Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Odd, Letty thought. Odd enough that an hour later, she crept down to the Sanctuary and put her ear to the thick oak door. Through it, she could hear muffled noises: it must be the old woman speaking, she thought, rambling on as she had the day before.

But the closer she listened, the stranger the noises were. They didn’t seem like the sounds a human voice would make. They were rough, guttural, and they seemed to pulse—as if every word was the beat of an exposed heart.

Shivering and nauseated, Letty retreated as fast as she could to the safety of her bedroom. Mr. Pangborn was right. Better to keep away from the whole business and let the Shadowhunters do whatever they thought best. Yes. Better to keep away.



* * *



That morning James and Jesse walked from the Institute to the Devil Tavern together, under a sky heavy with the promise of thunder. Mundanes hurried to and fro, hats pulled low over their eyes, shoulders hunched against the gathering storm. Patches of blue sky were just visible between mountainous black clouds, and the air tasted faintly of ozone and soot.

“How is Matthew…?” Jesse asked delicately as they made their way into the tavern. A werewolf sat at the bar looking gloomy, all his hair standing on end thanks to the static electricity in the air. Pickles drifted half-asleep in his vat of gin.

“I haven’t seen him since the night before last—we’ve been trading off looking after him,” James said. Anna, Ariadne, and Lucie had taken shifts at Whitby Mansions too, which was doubtless how Jesse knew about Matthew’s condition. Only Cordelia had not; Matthew had requested, flatly, that she not see him in the state he was in.

“It’s brave of him to address his illness. Many would not,” Jesse said as they reached the scratched old door that guarded the inner sanctum of the Merry Thieves.

James had no opportunity to reply or agree, as the door was already half-ajar; he pushed it open to find Christopher and Thomas sitting on the worn sofa by the fireplace. Matthew sat in one of the threadbare armchairs, which had once been expensive brocade.

He looked up and met James’s eyes. Weary, James thought—Matthew looked weary, something deeper than tired. His clothes were clean and unwrinkled, but plain: gray and black, the tarnished bronze flask protruding from his breast pocket the only color in his outfit.

James remembered suddenly a summer night, the windows of this room flung open, the air soft as kitten’s paws, and Matthew laughing, colorful, reaching for the wine: Is that a bottle of cheap spirits I see before me?

It seemed a chasm had opened between that Matthew and Matthew now: James could not bear to think on it, but only turned as Jesse brought out the stack of his mother’s papers and laid them out on the round table in the center of the room. Christopher got up immediately to examine them, and Thomas followed a moment later, pulling out a chair and sitting down. James watched them, but went over to lean against Matthew’s chair. Jesse, for his part, went to the window and glanced out it, as though he wished to put physical distance between himself and the proof of his mother’s actions.

“Time to defeat evil, I see,” Matthew said. “Let us have at it.”

“Matthew,” said Thomas, looking up. “How are you feeling?”

“Well,” Matthew said, “each morning I feel as though I have been put into this flask here, and then shaken vigorously. And then each evening, the same. So overall, I would say things are up and down.”

“He’s better,” Christopher said, not looking up from the papers. “He may not want to admit it, but he’s better.”

Matthew smiled up at James, who restrained the urge to ruffle his hair. It was a thin reflection of the Smile for which he was famous, but it was there. “Do you hear that?” said Matthew, nudging James with his elbow. “A scientist says I’m better.”

“You are,” James said quietly. “Are you coming to the Christmas party tonight?”

He had wondered, and not wanted to ask, and wanted to ask at the same time. A Christmas party meant mulled wine and spiced brandy; it meant people toasting each other’s health. It meant drink. It meant temptation.

A veil came down over Matthew’s expression. If the eyes were the windows of the soul, he had drawn the curtains tightly over his. He turned away from James, saying lightly, “I’ll be fine. I am not so under the command of the cursed bottle that I cannot stand to see a punch bowl without flinging myself into it.”

“Jesse, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so.” Christopher had sat down beside Thomas at the table and was peering at Tatiana’s papers through his spectacles. “But I’m afraid your mother is not a very good person.”

“Of that,” said Jesse, “I am keenly aware.” He looked over at James. “Did you bring them?”

James had worn his most voluminous coat; Oscar used to hide in the pockets when he was a puppy. He drew out the hand mirror they had taken from Chiswick, and then a pair of handcuffs he’d located that morning in the Sanctuary.

“Handcuffs,” Matthew observed as Thomas and Christopher exchanged a look of alarm. “This would seem to portend something very dangerous, or very scandalous. Or both?”

“The handcuffs are to protect me,” James said. “From—”

Christopher frowned. “It says here that Tatiana used the mirror to contact Belial. You’re not—”

“He is.” Matthew sat up straight, his green eyes flashing. “James, you’re going to try to contact Belial?”

James shook his head and shrugged off his coat, tossing it onto the sofa. “No. I’m going to try to spy on Belial.”

“What on earth makes you think that’s going to work?” Thomas asked.

Jesse sighed and crossed the room to lean against the mantel. James had already talked him around the night before, though Jesse had pointed out that he’d had enough of people meddling with Belial in his lifetime.

“My mother did use this mirror to speak with Belial,” Jesse said, and went on to explain that after Belial had instructed her to destroy it, she had kept it instead, using it as a sort of scrying glass to spy on the Prince of Hell.

Thomas looked baffled. “She liked watching him? Just… watching him?”

“My mother is a very strange woman,” said Jesse.

“Catoptromancy,” said Christopher brightly. “The use of mirrors in magic. Dates back to the ancient Greeks.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Mirrors were the way Tatiana used to contact Grace.”

“It’s strange that you know that,” Matthew said.

Christopher busied himself flicking through the papers. Matthew was not incorrect, James thought, but it did not seem the line of questioning they ought to go down just now.