Chain of Gold

She cleared her throat. “That is a decent start.”

His smile was faint, but real, breaking through the Mask. “You’ve always had a charitable nature, Daisy.”

She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t you Daisy me,” she said. “Have you taken the time to understand what it is to be a girl in such a situation? A girl cannot ask a gentleman to dance; she is at the mercy of the choice of the opposite sex. She cannot even refuse a dance if it is asked of her. To have a boy walk away from her on the dance floor is humiliating. To have it happen when one is wearing a truly frightful gown, even more so. They will all be discussing what is wrong with me.”

“Wrong with you?” he repeated. “There is nothing wrong with you. Everything you say is true, and I am a fool for not having thought of it before. All I can do is swear to you that you will never lack at any social event in future, someone to stand up with or dance attendance on you. You might not credit it, having met Thomas and Christopher and Matthew, but they are quite popular. We can make you the toast of the season.”

“Really?” she said. “Thomas and Christopher and Matthew are popular?”

He laughed. “Yes, and I can make you a further promise as well. If I offend you again, I will wear a truly frightful gown to the next significant social gathering.”

“Very well.” She put her hand out. “We can shake on it like gentlemen do.”

He stepped forward to shake her hand. His warm fingers curled around hers. His lips, slightly curved, looked incredibly soft. He appeared to be searching her face with his gaze; she wondered what he was looking for.

“James,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Rather than you wearing a frightful dress,” she said, “perhaps there is another way you could help me.”

“Anything.” He had not let go of her hand.

“You could tell me which of the young men of the Enclave are eligible,” she said. “If I had need of—of marrying, which of them are kind, and would not be terrible company.”

He looked stunned. “You cannot get married—”

“Why not?” She drew her hand back from his. “Do you think I would be an undesirable match?”

He had gone a strange color; she had no idea why until she looked behind her and realized that a carriage had just drawn up near the folly.

The carriage’s doors were painted with the four Cs of the Shadowhunter government: Clave, Council, Covenant, Consul. Matthew was in the box seat, reins in hand, the wind blowing through his blond curls.

Behind him, laughing, was Matthew’s brother, Charles, and beside him, Grace, in a straw bonnet and a blue dress trimmed in matching Cluny lace.

Cordelia glanced back at James and saw something in his eyes flicker—a sort of dark light behind the irises. He was watching Charles help Grace down from the carriage. Matthew was scrambling out of his driver’s seat, leaving the reins loose, casting about for his friends.

“What is it between you and Grace Blackthorn?” Cordelia said quietly. “Do you have an understanding?”

“Understanding” was something of a broad term. It could mean a secret engagement, or as little as a declaration of serious romantic interest. But it seemed to fit as well as anything else.

The odd light was still in James’s eyes, darkening their gold to smoked glass. “There are those close to me I would give up my life for,” he said. “You know that.”

The names were unspoken but Cordelia knew them: Lucie, Will, Tessa, Christopher, Matthew, Thomas. Jem Carstairs.

“Grace is one of them,” said James. “We are neighbors in Idris. I have seen her every summer for years. We love one another—but it is a secret. Neither my parents nor her mother are aware of our bond.” He lifted his wrist, the bracelet there gleaming for a moment in the sun. “She gave me this when we were thirteen. It is a promise between us.” There was an odd distance in his voice, as if he were reciting a story he had heard, rather than recalling a memory. Shyness, perhaps, at revealing something so intimate?

“I see,” said Cordelia. She looked over at the carriage. Ariadne had come up to Charles and they were greeting each other; Grace had turned and was gazing toward the folly.

“I had thought we would not go to Idris this year,” James said. “I wrote to Grace to tell her, but her mother kept the letter from her. We were each left wondering at the silence of the other. I only discovered she had come to London yesterday, at the ball.”

Cordelia felt numb. Well, of course he had run off, then. Every summer he had seen Grace save this one; how he must have missed her. She had always known James possessed a life she knew little of with his friends in London, but she had not realized how very much she didn’t know him. He might as well be a stranger. A stranger in love with someone else. And she, Cordelia, the interloper.

“I am glad we are friends again,” Cordelia said. “Now you must wish to speak to Grace alone. Just signal her to join you here—everyone is distracted. You will be quite unnoticed.”

James began to speak, but Cordelia had already turned and made her way back toward the lake and the picnickers. She could not bear to pause and listen to him thank her for going away.

