saw the flash of Lucie’s witchlight rune-stone as she and Jesse emerged from behind a crumbling wall. Jesse had been silent and uneasy-looking since he’d come back from seeing Grace in the Silent City that morning.

Part of James was desperate to know what Jesse had discovered. Had Grace told him the truth about her power, about what she’d done? Though James would have expected Jesse to look at him differently if he knew, and he didn’t seem to be doing that. He seemed rather to have retreated inside himself, however hard he was trying to put a good face on things.