* * *

Lucie didn’t blame Cordelia for wanting to tell James off; he’d been terribly rude the night before. Even if a girl was just your friend, you shouldn’t leave her in the middle of a dance. Besides, it gave the Rosamund Wentworths of the world too much scope for nasty gossip. She reminded herself to tell Cordelia about what had happened to Eugenia Lightwood as soon as they were alone.

In fact, there was a great deal she wished to discuss with Cordelia when they were alone. Last night I met a ghost that no one else could see. The ghost of a boy who is dead, but not quite dead.

She had opened her mouth a few times to mention Jesse to James or her parents, then decided against it. For a reason she couldn’t quite understand, it felt private, like a secret she had been charged with. It was hardly Jesse’s fault she could see him, and he had saved her all those years ago in Brocelind. She remembered telling him that when she grew up, she wanted to be a writer. That sounds wonderful, he had said in a wistful tone. At the time she’d believed he was stricken with envy about her glorious future career. It was only now that it occurred to her he might have been talking about growing up.

“I see Cordelia is returning,” said Anna. She was leaning back on her elbows, the sunshine bright on her dark hair. “But without James. Interesting.”

Anna, like Lucie, found everything about human behavior interesting. Sometimes Lucie thought Anna ought to be a writer too. Her memoirs would be sure to be scandalous.

Cordelia was indeed making her way back toward them, stepping carefully between the brightly colored picnic blankets. She sank down beside Lucie, fanning herself with her straw bonnet. She was wearing another ghastly pastel dress, Lucie noticed. She wished Sona would let Cordelia dress as she wished.

“Did James get what he deserved?” Lucie asked. “Did you keelhaul him?”

Cordelia’s smile was bright. “He is thoroughly abashed, I assure you. But we are good friends again.”

“Where is he, then?” Thomas inquired. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and Lucie could just glimpse the edge of the colored ink design on his left forearm. It was unusual for Shadowhunters to get tattoos, as their skin was so often Marked by runes, but Thomas had done just that in Spain. “Did you bury his body in the park somewhere?”

“He went to speak to Grace Blackthorn,” said Cordelia, selecting a bottle of lemonade. Lucie glanced at her sharply—she herself had only realized the night before that the girl James was in love with was Grace, not Daisy. She hoped she hadn’t put silly thoughts into Cordelia’s head by rattling on in the park about how James might be in love with her.

Cordelia certainly didn’t seem bothered, and she’d brushed off the whole idea in Kensington Gardens. She probably thought of James as a cousin. It was certainly a setback to Lucie’s hopes. It would have been delightful to have Daisy as a sister-in-law, and she could not imagine that Grace would be delightful in the same way. She couldn’t recall ever having seen her smile or laugh, and she would be unlikely to be charmed by Will’s songs about demon pox.

“I didn’t realize she was here.” Christopher helped himself to a sixth lemon tart.

“She is,” Matthew said, appearing out of the thicket of parasols and picnickers. He slid gracefully into a sitting position beside Anna, who glanced at him and winked. Matthew and Anna were especially close: they enjoyed many of the same things, like fashionable clothes, disreputable salons, shocking art, and scandalous plays. “Apparently, Charles promised last night to bring her here in our carriage. We had to detour out to Chiswick to fetch her.”

“Did you get a look at Lightwood—at Chiswick House?” asked Thomas. “I hear it’s in utter disrepair.”

Matthew shook his head. “Grace was waiting for us at the front gates when we arrived. I did think it a bit odd.”

Chiswick House had once belonged to Benedict Lightwood and was meant to pass to his sons, Gabriel and Gideon. Everything changed after Benedict’s disgrace, and in the end the newly named Chiswick House had been given to Tatiana, even though she had married a Blackthorn.

Tatiana had famously let the place fall to pieces—perhaps because after Jesse had died, she had not felt there was anyone of Blackthorn blood to whom the house could be left. Grace was Tatiana’s adopted ward, not her daughter by blood. When Tatiana died, the house would pass back into the hands of the Clave, who might even return it to the Lightwoods. Tatiana would probably rather burn it down than have that happen.

Jesse had said that both his mother and sister could see him. How strange that must be, for him and for them. She recalled the night before: Jesse saying that death was in the ballroom. But it hadn’t been, she thought. There had been a demon occurrence in the city, but it had been handled easily.